ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 B T 
 
 ROSS WIN AN S 
 
 \\ 
 
 "/ believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven 
 and Earth, and of all Things Visible and Invisible." 
 
 BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER. 
 
 SECOND EDITION. 
 
 BALTIMORE: 
 JOHN P. DES FORGES, 
 
 3 ST. PAUL STREET. 
 
 1870.
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870. by 
 
 KOSS \V IN ANS, 
 In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Maryland.
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 IN offering to the public, now put together in form, 
 what was originally a series of papers, we desire, at the 
 beginning, to set ourselves right as to its originality be 
 it more or less. We are equally anxious to avoid the 
 imputation of having used any other man's thoughts with- 
 out acknowledgment, and of having perverted to our own 
 ends any borrowed ideas or language. The necessity for 
 some explanation on this point will, perhaps, be made 
 more obvious, and the explanation more easy, if we state 
 simply and candidly the circumstances under which what 
 follows was composed or compiled. 
 
 In the course of contemplating man's duty to his 
 Maker, to his fellow man, and to himself, we drew the 
 conclusions that are embodied in the following pages. 
 These were at times committed to writing, but without 
 any view to publication. They were in the main definite 
 enough ; but, coming from a pen unused to literary labor, 
 they were lacking in method and finish. At a later 
 period, and during a residence in Europe, we fell in with 
 a variety of books on kindred topics, full of research and 
 scholarship, well arranged, well argued, cogent, convinc- 
 ing. Recognizing their value in the available information 
 they contained and the striking manner in which it was 
 conveyed, we extracted without ceremony here a pas- 
 sage, and there a phrase, and wove them in among our
 
 iv PREFACE. 
 
 own. It was not so much that we were impressed with 
 the force and novelty of the ideas of others ; we were 
 glad rather to find ready at hand the means of expressing 
 and elucidating what we had thought and felt. In parts 
 even, where the very language of some popular author 
 has been adopted, as eminently fit to serve our purpose, 
 it will be seen that our conclusions are essentially differ- 
 ent from his. To have given him credit therefore at the 
 moment, by foot note or otherwise, might have laid us 
 open to the charge of having garbled or misrepresented 
 him. Besides, at the time when we availed ourselves of 
 the facilities then open before us, we made no memoran- 
 dum of the sources whence we borrowed. At a still later 
 period, and with a view to completing and publishing the 
 papers here expanded into a volume, we sought the occa- 
 sional aid of pens more methodical and facile than our 
 own. The result has been, that the original portions 
 became inextricably mingled with what was borrowed 
 and what was amended. If we would separate them, we 
 should find it difficult, if not impossible remote as we 
 are from the libraries to which we resorted. 
 
 In short, we beg to state without reserve, that we have 
 borrowed freely from any quarter, when we held that the 
 cause of truth could be served thereby. Furthermore, we 
 shall endeavor, by aid of inquiry and memory, to make 
 out and publish, at the end of this work, a complete list 
 of the authors to whom we have been indebted.
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 WHAT is here presented we desire shall be viewed 
 and considered as an enquiry on behalf of truth. Our 
 stand-point is the omnipotence and perfection of the One 
 God, a sense of whose existence is an instinct common to 
 our race, and who governs man solely by the properties 
 originally implanted in him. Our belief is, that man 
 being thus governed, and trained through time and during 
 eternity, a good and happy result must ensue to each 
 individual. 
 
 The history of the human race shows that various and 
 widely varying forms of worship, creeds, doctrines, dog- 
 mas, and theologies have been propounded, preached, and 
 pressed upon the attention of man, at different times and 
 in different countries. We believe, however, that there 
 is but one religion existing in any country, or in any age, 
 that is acceptable to God ; that whatever else takes upon 
 it the name, form, or guise of religion is of no practical 
 value. 
 
 The sense of true religion as well as every other 
 faculty and power of the mind, and soul of man is 
 implanted in each and every one born into the world. 
 Out of it, as from a germ, comes and ever will come, 
 spontaneously as the tree comes from the acorn all 
 that man ever has been, or ever will be. It makes him 
 what he is, and gives him what he has, whether of
 
 vi INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 morals, science, arts, civilization, or anything else that 
 pertains to his mental or spiritual being. And this one 
 and only true religion God has so indelibly engraved on 
 the heart and conscience of every accountable human 
 being as to ensure that all men shall eventually worship 
 Him acceptably, and be made happy themselves, not- 
 withstanding many adverse appearances here. 
 
 History shows that this religion of the heart and con- 
 science is intermingled with all the different theological 
 systems, of which we have knowledge. This also is the 
 only ingredient that is common to them all ; whence it 
 may be inferred, that it is best adapted for man's wants 
 and God's requirements ; in short, that it is the only 
 religion ordained and approved by God. Nor can any 
 amount of false teaching eradicate, or render it inop- 
 erative. Moreover, since God never changes, it will 
 never change. It operates as God willed it should, to 
 shape the lives and conduct of men, and to restrain them 
 within the limits prescribed by the free agency which He 
 has granted to "them. Whatever worship or reverence 
 man renders to God whatever morality or goodness he 
 manifests in his intercourse with men all are derived 
 from this source and prompting alone. Whatever of 
 irreverence, immorality, impiety, or wrong-doing he prac- 
 tises, in spite of this religion, finds no restraint in any 
 other ; no, not even in that which makes use of the threat 
 of eternal punishment, to intimidate him. Further, we 
 believe that the divine government was made perfect 
 from the first, and therefore, not being subject to altera- 
 tion or amendment, there are no such things as special, or 
 supernatural providences, all occurrences taking place 
 under guidance of the never varying laws of Nature. 
 Again: we believe that all rewards and punishments are
 
 INTRODUCTORY. vii 
 
 alike benevolently intended ; that the latter, though 
 never vindictive, are never relaxed, and that both are 
 designed by God for the sole purpose of training man to 
 the destiny marked out for him. This training, which 
 begins on this side of the grave, continues beyond it, and 
 during eternity, to the end that every human being shall 
 become more and more god-like, and capable of appre- 
 ciating God's glory and rendering Him higher praise and 
 worship. 
 
 From these remarks it will be seen that while we 
 accept every portion of the Bible that is in accordance 
 with the Bible written in men's hearts or in other 
 words, with natural religion we repudiate all that pro- 
 fesses to be based upon its supernatural or special inspira- 
 tion. 
 
 We object to what the Church demands, an unbounded 
 and unjustifiable confidence in the infallibility of the 
 writings of Moses arid the Prophets, and the Evangelists, 
 and the Apostles. We dissent from a sentimental attach- 
 ment to an impossible compound of God and man. We 
 protest that Christian theology, as we have it, is not 
 taught by God Himself, nor by Christ himself, nor is it 
 consistent with established facts, nor is it comprehensible 
 by our reason. We would show you that Christianity, 
 as taught among us, is no better than other systems 
 taught in other than Christian countries, and in some 
 respects not so good. 
 
 These are the objects of this publication. If in the 
 course of presenting our views, any thing should be said 
 which may be deemed offensive or disrespectful to those 
 who hold contrary opinions, certainly no such offence or 
 disrespect is intended. We write under an honest con- 
 viction of the truth, and yield nothing to preconceived
 
 viii INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 views. Truth is truth, and will find its way to the sur- 
 face. Shrieks and lamentations over the scepticism and 
 free-thinking of the nineteenth century will not serve the 
 purpose of concealing it. Nor is it desirable that it 
 should be concealed. We must believe, not what it is 
 convenient, or comfortable, or customary to believe; but 
 what is most in accordance with truth. Truth, and not 
 what is called orthodoxy, should be our prime object. It 
 is not enough, to maintain what we believe ; we must 
 believe what we maintain. Any one may bring himself 
 to give blind assent to that which he is inclined to believe, 
 or thinks it becoming or expedient to believe, but this is 
 not genuine belief. It is one thing to wish to have truth 
 on our side; and another to wish, in all sincerity, to be on 
 the side of truth. If the conclusions, at which we arrive, 
 have the weight of evidence in their favor, we have no 
 alternative but to accept them and bide the results. 
 Neither is there occasion to contemplate with uneasiness 
 the admission of truth, or the result of being governed by 
 it, in any matters whatsoever, and more particularly in 
 those pertaining to religion. God did not endow us with 
 perceptive and reasoning faculties, in order that they 
 might be employed upon all other subjects, and remain 
 torpid in relation to that one subject only. We hold to 
 it, therefore, that the truth must be accepted at all haz- 
 ards, even if it lead to a denial of the supernatural inspi- 
 ration of Scripture and all dogmas connected therewith, 
 which we are fully persuaded it will do. 
 
 Nor, we repeat it, need the prospect of this alarm 
 the most timid. God, the Father, who alone governed 
 the world from the first, governs it now, and will ever 
 govern it. No broader foundation for the faith of all 
 men in their eternal welfare is possible, than that laid by
 
 INTRODUCTORY. ix 
 
 God Himself when He established his never changing 
 laws ; and when He so constituted and endowed man, 
 that under the influence and effect of such unvarying laws, 
 he should be conducted to the happy destiny designed for 
 him from the first. The only fear in these matters, 
 becoming to man, is a fear lest he fail in watchfulness to 
 guard against violations of God's laws pertaining to his 
 being ; lest he fail in any portion of his duty to God and 
 to his fellow-creatures. All else may be implicitly left 
 to his Maker and benefactor. 
 
 In all countries, whether civilized or uncivilized, the 
 popular system of theology has invariably been claimed 
 to be based on some supernatural revelation from God. 
 
 The founders or acknowledged heads of these systems 
 have claimed, or it has been claimed for them by their 
 followers, that they were supernaturally inspired, and 
 miraculously and specially endowed and commissioned of 
 God to make His will and word known to mankind. 
 Among the persons claiming or who have been claimed, 
 to have been so inspired and commissioned, and who 
 have gained extensive* credence in such claim, are the 
 following: Moses, the great leader, historian, and Prophet 
 of the Jews, fourteen or fifteen hundred years before 
 Christ ; Zoroaster, who founded the theology that prevails 
 among the Parsees, certainly not less than twelve hun- 
 dred years before Christ, Confucius, born five hundred and 
 fifty-one years before Christ, the most eminent teacher of 
 natural religion in the great Chinese nation ; Buddha, 
 who founded a system of worship in India, called Buddh- 
 ism, five hundred years before Christ; Godama, who, 
 also about five hundred years before Christ, founded the 
 system of worship which now prevails in the Burmese 
 Empire, Christ, the claimed basis of the Christian theol-
 
 x INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 ogy; and Mohammed, the founder of the Mohammedan 
 creed. 
 
 Among the so-called sacred books embodying systems 
 of theology and said to be derived from supernatural 
 inspiration are the following. The Old Testament of the 
 Jews; the Zend-Avesta of the Parsees ; the Great Learn- 
 ing of the Chinese ; the Rig Veda of the Hindoos ; the 
 Vini Pidimot of the Burmese Empire; the Christian 
 Bible ; and the Koran. 
 
 All or most of the church dogmas, legends, fables, and 
 traditions, in relation to the miraculous conception, birth, 
 miracles, and other pretended supernatural circumstances 
 connected with the history of Jesus, are borrowed from 
 or find their counterpart in the several systems of wor- 
 ship founded and practised from four to twelve centuries 
 before his birth. 
 
 The historic part of the Bible, in relation to the crea- 
 tion of the world, has its counterpart also in the several 
 systems of theology here mentioned. They all had their 
 cosmologies based on equally good authority and equally 
 wide of the truth, as that recorded in the Bible. This 
 will appear hereafter, when we come to look into the 
 history of the Ancient creeds just mentioned. The time 
 and manner of the creation, no man has ever known, or 
 ever will know, in this life ; nor is such knowledge of 
 importance in preparing ourselves for the life to come.
 
 ONE KELIG1ON: MANY CKEEDS. 
 
 I. 
 
 MAN needs no teaching to be convinced that there is a 
 God, the creator, the sustainer, the preserver, and the 
 governor of the universe. The idea is innate, imperative, 
 and essential, and declares itself in the mind and con- 
 science so soon as the human being begins to observe, to 
 compare, and to reason. There is no one, however rude 
 or ignorant unless he be idiotic, or otherwise incapable 
 of consecutive thought who has not some notion, how- 
 ever vague, of this great and almighty Being. There is 
 no one in the exercise of his intellectual faculties, who 
 would not recognize the existence of a God as an absolute 
 and necessary truth, even if there had been no other 
 book to teach it, than the great book of Nature. The 
 earth, the sea, the sun, the moon, and all the hosts of 
 Heaven, spread out before him in their infinite beauty 
 and majesty, each silently but eloquently and irresistibly 
 proclaims that they have had a divine, omnipotent, 
 eternal, and infinite cause and maker. Man has, more- 
 over, not alone an intuitive conviction of the existence 
 of an overruling Spirit, he is conscious that he has 
 within himself a soul, in affinity in a limited sense 
 with that great overruling Spirit.
 
 2 SOME PRETEND TO INSPIRATION. 
 
 But while all men are thus conscious not only that 
 God is, but that God must be, and that the spirit of man 
 bears a certain relation to Him, some men, pretending 
 to be preternatural ly and directly inspired' by God to 
 declare His will and to explain His nature and His 
 attributes, have made assertions and propounded doc- 
 trines, at various times and among various nations, that 
 have greatly bewildered the minds of their fellow-men. 
 These artificial teachings and vain imaginings whether 
 they be called mythologies, theologies, religions, faiths, 
 or systems of belief contradict each other on the most 
 vital and fundamental points. Some of them assert that 
 there is but one God, and that He is not only spiritual, 
 but physicial and material, having a body and organs 
 like a man. Some have exalted human attributes, cloth- 
 ing humanity in beautiful or majestic forms, and have 
 deified their own production. Some have adopted a pre- 
 cisely opposite course, and have invented fantastic and 
 hideous divinities. Some deny God's personality, and 
 teach that all Nature is the body, of which he is the 
 animating soul. Some say that there are two Gods, one 
 the God of good, the other the God of evil and that the 
 two are constantly at war with each other. Others main- 
 tain that there are three Gods, co-eternal and co-equal in 
 power, in wisdom, and in glory, and that these three 
 are one, and must be worshipped as one. The second 
 person say they in this triune divinity stands toward 
 the first in the relation of the Son to the Father ; while 
 the third also is a person, and proceeds from the Father 
 and the Son. The earliest nations appear to have been 
 taught, either that the sun the most glorious lumi- 
 nary visible to the unassisted human eye was God, or 
 that the number of the Gods was as infinite as the
 
 SIGNS AND CREEDS AT VAiUANCE. 3 
 
 manifestations of Nature. Even Abraham and Moses, 
 who believed and taught the unity of God, attributed 
 to this all-wise, all-just, all-good, all-knowing, and all- 
 mighty being, the form of a man. Moses pretended to 
 have talked with him face to face "as a man talkt-th 
 with his friend," and declared that he had been permitted 
 to see His "back parts." In -the Pentateuch, and indeed 
 throughout both the Old and New Testaments, God is 
 described as being ignorant and ahort-sigbled, and pos- 
 sessing many of the passions of the human creatures 
 whom He Himself has made. 
 
 Creeds and modes of worship have been many and 
 various ; but there is not one of them now accepted in 
 the world, which has not, however pure and lofty some 
 may be in their moral teachings, promulgated and endea- 
 vored to palm upon popular credence the m >st astounding 
 scientific and historical errors and untruths. Thus they 
 have acted, to some extent, as a drag upon the intellect, 
 and an impediment to the progress of mankind. They 
 were written for the most part by priests of the various 
 theologies and forms of faith which they were designed to 
 uphold, and often with the too palpable purpose of keep- 
 ing the people in ignorance and of maintaining the priest- 
 hood as a privileged class. All of them of Asiatic origm 
 and authorship, and declared in their several countries to 
 be the direct, infallible, unerring utterances of God, they 
 have given currency to the most vulgar and debasing 
 fictions, and represented God as something like an Orien- 
 tal Caliph or Sultan, subject to lusts and vices and fits 
 of cruel anger, and constantly liable to be thwarted in 
 His designs by powers of evil whom He desired, but was 
 not able, to destroy.
 
 4 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 All these myths and dreams have varied in different 
 ages and countries, according to the character of the 
 nations which adopted and nominally believed them, and 
 they have come down to us from an antiquity so remote, 
 as to be impenetrable. They are partly to be traced to 
 the most ancient civilization, the record of which has 
 been preserved by tradition and sepulchral monuments 
 and notably to India, Assyria, Phoenicia, and Egypt. 
 In their original forms these mythologies have perished 
 except in India and non-Mahommedan Asia, where they 
 are still accepted by the unreasoning multitudes of half 
 the human race. 
 
 A portion, however, of these fables, greatly modified 
 in form and detail, was borrowed from' the Egyptians, 
 first by the Jews under Moses, and secondly by the Ara- 
 bians under Mahomet. So far as the books attributed to 
 Moses and other priests and prophets of the Hebrews, are 
 concerned, these fables are held forth to this day as 
 grounds for belief and guides for conduct to all the so- 
 called Christian nations of the world. We, as Chris- 
 tians according to the common acceptation of the term 
 and sharers in the advancing civilization of the nineteenth 
 century, are mainly interested in the theology and doc- 
 trines of Moses and Jesus. All other systems of belief, 
 except natural religion, which is universal, being accepted 
 of all men in all places, modern civilization has agreed to 
 condemn. Even the most devout Christian laughs at 
 the grotesque stories, and speaks with contemptuous pity 
 of the superstitious absurdities of all mythologies except 
 his own. But let his own rules of criticism be applied to 
 the Old and New Testament, and it will immediately be 
 condemned as heretical ; and the critic himself will be 
 accused of impiety and infidelity. This very state of
 
 THE JEWS BUT LITTLE KNOWN. 5 
 
 things prevails in Asia, where the teachings of Moses and 
 Christ receive as little respect from the priests of Oriental 
 theologies, as Christians bestow upon the myths of the 
 Hindoos, or the nihilism improperly attributed to the 
 Buddhists. 
 
 Up to the birth of Jesus, the Jews had their cosmogony 
 and theology entirely to themselves. The outer world 
 knew nothing of their sacred books ; and, indeed, only 
 knew the Jews themselves as a small and peculiar people, 
 in whom there was nothing to esteem or imitate. No 
 one challenged their doctrine, for the reason that no 
 one understood or cared anything about it. Whatever 
 schism or difference of opinion may have existed among 
 them, in their own little country, was on minor matters, 
 and Moses and the Prophets seemingly reigned supreme. 
 But a different state of things was about to prevail. 
 Jesus, known during his life as the son of a carpenter, 
 and claiming direct royal descent from David and Solo- 
 mon, challenged the truth of this ancient system, and 
 became a most conspicuous reformer. He protested 
 chiefly against the superstitious ceremonies of the Mosaic 
 ritual. His protest was indeed partial, though, as far as 
 it went, strong and decided. It was a very important 
 movement towards separating that which was claimed to 
 be religion, from that which was and is really religion 
 between that which causes contention, and that which all 
 agree upon. 
 
 But veVy little progress had been made amongst the 
 Jews in the arts and sciences indeed very little was 
 made for a long time after the introduction of Christianity. 
 The printing press, that grand medium for the dissemina- 
 tion of knowledge, is comparatively a modern invention, 
 not having been introduced until the middle of the fif-
 
 6 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 teenth century. There were no microscopes to reveal to 
 the delighted intellect of man the wonders that lie con- 
 cealed in apparent nothingness-r-no telescopes to unveil 
 to him the countless worlds and planetary systems which, 
 but for it, never would have been discovered. The law 
 of gravitation that universal, infinite, governing power, 
 by which the whole universe is sustained was unsus- 
 pected. Electricity, known probably to some extent, was 
 employed only in tricks and artifices to startle and sur- 
 prise those who were ignorant of its effects. The science 
 of Geology was very imperfect. Astrology was far more 
 esteemed than Astronomy. The earth was thought by all 
 nations to be the centre of the universe. The sun was 
 looked upon as nothing more than a lamp hung in the 
 heavens to give light to this superior orb. Indeed it was 
 not even known to be an orb ; the idea prevailed, that it 
 was a vast extended plane without visible limits. 
 
 Under these circumstances, Jesus could make no protest 
 against the Mosaic history or tradition. He was neces- 
 sarily compelled to accept these as he found them. 
 Rejecting the Mosaic notion of the character and attri- 
 butes of God, he earnestly protested against the doctrine 
 that the Deity, whose gospel he preached, was a God of 
 hatred or anger, or subject to the passions or imperfections 
 of humanity. He loudly proclaimed in the highways and 
 the byways, and to all descriptions of people but chiefly 
 to the poor and the unhappy that God is a God of Love, 
 a Spirit to be worshipped in spirit and in truth, a God 
 who demands of His creatures no vain observances, no 
 heavy burdens of ceremonials, but a cheerful, happy 
 enjoyment of life, provided they keep within the limits 
 of the divine laws, which are neither galling nor heavy, 
 but easy, light, and good. He adopted so much of the
 
 JESUS' PROTEST ONLY PARTIAL. 7 
 
 ten commandments as accords with natural religion. He 
 very wisely rejected all that does not teach the two great 
 duties, love to God and love to man. "If thou wilt enter 
 into life," said he to one who already professed to be per- 
 forming this part of his duty, "keep the commandments: 
 Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adul- 
 tery ; thou shalt not steal ; thou shalt not bear false wit- 
 ness ; honor thy father and thy mother ; and, thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself." To the lawyer also who 
 asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, "Mas- 
 ter, which is the great commandment in the law?" 
 Jesus replied, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all 
 thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
 This is the first and great commandment. And the 
 second is like unto it. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as 
 thyself." He thus reduced the detail of the code, leaving 
 in it all that he considered essential, and summing it up 
 in the two general duties pertaining to God and man. It 
 may be noticed in passing, that he struck out altogether 
 the commandment that pertains to the Sabbath day, the 
 violation of which Moses, with a bloodthirstiness peculiar 
 to the early Jews, considered more of a crime against 
 God than any other. In fact, he considered it the great 
 crime of all others, and visited upon him who should dare 
 to break it, the penalty of death. In this matter, the 
 Christian Church of our day sets Moses above Christ, 
 since notwithstanding the abrogation of the law by Jesus, 
 his professed disciples still adhere to it, and look upon 
 the breach of it as one of the most heinous sins that can 
 be committed. 
 
 The result of the enlightened protestantism of Jesus 
 was his death upon the cross. He became a martyr to 
 divine truth. But he left a noble legacy to his Apostles,
 
 8 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and to the world, in his advocacy of the sublime teach- 
 ings of natural religion. In discarding all theology and 
 all dogmas, he cleared away much of the mist and fog 
 that enshrouded religion, and made himself a benefactor 
 to his race. But, unfortunately, his disciples were not 
 only Jews, they were prejudiced in favor of Jewish 
 observances. The leaven of their original faith fermented 
 in their minds, and was too strongly at work to permit 
 them to follow their Master in the divine simplicity of 
 his early teaching. They accepted the historic and scien- 
 tific record of Moses, erroneous as it was, because nothing 
 in disproof had been brought to bear against it whereas 
 the Church of our day maintains its dogmas, in the face 
 of scientifically established truths. The ancient religion 
 was miraculous ; so also should that be which was advo- 
 cated by Jesus. And therefore, by degrees, they and 
 their successors engrafted a mythology upon the religion 
 which Jesus advocated, having no warrant whatever, in 
 the words or deeds of their Master. We cannot tell at 
 what exact period after his death were concocted the 
 many marvellous stories related of him, such as that of 
 his supernatural birth ; of the visit of the wise men from 
 the East, led to his cradle by a star ; of his having been ' 
 begotten by the Holy Ghost, and of the consequent aban- 
 donment of the pretension set up as to his royal descent 
 from David and Solomon; of his miracles; and of his 
 resurrection on the third day after his crucifixion. It is, 
 we say, difficult, and all but impossible, to discover when 
 these fables were intermingled with the ordinary human 
 portion of the narrative of his life and teachings. As to 
 their being found in the four Gospels now held to be 
 canonical, that is no warrant of their authenticity. These 
 four Gospels form but a small portion of the "Gospels "
 
 COUNCILS ASSUME INFALLIBLE POWER. 9 
 
 that were in possession of the Christians of the third and 
 fourth centuries ; nor is there any absolute and satisfac- 
 tory proof that they were ever written by the persons 
 whose names they bear, and that they passed, unaltered, 
 from generation to generation through the hands of honest 
 custodians and faithful transcribers. Indeed it appears 
 that at the Council of Laodicea, A. D. 363, there were 
 two hundred varied versions of the adopted Evangelists, 
 and fifty-four several Gospels, all differing essentially 
 from each other, and each purporting to be a true account 
 of Jesus. From these our four Gospels were selected. 
 But it must be borne in mind, that the present Gospels 
 are not originals, but taken from copies of the sixth cen- 
 tury, which in turn were taken from some other unknown 
 copies. There are no copies in existence, bearing a date 
 nearer than five hundred years to the time of Jesus. 
 
 And this question of the origin and authenticity of the 
 Scriptures appears to have been a grave matter of doubt 
 in the Christian Church. Nearly twelve hundred years 
 after the meeting of the Council at Laodicea, that is 
 A. D. 1545, another Council assembled at Trent and 
 decided and ordered what was and what was not genuine. 
 It is not pretended, we believe, that the prelates who 
 composed this Council were themselves inspired by the 
 Holy Ghost. Nevertheless, being fallible men, they dealt 
 in summary fashion with spiritual affairs, and declared 
 that their own infallibility was beyond doubt. The first 
 named conclave having made its selection of the four 
 Gospels, this one picked out a special version of the 
 Bible, termed the Vulgate, and pronounced it the only 
 true one; made the Apocrypha an integral part of it; 
 proclaimed that the Church alone was at liberty to inter- 
 pret whatever might be doubtful; and added the extraor-
 
 10 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 dinary edict, that tradition was to be, equally with the 
 Bible, a rule of faith. Under this rule was comprised 
 that incomprehensible and much-disputed doctrine of the 
 Trinity, which is now held to be essential to man's sal- 
 vation, although no warrant for it can be found in the 
 
 o 
 
 Christian's text book, the Bible. Its reception as an 
 indispensable part of the creed had been disputed with 
 the acrimony that distinguishes all combatants for faith 
 of man's invehtion, as the records of other famous eccle- 
 siastical Councils show notably that of Nice, A. D. 325. 
 Its worth, however, and its binding character, ought not 
 to be much enhanced, even in the view of Christians 
 themselves, by remembrance of the fact, that at least 
 three centuries elapsed after Jesus' death, before the 
 Trinity obtained a hold upon the worshippers of his 
 name. But Councils were omnipotent as witness the 
 second one at Nice, A. D. 787, that declared the worship 
 of images and of the cross to be sanctioned by the Holy 
 Scriptures. 
 
 These astounding assumptions of irresponsible and in- 
 fallible, power, by men pretending to deal with divine 
 things, would be deemed impious and disgusting, if time 
 and habit and the artful management of the priesthood 
 had not tended to make men impervious to historical 
 truth and logical argument. We ask then with reference 
 to the Scriptures, whether, if a similar claim of divine 
 origin and unquestionable authenticity were put forward 
 on behalf of the sacred books of any other sect which 
 Christians agree in condemning they would be accepted 
 as aught else than fiction. Take, for example, Mat- 
 thew's story of the great convulsion of nature at the 
 crucifixion, when the earth is said to have been shaken 
 and many bodies of the Saints to have risen from their
 
 MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS. H 
 
 graves and appeared unto many. Such a story could 
 scarcely have been told in the hearing of any one 
 whether Jew or Roman, who had been a contemporary 
 of Jesus; and it has no place in Roman or Jewish his- 
 tory. Again, as to the slaughter of all the male infants 
 of Judea, in order that the youthful Christ might be 
 destroyed, commonly called the Massacre of the Inno- 
 cents, what corroborative evidence have we of any such 
 act of atrocity having been committed by Herod ? If 
 Herod was chargeable with such an act of barbarity, it 
 cannot be doubted that Josephus would have made some 
 mention of it. But his very silence is the best evidence 
 we could have to the contrary. He fills thirty-seven 
 chapters with the history of Herod, and has treated 
 minutely of all the principal cruelties for which he is 
 responsible; but of this special massacre he makes no 
 mention. Phiio, also, who lived at the time, and the 
 Rabbins who were assiduous to blacken Herod's memory, 
 give not the slightest hint of so monstrous a decree. 
 Indeed we find that the three Evangelists, Mark, Luke, 
 and John, agree with the historians of those times, in 
 their total silence on this subject. It is, however, a 
 curious and most noteworthy coincidence, that in the 
 sacred writings of the Hindoos there is a similar story 
 related of the tyrant Kanga, in connection with the birth 
 of the Hindoo god, Crishna. Sir William Jones bears 
 testimony to the remarkable similarity that exists between 
 Crishna's life and actions and the life and actions of Jesus, 
 declaring expressly that it is impossible to deny it. He 
 says that Crishna's name and the general traditions con- 
 cerning him were extant long anterior to the birth of 
 Jesus, and probably anterior also to the time of Homer. 
 The celebrated poem B/iagavat, which contains an
 
 1-2 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 account of Crishna's life, is filled with a narrative of the 
 most extraordinary kind. The incarnate Deity was 
 cradled among herdsmen or shepherds. A tyrant, at the 
 time of his birth, ordered all new-born males to be slain; 
 and yet this new-born babe was preserved in the most 
 wonderful manner. He performed amazing miracles in 
 his infancy, and at the age of seven years held up a 
 mountain on the tip of his finger; he saved multitudes by 
 his miraculous powers; and he raised the dead. But he 
 was the meekest and mildest of created beings; he washed 
 the feet of the Brahmins, and preached very nobly and 
 sublimely. He was pure, and chaste, and benevolent, 
 and tender. 
 
 Again, to show how prone the popular imagination of 
 the ancients was to fictions of this kind, we borrow some 
 illustrations from the pages of Strauss. He points out 
 that the life of a child destined for great objects, who is 
 endangered and miraculously preserved, is one of the 
 fundamental themes of all heroic legends, and found re- 
 curring in those of the Hebrews, the Persians, and the 
 Romans. To say nothing of the dangers which threat- 
 ened the life of Zeus, or of Hercules, and of the mode in 
 which they were averted, something similar occurs in the 
 histories of the infancy of Moses, in the Pentateuch of 
 Isaac, in a later Jewish legend of Cyrus, in Herodotus 
 of Romulus, in Livy of the childhood of the first 
 Roman Emperor, according to Suetonius, himself living 
 in the century that saw the birth and death of Jesus 
 and then in that of the Christian Messiah, in the Gospel 
 of Matthew. The idea is carried out in all these in- 
 stances in a manner so similar, that it is impossible to 
 doubt the influence of one legend upon the other, or to 
 overlook the common psychological source of all. This
 
 PSYCHOLOGICAL SOURCE OF THESE LEGENDS. 13 
 
 source is that peculiar propensity, which leads men to 
 make the value of a good or great man the more sensibly 
 felt, by setting forth on one side the near approach of his 
 possible loss, and on the other the care of Providence for 
 his preservation. The combined influence of the two 
 that is to say, the inherent desire to enhance the value of 
 what was esteemed, and the multiplicity of the examples 
 around may well account for these fables of imminent 
 danger and supernatural protection, as introduced into the 
 life of Jesus. 
 
 In th# record of the infancy of Jesus, the mode in 
 which the danger is brought about is also peculiar. The 
 cause of it is a Star, which appears in Heaven and 
 guides certain Eastern Magi to Jerusalem, where their 
 enquiries after the new born King of the Jews attract 
 the attention of Herod the Great. Thus the Star appears 
 as the means of the endangerment of Jesus' life. Still, 
 this portion of the legend had an object of its own. 
 There is a belief reaching from remote antiquity even to 
 our own times, that new appearances of stars, particu- 
 larly comets, coming unexpectedly and vanishing again, 
 prognosticate revolutions in human affairs, and the birth 
 and death of great men. Men start from the supposition, 
 that so striking a phenomenon in the Heavens must 
 have, corresponding to it, a similar one on earth, affect- 
 ing mankind. Thus, when an historical event happens, 
 which it is wished particularly to distinguish, some extra- 
 ordinary natural phenomenon, that never took place, is 
 invented to chime in with it. Thus we read in Rubeni, 
 a rabbinical author, that at the moment of Abraham's 
 birth, a star stood in the East, which swallowed up four 
 other stars, each appearing in one of the four quarters of 
 the Heavens. Justin also tells another of these fictitious
 
 14 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 tales about, Mithridates, to the effect that in the year in 
 which he was born, and in that of his accession, a comet 
 appeared, and continued visible on each occasion for iour 
 hours during every day, and for seventy successive days. 
 It was of so large a size, and so bright, that it occupied a 
 quarter of the sky, and outshone the brightness of the 
 sun. Before the birth of Augustus, it was said to have 
 been prognosticated at Rome, by a prodigy, that Nature 
 was pregnant of a King for the Roman people. Accord- 
 ing to Jewish writings, the account of the peril which 
 threatened the life of the Lawgiver, had its parallel also 
 in the history of the Patriarch of the nation. In this 
 case Pharoah is Nimrod. In one account, Nimrod sees a 
 star in a dream; this star, according to the other account, 
 actually appears in the sky, and his sages explain it to 
 him to mean that a son is at that moment born to Tha- 
 rah, from whom shall come a mighty nation destined to 
 inherit the present and the future world. Observe also 
 that when, at length, the same embellishment had been 
 introduced into the history of the infancy of Jesus, it was 
 introduced into the history of the infancy of John the 
 Baptist, who, having been endangered by the massacre 
 at Bethlehem, was also said to have been preserved by a 
 miracle. 
 
 Now, in the legends of Cyrus, Romulus and Abraham, 
 the tyrants give special orders for murdering only the 
 children who are pointed out as dangerous to them. The 
 narratives concerning Moses, Augustus, and Jesus, resem- 
 ble each other in this that the potentates seek to catch 
 the destined infant, wlio is unknown to them personally, 
 in a wide net, together with others. The story, then, in 
 relation to the wholesale massacre by Herod, is totally 
 unworthy of credence or historical consideration, as before
 
 INCREDIBLE STATEMENTS OF OLD TESTAMENT. 15 
 
 remarked. Neither will it stand the test of criticism, 
 when considered in relation to the justice and omniscience 
 of the Almighty : for if God specially interposed to blind 
 the mind of Herod by suggesting to the Magi that they 
 should not return to Jerusalem to notify him of the cir- 
 cumstances, why did He not inspire them to proceed, in 
 the first instance, direct to Bethlehem ? Herod would 
 thus have been in ignorance of the child's existence, and 
 this cruel and unnecessary massacre would have been 
 entirely avoided that is, if it ever occurred. 
 
 The date, when these fables were introduced into the 
 New Testament, is not of much importance, even if it 
 were possible to discover it. We know, however, that 
 the early Christians not only accepted the mythology of 
 Moses, but that they superadded a mythology of their 
 own, of which these extraordinary stories form a part, 
 and that the result of the union was a system of theology 
 or belief, in which the teachings of Moses and the 
 Apostles and Jesus were blended, and for upwards of four- 
 teen hundred years not improperly called the " Dark 
 Ages," were taught and accepted as a part and parcel 
 of Christianity. .No one, during these dark ages, was 
 allowed to separate the history and the mythology from 
 the doctrine. They were denied the liberty of rejecting 
 the one and accepting the other, under the severest pen- 
 alties in this world, and the threat of eternal damnation 
 in the next. He who accepted the doctrines of Christi- 
 anity was compelled also to accept, or pretend so to do, 
 the most senseless fables and theories that were presented 
 to him, or bo anathematized. He was required to believe 
 the most incredible statements ; among them, that this 
 earth, together with the planetary system of which it is 
 a member, was created .only about four thousand years
 
 16 ONE 11EL1GION: MANY GREEDS. 
 
 before the birth of Jesus. Even as late as toward the 
 end of the fifteenth century Columbus, the discoverer of 
 this continent, was excommunicated and branded as a 
 heretic, by one of the boasted successors of St. Peter, for 
 advancing the theory that the earth is spherical, in oppo- 
 sition to the idea that it is a mere extended plane. 
 
 It was also incumbent that he should believe a thou- 
 sand other absurdities; that the Sun revolved round the 
 Earth; that God dwells in a local ^habitation, a place 
 called Heaven, and the Devil in a place called Hell ; that 
 God made a man and a woman, and placed them in a 
 garden, intending that they and their progeny should live 
 forever in this world happy, innocent, naked, and hav- 
 ing nothing to do ; that in this purpose, however, God was 
 thwarted by Satan, or the Devil, who, in the form of a 
 serpent, persuaded the woman to eat of the fruit of a tree 
 called the Tree of Knowledge, of which God had forbidden 
 them to eat, under penalty of death ; that they did eat, 
 and that they fell from their state of innocence, happiness 
 and nudity ; that God, offended at their disobedience, 
 drove them out of the garden, imposed labor upon them as 
 a curse, and taught them the use of clothes ; that the first 
 two men, born of this original pair, quarrelled because 
 God was better pleased to accept a sacrifice of fat cattle 
 roasted with fire upon an altar, from Abel, than a blood- 
 less offering of herbs and fruits from Cain, and that Cain, 
 therefore, slew his brother in a fit of anger ; that the race 
 of men, born of Adam and Eve, becoming utterly cor- 
 rupt and wicked, God repented that he had made such 
 ungrateful and abominable creatures, and resolved to 
 drown the whole race of men, as well as the beasts of the 
 field and the fowls of the air, which had not offended 
 Him ; that He spared but one man and his family saved
 
 INCREDIBLE STATEMENTS OF OLD TESTAMENT. 17 
 
 in an ark, together with a single pair of all created ani- 
 mals and birds ; that the progeny of these miraculously 
 preserved men and women afterwards divided the earth 
 among themselves, but were in no degree better than the 
 progeny of Adam and Eve, and continually vexed the 
 Almighty, and stirred Him to fierce wrath by their fear- 
 ful wickedness ; that a man named Nimrod, a great king 
 and hunter, conceived the idea that Heaven, the abode of 
 God was just above or in the clouds, and not more diffi- 
 cult of access than the tops of the highest mountains, and 
 that he could build a tower to reach to God's throne ; 
 that God, apprehensive that he might succeed in the 
 attempt, defeated his sacrilegious purpose by confounding 
 the language of the men who wrought upon it, so that 
 they could not understand each other, and had to desist 
 from their labors whereas all that was necessary to be 
 done was to leave Nimrod and the ignorant work-people 
 alone, until their means and patience were exhausted ; 
 that God chose the Jews for his peculiar people out of 
 His mere grace and favor, and for no good that they had 
 ever done ; but that Moses never could make the Jews 
 understand who God was, or in what respect He was 
 wiser than, or superior to, the pretended gods of neigh- 
 boring nations ; that this people was enslaved by the 
 Egyptians, remained in slavery for several hundred years, 
 and were miraculously freed from bondage after God had 
 caused the death of all the first born male children of 
 Egypt, and afflicted the land and the people with innu- 
 merable plagues not on account of the sins of the Egyp- 
 tians, but solely on account of the stubbornness of Pha- 
 raoh, their king, who as often as he relented had his 
 heart hardened by God, Himself, in order that he might 
 be further plagued and punished ; that the Jews, when 
 2
 
 IS ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 they had established themselves in Canaan, by the mas- 
 sacre of the original possessors of the land, grew weary 
 of a priestly government, and demanded to have a king, 
 like their neighbors; that God endeavored, but in vain, 
 to dissuade them from their purpose, and, yielding at last 
 to their importunity, chose a king for them in the person 
 of Saul, for no other recorded reason, than that he was 
 taller, by the head and shoulders, than any of his people ; 
 that Saul reigned indifferently well over the Jews, but 
 offended God past all hope of forgiveness, because he was 
 more merciful than his Maker, and would not, after he 
 had conquered and overthrown his enemies in fair bat- 
 tle, rip up the bellies of women with child, put all the 
 children, male and female, to the sword, and destroy all 
 their horses, oxen, sheep, and other cattle ; that Joshua 
 made the sun to stand still at his bidding an event 
 which, if it could have occurred, would have reduced the 
 solar system to chaos. All these and many other stories, 
 which it is needless to recapitulate evidently mythologi- 
 cal, and many of them allegorical Christianity now, as 
 then, requires to be literally accepted as positively and 
 divinely true, under penalty of all the plethora of curses, 
 temporal and eternal, that angry priestcraft can pro- 
 nounce. 
 
 And the mythology of the New Testament is imposed 
 as ruthlessly upon the believer as that of the Old. 
 Indeed the former was engrafted upon the latter; and 
 both must be accepted, without question or hesitation, as 
 equally true. As man had fallen under Adam, he was 
 to be lifted up under Jesus ; but as God required a sacri- 
 fice before He could forgive the human race for the trans- 
 gression of Adam and Eve, Jesus being himself God 
 offered himself a sacrifice to his Father, who was also
 
 THE SAME CLAIMED FOR GODAMA. 19 
 
 God though there was but one God and the sacrifice 
 was accepted. As an evidence of this, it is asserted that 
 when he died upon the cross all nature was convulsed by 
 the event ; the earth upheaved, and the dead rose out of 
 their graves and walked through the streets, in sight of 
 the awe-stricken multitudes. This was a marvel and a 
 mystery, which no human being could understand ; but it 
 was to be received as a dogma and an article of faith 
 without believing in which, no one could enjoy the benefit 
 of the transcendent sacrifice, or live in the next world, 
 except in fire and brimstone and eternal torment. For 
 the purpose of teaching the new theology and of perform- 
 ing this sacrifice, God, in the person of the man Jesus, 
 came into the world and wrought many miracles to con- 
 vince the people of the divinity alike of his character and 
 mission. But so also was it claimed by and for Godama, 
 who founded the theological system which now prevails 
 in the Burmese Empire. "I, a God," said he, "having 
 departed out of this world will preserve my laws and my 
 disciples in it for the space of five thousand years." 
 Again, the people of Judea believed that the diseases of 
 the human body were to a great extent due to the agency 
 of devils the number of the devils being infinite and 
 that they entered corporeally into the blood, the bones, 
 the brain, and the intestines, of epileptics, cataleptics, 
 apoplectics, lepers, lunatics, maniacs, and other unhappy 
 persons afflicted with bodily or mental disorders. As 
 Jesus was represented in the new mythology as casting 
 out devils by an effort of his volition, and sometimes as 
 speaking to them while in the bodies of tormented per- 
 sons, and ordering them to come out, the Christians of 
 the Dark Ages were of necessity taught to believe that 
 such devils really existed, and that diseases were the
 
 20 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 results of their agency, rather than of natural or herodi- 
 tary causes, or of the contravention of the laws of health 
 by the afflicted persons themselves. The early Christians 
 were also taught to believe that the arch-devil the lord 
 and king of all these minor devils, the Satan and Beelze- 
 bub of the Jews, the Ah ri manes of the Persians, the Luci- 
 fer of the poets ignorant of the fact that Jesus was God, 
 and believing that he was only an able and ambitious 
 man, took him up into a high mountain and showed him 
 all the kingdoms of the world which he could not have 
 done from the top of any mountain, however lofty and 
 promised him dominion over them, on the sole condition 
 that he, who was God, should kneel down and wor- 
 ship him, who was Devil ; that Jesus, without making 
 himself known to him, refused the offer, saying, "Get 
 thee behind me Satan, thou art an offense unto me." 
 Moreover, they were required to believe that Jesus raised 
 the dead from the grave ; walked upon the waters of the 
 sea; stilled the raging of the tempest, by a motion of his 
 hand or word of his mouth ; fed thousands of people, once 
 with five, and once with seven loaves of bread and a few 
 small fishes the unconsumed remnants of both, after 
 the multitude had freely partaken, being immensely 
 greater than the original bulk of the articles provided ; 
 and that he performed other miracles, all of which were 
 of a beneficent, but more or less startling character, 
 according to the circumstances. But the most remarka- 
 ble thing is that, notwithstanding he is said to have per- 
 formed such wonderful things as we have enumerated, he 
 never succeeded in persuading either the Romans or the 
 Jewish people, or the many thousands who witnessed 
 them, or even his own immediate followers and disciples, 
 that his mission was to introduce a new and spiritual reli-
 
 THE DIVINITY OF JESUS NOT BELIEVED. 21 
 
 gion, or that he was indeed God, or the son of Gcd, in 
 any other sense than that in which all men are God's 
 children. This is a most significant fact; and a fact it 
 must be acknowledged by the Christian Church, inasmuch 
 as it is borne out by the Scriptures themselves. The 
 indifference of the Romans is shown in Pilate's washing 
 his hands of Christ's blood, and in the temperate dealings 
 of Festus and Agrippa with Paul. How Christ impressed 
 the leading Jews is proved by the manner in which they 
 persecuted him and put him to death. What the multi- 
 tudes thought of him may be gathered from the reiterated 
 testimony of the Evangelists, to the effect that the people 
 " understood not his sayings," that the}'- " marvelled 
 greatly," that they were " astonished at his doctrine," 
 that they were "very attentive to hear him," and that 
 the fullest extent of their conviction went no farther than 
 this : " they rejoiced at all the glorious things that were 
 done by him." It is nowhere recorded that they looked 
 upon him as the veritable son of God, co-equal with God, 
 and voluntarily sacrificing himself as an expiation for 
 Adam's original sin nor did he claim this himself. As 
 to the immediate contemporaries, followers, and intimate 
 attendants upon Christ, it is only needful to remind the 
 reader of what happened, when all his personal influence 
 and all the effect of his whole career culminated, in his 
 final interview with the eleven disciples, after his resur- 
 rection. St. Mark says, that he upbraided them for their 
 unbelief and hardness of heart. Yet St. Matthew says, 
 with a candor that is absolutely killing in reference also 
 to Jesus' last intercourse with those favored individuals 
 "but some doubted!" The disciples, therefore, in the 
 presence of their risen Master, were very far from exhib- 
 iting an implicit and unreserved faith, at the moment of
 
 22 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 all others when they should have experienced it to the 
 innermost core. What, we ask, has the Church done, to 
 make belief in all these stories acceptable to us in these 
 days, when we find them less and less able to bear the 
 test of calm and critical examination ? 
 
 It was only after Christ's death that Christianity, 
 under a new phase, began to develop itself and to dis- 
 possess the previously existing paganism of the Roman 
 Empire. Then it was that the Priests and the Popes, 
 who had charge of the new doctrine, arrogated to them- 
 selves and to their "Saints," both living and dead, the 
 miraculous and supernatural powers which they at first 
 claimed only for their divine Master. A new series of 
 wonders was invented suitable for the credulous and 
 ignorant multitudes. These found ready credence in an 
 age when Kings and Emperors could not even read or 
 write ; indeed, when there were no books, and but very 
 few accessible manuscripts ; and when the mass of man- 
 kind were sunk in the deepest mental darkness impene- 
 trable even to such rays of light as gleamed and flashed 
 from the lustrous learning and eloquence of the Greek 
 and Roman philosophers. Knowledge was trodden down 
 by the furious wars that followed the fall of the Roman 
 Empire. What little remained of it the priests pos- 
 sessed, and used as priests invariably do to enslave 
 the intellect of the people. And thus, in process of time, 
 a third mythology was superadded to the mythology of 
 the Pentateuch and the Four Gospels, fully as marvellous 
 and as contrary to the laws of Nature and to all human 
 experience, as its predecessors. In this mythology, 
 Mary, "the Mother of God" is raised to the divine 
 rank of Queen of Heaven, and plays a most conspicuous 
 part in the Church which bears the name of her Son. In
 
 MYTHOLOGY OF THE VIRGIN MARY. 23 
 
 fact, it is said that she enacts wonders more wonderful 
 than any attributed to him. She condescends to enter 
 into images and statues carved in her honor ; and, as an 
 incontrovertible evidence of her presence therein, she 
 makes them wink their eyes, and shed real tears over 
 the agonies of those penitents who supplicate her mercy 
 and her mediation with her blessed Son. Her pictures, 
 too, worked miraculous cures on the deaf, the dumb, and 
 the blind, provided they were touched in a properly 
 reverential and confiding spirit. She appears visibly to 
 the eyes of men and women, and promises her interces- 
 sion with her Son in Heaven, for the forgiveness of all 
 who truly believe in herself and in him. Kor this alone ; 
 the relics of real or supposed saints and martyrs are also 
 endowed with virtue to heal diseases. Nay, even pieces 
 of the wood of the cross on which Jesus had suffered 
 that was supposed to have been discovered in a heap of 
 ancient and indistinguishable rubbish in the Golgotha of 
 Jerusalem, through the pious agencies of the Empress 
 Helena, more than three hundred years after the cruci- 
 fixion were also endowed with similar powers and attri- 
 butes of divinity. Mr. Charles Mackay, in his Memoirs 
 of Extraordinary Popular Delusions, says that it is 
 among " the traditions of the Romish Church that the 
 Empress Helen, the mother of Constantine the Great, 
 first discovered the veritable 'true Cross,' in her pil- 
 grimage to Jerusalem. The Emperor Theodosius made a 
 present of the greater part of it to St. Ambrose, Bishop 
 of Milan, by whom it was studded with precious stones, 
 and deposited in the principal church of that city. It 
 was carried away by the Huns, by whom it was burnt 
 after they had extracted the valuable jewels it contained. 
 Fragments purporting to have been cut from it were, in
 
 24 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 the eleventh and twelfth centuries, to be found in almost 
 every church in Europe, and would, if collected together in 
 one place, have been almost sufficient to have built a 
 cathedral. Happy was the sinner who could get a sight 
 of one of them; happier he who possessed one. To obtain 
 them, the greatest dangers were cheerfully braved. They 
 were thought to preserve from all evils, and to cure the 
 most inveterate diseases. Annual pilgrimages were made 
 to the shrines that contained them, and considerable rev- 
 enues were collected from the devotees." Tears of Jesus, 
 of the Virgin Mary, of John the beloved disciple, and 
 even of Peter, who denied his Master when he fell into 
 trouble and suspicion, were also discovered in Judea, 
 where they had been divinely and miraculously preserved 
 for centuries, and brought to Europe at the time of the 
 Crusades. They were kept in churches and cathedrals 
 to be exhibited on great occasions, and when there was 
 any chance of making money by the exhibition or sale 
 of them to the faithful. For, be it observed, the laws of 
 evaporation and absorption must, ever since they were 
 shed, have been miraculously suspended. These tears 
 work supernatural cures, too, when enshrined in little 
 glass beads and worn on the bosom, or even if the beads 
 that contain them are held in the hand or pressed to the 
 lips of the devout Christian. But to continue. The 
 nails with which the hands and feet of Jesus were pierced 
 to fasten him on the cross, and even the thorns of the 
 crown with which he was mockingly arrayed by his per- 
 secutors, found their way to Europe in large quantities. 
 It has been alleged by historians that there was iron 
 enough in all these nails, if collected and thrown into the 
 furnace, to have made a thousand ploughshares. And 
 yet each nail was supposed to be divinely endowed with
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE PRINTING PRESS. 25 
 
 the power of working miracles, to prove the truth of the 
 Christian doctrine I 
 
 But while this new mythology was growing and 
 expanding and exercising its pernicious sway over the 
 intellect of men and especially of women, who are 
 always the greatest upholders of the churches, in all parts 
 of the world and in all ages the printing press came 
 into operation. By its influence in stimulating men to 
 increased mental and physical activity, and facilitating the 
 operation of many minds one upon another for the good 
 of the whole, it aimed a heavy blow at superstition and 
 priestcraft. From that era and from that invention went 
 forth an impetus in the affairs of mankind, a rapidity of 
 advancement in the arts, sciences, and civilization, unpre- 
 cedented in the history of the world, ensuring a far more 
 splendid inheritance to those who come after us, than that 
 to which we have ourselves succeeded. One of its first 
 results was the multiplication of copies of the Old and 
 New Testaments, which were translated into the English, 
 German, French, and other European languages, and 
 placed for the first time in the hands of other people than 
 the clergy. A second result was the growth of a convic- 
 tion that the new mythology of the Romish priesthood, 
 that had grown up in the Dark Ages, was an excrescence 
 upon Christianity, formed no part of its spirit or teaching, 
 and was not to be believed or accepted as truth. Many 
 men came to the conclusion that the first two mytholo- 
 gies those of Moses and the Gospels were quite suffi- 
 cient for belief, and were to be accepted on account of their 
 venerable antiquity. They rejected the Third mythology, 
 and made up their minds that its miracles performed by 
 winking Virgins, pieces of the True Cross, and toe-nails 
 of the Saints, were no miracles at all, but cheats, shams,
 
 26 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and impostures, only invented to prop up an ecclesiastical 
 system which had degenerated into a trade to impose 
 and prey upon the less gifted and cultivated and to per- 
 petuate the physical power and intellectual domination of 
 the priesthood. The prevalence of free thought increased 
 in an advancing ratio ; and about this time, what is termed 
 the Reformation took place. The protest on this occasion 
 was strong as far as it went ; but it was partial and incom- 
 plete. It protested again the truth of the modern, not 
 of the ancient miracles ; against the Pope not against 
 the historical and scientific falsehoods and errors, inherited 
 by him and his predecessors from the original Christians, 
 or by the original Christians from the so-called sacred 
 Books ascribed to Moses and the Evangelists. The Pro- 
 testantism of that dawning day protested against all doc- 
 trine but that contained in the BOOK, and built up a new 
 idol, a new divinity, a new God, in the shape of the BIBLE, 
 which they set on high in the face of men, to be wor- 
 shipped by all who would escape eternal perdition. It 
 rejected one-third of a false system, and took the other 
 two-thirds to its heart, and enshrined them there as infal- 
 lible, unerring, perpetual, and divine. Yet this partial 
 protest was of inestimable value to future generations. It 
 was the thin end of the wedge introduced into the hard 
 block of superstition. He who- protests a little to-day 
 may protest a great deal to-morrow. - The very fact of 
 a protest amounts to a declaration of independence in 
 thought ; and Protestantism as soon as it had begun to 
 protest deprived itself of the power of saying to any 
 clearer-sighted, better informed, and more courageous pro- 
 testant than itself: " Thus far shalt thou protest, and no 
 farther !" This was a mighty advantage ; and the Romish 
 Church, with the keen instinct of self-preservation, felt
 
 PROGRESS OF THE SCIENCES. 27 
 
 and knew it to be so, and waged war to the death against 
 the bold, democratic, and innovating movement that 
 threatened to hurl it from its throne. 
 
 The disciples of the reformed faith, as cheerfully as the 
 earlier Christians of the days of St. Paul and St. Peter, 
 went to the block and the stake, to seal with blood their 
 belief in the conscientious protest which they had made. 
 Meanwhile the great printing press was busily at work. 
 Every succeeding year gave it new power for good and an 
 increased momentum in well-doing. The priests were no 
 longer the sole depositories of learning. The outer world 
 penetrated into all the pretended holy mysteries of the 
 clergy. The intellect of mankind was liberated ; and no 
 longer confining itself to questions of Theology, as in the 
 Dark Ages, grappled bravely with Mechanics, Physics, 
 Optics, Astronomy, Chemistry all the Arts and Sciences 
 and became, under this active exercise, too vigorous 
 and penetrating to be longer held under the domination of 
 priestcraft. The cheat was detected ; spurious teaching 
 and doctrines began to be thrown overboard as useless 
 lumber, or clogs to that true religion which is founded on 
 the real Bible, or Book of God, the true revelation of the 
 Creator, to be read in His works, terrestrial and celestial, 
 and in His impress upon man and not in the writings of 
 ignorant and erring, though possibly well-meaning, men. 
 The law of Gravitation suspected by Dante, and Shakes- 
 peare, and perhaps others, but only reduced to a formula 
 and a proof positive by Newton the earlier invention of 
 the Telescope, and the later invention of the Microscope 
 the discovery of the eternal and sublime forces sometimes 
 called Galvanism, Magnetism, and Electricity all these 
 things worked together for the exposition to mankind of a 
 thousand unsuspected truths of the divine government of
 
 28 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 the world, whereof the theologies and mythologies had 
 never dreamed. All of these were consistent with each 
 other, but inconsistent with the truth of the theologies 
 and mythologies, however seemingly sacred in the esti- 
 mation of mankind the latter might be. 
 
 These discoveries, these teachings, these expositions, 
 these promulgations, continued during the seventeenth, 
 eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, without producing 
 any very obvious effect upon the mythological Chris- 
 tianity, based upon the fables of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments. The mass of professing Protestants accepted the 
 new facts, but gave themselves no trouble to reconcile 
 them with the old traditions. Nevertheless, the spirit of 
 enquiry which was so busily at work had, and could not 
 but have, its effect upon the intellect of the generations 
 that were growing up in the light of these discoveries; 
 and a spirit of what is called "Infidelity" pervaded the 
 upper and educated classes. Infidelity is an easy word. 
 To the Mahommedans, all Christians are infidels. To 
 Christians, all Mahommedans, Jews, Buddhists, Parsees, 
 and believers in Mumbo Jumbo, are equally "infidels." 
 Infidelity is no reproach. The various theologies, inter- 
 mingled with what is true in worship, in different quar- 
 ters of the world, are the creatures of circumstance, rather 
 than of pure, unmitigated, and conscientious belief. If 
 Martin Luther had been born in China or Japan, he would 
 not have been a champion of Protestant Christianity. If 
 Mahommed had been born in Scandinavia where Odin was 
 worshipped, he might have established a new and peculiar 
 theology; but it would not have been such a one as 
 that which now goes under his name. In this sense, the 
 stigma of "Infidelity," affixed by one class who think for 
 themselves in religious matters, upon others who think
 
 INFIDELITY NO REPROACH. 29 
 
 with quite as much if not more learning and earnestness 
 to back them, is but an idle word. It is more despicable 
 than an idle word, when applied to those who worship 
 God after the dictates of their own hearts and consciences, 
 believing that love to God and good works constitute 
 the whole duty of man. The Church may vent its ana- 
 themas ever so vehemently, now as heretofore; yet let it 
 not close its eyes to the fact, that this religion has so 
 deep a root in men's natures, that it will ere long dis- 
 perse the cloud of theology with which the Church has 
 endeavored to overshadow it. In fact it has already done 
 so to a much larger extent than appears on the surface, 
 among the learned, scientific, thinking, and reasoning 
 men of our country. Nor will it long be confined to the 
 learned and scientific ; while, . as for the thinking and 
 reasoning classes with the avenues of knowledge now 
 opening to them, they will soon become the majority, and 
 will then not hesitate to declare themselves openly in 
 favor of the first and only religion. 
 
 Indeed its influence has spread even to the clergy 
 themselves. Even their minds, usurped as they are in 
 most instances by the prejudices of education and the 
 emoluments of their profession, are very much expanded 
 by the developments of scientific investigation, acting 
 upon and co-operating with their own innate conscious- 
 ness of truth. The effect is, that while they do not 
 preach with the enthusiasm of olden times on such sub- 
 jects as eternal punishment, the personality, power, and 
 influence of the devil, man's total degeneracy, the ven- 
 geance of the Almighty, and so forth those of them, 
 who do not drawl out their common-place sermons as if 
 they neither themselves believed them nor intended others 
 to believe them, are a little more rational in their course.
 
 30 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 If they are not bold enough to enunciate principles 
 directly in accordance with natural truths, they tread 
 lightly on the subject, and confine themselves to such 
 themes as will enable them to make a compromise with 
 scientific developments. The reign of terror, which the 
 pulpit once exercised, has departed Ichabod is written 
 upon it. It has a rival in the press, which now occupies 
 the intellectual throne, and has things to say, whereto 
 the pulpit must succumb. And whenever the two come 
 in conflict, it is not the pulpit that is finally appealed 
 to, as it once was. It is the judgment of public opinion 
 through this potent medium, the press, that obtains the 
 mastery. 
 
 Internal dissensions, too, are vastly weakening to the 
 cause of dogmatic Christianity. Sects are everywhere 
 multiplied, and are multiplying; but theology is neither 
 strengthened nor increased thereby. In fact, it loses 
 ground every time there is a split made in it. This is 
 as though another blow were struck upon the wedge in- 
 troduced into the block of error. It is an addition to the 
 force that is destined to rive theology asunder and beat 
 it into fragments, so that it may be ground into powder 
 and scattered to the four winds. It is its own destruc- 
 tion not the destruction merely of one of its parts, 
 because every sect, however much it may differ from or 
 denounce its rival, derives its authority from Moses or the 
 Gospels. Even Mormonism, the last gasping effort of 
 modern civilization to establish a religion upon the Bible, 
 finds a sufficient justification for polygamy in the practice 
 of Abraham and the Jewish patriarchs, who therein 
 declared to be not only the true servants of God, but 
 most favored by Him are the very men that most in- 
 dulged in it. The great majority of those, who accept
 
 THE CHRISTIAN HEAVEN. 31 
 
 Christianity, consists of the poor. They go to church 
 and hear it announced that it is to them that the Gospel 
 is preached, and that it is easier for a camel to go through 
 the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into 
 the kingdom of Heaven. They are told that Heaven is 
 a place where the poor of this world are recompensed for 
 their poverty and misery a place wherein they them- 
 selves will be rich and powerful, wherein they will wear 
 white robes and golden crowns, and whence they will be 
 graciously permitted to look down with the greatest com- 
 placency not altogether unmixed with human or even 
 with inhuman satisfaction upon the misery of those 
 Dives in Hell, who did not give them all they had in this 
 world, now in vain asking them for a drop of water to 
 cool their burning tongues. Of this class we say the 
 Church is largely made up, because of the encouragement 
 and consolation they derive or imagine they derive from 
 the above description of teaching. Others go to church 
 for fashion's sake, recreation, excitement, and novelty 
 in short, more to see than to hear, and to be amused by 
 the priest flaunting before their eyes his embroidered 
 garments, the frippery of stole and vestment, and all 
 the paraphernalia of ecclesiastical millinery. In Roman 
 Catholic countries the churches are left almost wholly to 
 the women ; in Protestant countries a minority of men 
 still attend, but mostly as a duty enforced by custom and 
 fashion, or with the hope of being entertained if the 
 preacher be what is called a popular one. If not, and 
 they think it adds to their respectability, they go and 
 listen with what insornnolency they can to an uninterest- 
 ing discourse, which tells them nothing they did not 
 know before, and too much that flatly contradicts the 
 pure truths of science and common-sense facts. But this
 
 33 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 state of things must soon fall into decay. Indeed we 
 find that even those, who are in high places and receiving 
 large emoluments from the ecclesiastical system to which 
 they are attached, are dropping off, one by one, from the 
 decaying old tree that has supplied them with shelter and 
 support, and are coming out boldly in defence of the 
 right. Their reason becomes too strong for that dead 
 faith which was instilled into them, and which they have 
 been trying to instill into others, until their better sense 
 and better judgment, aided by other minds and genuine 
 truths, have compelled them to abandon it. 
 
 In the first place, they have removed out of the way 
 that greatest of all stumbling blocks, "The Pentateuch," 
 which, when tested by the truths of geological discovery, 
 is shown to be a mass of crude absurdities. 
 
 And now, in the next place, not only is the rest of the 
 Old Testament to be submitted to the same and similar 
 tests, but the New Testament also must submit to go 
 through the crucible of investigation, and stand or fall by 
 the ordeal. Everywhere there is fermentation of thought. 
 Science, we admit, has not yet overthrown theology and 
 mythology vi et armis, by battering at their ancient 
 walls ; but she has been and is still quietly and slowly, 
 yet perceptibly- sapping and mining them to the very 
 foundation. She is proving her own truths, as well as 
 that great and divine principle, that no one truth, great 
 or small, can ever be hostile to, contradict, or disprove 
 another. She is showing, by an examination of every- 
 thing in Nature, that God is infinite in goodness, infinite 
 in wisdom, and infinite in truth. That He cannot be 
 what the Pentateuch proclaims him to be a God who 
 has fits of anger, who errs and repents of it, who can be 
 at one time what he is not at another. Geology has
 
 SCIENCE UNDERMINING THEOLOGY. 33 
 
 demonstrated that the eartli must be more than six 
 thousand years old. It may be six hundred thousand, or 
 six hundred millions, or as much longer as the imagin- 
 ation can stretch, for all that we know. But one thing 
 is certain it is proved as conclusively as by a mathe- 
 matical demonstration, that there is no semblance of 
 truth in the Jewish computation, that it was called into 
 existence so recently as the Scriptures assert. Astronomy, 
 too, has proved that, so far from the earth being the most 
 important body in our solar system, it is one of the three 
 least; that our solar system itself the majestic sun and 
 all the orbs that circle around him is but a comparative 
 speck in the infinite immensity of the sidereal universe ; 
 and that the faint light of the great Nebula in Orion, 
 seen in the summer sky, takes sixty-seven thousand 
 years to travel from that remote portion of the universe 
 to our little globe, and become visible to the eyes of men. 
 In fact the world has come, or is fast coming, to that 
 advanced state of progress, when the men, who really 
 think for themselves in spiritual matters as independently 
 as they compare and judge in the actual business of their 
 lives, will subject all the so-called sacred books of all 
 creeds to thorough examination, and relegate them to the 
 same pedestals as are occupied by the Iliad and the 
 Odyssey, or the early histories of ancient nations. They 
 will believe all that is credible, and reject all that is 
 manifestly, mathematically and positively false. To 
 those and they include many of the leading minds of 
 our time who are too timid, and to some who are not 
 too timid to declare themselves, as well as to vast num- 
 bers who show their new faith, or rather the rejection 
 of their old faith, by the negative process of refusing to 
 lend any public countenance to it, the conviction has 
 3
 
 34 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 
 become too strong to be avoided, that God has revealed 
 
 Himself to mankind only through His works as exhibited 
 by the eternal world, and through the inherent intuitions, 
 faculties and perceptions, placed in the soul and mind of 
 each individual. He holds no one accountable for a belief 
 in the written or spoken words of any man or any set of 
 men. Men are to be relied upon, only so far as they 
 describe the physical, moral and intellectual laws of God, 
 in accordance with other natural truths. 
 
 In view of this advancement of the human race, and 
 of the numerous discoveries of modern science, each one 
 of which is consistent with the other, and with the bene- 
 ficent nature and unchanging and unchangeable laws and 
 purposes of the Creator in view of the hollowness of 
 the religious systems, through which endeavors have been 
 made for many ages back to impose upon mankind a 
 belief in stories and traditions that it is impossible to 
 accept in view of the attempted disparagement of the 
 religion of nature and conscience, which these efforts have 
 produced, as well as the vast amount of hypocrisy which 
 they have caused amongst the multitude of ordinary men, 
 who pretend to believe for fashion's sake, or to save 
 themselves the trouble and inconvenience of standing out 
 against any established system in view of all this, the 
 time seems to have arrived for protesting against all false 
 cosmogonies, theologies, and mythologies, through which 
 the designing have held more or less pernicious sway 
 over the mind and means of the many for so long a 
 period. As long as these attempts are permitted to 
 trammel the minds and influence the conduct of men and 
 debase true religion, they act as fetters upon the intellect 
 and impede the progress of mankind. A Protest, to be 
 in accordance with the intelligence of the day, must be
 
 A PROTEST AGAINST THEOLOGIES. 35 
 
 one against the idea that death is a new comer, or that 
 the inhabitants of the earth, from man downwards to the 
 lowest animalcule, were not intended for deatli from the 
 beginning. It must protest against the idea that deatli 
 is an evil, or anything but a blessing, and a step of the 
 soul in its infinite progression from good to better. It 
 must protest against the idea that there is any evil, 
 except that which is caused by man's ignorant or wilful 
 breach of divine laws, inasmuch as all else which seems 
 to be evil appears so only on account of our imperfect 
 knowledge, and must be good in the ulterior purposes of 
 a God who is all perfection. It must protest against the 
 idea that labor is a curse imposed upon man in conse- 
 quence of transgression, and assert, on the contrary, that 
 it is a prime and chief blessing, the educator of the body, 
 the elevator of the mind, the sweetener and enhancer of 
 the multifarious enjoyments of life. It must protest 
 against the idea inculcated in the Old Testament of the 
 Jews, and thence conveyed into the New Testament of 
 the Chfistians, that God's purpose was ever changed by 
 man's transgression, or by man's intercession, or by any 
 other agency whatsoever. It must protest a.s Christ pro- 
 tested, and reject the barbarous and blood-thirsty creed of 
 the Jews, and specially those portions of that creed which 
 have corrupted that which Jesus taught, and which were 
 introduced into it after his crucifixion by his ignorant 
 disciples, and form no portion of the divine doctrine that 
 God is infinite in goodness and wisdom, and that it is the 
 duty of men to love God and one another. It must pro- 
 test against the idea that it is any part of God's pur- 
 pose out of revenge, or from any other motive to punish 
 man in everlasting fire, or by any other torment beyond 
 the grave, for the deeds done in the body, such a doctrine
 
 36 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 being totally inconsistent with God's goodness. It must 
 
 protest against the idea that God, out of His mere grace 
 
 or favor, has elected a remnant of mankind to be saved, 
 
 to the exclusion of the majority, as being inconsistent 
 
 with his even-handed justice. It must protest against 
 
 the idea that man can commit any sin for which God has 
 
 not provided adequate punishment, that is inflicted on the 
 
 offender, not vicariously or vindictively, but to the end 
 
 that God had in view, at the creation and this end was 
 
 that, under the training provided for the purpose, all men 
 
 should, eventually, be brought to understand and do His 
 
 will. It must protest that God is never moved to anger, 
 
 nor can He be surprised or disappointed by anything that 
 
 man may do, for He observes with perfect complacency 
 
 all His works, all His creatures, and all their doings, 
 
 knowing that by the gradual fulfilment of His original 
 
 purposes, all things will work together in a manner 
 
 entirely consistent therewith. It must protest against 
 
 the idea that any man's fate is altered by the prayers of 
 
 the Church, either before or after his decease this being 
 
 inconsistent with God's foreknowledge, and His ability 
 
 to provide for all possible contingencies from the first. 
 
 It must protest "against all teaching which is contrarv to 
 
 this view. It must protest against receiving the facts 
 
 recorded by either Moses or the Apostles, as other than 
 
 mere statements resting upon human testimony, to be 
 
 judged of as evidence is judged of in a court of justice, 
 
 and to be credited only when consistent with each other, 
 
 with Nature, with probability, and with the goodness of 
 
 God. In fine, it must protest against everything which 
 
 is not in accordance with the substance of these following 
 
 propositions, derived from natural teaching, and confirmed 
 
 by an innate consciousness of their truth : that it is no
 
 GOD ALL POWERFUL. 37 
 
 part of religion to entertain any other faith or belief, 
 than that there is but one God that this one God is 
 omnipotent, and that His perfections are infinite that 
 He rules all things by laws, which, like Himself, are 
 unchangeable that all men are alike amenable to His 
 ];i\vs in person and that He requires that we should 
 exercise ourselves in good offices one toward another, 
 and toward all sentient beings. All faiths and beliefs, 
 which are inconsistent with these broad 'axioms, are more 
 or less pernicious. And most undoubtedly all faiths and 
 beliefs respecting God, which are propounded for the 
 entertainment of men, and which are not consistent with 
 His infinite power, knowledge, goodness, and impartial 
 justice, are untrue and to be deprecated. 
 
 God's perfections are the touchstone by which to test 
 the genuineness of our faith. In working out His plans 
 and designs, He needs not, nor did He contemplate, the 
 assistance of any such persons as Christ and the Holy 
 Ghost, who are called divine; or of the Virgin Mary, who 
 is said to be immaculate and the mother of God. There 
 is no personal, nor imaginary Devil ; nor is it possible 
 that there can be any. Man is as God originally created 
 him, and as God originally intended and provided he 
 should be, to the end that all shall in good time adore 
 Him from a sense of His goodness to each and all. God's 
 perfections are proof positive that the laws which He 
 established for the government of all things are absolute 
 and incapable of amendment, and therefore must endure 
 perpetually. They can neither be changed nor made 
 better. Hence, neither Jesus nor His disciples, nor any 
 other creature ever had, by any special providence, the 
 power either inherent or granted for the working of mira- 
 cles. Any pretended occurrence or phenomenon, not in
 
 38 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 accordance with the ordinary course of nature, is falla- 
 cious. There is much in the Bible, in relation to God 
 and His attributes, which is inconsistent with His per- 
 fections and therefore must be untrue; hence the Bible 
 cannot be said to be infallible. 
 
 In speaking of the Church, we use the word, in every 
 instance, in its broad sense, not as applying to any par- 
 ticular denomination or sect, but to all alike who make 
 any part of their doctrine or creed to consist of any one 
 or more of the things here cited as being inconsistent 
 with God's perfect attributes. Any one of the many 
 sects may denounce the doctrines of the others, with 
 whom the}' do not agree. We claim the same privilege, 
 and shall address ourselves against any and all, who hold 
 to dogmas and theologies which we conceive to be not in 
 accordance with the nature, and perfections, and omnipo- 
 tence of God. 
 
 The new protest must avoid the short-comings and 
 errors of its predecessors. It is not enough, in our day, 
 to protest against that which is false in theology; it is 
 essentially necessary to affirm that which is true. In 
 addition to what is done spontaneously by the heart and 
 conscience, it has hitherto been the office of poets, rather 
 than of preachers, to "vindicate the ways of God to 
 man;" but science has now stepped into the arena, and 
 has become a more powerful vindicator of God's good- 
 ness and wisdom than either priest or poet. Science and 
 theology may be antagonistic powers ; but science and 
 the religion of the heart march together, side by side, and 
 together they will achieve a signal victory over the errors 
 and false teachings that have trammelled the minds of 
 men from the earliest ages. The intelligent and un- 
 shackled enquirer studies the so-called sacred books of
 
 THE TEACHINGS OF THE BOOK OF NATURE. 39 
 
 the Jews and Christians, and finds what of divine truth 
 there is in them so over-ridden and contradicted by, and 
 so subordinated to, human dogmas repugnant alike to 
 intuitive religion, conscience, and common sense that no 
 consolation or healing for the soul, or satisfaction for the 
 intellect, can be extracted therefrom. He who hungers 
 and thirsts for the true bread and water of life, which 
 leads man heavenward, will hunger and thirst in vain, if 
 he expects to find it in the Bible or the doctrines of the 
 Church. But when the truly religious man studies the 
 great open volume of Nature, he discovers nothing to 
 weaken or contradict; everything in it tends to strengthen 
 and canfirm the great and fundamental idea the only 
 possible basis of a true and living religion that God is 
 infinite, eternal, unchangeable, and all-wise. Nothing 
 can eradicate the impression which it makes upon us, to 
 the effect that He is good and kind to all His creatures, 
 and that He cannot have created man in order to make 
 him miserable either here or hereafter. The diligent 
 student of this sublime book whether he gathers instruc- 
 tion from the little globe of which man is the noblest 
 inhabitant, or whether he seeks it with a devout and 
 reverential spirit from the gorgeous host of suns and 
 planetary systems that fill the remotest regions of space 
 and by their number and magnitude reduce this globe of 
 ours comparatively to the dimensions of a grain of sand 
 on the sea shore of creation will observe in it, through- 
 out, the universality of law and the most perfect mathe- 
 matical consistency. Every newly discovered truth will 
 be found to be in perfect harmony with the whole. He 
 will recognize as a principle and as a fact, that the laws 
 of God, which are perfect and invariable now, must have 
 been perfect and invariable from the first, and that in
 
 40 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 this world as in the countless worlds of all the galaxies 
 of space they accomplish everlastingly the exact original 
 purpose of their divine author. He will also recognize that 
 God's intention in creating the universe, and placing man 
 upon the earth and, for all we know, in millions of 
 other worlds even more glorious than this cannot have 
 been thwarted by any agency, mortal or immortal. It 
 has been carried out from the beginning ; and it will be 
 carried out in exact conformity with His will and fore- 
 knowledge throughout all eternity. Every atom of mat- 
 ter, and the faintest flickering of mind that ever existed, 
 was made subservient to the accomplishment of a definite 
 purpose, and was endowed, from the creation, with all 
 the properties, qualities, forces, and faculties necessary to 
 fulfil that purpose, without any further supervision. 
 
 Among the agencies which perform important offices in 
 the production of the various phenomena of Nature are 
 light and darkness, heat and cold, negative and positive 
 electricity, magnetism, the centripetal and centrifugal 
 forces, chemical affinities and repulsions, gravitation, 
 attraction, and probably other instrumentalities of which 
 science has not yet discovered the secret. These agencies 
 are only perceptible to man, through their action on visi- 
 ble and tangible matter. It required ^he accumulated 
 experience of centuries, and a high state of mental cul- 
 ture in succeeding generations, before Philosophy could 
 either discover or comprehend them even to the present 
 limited extent. 
 
 Man has never had any true conception of God or His 
 attributes, except through the medium of His creation. 
 By means of the phenomena presented to man through 
 the material world, through the action of infinite mind 
 upon inorganic matter, through life as exhibited in ani-
 
 LABOR, PAIN AND DEATH, NOT EVILS. 41 
 
 mals and plants, and through the emotions and aspira- 
 tions of the human soul, God has revealed Himself to 
 man and thus only. By these means, the revelation is 
 abundantly sufficient to enable all men to fulfil God's 
 will and purpose. By these means, to the full extent 
 of their intelligence and their needs, will they be enabled 
 to perform the duties that are required of them so long as 
 they remain in this world; and, by analogy, it may be 
 concluded that, after they have quitted it, they will be 
 similarly aided, through some means not revealed to us. 
 With this great and glorious revelation open before him 
 the divine instruction written on the soul of man how 
 can he fail to keep within the bounds of duty and love to 
 God? 
 
 Three words, which theologians employ in a sense at 
 variance with truth, and with God's wisdom in creating 
 the world, and by which the minds of men have been 
 enthralled to their damage, are Labor, Pain, and Death. 
 They have been represented as evils, and as forming no 
 part of God ! s original purpose in placing man upon the 
 earth. A great portion of the human race has been 
 taught for thousands of years, that for man's disobedience 
 to a supposed command which God never can have 
 given, with the threatened penalties for a breach of it, 
 and under all the circumstances claimed by the Church 
 labor was imposed upon him as a curse ; that pain was 
 introduced as a punishment instigated by God's anger ; 
 and that death no part of God's first intention was 
 made the doom of every living thing. And this ancient 
 fable still exercises a pernicious influence, although men 
 are gradually beginning to understand as regards labor 
 and pain, that they are by no means evils, but a part of 
 the economy of God's will toward man in this world.
 
 42 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Instead of being a curse, labor, to a legitimate extent, is 
 found to be a blessing ; and this law refers not alone to 
 man and the earth, but to the whole Universe. We 
 admit that excess of labor is an evil ; but so, also, is 
 excess in anything. It is beneficial to eat and to drink ; 
 but prejudicial to eat and drink too much. It is delight- 
 ful to labor ; but disagreeable to exhaust one's self in 
 doing in one day the work of two or three days. It is 
 labor, labor alone, that raises man to his true position. 
 It is imposed upon him for no angry or revengeful pur- 
 pose if such were possible to God but with the kindest 
 intention. It was instituted to promote his happiness, in 
 order that he might be induced to improve his faculties, 
 physical, moral and intellectual. He is born naked; out 
 of his necessities come mental and physical cultivation, 
 civilization, and all the ennobling arts and graces that 
 follow in its train. In the gratification of man's wants 
 consists the enjoyment of life ; for, if he had no wants in 
 this life, he would have no pleasures. Were he to draw 
 his food out of the atmosphere by the act of breathing, 
 had he no call to cultivate the earth or to labor for shelter 
 or covering, he would be without that stimulant and that 
 incentive to do and be doing without that prompting to 
 activity of body and spirit which is indispensable to 
 buoyancy, and health, and the giving zest to life. Action 
 is the order of nature. The air sweeps over hill and dale. 
 It dallies wantonly with the foliage, and on the surface of 
 the waters. It rustles in the trees, plays with the grass 
 and the flowers of the fields, and fans the waving grain 
 that sways gracefully before its breath. The clouds move 
 majestically about from one part of the heavens to another. 
 The sea uplifts its waves for joy, and embraces again and 
 again the rock-bound shore, leaving its impress and its
 
 PAIN DEATH. 43 
 
 bounds in circles on the sands, as it daily ebbs and flows. 
 The animals participate in this general law of existence. 
 They are ever busy, providing for and protecting them- 
 selves in every emergency. And thus we see that all 
 nature is alive with activity. 
 
 Stop the wheels of Nature, 
 And Nature will cease to be. 
 
 Let stagnation lay her hand upon the earth, and this 
 fair and lovely Paradise, now instinct with movement 
 and health, will become the dreary seat of sterility and 
 death. 
 
 In like manner, pain, thought to be a curse secondary 
 only to death, is notonly useful, but necessary and bene- 
 ficent. It is a special warning to us that something has 
 gone wrong, and may go further wron, in this our curious 
 and mysterious physical constitution, if we do not see to 
 it to set the wrong right. 
 
 Pain is the friend and guardian of the wise. 
 
 Would'st place thy hand 
 In the consuming and destroying fire, 
 And ask it not to burn ? Would'st fall from heights 
 Upon the strong bosom of the earth, 
 And ask it not to bruise? Would'st break the laws 
 That govern and uphold the universe, 
 The modulation of harmonious Heaven, 
 And, without knowledge of thy sacrifice, 
 Destroy thy being ? Wise, and good, and just 
 Are all the" laws and purposes of God. 
 
 Death is naturally the dread of all, to the end that all 
 may cling to life while they may ; yet death is no more 
 an evil, than pain or labor. The world was constituted
 
 44 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and prepared for death from the beginning. Millions of 
 years ago, as geology has discovered, there were life ami 
 death on this globe ; life and death in the waters, and on 
 the dry land. A square inch of the chalky cliffs of Dover 
 or the Isle of Wight contains the shells of myriads of 
 minute sea-fish, that must have lived and died hundreds 
 of thousands of centuries ago even before the world was 
 ready for the habitation of man, and consequently before 
 man's transgression could have involved this supposed 
 penalty. 
 
 Death is no evil. Cease, 0, foolish man, 
 Thy querulous moaning, and consider death 
 No longer as thy foe. A ministering saint, 
 Her hand shall lead thee step by step to God. 
 Be worthy of her ; and so learn .to live, 
 That every incarnation of thy soul 
 In other worlds, and spheres, and firmaments, 
 Shall be more perfect. God's eternity 
 Is thine to live in. 
 
 This we hold to be man's destiny hereafter ; and it is 
 his high privilege to participate in working out the 
 supreme happiness in store for him. Discarding there- 
 fore all these obsolete and unworthy ideas of labor, pain, 
 and death products of the early want of knowledge by 
 man, and the erroneous teaching of theologians and 
 investigating fairly and candidly the capabilities of man, 
 and the purposes of God in creating him, it will be found 
 by the study of natural laws that man is especially 
 charged, within certain limits, with the guardianship of 
 himself. God intended that man should participate in 
 taking care of both his soul and his body ; that he should 
 look to the preservation and perpetuation of his kind ; 
 and both morally and physically so perform the duties 
 imposed upon him as to conduce to his own well-being,
 
 MAN'S WONDERFUL ORGANIZATION. 45 
 
 and the well-being of his fellow men, both in time and in 
 eternity. The numerous instincts, appetites, senses, and 
 other faculties with which he is endowed, God has given 
 him as guides for this purpose. Without these guides, 
 he might fail in the great duty of self-preservation, and 
 the procreation of his kind, so as to endanger the continu- 
 ance of his race. Without the cravings of appetite and 
 the pleasure which its gratification affords, he might fail 
 to supply himself with the food and drink requisite to 
 preserve life. But for the suffering, which is the penalty 
 of neglect, he might not be sufficiently vigilant in pro- 
 tecting himself from injury. But for the pain and dis- 
 comfort which are the necessary and wholesome monitors 
 of excess, he might habitually indulge in eating and 
 drinking too much. But God's goodness and care do not 
 stop here. Besides these checks and admonitions given 
 to him for his improvement, there are offices to be per- 
 formed on his behalf, over which he has little or no 
 control, and some over which he has no supervision 
 whatever. There are chemical and mechanical processes 
 continually in operation within him, about which he 
 knows very little, and of which God has altogether taken 
 charge. These are so completely provided for in his 
 organization, that they go on while he is unmindful of 
 them. Such are, the circulation of the blood, the draw- 
 ing of the breath, the generation of vital heat, the diges- 
 tion of food, and the distribution of the nourishment thus 
 obtained, to all parts of the body, to promote growth and 
 serve for the repair of the system. To subserve these 
 ends, and to give rest to the body and spirit, in order to 
 prevent the too rapid expenditure of vital energy, and the 
 consequent premature decay of the beautiful and complex 
 human machine, it is indispensable that the active brain
 
 46 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and intellect should, at certain periods, not too far apart, 
 be brought to that state of quiet and repose which sleep 
 alone can superinduce. Hence it is put out of man's 
 power to resist sleep to any considerable extent, without 
 injury or death. And thus God's laws are constantly 
 operating for man's benefit, though man is unconscious or 
 unmindful of the kindly despotism by which, for his own 
 good, those laws are imposed upon him. 
 
 How beautiful and full of goodness, not only to man, 
 bat to all living creatures, are what are called the 
 instincts ! The new-born babe is taught by this divine 
 prompting, the moment it comes into the world, to seek 
 its nourishment at the mother's breast. All living 
 
 o 
 
 things the bees, the ants, the beavers, the birds, the 
 wild animals of whatever description, the flocks and herds 
 belonging to men, even the flowers and herbs are gov- 
 erned and govern themselves by the instincts which God 
 has given them, and are preserved to life and enjoyment 
 by their obedience thereto. This is in accordance with 
 logic of the highest order ; and yet these happy creatures 
 do not reason on the subject, any more than the infant 
 at the breast. Instinct is as divine a gift as reason 
 itself. It is the gift of God to every living thing. It is 
 implanted upon each according to its kind, at creation, 
 and transmitted without alteration to the feeble and the 
 strong alike. God's superior intelligence, thus made 
 manifest and available in all created beings, is necessary 
 to the divine purpose. Without it, no living creature on 
 the earth could exist. All those beings that people the 
 air, the earth, or the waters various as they may be in 
 their forms and organization have each their own set 
 of laws, instincts, and intuitions, which are especially 
 adapted to them, and harmonize in the most minute par-
 
 INSTANCES OF INSTINCT. 47 
 
 ticular with their structure and mode of life, the kind and 
 variety of their food, the means of supply, the perpetua- 
 tion and nourishment of their kind, their self-protection, 
 and whatever is necessary to their existence and enjoy- 
 ment. Eagles, vultures, hawks, owls, and other birds 
 which feed upon flesh, have beaks and claws especially 
 adapted for capturing and killing their prey and for 
 dividing asunder their food into convenient quantities to 
 be readily devoured. They are led by their appetites to 
 crave such food as is appropriate to their nature ; and 
 under the influence of their instincts they exercise won- 
 drous perseverance and adroitness in the pursuit of it. 
 Birds that feed upon carrion have the power of scenting 
 it from all but incredible distances. The hare, rabbit, 
 and many other animals, which from their structure and 
 propensities are not well fitted for self-defence, fly from 
 danger, and employ sometimes speed, and sometimes 
 stratagem for the purpose. The deprivation of one quality 
 is compensated for, by the gift of another that is equally 
 available for the intended object. There are many species 
 of insects that would become extinct, if instinct had not 
 taught them to shield themselves from the frost of winter 
 by burrowing in the earth. The means are present ; but 
 to make burrowing sufficient to the end in view, it must- 
 be done at proper times, and in anticipation of the frost. 
 This is insured, by inherent instructions from God. 
 Wolves and various other carnivorous animals pursue a 
 prey which leaves a scent or trail upon the earth, with a 
 marvellous acuteness of smell, while animals that labor 
 under no similar need, are gifted with no such capacity. 
 The dog is enabled to scent his master along the paved 
 streets of populous cities, and to distinguish his trail from 
 that of others crossing or intermingled with it, even
 
 48 ONK RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 though hours may have elapsed between the tread of his 
 master's foot and the pursuit. The instinct of self-pre- 
 servation sometimes assumes the form of cunning. Some 
 animals feign death, in the presence of their foe. Many 
 insects do the same. The skunk, when alarmed for its 
 safety, emits a disagreeable odor, that repels or disgusts 
 its pursuer. The cuttle-fish when in peril discharges a 
 black liquid, that discolors the water for a considerable 
 distance around it, and prevents, by obscuration, the eye 
 of its enemy from tracing the course, upwards or down- 
 wards or lateral, by which it effects its escape. The hare, 
 in the long winters of far Northern latitudes, changes the 
 summer color of its skin to that of the snow amid which 
 it lives, and is thus enabled to elude the keen glance of 
 the bird of prey high up in the air, which otherwise would 
 be better able to single out, pounce upon, and destroy it. 
 The feathers of the grouse that feed upon the moor are of 
 the color of the moor and the heather; while the plumage 
 of the ptarmigan, that dwells among the granite peaks of 
 the highest mountains of Scotland and Norway, resembles 
 granite even when seen from a short distance. The 
 pheasant, the better to shield her young and helpless 
 brood from approaching danger, feigns to be crippled, and 
 flutters away from her chicks that hide themselves in 
 such a way as to draw off the intruder from her charge by 
 pretending to be, herself, an easy prey. The domestic 
 hen gathers her chickens under her wings, when the hawk 
 or falcon soars above, a mere speck in the sky. She does 
 this by a peculiar call, which the young birds understand 
 and obey instinctively. The lamb knows the bleat of its 
 mother among all the sheep of a flock, however numer- 
 ous; and the mother in like manner distinguishes the cry 
 of her own progeny, though scores of lambs may be bleat-
 
 INSTINCT IN VEGETATION. 49 
 
 ing simultaneously. Thus, manifestly do the wisdom and 
 goodness of God support and train every living creature 
 that he has made, throughout the whole range of crea- 
 tion. 
 
 But all these wonderful provisions in Nature, which 
 
 harmonize so beautifully with the peculiar constitution, 
 appetites, means of support and protection of life, that 
 we observe in animals, are a most emphatic contradiction 
 to the Christian theory, that, before the Fall, these crea- 
 tures were not antagonistic to each other, and that God 
 did not contemplate death in His original plan at the 
 creation. 
 
 Neither the physical nor the spiritual eye of man can 
 penetrate any department of Nature, without discovering 
 objects to excite wonder, admiration, and worship. Even 
 the members of the vegetable world have been endowed 
 with something analogous to the instincts of the animal 
 creation. The roots of trees and plants are attracted from 
 considerable distances to the spot where the nourishment 
 that best suits them is found in greatest abundance, and 
 can be made available for their growth and development. 
 Trees that grow on the plains, unsheltered by other trees 
 or objects, have wider and deeper-spreading roots and a 
 firmer hold on the earth, in order to meet their greater 
 needs, and put out their strongest roots in the direction 
 whence come the prevailing winds and rudest blasts. 
 Trees in the dense forest vie with each other, as men do 
 in crowded communities, each striving to tower above its 
 neighbor in quest of that abundance of sunlight and fresh 
 air, so essential to its existence and growth. The ivy 
 and the vine which depend on their sturdier and more 
 earth-fast neighbors for support, when they rear their 
 delicate foliage to the light, and put forth their tendrils as 
 4
 
 50 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 though they were fingers, seem to discern arid choose the 
 friends on whom to lean, and straightway incline their 
 stems and train their course thitherward. And if God 
 has given instincts to the trees, the grass, and the flowers, 
 by which they preserve their existence and conform to 
 the laws of their well-being, it is difficult not to believe 
 that to them also, in one sense, is given a certain amount 
 of enjoyment. The sunshine and the rain must give 
 them pleasure; and the rose, the lily, and the violet may 
 know that they are beautiful, and take pleasure in the 
 fact, not as sensitively perhaps, as the beautiful of our 
 own species, yet in a degree. It may not be altogether a 
 fancy of the poet, but an unsuspected truth, that the 
 trees, which quiver to the summer wind or bend or moan 
 in the wintry blast, 
 
 ******* men un k nown 
 
 Have pleasures of their own, 
 And feel sweet sympathies with all dear Nature's moods. 
 
 We deem that all the leaves, 
 
 In morns, or noons, or eves. 
 Or in the starry stillness of the night, 
 
 May point to Heaven in prayer, 
 
 Or bend to earth and share 
 Some joy of sense, some natural delight; 
 
 That root, and branch, and stem, 
 
 Partake the joy with them, 
 And feel through all their sap, God's goodness infinite. 
 
 God's laws provide not only for the incessant reproduc- 
 tion or recomposition of vegetable and animai 4ife, so as 
 to compensate for the decay which time has been commis- 
 sioned to operate on all that lives thus keeping the face 
 of nature forever fresh and beautiful but He has pro- 
 vided that the earth itself, however venerably old, shall
 
 RECUPERATIVE POWERS OF NATURE. 51 
 
 always be young, always fruitful, always bountiful, always 
 lovely. The same recuperative power, that exists in man 
 and animals, exists through all Nature. The waving 
 fields of corn and grass, when too rudely pressed by the 
 gale or storm, or disfigured by the trail of man or beast, 
 are in a brief space, under the genial influence of the 
 sun, the breezes, and the inscrutable laws of Nature 
 which train plants heavenward put to rights, if such a 
 phrase may be used, and restored to their original beauty. 
 The majestic oak, shattered by the lightning, and deprived 
 of vitality, does not forever stand a gloomy object in the 
 landscape. The ivy, "friend and adorner of decay," as 
 if in sympathy with its fate, binds up, as it were, its 
 wounds, its nakedness, its seared old trunk and limbs, 
 and renders it beautiful with its owrt life, turning its 
 helplessness to cheerful purposes. Even at the fall of 
 the leaf, and in the old age of the year, when the land- 
 scape is disrobed of its verdure, Nature does not cease to 
 be lovely. She bestows upon each season its own com- 
 pensations in the present, for what it may have lost in 
 the past. The howling winds the drifting snow forming 
 into graceful undulations, slopes and curves, and mantling 
 the landscape with their beauty the icy gems that 
 attach themselves to every tree, and bush, and herb, and 
 sparkle in the sunlight like precious stones these do not 
 impress the soul with gloom, but with a never wearied 
 sense of the grandeur, the goodness, and the beauty of 
 all God's works 'and ways. 
 
 And while God is thus careful for His creatures, He is 
 equally careful in preserving and beautifying the earth 
 for their enjoyment. For is not the earth itself as much 
 the object of His goodness and divine government, as the 
 living things that He has placed upon it? There are
 
 52 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 laws pertaining to its affairs, of which if any one became 
 inoperative, the destruction of all animal and vegetable 
 life would speedily ensue. Among these may be named 
 evaporation 'and condensation, cohesive attraction, fric- 
 tion, gravitation, and the centrifugal and centripetal 
 forces. If there were no such laws as evaporation and 
 condensation at work, the watery vapor that floats in the 
 atmosphere would not be liquified, and consequently we 
 should have no rain to water the earth ; it would become 
 parched for want of moisture, and the streams and rivers 
 would cease to flow. If the effect of cohesion and fric- 
 tion were wanting, the particles of matter of which the 
 hills and mountains are composed would descend into the 
 valleys, and under the same law by which the waters of 
 the rivers now flow into the sea the whole surface of 
 the globe would assume a perfectly spherical shape, be 
 covered with water, and become uninhabitable for men, 
 beasts, birds, or any other creatures except fishes and 
 sea reptiles. Without the law of gravitation, the whole 
 material of our globe would fly asunder, and be scattered 
 in space. Without centrifugal force, the earth would 
 gravitate to the sun and be destroyed. Without centri- 
 petal force, or gravity, the earth would leave its orbit, 
 wander from the planetary system, be deprived of the 
 heat and light of the sun, and be rendered unfit for either 
 animal or vegetable life. 
 
 The next great point to be considered is of even more 
 importance than any that we have yet touched upon. If 
 the study of Nature in all its varied moods and manifes- 
 tations, proves that God's goodness extends in this world 
 to all that He has placed within it, and even to the world 
 itself which He governs and sustains, shall not the divine 
 goodness be extended to the soul of man through all eter-
 
 CHURCH METHOD OF SALVATION. 53 
 
 nity?' God may be continually employed in creating 
 new worlds and new systems ; but never, if the foregoing 
 arguments be sound, can He be employed in correcting 
 such mistakes as are implied in the Bible history of the 
 fall of man, and the Church doctrine of his consequent 
 damnation, if he do not believe the incredible. The laws 
 which He laid down at the beginning, for the preserva- 
 tion and government of the physical universe, must be 
 equally beneficent, wise and unchangeable, when applied 
 to our spiritual life, not alone in time, but in eternity. 
 Their application to tangible matter may be more appa- 
 rent ; but the spirit feels internal evidence that God's 
 goodness and care are ever shielding the immortal as well 
 as the mortal part of man. It would be past the compre- 
 hension of the wisest, if this were not the case, and incon- 
 sistent with God's character, as exhibited throughout the 
 universe, so far as man has been enabled to study it. It 
 would be irrational, to believe that God did not take 
 care at the creation, to ordain, establish, and put in opera- 
 tion to be transmitted unimpaired to all mankind 
 instincts, intuitions, inspirations, and whatever properties 
 may be essential to the soul's need in time and eternity, 
 equal at least to His care in provision made for the body ! 
 None will deny that the provision pertaining to man's 
 physical nature was as full and effectual at first, as now. 
 Yet those who uphold the doctrine of the fall of man, 
 and that of Christ's divinity and mission, must be held 
 to say that God omitted at the beginning to make pro- 
 vision for conducting the soul of man through time, with 
 sufficient definiteness to answer the purposes of His crea- 
 tion ; and that, upon afterthought suggested and necessi- 
 tated by man's unexpected perverseness, He had to make 
 further provision to meet the emergency.
 
 54 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 This idea of afterthought, though not palpable at first 
 view, is nevertheless inseparable from church teaching, 
 and no sophistry can rescue it from the charge of being 
 irreligious, absurd, and inconsistent with God's infinite 
 perfections. It pre-supposes that all mankind who lived 
 and died before the advent of Jesus, and all those who 
 have not heard or shall not hear of salvation through his 
 crucifixion, were and are without the benefit of that love 
 which it is claimed, was only vouchsafed to man through 
 his divinity. According to such a doctrine as this, if a 
 man lives a life of purity and charity and benevolence 
 in fine, just such a life as Jesus recommended in his early 
 teachings it will avail him nothing. He must have faith 
 in a dogma which reason cannot understand, and which 
 contradicts the idea of both God's wisdom and goodness. 
 To reconcile this belief with a belief in God's goodness, 
 it is claimed that, for those who have never heard or 
 never will hear of redemption through Christ, God has a 
 mode of salvation which the church fails to specify, but 
 which answers all practical purposes. If this be so, it is 
 difficult to see in what, as regards the soul of man, the 
 benefit of the new mode consists. It is impossible, as we 
 have shewn, for man not to have faith in the existence of 
 a Supreme Being, who is infinite in wisdom, infinite in 
 power, and infinite in goodness. True religion, therefore, 
 does not consist in dogmatic beliefs or superstitious theo- 
 ries. It consists in reverence and gratitude to the Divine 
 Being, and the proper discharge, by each one of us, of his 
 duty to himself, his fellow-man, and every creature with 
 which he may have relations, and whose condition may 
 be improved by his good offices and kindness. 
 
 This leads us to the consideration of what is called 
 moral evil. Of physical evil there is in reality none.
 
 GOD'S METHOD OF SALVATION. 55 
 
 That which is so called under the names of Labor, 
 Pain, and Death we have already disposed of. God, in 
 the creation of man, did not expect him to fulfill all his 
 duties, without running counter to many of the irrevoca- 
 ble and unchangeable laws to which he is amenable. This 
 is conclusively proved by the peculiar constitution of man, 
 which must have been his condition at the time of his 
 creation. He is gifted with such capacities as would have 
 been of no practical use to him unless to educate and 
 guard him against violating laws, the effect of which he 
 can better understand, and the importance of conforming 
 to which he can better realize, when once he has broken 
 them. This relates to the moral and spiritual, as well as 
 to the physical nature of man. Man's body suffers pain, 
 when he has violated the laws of bodily health ; his spirit 
 is degraded, when he has violated those which pertain to 
 the spirit ; and, if the violation be persisted in, the pun- 
 ishment will be repeated accordingly. These pains are 
 sent in mercy to man, for the purpose of bringing him 
 back to the path of law and duty, guiding him therein, 
 and admonishing him to be more careful in future. These 
 means of educating man, and of making God's care, justice, 
 and goodness available to him to the extent of his needs 
 short-sighted as he is were provided for at his creation. 
 This view, we are aware, is in all respects at variance 
 with the idea, that God created man sufficiently perfect to 
 keep all His laws unbroken, or that God expected him to 
 do so. 
 
 The existence of moral evil leads mankind the better 
 to understand and to practice moral good. Men, in the 
 aggregate, do vastly more good than evil ; and they 
 whose bad actions preponderate largely, or even moder- 
 ately, over their good ones, are comparatively very few.
 
 56 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS 
 
 Good deeds make but little noise in the world ; bad ones 
 a great deal. The life of a considerable majority of man- 
 kind is largely made up of the practice of small virtues. 
 Even so little a thing as a kind word, or a kind look, has 
 soothed the aching heart, and caused the eye of the sor- 
 rowing and disconsolate to glisten with hope and happi- 
 ness. These may seem trifles, when viewed separately ; 
 but when taken in the mass, they form a monument of 
 praise, just as mountains raise their heads to Heaven, 
 though composed of individual atoms of earth. Con- 
 spicuous virtues are no more acceptable to God than 
 humble ones, and the smallest act of obedience to law, is 
 as meritorious as the greatest. The widow's mite is as 
 acceptable as the rich man's offering, and has its equal 
 reward. Thankfulness and duty are the only roads to 
 happiness. All God's blessings and good gifts were pre- 
 pared and the conditions prescribed on which they were 
 attainable, from the first. Man should be thankful for 
 the abundance and excellence of these gifts ; and espe- 
 cially thankful that they are not capriciously distributed, 
 but are attainable upon the principle that like cause pro- 
 duces like effect. 
 
 And although those, which man in his short-sighted- 
 ness may deem the most precious blessings, do not fall 
 profusely on every individual, yet, if we take men collec- 
 tively they will be found to be as much in accordance 
 with their welfare as is consistent with their future des- 
 tiny. Every man, whether he be rich or poor whatever 
 his joys, whatever his sufferings is as happy as is well 
 for him under existing circumstances. What may seem 
 to be a man's partial loss in one way, may be more 
 than compensated for in another manner. This fact is 
 constantly exemplified. The possessor of wealth and
 
 PRAYER. 57 
 
 indulger in luxury sometimes injures his health, impairs 
 his faculty for sound sleep, and disturbs the serenity of 
 his mind, by over-indulgence ; while a poor man, who 
 leads an active life and avoids excess, is rewarded by the 
 priceless blessing of health of body and mind, which all 
 the gold in the world could not purchase. In this, God's 
 goodness and justice are most conspicuously apparent. 
 
 We now approach the apparently difficult, but in reality 
 the simple, subject of prayer, as offered by individuals 
 and by the churches. We have already said that God's 
 good gifts are only to be obtained on the terms prescribed 
 at the creation terms which are never modified or altered, 
 to suit the pleasure or supposed necessity of any one indi- 
 vidual or of all mankind combined. Even if the whole 
 human family should, at the same instant, pray most 
 devoutly for the slightest change in God's original ordi- 
 nances or purposes toward mankind, none could take 
 place. The rain cannot be made to fall, because man 
 prays for it. The pestilence cannot be removed by sup- 
 plication to God ; but by conformity to those physical 
 laws, the breach of which produced the pestilence. This 
 view is admirably illustrated and argued out by Mr. 
 Buckle in his History of Civilization in England, from 
 which we make a long, but very interesting extract. 
 
 "In the year 1853, the cholera, after having committed 
 serious ravages in many parts of Europe, visited Scotland. 
 There, it was sure to find numerous victims among a 
 badly fed, badly housed, and not over-cleanly people. 
 For, if there is one thing better established than another 
 respecting this disease, it is that it invariably attacks, 
 with the greatest effect, those classes who, from poverty 
 or from sloth, are imperfectly nourished, neglect their
 
 58 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 persons, and live in dirty, ill-drained, or ill-ventilated 
 dwellings. In Scotland, such classes are very numerous. 
 In Scotland, therefore, the cholera must needs be very 
 fatal. * * * * Under these circumstances, it must have 
 been, evident, not merely to men of science, but to all 
 men of plain, sound understanding, who would apply 
 their minds to the matter without prejudice, that the 
 Scotch had only one way of successfully grappling with 
 their terrible enemy, It behooved them to feed their poor, 
 to cleanse their cesspools, and to ventilate their houses. 
 If they had done this, and done it quickly, thousands of 
 lives would have been spared. But they neglected it, 
 and the country was thrown into mourning. Nay, they 
 not only neglected it, but, moved by the dire superstition 
 which sits like an incubus upon them, they adopted a 
 course which, if it had been carried into full operation, 
 would have aggravated the calamity to a frightful extent. 
 It is well known that, whenever an epidemic is raging, 
 physical exhaustion, and mental depression make the 
 human frame more liable to it, and are therefore espe- 
 cially to be guarded against. But, though this is a mat- 
 ter of common notoriety, the Scotch clergy, backed, sad 
 to say, by the general voice of the Scotch people, wished 
 the public authorities to take a step which was certain 
 to cause physical exhaustion, and to encourage mental 
 depression. In the name of religion, whose offices they 
 thus abused and perverted to the detriment of man, 
 instead of employing them for his benefit, they insisted 
 on the propriety of ordering a national fast, which in so 
 superstitious a country was sure to be rigidly kept, and, 
 being rigidly kept, was equally sure to enfeeble thousands 
 of delicate persons, and before twenty-four hours were 
 passed prepare them to receive that deadly poison which
 
 FASTING INJURIOUS. 59 
 
 was already lurking around them, and which hitherto 
 they had just strength enough to resist. The public fast 
 was also to be accompanied by a public humiliation, in 
 order that nothing might be wanting to appeal to the 
 inirid and fill it with terror. * * * * 
 
 "This was the scheme projected by the Scotch clergy; 
 and they were determined to put it into execution. To 
 give greater effect to it, they called upon England to help 
 them, and, in the autumn of 1853, the Presbytery of 
 Edinburgh caused their Moderator to address a letter, 
 ostensibly to the English minister, but in reality to the 
 English nation, enquiring whether the Queen contem- 
 plated appointing a national fast-day. 
 
 " The letter, which, through the medium of the press, 
 was sure to become well known and to be widely read, 
 was evidently intended to act on public opinion in Eng- 
 land. It was, in fact, a covert reproach on the English 
 government for having neglected its spiritual duties, and 
 for not having perceived that fasting was the most 
 effectual way of stopping an epidemic. In Scotland 
 generally, it received great praise, and was regarded as a 
 dignified rebuke addressed to the irreligious habits of the 
 English people, who, seeing the cholera at their doors, 
 merely occupied themselves with sanitary measures, arid 
 carnal devices to improve the public health, showing 
 thereby that they trusted too much to the arms of the 
 flesh. In England, on the other hand, this manifesto of 
 the Scotch Church was met with almost universal ridicule, 
 and indeed found no favorers, except among the most 
 ignorant and credulous part of the nation. The minister, 
 to whom it was addresed, was Lord Palmerston, a man of 
 vast experience, and perhaps better acquainted with public 
 opinion thair any politician of hjs time. He, being well
 
 60 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 aware that notions which the Scotch deemed religious the 
 English deemed fanatical, * * * * directed a letter to be 
 sent to the Presbytery of Edinburgh, which, unless I am 
 greatly mistaken, will in future ages be quoted as an 
 interesting document for illustrating the history of the 
 progress of public opinion. A century ago, any states- 
 man who had written such a letter would h.ave been 
 driven from office by a storm of general indignation. 
 Two centuries ago, the consequences to him would have 
 been still more disastrous, and would indeed have ruined 
 him socially, as well as politically. For, in it he sets at 
 defiance those superstitious fancies respecting the origin 
 of disease, which were once universally cherished as an 
 essential part of every religious creed. Traditions, the 
 memory of which is preserved in the theological literature 
 of all Pagan countries, of all Catholic countries, and of all 
 Protestant countries, are quietly put aside, as if they 
 were matters of no moment, and as if it were not worth 
 while to discuss them. The Scotch clergy, occupying the 
 old ground on which the members of their profession 
 had always been accustomed to stand, took for granted 
 that the cholera was the result of divine anger, and 
 was intended to chastise our sins. In the reply which 
 they now received from the English Government, a doc- 
 trine was enunciated, which to Englishmen seems right 
 enough, but which to Scotchmen sounded very profane. 
 The Presbytery were informed, that the affairs of this 
 world are regulated by natural laws, on the observance 
 or neglect of which the weal or woe of mankind depends. 
 One of those laws connects disease with the exhala- 
 tions of bodies ; and it is by virtue of this law that 
 contagion spreads, either in crowded cities, or in places 
 where vegetable decomposition is going on. Man, by
 
 GOD'S LAWS ALL-SUFFICIENT. 61 
 
 exerting himself, can disperse or neutralize these noxious 
 influences. The appearance of the cholera proves that 
 he has not exerted himself. The towns have not been 
 purified ; hence the root of the evil. The Home Sec- 
 retary, therefore, advised the Presbytery of Edinburgh, 
 that it was better to cleanse than to fast. He thought 
 that the plague being upon them, activity was preferable 
 to humiliation. It was now autumn, and before the hot 
 weather would return a considerable period must elapse. 
 That period should be employed in destroying the causes 
 of disease, by improving the abodes of the poor. If this 
 were done, all would go well. Otherwise, pestilence 
 would be sure to revisit them ' in spite ' I quote the 
 words of the English minister ' in spite of all the prayers 
 and fastings of a united, but inactive nation.' 
 
 " This correspondence between the Scotch clergy and 
 the English statesman is not to be regarded as a mere 
 passing episode, of light or temporary interest. On the 
 contrary, it represents that terrible struggle between the- 
 ology and science, which, having begun in the persecu- 
 tion of science and in the martyrdom of scientific men, 
 has, in these later days, taken a happier turn, and is now 
 manifestly destroying that old theological spirit which has 
 brought so much misery and ruin upon the world." 
 
 If God is perfect in knowledge, any attempt of priest- 
 craft to dictate to Him, by means of prayer, what He 
 should do, is pitiable ignorance or gross blasphemy. Jesus 
 himself, says, "Your Father knoweth what things ye 
 have need of before ye ask Him." God's laws are all- 
 sufficient ; and man's only business is to understand and 
 obey them. To pray publicly or privately, may soothe 
 the spirit of man, and raise him to a state of mental 
 excitement and exaltation ; but it can have no effect on
 
 62 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 God's will. It may be asked how God's goodness is to 
 benefit man, if he is to be subjected, and amenable to 
 inflexible laws, which no prayer can mitigate or turn 
 aside. The answer is easy. God organized and incorpo- 
 rated in man's system or nature, from the first, such 
 qualities, faculties, and functions, as were necessary to fit 
 him for being the medium and dispenser of God's blessings 
 to himself and to his fellows. God placed within him con- 
 science "the voice of God" the innate sense of right 
 and wrong. He gave him also his reason and reflective 
 faculties, together with instincts and intuitions, all of 
 which point and lead to a belief in the immortality of the 
 soul. All these, and others of a similar character, enable 
 him to thread his way among the unchangeable and eter- 
 nal laws of God, with a success which answers God's pur- 
 pose in relation to his existence here and hereafter, and 
 ought to secure thankfulness from him for the glorious 
 bestowal of such a boon. He has been endowed, too, 
 with such faculties as enable him, if he will, to under- 
 stand the rationale of God's laws, whenever he studies 
 them, and to recognize the harmony with which they all 
 co-operate to work out a divine purpose. All animate 
 and inanimate beings and things, it would seem, are 
 allowed a certain free-will, and vacillate between two 
 restraining laws which keep them within their proper 
 bounds. The planets are prevented from getting too near 
 the sun by centrifugal force, and from getting too far from 
 him by that other restraining force called centripetal. 
 These laws balance each other, and maintain and support 
 the equilibrium of the universe. 
 
 The intellect of man is able to appreciate the utility of 
 this, and of all God's laws. Hence it is clear that God 
 has so constituted man, that, to a certain extent, he has
 
 NONE DESTINED TO ENDLESS MISERY. 63 
 
 the means of interpreting aright God's ways here upon 
 earth. Thus is he allowed to enter into fellowship with 
 his divine Maker, and enabled to argue from the things 
 of time to those of eternity. Let him do this, and he 
 will find abundant reason for the consolatory belief that 
 not one human creature will be permitted to stray so far 
 from the path of duty, as to bring upon himself utter and 
 endless misery. He cannot help but have faith that God 
 has made laws to restrain, and which ever will restrain 
 humanity, as the planets and other heavenly bodies 
 are restrained within their prescribed bounds. Thus 
 instructed, he cannot ignore the impressions which he has 
 received from the unmistakable manifestations of God's 
 goodness toward him, or give his faith to a pretended rev- 
 elation of God's character that consigns him to everlasting 
 torment if he do not accept a faith inconsistent with 
 itself. Why should God enable man to see and feel His 
 goodness in this world of time, if He had no such good- 
 ness in store for him in the world of eternity? In this 
 mortal state man has been so constituted, and his agency 
 or control over his own acts has been so limited, that not- 
 withstanding his lack of sufficient knowledge to enable 
 him to conform to all the laws to which he is amenable 
 he is not permitted to depart so far from the right path, 
 as to make it impossible for him eventually to attain the 
 high state of bliss designed for him. He may bring upon 
 himself penalties that may injure or kill his body ; but he 
 cannot forfeit his soul to everlasting misery. God has 
 loved man too well, to put it in his power to do this ; and 
 too well not to put it in his power to work out for him- 
 self a higher degree of happiness in eternity than he can 
 in this world, or than his limited faculties can conceive. 
 All this may be fairly deduced from God's manifestations
 
 64 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 of goodness throughout all Nature, and the faith He has 
 implanted in man's reason, conscience, and instinct, that 
 his existence shall be not a curse, or even a blank but 
 a transcendent blessing. 
 
 God's knowledge in relation to man is perfect. Man's 
 liability to err, and the bounds which are set thereto, and 
 the penalties which are attached to each breach of the 
 law, are alike of God's ordaining. Who then, remember- 
 ing these things, shall doubt that God has so adjusted one 
 to the other, as that the punishment on the other side of 
 the grave shall be, as here, for man's further education, 
 and for his best interests and happiness? By analogy 
 this should be so ; and it is fair to infer that it is so, since 
 the same God that has tempered and adjusted all things, 
 so as to make life happy here, shall be equally our God 
 the God of goodness and wisdom throughout all eter- 
 nity. 
 
 The human soul is so attuned to what the ancients 
 called " the music of the spheres," that all Nature draws 
 it to the contemplation of a higher existence. Every 
 living and every inanimate thing, and all the wondrous 
 phenomena of the visible universe, seem to whisper to 
 man to aspire and to be thankful. The moan of the wind, 
 the blustering of the storm, the falling of the rain, the 
 flash of the lightning, the rolling of the thunder, the 
 lowing of the herd, the hum of the bee, the song of the 
 bird, the fragrant loveliness of the flowers, the roar of the 
 sea upon the shore, the gloomy grandeur of the ocean, the 
 gurgling of the stream, the sigh of the forest leaves and 
 branches, the sublimity of the snow-covered mountain- 
 tops, the serene beauty of the morning and the evening f 
 the majesty of night, the harmony of truth, the trans- 
 cendent bliss when two souls are fused into one when
 
 MORAL EVIL. 65 
 
 one heart beats in two bosoms, when the same soul is 
 eloquent in mutual eyes love to children, love to parents, 
 the kind emotions and sympathies of the human family 
 one to another, and to other living things these multifari- 
 ous joys all preach the immutable truth, that God's 
 beneficence pervades the universe, and that all tends to 
 develop man's innate belief in His goodness, and prompts 
 to praise and worship Him. Praise is joy ; and the best 
 worship is the obedience which, in its turn, produces the 
 happiness of the worshipper. This is man's experience 
 in time ; and, if it be not destined to be his experience 
 throughout eternity, God's goodness would be finite, which 
 it is impossible to believe. 
 
 It has been urged by the preachers of Christianity and 
 of nearly all known systems of theology that, however 
 good God may be, He permits the existence of evil ; and 
 that man may prevail upon God by sacrifice and prayer, 
 to remove or lighten its load. Most modern sects have 
 discarded the idea of sacrifices for this purpose ; but all 
 insist, not only upon the efficacy, but upon the absolute 
 necessity of prayer. These phases of belief originate in 
 erroneous ideas of God's goodness. 
 
 Physical evil is but another name for pain ; and pain, 
 as has already been shewn, is in its purpose entirely 
 benevolent a warning that we have transgressed some 
 law imposed upon us for our good. Moral evil is, in like 
 manner, but another name for disobedience. If it were 
 impossible for man to disobey any physical or moral law 
 of God, he would be deprived, not alone of free-will, but 
 of the capacity for improvement and of mental growth. 
 He would be unable even to aspire to a better state of 
 existence, or to qualify himself to enter it. There would 
 be no propriety in his being placed in this world in a 
 5
 
 66 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 state of probation. There can be no probation, where 
 it is impossible to go wrong. It is sometimes asked, how 
 the injustice so often committed by man on man is to be 
 reconciled with the shield which God has thrown around 
 him, and all the inferior animals, for self-protection ? The 
 reply is, that so far as the corporeal part of man is con- 
 cerned, and so far as intellectual agencies operate in this 
 life, the protection is not perfect, else man's free agency 
 would have no office. The protection provided is efficient 
 only up to the boundary that circumscribes man's free 
 will. Within that boundary man can work out for him- 
 self a higher or lower degree of happiness, according as 
 he understands and conforms to God's laws ; and it may 
 be that the trials and vexations of this life will serve, by 
 contrast, to increase the joys and happiness of the next. 
 In fact, we can scarcely conceive what enjoyment would 
 be, if we had no idea of the reverse. . As regards the 
 liability of man to encroach upon the rights of others, it 
 must not be forgotten that God has given him various quali- 
 ties, propensities, and incentives to action, in order that 
 he may be used as an instrument, within certain limits, 
 for carrying out God's purposes. These are. in the first 
 place, that men shall contribute to the happiness and wel- 
 fare of each other by kind offices and social intercourse ; 
 and secondly, that every individual shall secure a greater 
 or less degree of happiness in this life and the life to 
 come, according as he deserves more or less by his obe- 
 dience. Now, while each individual may, in the exercise 
 of his free-will, perform his part more or less perfectly, 
 yet so strong in the right direction are the propensities 
 established within him as motives to his conduct, that 
 man, by the exercise of his free-will within its prescribed 
 limits, accomplishes God's purpose while in the pursuit of
 
 PRAYER THE EFFECT OF IGNORANCE. 67 
 
 his own happiness. This accounts for some of man's pro- 
 pensities being vastly stronger than others. Among the 
 things which man has 1 an agency in performing, and which 
 God will not permit to fail, are, the perpetuation of the 
 race of men, and the preparation of the soul of each man. 
 for the enjoyment of, at least some degree of happiness in 
 time, 'and a high degree of happiness in eternity. Hence 
 God has given man unusually strong propensities in rela- 
 tion to these two great duties of life. These press with 
 resistless force to the accomplishment of their objects ; and 
 it sometimes happens, in impetuous natures, that they over- 
 step their proper boundaries in these respects and run riot. 
 But it is better for a man to be over-selfish, than to fail 
 in the indulgence of these propensities to the extent of 
 neglect in taking due care of his life and happiness. Thus 
 the minor evil is consequent upon the ample means taken 
 to ensure the greater good. 
 
 Man, in his early ignorance, that pain was not of itself 
 an evil, bufra necessary part of the divine government of 
 the universe, was induced to pray to the Supreme Being 
 for its removal. The custom still prevails ; and it there- 
 fore becomes proper to enquire how it is that men should 
 continue to ask God to perform miracles or acts of special 
 providence in their favor, and sometimes on very frivolous 
 pretexts. Did any man ever have proof positive that 
 any prayer was answered? Events sometimes happen 
 seemingly at the instance of prayer ; but it is impossible 
 to be assured, beyond the possibility of mistake, that the 
 event in question would not have taken place, entirely 
 independent of any prayer. 
 
 In the infancy of the race, when mental and material 
 progress was naturally slow, the first idea of God, the 
 divine Father, was based upon that of the human father,
 
 68 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 who tenderly supplied the wants of the child even before 
 the wants were made known, and who always listened 
 with attention to the supplications of his offspring when 
 those supplications were for such blessings, benefits, or 
 necessities, as ought to be supplied. In the manhood of 
 the individual, these supplications cease; and each person 
 arriving at maturity learns, as his father did before him, 
 to depend upon his own exertions, in conformity with the 
 laws of Nature, and to provide himself, and those depen- 
 dent upon him with food, raiment, and shelter. In the 
 manhood of the race, the same results ensue though 
 they are not acknowledged and man practically per- 
 ceives, though he may not admit the fact theoretically, 
 that prayer to God for the supply of our wants is wholly 
 unnecessary, inasmuch as God has provided beforehand 
 for all things which pertain to man's happiness and enjoy- 
 ment, with a profusion and variety greater than most of 
 us can conceive. Man having outgrown his moral child- 
 hood should, therefore, be manly and mature enough in 
 his intellect, to understand and act upon the knowledge, 
 that God's favors and gifts can only be had by conform- 
 ing to the conditions prescribed for all that live. 
 
 It is not insisted that prayer to God, to raise us 
 miraculously from a bed of sickness, or to give us clearer 
 views of His will and pleasure that we may serve Him 
 the better, may not have some beneficial effect upon the 
 mind of him who prays, though the act be irrational.* In 
 the case of sickness, if the means of recovery by Nature's 
 appointed mode are properly applied, an unfounded faith 
 that God will specially interpose, may excite a livelier 
 hope of recovery, and thus indirectly be of benefit to the 
 sufferer, for the reason that hope is half the cure, and 
 tranquillity and buoyancy of spirit are healthful to the
 
 PRAYER FOR RECOVERY. 69 
 
 flesh. On the other hand there is danger that faith in 
 prayer as if that were the only panacea and specific 
 may lead to the systematic neglect of the true means of 
 recovery. The man who asks God to stimulate him to 
 worship and obedience by supernatural means, or who 
 asks Him for health, or wealth, or length of life, or any 
 other especial grace or favor, acts in effect as if God had 
 been unmindful of him, and had not provided for his 
 needs; and thereby, virtually, accuses his Maker of igno- 
 rance or neglect. It may be said, however, in defence of 
 this man's conduct, that his prayer, though unanswered, 
 is not without spiritual uses. Were a man in a floating 
 boat to pull at a rope attached to the shore, having all 
 the time perfect faith that he is pulling the shore to the 
 boat, instead of hauling the boat to the shore, it would 
 make no difference with him which was the result, so that 
 the boat and shore came together at last. So, while a 
 man prays God to come to him, he may be unwittingly 
 drawing himself to God, through God's originally 
 appointed or natural means, independent of prayer 
 while he imagines that God is coming to him by super- 
 natural means, that is, at the instance of prayer. In 
 this way man may conceive himself benefitted by the 
 usual mode of prayer, and thus fail to recognize the true 
 source of the benefit. But it is important to the highest 
 worship of God, that man should have full faith that God 
 originally provided for whatever is needful for him, so 
 that he may understand that if he fail to enjoy these 
 provisions on the terms primarily prescribed by God, it is 
 through his own mistake or neglect, and not God's as 
 man's irrational prayer would imply. 
 
 Prayer is not worship ; and the only worship that can 
 be acceptable to God consists in obedience to His divine
 
 70 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and beneficial laws, and in thankfulness and gratitude for 
 the gifts so lavishly showered upon us. 
 
 The religion, which the spiritual necessities of mankind 
 require, finds its only foundation in the teachings of God 
 to all men, and is aptly illustrated in the precepts and 
 pure teachings of Jesus when disencumbered of Judaism 
 and all the Mosaic mythology to wit, adoration of God, 
 and love and duty to man. This is the one true religion 
 established in the hearts, consciences, and souls of all 
 men from the beginning, which ever has been, and ever 
 will be sufficient to the end, that, through God's wisdom, 
 goodness and justice, the existence of each member of the 
 human family shall result in the glorification of the 
 Creator, and the happiness of His creatures be the 
 path travelled ever so tortuous or rough. 
 
 By the persistency with which Christian teachers of 
 all denominations and sects from the Pope down to the 
 elected minister of the poorest chapel or meeting-house 
 continue to dwell on the allegory of the fall of Man, and 
 the consequent supposed necessity of Christ's sacrifice, all 
 people of emancipated intellect are driven from the 
 churches in despair and weariness of spirit. The multi- 
 tude, like those who followed Jesus to the mountain, 
 hunger for the bread of life, and are presented with a 
 theological stone, in which there is no mental or spiritual 
 nutriment. God, according to the teachings of Moses, is 
 a God of anger and to be feared, who could not be propi- 
 tiated but with sacrifices and burnt offerings. God, 
 according to His own teachings, is a God of perfect good- 
 ness, who requires no sacrifice from His creatures; 
 nothing but faith and cheerful obedience to the benevo- 
 
 O 
 
 lent laws which He instituted for their* spiritual and 
 physical happiness. The God of Moses did not know,
 
 THE GOD OF MOSES. 71 
 
 and could not foresee, anything that was to happen in 
 His own creation. The God of all, is all-wise ; and to 
 His omniscience nothing is hidden, in the past, the 
 present, or the future. To reconcile these two systems, 
 or to engraft one upon the other, as all the Christian 
 churches have attempted to do, for more than eighteen 
 centuries, is impossible. They are antagonistic, discor- 
 dant, and irreconcilable. If one be true, the other must 
 be false. If a theory supposed to be true at one time, 
 ceased to be true at another, it can never have been true 
 at all ; for God's truths are eternal as Himself. The 
 doctrine taught by God from the beginning, and which 
 is ever being echoed and re-echoed in the souls of all 
 men that He is infinite in goodness as in all things, and 
 that man's highest duty is to cultivate the sublime germ, 
 of love to God and man within himself, so that its legiti- 
 mate fruits may be produced by contributing, as far as 
 it is consistent with his duty to himself, to the happiness, 
 and well-being of all God's creatures this doctrine, 
 this religion, this teaching, needs no support from Moses 
 or his theology. It is the only known religion that may 
 be safely stripped of all externals, and left in its beau- 
 tiful simplicity, to appeal to the heart and intellect of the 
 humblest, as well as of the most exalted of mankind. 
 The mischief is that this religion has been adulterated 
 with falsehoods, which, under the disguise of vital truths, 
 have, as Jesus said, not brought peace into the world, 
 but continual strife, and the sword, and theological dis- 
 sensions ; and probably these dissensions will never cease 
 until religion is thoroughly purged of all false theology. 
 All the Christian churches, following Moses and the 
 Old Testament, in one breath declare God to be a God of 
 Love to wnich all His works bear witness and in the
 
 72 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 next that He is wrathful, revengeful, and cruel ; that He 
 is a God who has determined to inflict, everlastingly, the 
 most horrible torture on every individual of the human 
 race, who shall in the course of his life commit a single 
 sin, or fail to observe the least of His laws. Further 
 than this, they declare that the human race merits this 
 punishment, even though personally, they commit no sin, 
 because Adam, the first man, sinned ; and that God's 
 love is shewn by His permitting Jesus himself God to 
 atone for Adam's transgression, though the benefits of 
 this atonement are not to be extended to any one who 
 does not have entire faith in its efficacy. This doctrine 
 is so utterly at variance with the never-ceasing logic of 
 Nature, and with the constant manifestations of God's 
 goodness and justice, that to escape the dilemma, they 
 who teach it, are led to resort to various subterfuges to 
 make the faith acceptable to those on whom they would 
 impose it. Out of these falsehoods and contradictions 
 have grown the never-ending disagreements, disputes, 
 and contentions of religious sects and their spiritual 
 instructors " blind leaders of the blind." It was these 
 very contradictions and dissensions that brought about, 
 not only, the crucifixion of Jesus, but all the wars that 
 have been waged in the world for opinion's sake in rela- 
 tion to theological matters, since the days of Moses and 
 the Prophets. Jesus said that he came not to send peace, 
 but a sword. And it has been calculated that the wars 
 which have been waged on account of the differences of 
 opinion in or on doctrinal points have cost the lives of 
 above two millions of people. Those engaged in, to 
 establish Christianity, and those persevered in, against 
 the Turks concerning the Holy Land, have t cost many 
 millions more. The wars of Charlemagne to christianize
 
 PRIESTCRAFT. 73 
 
 the Saxons, and of the Spaniards to convert the Moors 
 and Americans, have deluged the earth with innocent 
 blood. And the Inquisition alone, since its foundation in 
 the fourteenth century, has burnt above one hundred 
 thousand persons of both sexes, besides destroying twice 
 that number by torture and the dungeon. To this point 
 we shall have occasion to refer hereafter. 
 
 It may be asked, whether what the Christian churches 
 preach and claim to be indispensable to man's salvation 
 is altogether wrong. This is not asserted. No teaching 
 addressed, to man's religious nature can be entirely in 
 error, which obtains such an ascendency over the minds of 
 men. It has much truth, but a great deal of error; and 
 what it has of truth is mixed up with error, in such a way 
 as to render it extremely difficult for the mass of man- 
 kind to separate the one from the other. Priestcraft is 
 fully aware of the value of theological fable, as a means 
 of strengthening and consolidating its power over human 
 affairs; and, lest the simple truths of Nature which all 
 may study, should have their legitimate effect in assign- 
 ing to the every-day duties of life their legitimate import- 
 ance in making up the sum of man's religious duty, the 
 Christian churches all insist that, if man's thankfulness to 
 the one God be ever so great, and all the duties of life be 
 ever so well performed, yet if faith in the necessity and 
 efficacy of Christ's atonement for sin be lacking, he must 
 suffer everlasting torment in hell-fire. Each sect claims 
 to be the exclusive exponent of the means appointed by 
 God to enable man to escape from this torment. Out of, 
 and by means of this vast fraud and shameless inroad 
 upon men's credulity, priests and governments that sup- 
 port them have filched from the toiling people millions of
 
 74 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 treasure, to support them in the exercise of their trade or 
 profession. , 
 
 The idea of Hell, hell-fire, and eternal torment, when 
 properly considered, is an idea that is alike blasphemous 
 and illogical. Not so with the idea of eternal progress 
 toward infinite knowledge and happiness, which is a 
 natural deduction from our earthly experience. 
 
 It is manifest from the nature of man, that if he could, 
 in advance, read the future with certainty, it would unfit 
 him for the affairs of this life and, by inference, for the 
 part assigned him in the next. It is illogical to insist 
 that God, in giving man his various faculties, did not 
 intend that he should use those faculties to the best 
 advantage, in all things pertaining to his duty, his happi- 
 ness, and his welfare, both in relation to this life and the 
 life to come. It is insisted, however, by the priesthood, 
 that man must ignore his common sense and reasoning 
 faculties, when he comes to deal with the affairs of the 
 future life. The maintenance of this requirement can 
 only be accounted for upon the idea, that the churches 
 well know that, if man were to use all his faculties for the 
 acquisition of knowledge and the ascertainment of truth 
 in relation to his duty to his Maker, the hold which they 
 have on the purses of the people would be weakened, or 
 perhaps entirely lost. The only religion which has exer- 
 cised its influence over the minds and conduct of men, 
 from first to last whether recognized or not is that 
 here advocated; and it will continue to exercise that 
 influence, notwithstanding all the false teachings and 
 adverse influences that have been, or may be brought to 
 bear against it. 
 
 A ship is swept along by the Gulf Stream, on the way 
 to its destination, although those on board may not be
 
 INFLUENCE OF THE TRUE RELIGION. 75 
 
 aware of the causes that are impelling it onward. They 
 might indeed, from a want of knowledge on the subject, 
 ascribe their onward course towards the wished-for haven 
 to a cause totally different from the true one even to a 
 cause that was in reality retarding them, as theology 
 retards religion. And more especially might this be the 
 case with a portion of the voyagers, if there were others 
 on board who from selfish motives were using means to 
 deceive their fellow travellers as to the true source of 
 their progress. In the same way, are not mankind car- 
 ried onward by the vast stream of influences set in 
 motion by God, from the first, upon which all the human 
 family have been or will be embarked ? This tide, bear- 
 ing man to the final home which God has prepared for 
 him, no human power can stay. Man may, from short- 
 sightedness, or false teaching, or both, be unmindful, or 
 even unconscious of the true channel through which God's 
 blessings are continually conferred upon him ; yet they 
 flow on incessantly. God makes ample allowance for 
 man's want of knowledge, and is patient and forbearing, 
 ever educating him to broader truths, and leading him to 
 a higher state. He has made sure too, that under the 
 influence of Nature's teachings he will at last come 
 within the fold prepared for him, and be enabled to 
 appreciate aright the justice and wisdom of his great 
 Benefactor. And He has further made sure that the true 
 light, deep down in man's soul, and the faith and hope 
 based upon the idea of one God, the Great First Cause of 
 all,, shall never be extinguished. Not all the false teach- 
 ings or injurious influences of human power that were 
 ever put in motion shall disturb this firm foundation. It 
 is a germ of truth in the soul of man, which will most 
 surely bring forth its legitimate fruits in God's own good
 
 76 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 time. It is nurtured and watered by Him, and it will 
 enable man more and more to understand and appreciate 
 His goodness, and advance nearer and nearer toward His 
 perfections. The germ, in the seed of the fig tree, the 
 vine, and every other plant and herb, is especially cared 
 for by God, to the end that its vitality shall be preserved. 
 In process of time, under the influences with which God 
 has surrounded it, it is quickened and springs up into life. 
 It is fostered and cherished by God, through Nature, and 
 it flourishes and seemingly rejoices in the sunlight and 
 the balmy air, ever pushing forward with increasing 
 energy to the fulfilment of its destined office in the world. 
 No human power can thwart God's purpose in this. He 
 has willed and His will is law that the earth shall 
 bring forth trees, shrubs, herbs, plants, flowers, and fruit, 
 in order that this Eden in which He has placed man, 
 may be filled with beauty for his sight and with abun- 
 dance for his taste. But in this, as in other things, His 
 bounty comes not single-handed. Through the same pro- 
 cess by which He administers to man's sense of the sub- 
 lime and beautiful, He supplies the physical necessities of 
 all His creatures. Now, if He has so protected the germ 
 in the mustard seed, and trained it with certainty to fulfil 
 His design, shall He do less for man ? Yet, according to 
 the teaching of the Churches, we are asked to believe 
 that of all the things created by God man was left in 
 the most precarious condition, placed in the greatest jeop- 
 ardy, least likely to fulfil the intentions of his Maker, 
 and condemned, for no fault of his own. to be eternally 
 punished with torments too horrible to comprehend. 
 How utterly inconsistent, and at variance with all the 
 dispensations of God's providence, which man meets at 
 every turn in his life and experience, is this idea ! God's
 
 GOD'S CARE FOR MAN. 77 
 
 goodness and tender care of man are manifest in thou- 
 sands of ways ; and the mildness of the punishment for 
 a breach of His laws, and the evidently benign intention 
 of such punishment, declare most emphatically that God, 
 represented in any other light than as infinite goodness, 
 is not the God who reveals Himself to the heart, the con- 
 science, and the intellect of all men, at all times. 
 
 So far as man's career is traced which is no further 
 than the grave no discoverable advantage accrues to 
 those who assent to the doctrine of the fall of man through 
 Adam, and his restoration through Christ ; and no discov- 
 erable disadvantage befalls those who have not arrived at 
 such a belief. Those who belong to the latter class, and 
 who make up the great majority or more than three- 
 fourths of the human race, are as good citizens, as good 
 husbands, as good wives, as good parents, as good chil- 
 dren, as good neighbors, and are equally as cheerful, 
 equally as happy, and equally as honest as the small 
 remnant who believe, or who pretend to believe, in the 
 fall of man through Adam. The Christian proclaims 
 that all who do not embrace the dogmas, on which the 
 Churches are built, are under the condemnation of God, 
 and are not allowed to participate in the benefits of His 
 goodness, in the world to come. Now, since there is no 
 apparent difference in the distribution of such benefits in 
 this world, it is fair to infer there is none in the other. 
 But since we cannot trace man thither, except by logical 
 induction, which is not subject to positive confirmation, 
 the Churches make the most of man's ignorance in this 
 respect an ignorance no greater than their own and 
 promise him transcendent benefits in eternity as the 
 reward of his faith, and for his support of the Churches.
 
 78 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Man, by nature and for wise purposes, has a predisposi- 
 tion to credulity. He loves the marvellous and the mys- 
 terious. From this phase of his character proceeds the 
 wonderful influence which the false doctrine of super- 
 natural revelation has so long maintained over the human 
 mind, through the incomprehensible mysteries contained 
 in the Bible, based upon prophecy and miracles. The less 
 man's reasoning faculties are developed, the greater is the 
 attraction which the marvellous and miraculous have for 
 him ; and the readier is the credence he gives to them. 
 Hence it is the least enlightened of our race, both in this 
 and every other age of the world, who are the most liable 
 to be led astray by tales of sorcery, witchcraft, and ghosts. 
 And have not witchcraft and supernatural appearances of 
 departed spirits as great a claim on our credulity, as the 
 miracles of the Bible ? The existing generation of men 
 has advanced toward mental manhood, so far as to discard 
 many of the superstitious- fictions of the incipient stage 
 of the human race ; and would emancipate itself still 
 more rapidly and completely than it is doing, but for the 
 struggle made against it by the Churches. And they are 
 now the only obstacle to man's entire deliverance from 
 such a thraldom. Seeing, however, how much their influ- 
 ence, and their gain are endangered by the spread of 
 learning and intelligence, they are the more tenacious 
 and persistent in their efforts to uphold, and to root more 
 deeply still into the minds of the people, a superstitious 
 belief in the mysteries of the Bible. But this once mighty 
 influence is on the wane. The light of irrefutable truth 
 has dawned upon the mental vision of all the civilized 
 nations upon earth ; and the darkness of theological error 
 will soon be forever dispersed. Let the Churches, if 
 they be wise, look to this matter in time. The true
 
 MAN'S INTELLECT EXPANDING. 79 
 
 and lasting interest of the clergy lies in conforming with- 
 out delay to the imperative intellectual demands of the 
 age. Unadulterated truth must be taught from the 
 pulpit if anything at all. The people will not, much 
 longer, continue to listen to doctrines and dogmas, for the 
 belief of which there exists in man not one single innate 
 faculty commending them either to the judgment or to the 
 heart ; but which, on the contrary, cause his whole nature 
 to revolt. 
 
 The Churches tell us that man cannot answer the just 
 demands of God, and that, therefore, by necessity, he 
 merits God's everlasting condemnation, and his own utter 
 destruction ; but the heart of man rejects the blasphemy, 
 and realizes that God knows exactly how much and what 
 allowances to make in behalf of man's short-sightedness. 
 Man is so far inferior to his Maker, that He will make 
 every allowance in calling man to account for his mis- 
 deeds. Indeed, God's justice demands that man's free 
 agency, to which He Himself has set limits, should not 
 be so far extended as that man's existence could possibly 
 become a curse to him, or anything else than a blessing, 
 either in time or in eternity. His manifest goodness in 
 this world, to us and to all the various forms of animated 
 life, is so self-evident, that all who honestly investigate 
 the blessings and beauties of Nature, and correctly reason 
 upon them, must be convinced of it. As we mount from 
 Nature up to Nature's God, we find not only that " what- 
 ever is, is right," and must be right, but that whatever is, 
 is good, and must be good. Were it not for that which 
 we ignorantly designate as evil, good would not be known 
 to us, and would not be properly appreciated. So far as 
 we are imperfect beings, we are sure to make mistakes 
 and to suffer for them ; but the very correction must be
 
 80 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 seen to be beneficial to us ; because it teaches us not to 
 offend against God's laws again ; and in this way the 
 seeming evil is made instrumental in the training of man 
 to his best estate. The same kindness, therefore, which 
 is so eminently bestowed upon man in this world, will, we 
 infer, be continued to him in the next. This we are 
 bound to believe, because we know that God's goodness, 
 like himself is infinite, and cannot fail or be withdrawn 
 from any of His creatures unless we admit God to be of 
 changeable purposes, which we cannot do without denying 
 His wisdom and perfection. 
 
 The most obvious and natural idea of the happiness 
 reserved for man in eternity is, that it shall be a con- 
 tinuation and an augmentation of the purest and most 
 ennobling joys which he has experienced in time; that 
 his soul, perpetually thirsting for truth and knowledge, 
 shall be permitted to see and understand those great 
 mysteries of God, which have been partially concealed 
 from him on earth ; and that he shall forever approach 
 nearer and nearer to the divine perfections, to which 
 however he can never wholly attain ; and that every step 
 of his infinite progression shall be attended with loftier 
 delights than the constitution of his physical frame could 
 ever have permitted him to enjoy while on earth. God 
 hath endowed man with various qualities and capacities, 
 adapted to his present life ; and made each a ministering 
 angel to his happiness. Is not this an evidence that He 
 will endow him in the future life with higher qualities 
 and more enlarged capacities to comprehend, appreciate, 
 and enjoy God's wisdom, goodness and glory, in an ever- 
 advancing degree? The spirit of all men seems so to 
 whisper ; and God has given them faith, that the high 
 poetic reveries of the soul shall not be disappointed.
 
 ETERNAL HAPPINESS. 81 
 
 These are things which God, indeed, has not permitted us 
 to know ; but on the other hand He has not permitted us 
 to be without a lively hope that we shall at some time 
 enjoy them. There is no complete, positive, or mathe- 
 matical proof, that what we call the soul is immortal. 
 All that we can learn about it comes through our intui- 
 tions, our instincts, and an innate consciousness of it, cor- 
 roborated by the belief of all men, in all ages and in 
 all countries, that a glorious eternity of some sort lies 
 before us. If this be not the fact, as we fondly deem, 
 then God has given to every human being a delusive 
 faith in His kindness ; an abiding trust in His goodness, 
 never to be realized. This is inconceivable ; it is at total 
 variance with God's benign dispensations on our behalf 
 here ; and with the indubitable fact that it is impossible 
 to destroy the smallest atom of matter that was ever 
 created. Matter may be changed and transformed, but 
 it cannot be annihilated ; and if this eternity is the 
 appanage of the physical substances and elements of 
 which the universe is composed, shall it not also be the 
 appanage of the soul? We cannot believe otherwise. 
 We accept the proofs with as much faith and as thorough 
 a conviction as we have in accepting proofs of mathe- 
 matical science, though they are not based so entirely 
 upon mere reason, as upon something which we feel to be 
 superior to reason, and a more direct utterance of the 
 voice of God. This cannot be a vain imagining. The 
 unwritten poetry that whispers to us of a life beyond 
 the grave, pervades all Nature, and even comes to us 
 more audibly from the starry universe than from the 
 earth proclaims that Time, which is but the turning 
 of the small globe upon which we live, is not the 
 measure of that far-seeing soul and that ample intellect 
 6
 
 82 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 which, though imprisoned for a while within the flesh, 
 has so far transcended its carnal limits as to discover 
 stars and whole systems so deep in the infinitudes of 
 space, that the light projected by them, according to sci- 
 entific calculation, takes a time almost beyond man's 
 comprehension to travel from their place in creation to 
 ours. Such facts and such discoveries teach us that the 
 soul, which aspires so high, is justified in aspiring; that 
 it came from God t and must approach nearer to him for 
 ever. The line of that eternal progression is influenced, 
 in some degree, by the operation of causes within man's 
 own control. 
 
 Let those learned men, who are the chief dignitaries of 
 the churches, look to the intellectual development of our 
 times. They should be the allies, an$ not the foes, of 
 human intellect. To them all the truths of science should 
 be welcome, because they are divine. That true religion, 
 which exists in the heart as well as in the soul, needs no 
 fables to recommend it to our acceptance. The so-called 
 sacred Books, to which they still call upon us to yield a 
 slavish faith, should be acknowledged by them to be 
 without that sanctity which cannot attach to them, if 
 they be contradicted by Geology and by Astronomy, and 
 ~by every new discovery of natural and physical truths. 
 The stars alone are a perpetual reproof to the ignorant 
 mythologies, with which the clergy still endeavor to mis- 
 lead the people. Newton, Laplace, Leverrier, and Rosse, 
 were greater teachers of religion than any Pope or Bishop, 
 or other ecclesiastic, who ever lived or preached. If, 
 instead of theological and doctrinal discourses founded 
 upon historical errors and false ideas of God, the preachers 
 and teachers, accepting the great truths of science, would 
 preach God in all His works and religion in its purity,
 
 THE CLERGY SHALL ACCEPT TRUTH. 83 
 
 conformably to the intelligence of the age let the imme- 
 diate consequences be what they might their efforts 
 would prove beneficial in the highest degree. Jesus so 
 taught religion in the two commandments ; for which 
 teaching he was crucified. God is ever teaching it in its 
 fullness. The time is ripening for this development. 
 Uneasiness and doubt sit within the assemblies of all 
 mythological worshippers. It is not only the sheep, but 
 the shepherds, who see the approaching change, and 
 know it to be inevitable. 
 
 Great thoughts are heaving in the world's wide breast; 
 The time is heaving with a mighty birth ; 
 
 The old ideas fall : 
 
 Men wander up and down in wild unrest ; 
 A sense of change preparing for the Earth 
 Broods over all ! 
 
 But not to me oh, not io me appear 
 
 Perpetual glooms ; I see the heavenly ray ; 
 I feel the healthful motion of the sphere ; 
 I see the splendor of a brighter day. 
 Ever since infant Time began, 
 More or less darkness has been over man , 
 It rolls and shrivels up. It melts away 1 
 
 The intellectual culture of the many, who are yearning 
 for good, is more than a match for the learned priest-craft 
 that domineered over the too credulous of former ages. 
 The printing-press now speaks to the masses, and rescues 
 them from the thraldom of the oracles that spoke of old. 
 
 Theologians declare that, in order to make man conform 
 to God's will, he must have that will proclaimed to him 
 in special language either by speech or writing, and hence 
 infer the necessity for a Bible. Let us probe a little into 
 this assumed necessity.
 
 84 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 The most casual observer of animal life, if brought for 
 a moment to dwell seriously on the subject, could not fail 
 to acknowledge that God has a mode of instructing His 
 creatures, which amply suffices for their requirements and 
 His own glory. And if this be evident to the careless 
 looker-on, the closer student will find a thousand curious 
 proofs, alike in its fullness and its minuteness, that the 
 original instructor must have been divine. But the 
 routine of animal life being so far known and noted as to 
 
 o 
 
 acquire among us the distinctive appellation of " natural," 
 neither ordinary observer nor critical student dreams of 
 attributing supernatural causes to any part of it. We 
 speak of it as the course of Nature, the ordinance of the 
 Almighty ; and there let it rest. No one imagines that a 
 special revelation tells the migratory race of birds when, 
 and where the seasons are propitious for them, or that an 
 inspired messenger goes down to the depths to warn cer- 
 tain fish at certain periods that it were well for them to 
 change their waters. We call it all, in a general way, 
 "instinct;" while a few thinkers, perhaps, recognize in 
 this self-same instinct the marvellous power and resources 
 of God. 
 
 Now, we hold that instinct is implanted in man, no less 
 than in the brute creation. But the instincts which apply 
 to man's spiritual nature are of an essentially different 
 order. Animal instinct concerns itself only with life and 
 the means of living; and this being its sole end, it is 
 restricted thereto ; and the routine is limited, each after 
 its kind. 
 
 Instinct in man is, we say, of far higher quality. That 
 it is not confined to a mere making provision for the 
 flesh as is the case with animals is manifest from 
 the infinite variety of human pursuits and the constant
 
 MORAL INSTINCTS. 35 
 
 changes in human condition. That it reaches up to 
 something above and beyond this, to something intel- 
 lectual and spiritual, to some mysterious but existing link 
 between creature and Creator, is palpable, inasmuch as 
 the recognition of an over-ruling Providence has been 
 common among all races and in all ages whereof we have 
 knowledge. To put it in plainer terms : instinct in ani- 
 mals, becomes in man natural religion. And as instinct 
 is universal in the lower rank, so is natural religion uni- 
 versal in the higher. Is there not, then, a pitiful under- 
 rating of God's reach and ability, in the supposition that 
 He limited to a chosen few the task of teaching scattered 
 portions only of mankind their duty, and added super- 
 natural contrivances to his broad and efficacious means of 
 bringing men's souls into more and more sympathy with 
 himself? God has revealed himself, indeed ; but his 
 revelation is innate in man, and from the beginning. It 
 is instinct, that teaches bird and beast how to provide for 
 their physical wants. Instinct in man, pertaining to his 
 spiritual nature, points to his duty to God, to himself, and 
 to his fellow-creatures. Instinct or intuition, and educa- 
 tion under the wholesome restraints and training inci- 
 dent to God's unalterable laws together with the natural 
 attraction that causes man's spirit to gravitate in the direc- 
 tion of His Maker's cannot fail eventually to realize to 
 man all, and more than all his fond imaginings and hopes 
 as to the happiness that God has in store for him. 
 
 Nor has God allowed any human soul to be without 
 this dream of happiness beyond the grave, transcendently 
 greater than any that this life permits. We cannot con- 
 ceive it possible that He can disappoint, in the slightest 
 degree, any such broad foreshadowing .of his goodness 
 That God Las prompted man to lean upon him for solace,
 
 86 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 every human soul can testify. Who shall doubt the 
 realization of this hope, since the author of it is the 
 pilot to conduct to its consummation ? This spontaneous 
 * inborn faith in future happiness is broad-spread as the 
 human race, and is based upon the One God, the God 
 who knows no change, neither shadow of turning, and 
 whose far-reaching intelligence and omnipotent power 
 created and fashioned the universe. 
 
 We say, this faith, so founded, over-rides or takes pre- 
 cedence whether it be noted for the moment, or not of 
 all the so-called faiths supposed to rest upon the imagined 
 God of change and miracles. This faith may not always 
 be equally luminous, but it shall never fail in its office of 
 lighting and cheering our onward and still onward way 
 toward the perfection of Him who caused its existence. 
 All faith not springing from within, and not maintained 
 in man in the absence or in despite of artificial teaching, 
 lacks the stamp of genuineness that God ever imprints 
 upon what he has ordained. He has ordained that every 
 man shall, sooner or later, recognize and appreciate His 
 blessing. Nothing less is consistent with God's determi- 
 nate will and manifested perfection. 
 
 The religion here advocated is God's regularly ap- 
 pointed means of governing mankind. It is at once the 
 oldest and the newest in the world. It dates from the 
 first created man, and is recorded anew in each succeed- 
 ing child that is born into the world. , It is stamped 
 indelibly on every fibre of his nature, without alteration 
 or amendment is ever fresh and new, and adapted to 
 his every want. All men are guided and governed by 
 it. It is God's great light shining into, and reflected 
 from every soul of man. Whenever there is a soul to 
 receive, there is light to pervade it. Such is God's good-
 
 IT GUIDES US UNPERCEIVED. 87 
 
 ness and bounty. None can doubt the authorship of this 
 religion ; nor can any question the sufficiency of the sup- 
 ply of that which contributes to its exercise; or which 
 makes it available to all men, at all times. Those who 
 say that this light lures to evil and not to good to the 
 paths that run counter to God's design that man is at 
 enmity with God should remember that God is the 
 author of man's nature and propensities, and that there- 
 fore they undertake to censure, not merely man's opinions, 
 but the works and ways of God. 
 
 Amid the contentions and clamor caused by the various 
 antagonistic creeds, theologies, and dogmas, there are pro- 
 pounded for the mere faith of man each sect claiming 
 the monopoly of the road to bliss man is being so 
 quietly conducted along the true path to his welfare and 
 happiness, by a religion which admits of no antagonism 
 by laws that cannot clash, but which co-operate har- 
 moniously, and move on majestically and silently to the 
 accomplishment of God's purposes that the means by 
 which the result is reached are unobserved. Such is the 
 case in relation to the motion of the earth, of which we 
 all partake ; and yet we perceive it not, except through 
 its results. It produces the various seasons, day and 
 night, seed-time and harvest, summer and winter ; and 
 by it the panorama of the heavens passes in succession 
 before the delighted gaze of the whole human family. 
 All alike enjoy these sights and blessings, whether they 
 are aware that the immediate cause of them is due to the 
 motions of the earth, or not. 
 
 Some may not recognize the law that guides them; 
 and, io this extent, their knowledge being more limited, 
 their enjoyment may not be as full as that of others. 
 But when applied to spiritual things, this is but a matter
 
 88 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 of time; every human soul will, sooner or later, arrive at 
 such a knowledge and experience of God's goodness, wis- 
 dom, and glory, as to induce all to thank and praise and 
 worship Him with all their hearts and powers. Our 
 capacity for happiness will increase, with our training and 
 education ; and as all must pass under God, through the 
 same process of training, all must at last arrive at the 
 same appreciation of His goodness and glory some, it 
 may be, by a more tortuous course, and by the experience 
 of greater trials and afflictions ; but none the less effec- 
 tually to the accomplishment of God's design. What we 
 mean is, that God's mode of training can never fail to 
 accomplish the end He has in view. It must prove 
 effectual. All will experience the same results, by having 
 been made obedient to the same laws. The same causes, 
 which operate upon all alike, will produce the same effects 
 in all ; else God would not be that impartial Being that 
 we conceive Him to be, which is impossible. When a 
 human soul is brought into existence, it is brought into 
 existence for eternity, and however little progress it may 
 make in the right direction during its sojourn on earth 
 whether it be taken hence in infancy or old age, or 
 whether it has advanced tardily or rapidly in this state 
 of probation it matters not, this being, as we said, but 
 a matter of time. God has ensured that it cannot fail in 
 being brought to know and worship Him according to His 
 good-will and pleasure, and to the attainment of supreme 
 bliss. And as to the mode whereby man is called upon, 
 while here, to exhibit his gratitude for the blessings and 
 bounties bestowed upon him by his maker, let us see 
 what sort of gratitude is the most acceptable to God. 
 
 Jesus, whom we admit to have been a very good 
 teacher of natural religion, and who will be taken by
 
 GOOD WORKS. 89 
 
 most readers as excellent authority in this respect, has 
 given us some advice through his teaching to the scribes 
 and Pharisees. When he was asked, "Why walk not thy 
 disciples according to the tradition of the elders, but eat 
 bread with unwashen hands?" his reply was : " Well hath 
 Esaias prophesied of you hypocrites, as it is written. 
 This people honoreth me with their lips, but their heart 
 is far from me. Howbeit, in vain do they worship me, 
 teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For 
 laying aside the commandments of God, ye Ijiold the tra- 
 dition of men, as the washing of pots and cups and 
 many other such like things ye do. Ye reject the com- 
 mandment of God that ye may keep your own tradition, 
 making the word of God of none effect through your tradi- 
 tion which ye have delivered ; and many such like things 
 do ye." 
 
 From this we should infer, that this mere lip-service 
 this religion of mere ceremonies is not only not the 
 worship which God requires, but that it is a hindrance 
 thereto. Forms and ceremonies may be well as mere 
 preliminaries or stepping stones to worship. They may 
 tend to quicken and train to good acts the germ in man's 
 soul whence all his goodness springs. But if they do not 
 exercise a beneficial influence on him in relation to the 
 right performance of the every-day duties of life if they 
 do not incite him to the actual achievement of good 
 deeds they are of no avail in the sight of God. Under 
 their influence the religious sentiments may expand ; but 
 if they be not productive of something more, they are not 
 in accordance with God's high purposes in relation to 
 man. Can man expect to be the recipient of God's boun- 
 ties without his doing the work which God has required 
 of him? Action is the order of nature, and an active
 
 90 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 life of good works the doing to others as we would be 
 done by, with a profound sense of dependence upon God 
 is the whole duty of man. The line between that which 
 is mere church-form, and that which is the substance of a 
 religious life, should be distinctly marked. Instead of 
 this the non-essentials are put in the foreground ; hence, 
 mini's religious instincts and common sense should turn 
 him from mere barren ceremonies to the legitimate field 
 of action. The worship dictated by nature alone meets 
 the spiritual wants of man. This is really the only com- 
 mon ground on which' all can stand harmoniously. It 
 has an inherent vitality and force, which will, under the 
 enlarging civilization and mental progress of the day, 
 drive superstition and priest-craft from the field, and dis- 
 perse the dark clouds which have so long and so gloomily 
 overshadowed the true light. 
 
 There exists in man an innate or spontaneous faith in 
 the eternal goodness and justice of the divine ruler a 
 conviction that man's best interest is forwarded by his 
 serving God according to His universal teachings. No 
 power on earth can obliterate these teachings, or mate- 
 rially retard their influence, however they may seem to 
 be smothered in some, by the mass of theological dogmas. 
 It still governs all men's actions, whether they acknow- 
 ledge it or not, or whether they are aware or not that it is 
 the sole controlling influence which is actuating them for 
 good, and restraining them from evil. The work of the 
 age upon which we have entered is not to found a reli- 
 gion God did that effectually at the first it is to expose 
 the errors which it has been attempted to be substituted 
 for true religion. Every year furnishes additional proof, 
 and carries conviction to increased numbers of the rising 
 generation, that the Bible is full of untruths. This, lire-
 
 TRUE BASIS OF RELIGION. 91 
 
 sistibly, leads to free and increased enquiry in relation to 
 all that is recorded therein. A new spirit is abroad. 
 Men no longer ignore their common sense, in judging of 
 the claims of the Bible to reliability. Under this mode 
 of scrutiny, conclusions and convictions adverse to Bible 
 record are accumulating year after year. Learning, scien- 
 tific research, and free thought are fast opening the eyes 
 of all classes to the imposition to which they have been 
 subjected by the teachings of a mere dogmatical faith. 
 Those who sav that the Bible must be taken in all its 
 
 tt 
 
 parts, as the only revealed word of God, say also, that 
 man's natural faculties are utterly corrupt, depraved, and 
 at enmity with God. If this be so if man's mind is so 
 wholly corrupt, and all hie conclusions in relation to reli- 
 gion are so wholly unreliable how can he comprehend 
 aright the doctrines of the Bible and the Churches, which 
 are not only at variance with all his intellectual faculties, 
 but are instinctively repulsive. How is this innate con- 
 viction of the fallacy of the Bible doctrines to be over- 
 come ? Any proofs offered to man's reason, or any> 
 appeals made to his conscience, are ineffectual, if the 
 faculties to which they are addressed are as vicious and 
 incapable of sound conclusions as they are represented to 
 be by the Church. 
 
 The Church doctrines carry with them their own refuta- 
 tion, if logically examined. If addressed for the first time 
 to a mature, well balanced, and cultivated mind, would 
 they not, at once, be rejected as unworthy of the slightest 
 credence? This is well understood; hence, the effort, 
 which is constantly being made, to imbue with them, the 
 minds of children, and of others equally unsuspecting and 
 pliable.
 
 92 . ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 If the natural consciousness of mankind is the true 
 basis of religion, and the hope of a blessed immortality, 
 then it has a foundation which defies criticism and 
 which is beyond all possible apprehension of ever being 
 disturbed. No higher foundation than God, the father of 
 all, is possible ; and no faith can be so satisfying and 
 thorough, as that which is the inevitable result of the 
 promptings of that innate consciousness which is most 
 assuredly of God. All faith, based on ideas or concep- 
 tions derived from traditions of the supernatural, is but as 
 chaff in comparison with that derived from the immediate 
 promptings of God to each individual. It is inconceivable 
 how it is possible to doubt this; or that the instruction, 
 which God has given to all alike*, is not the true guide to 
 faith and to the doing of His will by His creatures. In 
 fact, there is no faith or belief contrary to this, which has 
 sufficient substance in it to control any man materially or 
 to modify his conceptions of his religious duties. Hence 
 all the faiths, which men have founded on other than the 
 intuitions of the soul, go for nothing, and are impotent in 
 respect to the eventual happiness of the soul. They are 
 the result of education, of the instilling of error into the 
 minds of men from early childhood, and had their origin 
 in the greed for power and money. All views in relation 
 to religion derived from the Bible and other sources, and 
 which cannot be deduced from man's natural faculties 
 independent of the Bible, must of necessity be open to 
 the critical investigation of history. The closest, most 
 advanced, and the most learned, of this is the most fatal 
 to such doctrines. As an example of this, let the works 
 of the Bishop of Natal be consulted. He establishes most 
 conclusively, that the first six books of the Bible the 
 corner-stone of the whole canon were not written by
 
 EARLY HISTORY OF MAN. 93 
 
 their supposed author, and that they are iiot historically 
 true, much less divinely inspired and infallible. 
 
 Bishop Colenso's work can hardly be over-estimated 
 for importance, when we consider its inevitable, influence 
 on the opinions of the masses. Of course, the fact of his 
 established ability, his personal character, and his position 
 as a dignitary of the Church, has had considerable influ- 
 ence in adding to the immediate publicity of his work. 
 
 Religion founded on human consciousness brings into 
 requisition, an*d into harmonious union for its right under- 
 standing and practice, all the faculties and functions 
 of our nature; not so with the theology founded on the 
 Bible. A blind faith is there demanded in relation to 
 doctrines which neither the head, the heart, nor the con- 
 science can take any part in confirming. A conception 
 of God, formed through all the faculties and functions of 
 man acting in conjunction, presents Him as a being whom 
 to believe in is to adore, and whom to adore is to obey. 
 
 While all men ' have a love of the novel and the mar- 
 vellous, few men naturally give credence to the miraculous 
 and supernatural. The human mind, in virtue of a consti- 
 tutional bias, is prepared from the first to count on the 
 constancy of nature's sequences 'which experience ever 
 confirms. Similar causes always produce similar effects. 
 This is indispensable to the being led through experience 
 to any system of truth by which to guide our actions ; yet 
 those who under the teaching of the church from child- 
 hood, have given a tacit assent to doctrine of especial 
 enactments of God at the instance of prayer or other 
 cause, to provide for certain emergencies, have not even 
 in this our enlightened day, the moral courage to deny 
 altogether what they could not bring themselves to 
 believe that is to say, what did not appear to them to
 
 94 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 be in harmony with the dictates of reason, and the laws 
 of nature. In order to know what man is by nature and 
 apart from erroneous teaching, we ought to know what 
 lie has been under the various theological teachings that 
 have prevailed in different ages and in the several quar- 
 ters of the earth. The history of these distant ages and 
 distant men apparently so foreign to our modern inter- 
 ests assumes a new charm, so soon as we know that it 
 tells us the story of our own race, of our own family nay, 
 of our own selves. History gives us the thread which con- 
 nects the present with the past. Many scenes, it is true, 
 are lost beyond the hope of recovery; and the most inter- 
 esting of all, the opening scenes of the childhood of the 
 human race, are known to us by such small fragments 
 only, that they do but make every word the more wel- 
 come, that bears the impress of the early days of man- 
 kind. So far as we can trace back the footsteps of man, 
 even on the lowest strata of history, we see that the divine 
 gift of a sound and sober intellect, and all the kind and 
 gentle emotions belonged to him from the very first. 
 
 The human mind has an inborn reverence for the past, 
 that it may the better divine the future, to ferret out 
 which is the ruling passion of man, since the vast won- 
 drous ways of God lay before him, and God as a magnet 
 is ever drawing him thither. As man the more and more 
 obeys this divine incentive, he the more and more per- 
 ceives God's goodness, and discards former false views, 
 and discharges many myths because they are not in har- 
 mony with his purer conceptions of God, and therefore 
 must be false. 
 
 The mythic form of expression which prevailed in 
 earlier ages is giving way before comparative philology, 
 which has placed in our hands a telescope of such power,
 
 STUDY OF OTHER THEOLOGIES. 95 
 
 that the mist which the theologians would hold before our 
 eyes is too thin to prevent God's perfections appearing the 
 more and more to us. He is no longer a God of ven- 
 geance, but a God of infinite goodness. 
 
 Paul says, " Prove all things ; hold fast that which is 
 good." Many are the advantages to be derived from a 
 careful study of other theologies, creeds and faiths, than 
 our own ; but the greatest of all is, that it teaches us to 
 appreciate more truly what it is that constitutes true 
 religion. Let us see what other nations as well as our 
 
 o 
 
 own have had and still have in the place of religion ; let 
 us examine the prayers, the worship, the theology even 
 of the most highly civilized races, the Greeks, the 
 Romans, the Hindus, the Persians, and we shall then 
 understand more thoroughly what it is, that they all 
 agree upon as true, and what it is that they differ in, and 
 in this way be enabled to discriminate between the essen- 
 tial and the non-essential in the diversified things which 
 have been deemed worship at various times and in 
 various countries. 
 
 Those who would limit the riches of God's goodness, 
 and would hand over the largest portion of the human 
 race to inevitable perdition, without having made them- 
 selves acquainted with the religion of those they condemn, 
 do at the same time impute to God injustice, upon no 
 better evidence than theology originating in superstition 
 and priest-craft they use ignorance as evidence, as 
 though it were knowledge. It is true that until very 
 lately the sacred books of three of the most important 
 systems of faith, those of the Brahmans, the Buddhists, 
 and the Parsees, were totally unknown in Europe, but 
 this furnishes no valid excuse for those who consign all 
 who do not embrace their own theology to eternal tor-
 
 96 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 merit. The sincere and earnest seeker after truth (though 
 he may have a deference for the Christian theology) as he 
 becomes acquainted with the history and habits of the 
 various great nations into which mankind is divided, 
 cannot but ask himself the question whether if the 
 heathen, (as they are disparagingly termed) should judge 
 of us as the Christians judge of them by the worst phases 
 of human character, (and that exaggerated,) if we would 
 stand any better in their estimation than they do in the 
 estimation of the Christians. 
 
 If the Indians had formed their notions of the influ- 
 ence of Christianity on man from the soldiers of Cortez 
 and Pizarro, or if the Hindus had studied the principles 
 of Christian morality in the lives of Clive and Warren 
 Hastings, or, to take a less extreme case, if a Mohamme- 
 dan, or Buddhist living in Christian countries, were to 
 test the practical working of Christian charity by the 
 spirit displayed in the journals of our various religious 
 parties, their notions of Christianity would be about as 
 correct as the ideas which thousands of educated Christians 
 entertain of the character of the heathen religion. Even 
 Christianity has been depraved into Jesuitism and Mor- 
 monisrn, and if we claim the right to appeal to the gospel 
 as the only test by which our faith is to be judged, we 
 must gramt a similar privilege to Mohammedans and 
 Buddhists, and to all who possess a written, and, as they 
 believe, supernaturally revealed authority for the articles 
 of their faith. 
 
 We cannot comprehend how any one who worships God 
 in spirit and in truth, who holds that he is perfect in all 
 things, that his goodness knows no bounds, can subscribe 
 to the dogma that God determined from the first to elect 
 a chosen few, as the recipients of everlasting bliss, and
 
 INNATE PROMPTINGS OF THE HEART. 97 
 
 consigned much the largest portion of mankind to per- 
 petual torment, for no fault of their own, but at the 
 instance of an arbitrary will, the justice of which no man, 
 can comprehend. If the holding of such faith, if ascrib- 
 ing such character to God, is not sinning against Him, and 
 debasing ourselves, we cannot conceive what is. God is 
 a God of infinite goodness, not of vengeance ; to be 
 loved, not to be feared ; to be worshipped for love's sake, 
 not through fear of everlasting punishment. 
 
 How beautiful does this incentive to the worship of 
 God appear, in comparison with that which wrings assent 
 from us by the threat of torment ! And more particu- 
 larly when we take into consideration, that this threat of 
 torment involves only a faith coming to us from uncertain 
 authority, and repugnant alike to our innate perceptions 
 of love and duty. 
 
 To present so dark and hideous a picture of God and 
 of His mode of drawing men to Him, presupposes that 
 there is not enough in the picture that God presents of 
 Himself, to win man to love and worship Him. 
 
 The law implanted within the nature of man to regu- 
 late his physical system is expressed by the sensations, 
 propensities, promptings, appetites, tastes, and checks, 
 that God originally gave him, and that are indispensable 
 to the perpetuity of the human race. In like manner, 
 the soul of each individual must be guided, in its pursuit 
 after happiness and well-being, by similar laws, which 
 God has implanted within his moral nature ; namely, by 
 the innate, instinctive, irresistible promptings of the heart 
 and spirit, after what is good, and true, and just, and 
 kind, and lovely. Indeed, we all know by the necessity 
 of the case that man has a consciousness and conviction 
 within him that he possesses these perceptions and incen- 
 7
 
 98 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 lives, and that they are the infallible guides which God 
 has placed there for his instruction and warning. The 
 more faithful he is therefore to these instructions and 
 warnings, the more happy he will be just as the more 
 faithful he is to the rules regulating the health of his 
 body, the more sound will be his constitution, and the 
 freer he will be from disease. To love God is to love 
 His attributes ; and the germs of that love being within 
 us, all we have to do is to cultivate them, and to make 
 them active. To strive to imitate Him, or, rather, to 
 inculcate in our hearts a love of truth, justice, and good- 
 ness the prime traits of character in the Almighty is 
 the worship and homage that are most acceptable to Him. 
 But God is represented in the Bible, and by those who 
 adhere to its teachings, as being endowed with attributes, 
 purposes, and modes of action wholly inconsistent with 
 the existence of such laws and incentives, to the acquisi- 
 tion and cultivation of virtue in the heart of man. The 
 Bible is, moreover, utterly irreconcilable with itself. The 
 Old and New Testaments, particularly, are at variance 
 with each other, and on some of the most vital points. 
 God Himself is represented as a Being endowed with the 
 most opposite traits of character. In some places He is 
 said to be a God of infinite goodness, love, and justice ; 
 in others, a God of hatred, revenge, cruelty, and injustice. 
 He is represented as so unjust as to consign to everlasting 
 punishment all those who are not His favorites; or, who 
 will not, or cannot, believe in the very impracticable doc- 
 trine that Jesus must save them, and that in a way 
 which they cannot understand. And yet such incongrui- 
 ties are the very opposite to the doctrines of Jesus, whom 
 Christian theologians profess to rely upon, as the best arid 
 most infallible guide to man. For, with the exception of
 
 THE DEVIL. 99 
 
 some ideas which he entertained toward the latter part of 
 his career, to the effect that he was the Messiah, and that 
 he would come again at some future time to take posses- 
 sion of his kingdom, and reward his followers, and punish 
 his enemies by bidding them to depart forever from his 
 presence and province, which he denominated everlasting 
 punishment apart from this, we say, his religion was as 
 much in unison with that written on man's heart and 
 nature, as it could be. It was in perfect accordance with 
 that which has just been advocated, and which 'is innate 
 in man, and only needs to be developed by stimulation 
 and cultivation. It was a reflection of God's laws, ope- 
 rating in the hearts of men. Whatever of good there is 
 in man comes from this source and teaching, and from no 
 other. 
 
 Again, the idea of the existence of a devil, and of the 
 baneful influence ascribed to him over the minds, conduct 
 and happiness of man, is in direct contradiction to God's 
 infinite power, justice, and goodness. 
 
 If God created man with a free-will ; and in His good- 
 ness allowed him the exercise of his free-will by setting 
 before him things, all good in themselves, but by the use 
 or abuse of which he would experience good or evil 
 results ; and if in the exercise of his free agency man 
 sometimes chooses the evil this is but the result of his 
 short-sightedness, and the abuse of his free agency. It 
 furnishes no grounds for the idea of the existence of such 
 an evil spirit, as that which is said to run counter to the 
 nature of God, and to tempt man to sin against Him. 
 The idea of a Supreme Devil, or God of Evil, originated 
 with the Persiap, centuries before the Christian Theology 
 was ever thought of. Yet it is curious to notice, in pass- 
 ing, how differently the Church has treated the Persian
 
 100 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Div, and the Ore God, who is common to all faiths. Out 
 of the one true God, it has made a triform and triune 
 Deity, scarcely less fantastic than certain divinities wor- 
 shipped by Pagans ; while the Div, or Satan, is allowed to 
 maintain his potential unity, and figures in the Church's 
 cheerful programme for this- world, as going about like a 
 roaring lion seeking whom he may devour ; and in the 
 next, as executioner-in-chief to an extremely wrathful 
 judge. 
 
 Now it is against all reason to suppose, for a moment, 
 that there is such an evil principle so embodied, and 
 therefore Div cannot be admitted as a medium of tempta- 
 tion to man. When man errs, it is not the result of an 
 innate viciousness ; nor because he has anything placed 
 before him which contains properties that are evil in 
 themselves. It is because he is either ignorant of the 
 nature of those properties, or because being careless or 
 reckless in the exercise of his free agency, he indulges too 
 freely in their use. Education only in addition to his 
 innate perceptions, can regulate him in this matter. And 
 to this end God has ordained that, whenever man over- 
 steps the bounds of propriety, he shall suffer for it at 
 once ; or within such time that the punishment for delin- 
 quencies that are incident to man, while in the flesh, may 
 serve the purpose of correction and warning. In this 
 way, God's punishments, termed by the Church, " the 
 vengeance of the Almighty," are all applied in mercy. 
 There would be confusion and inconsistency and injustice 
 in the idea, that man is to be chastised in a future state 
 of existence for crimes committed in this, there can be 
 no temptation beyond the grave to corifcnit crimes that 
 specially appertain to this life ; and, therefore, such pun- 
 ishment would be retrospective and totally useless for
 
 PUNISHMENT NOT RETROSPECTIVE. 101 
 
 God's sole end of training and improvement. His is not 
 punishment deferred. Neither is punishment by His laws 
 appropriate after the offender has corrected himself. God's 
 punishment, we repeat, is for the correction of the fault 
 committed, with reference to future amendment. It is 
 not it would be absurd to say that it is eternal pun- 
 ishment for faults which God notes down, and that He 
 inflicts it in a revengeful spirit at some future time when 
 it may be presumed that even the memory of their com- 
 mittal has passed away. No, this is unworthy of infinite 
 goodness ; and we hold it to be entirely irrational. The 
 bare idea that God could for any offence, or for any cause 
 whatsoever, determine that any of His creatures should 
 be irrecoverably tormented, upsets at once the idea of the 
 whole nature and perfections of God, and makes Him 
 not what the Bible describes Him to be, in some places, 
 a God of love but what it describes Him. to be in other 
 places, "a consuming fire," a revengeful, hateful, and 
 malignant monster. How Christian people, who have 
 any appreciation of the goodness and beauty of His char- 
 acter, can so debase Him, we are at a loss to under- 
 stand. We can entertain no possible idea, in relation to 
 God, other than that of His perfection. Hence, as per- 
 fection embraces all goodness, justice, and order, and as 
 man's conception of these qualities is of God's creating, 
 it follows that man's ideas of good and evil which are 
 indissolubly associated with these qualities, are in the 
 main, in accordance with God's own teaching. 
 
 All the creeds and theologies of the Bible and the 
 Churches, which man's conscience rejects, and in which 
 all the faculties of his mind combined fail to recognize, 
 God's goodness, must, of necessity, be untrue. Shall 
 traditional authority alone reverse all this? God has
 
 102 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 decreed otherwise. Men deceive themselves, when they 
 give a formal or pretended adherence to such teachings. 
 They will not be of the slightest service to men, either 
 here or hereafter. Whenever such errors cease to be 
 instilled into the pliant minds of children, and others, 
 who are not accustomed to think for themselves, then will 
 they be consigned to oblivion their proper place. Then 
 will the religion, which is an integral part of man, and 
 which nature stimulates with never-failing effect, be left 
 unadulterated with such unseemly dross as the theologians 
 would heap upon it. 
 
 That happiness is the true and normal condition of life, 
 and misery the exception, is evidenced in a thousand 
 ways. All animated beings, whether rational or irra- 
 tional, seek it, intuitively. As a rule of almost universal 
 application, those who live the most joyful, buoyant, and 
 happy lives, live the longest. Pleasurable sensations 
 also, both mental and physical, not only attend all the 
 duties and functions of life, but the legitimate exercise of 
 every faculty affords its own peculiar pleasure ; pain may 
 sometimes result ; but this is the extraordinary, and not 
 the ordinary, rule. In the aggregate, the preponderance 
 is largely in favor of pleasure. Pleasure, resulting from 
 the performance of the duties of life, evidently springs 
 from a double source. First, it is a spontaneous emana- 
 tion from divine goodness, as a free-will gift to his crea- 
 tures ; and secondly, it is an incentive and guide to the 
 requirements of peace and self-preservation, and to the 
 practice of benevolence, love, friendship, and all other 
 kindly impulses. 
 
 The happiness that man realizes from conscious exist- 
 ence, may rationally be taken as a guarantee that it is his 
 normal condition ; and whatever God addresses to his
 
 HAPPINESS OF THIS LIFE. 103 
 
 reason is never in vain or without a beneficent object. 
 Man has implanted within him, by God, a religious 
 instinct or tendency to glorify him. To live an innocent 
 and joyous life is one mode of thanking God for existence. 
 The insects that sport in the sunshine, the lambs that 
 gambol in the fields, the birds that warble their merry or 
 plaintive songs in the trees, and the children in their 
 bright and gladsome spirits while at play, all thank God 
 for their existence, in His own appointed way. With 
 regard to these last, God has provided, through the laws 
 of nature, for their guidance and care in a more marked 
 manner ; and man, who has come to riper years and is 
 more under the control of reason, may well learn a lesson 
 from them. To inculcate the idea that a melancholy 
 spirit and a gloomy walk through life are more acceptable 
 to God than the cheerful heart which God is ever, in ten 
 thousand ways, exhilarating, is an impediment to true 
 religion. God intended that all His creatures should live 
 serene and happy lives. This is pre-eminently apparent 
 from the allurements so lavishly strewed in the path of 
 all, to win them back from gloom and sorrow to sunshine 
 and gladness. Cheerfulness begets cheerfulness ; pain is 
 exhaustive, tends to its own cessation. The action of the 
 organs, in the production of pleasure, is promotive of their 
 development and increased capacity. The same cannot 
 be said of pain ; therein the reverse is the rule. Pleasure 
 tends to its own augmentation and perpetuity. Pain 
 benumbs the nerves, and works its own diminution or 
 extinction. Pain gives warning of impending dangers 
 to life and happiness. Pleasure trains to religion and a 
 blissful eternity. Such is the voice of God within us, 
 and such is the voice of nature without us. But let it be 
 borne in mind that the happiness, here spoken of, is that
 
 104 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 which is consistent with virtue, when indulged in to a 
 rational or legitimate extent. Man may run into excess 
 in the pursuit of happiness, or he may indulge in vice and 
 dissipation, thinking happiness lies therein. In either 
 case, the result will be the reverse of what he expects, 
 for the choicest, blessings of life are only precious when 
 used in moderation. The vital and unextinguishable 
 sense of right and wrong, the love of good, and the 
 abhorrence of evil, which God has implanted in man's 
 nature, together with the system of perpetual training 
 through rewards and punishments which He has estab- 
 lished must, and will ultimately prevail, and -insure the 
 ascendancy and triumph of the good, the right, and the 
 true, against all adverse influences. Anv other idea than 
 
 O * 
 
 this is an imputation against the righteousness of God's 
 purpose, and the perfection of His work in creating man. 
 When man brings to bear all the faculties of his mind 
 reason as well as instinct with a view of ascertaining 
 God's will and purposes in relation to him, and his proper 
 duty to God, the result must be a more satisfying, a 
 sounder, and a more abiding faith in the correctness of 
 the conclusions arrived at, than can possibly be the case 
 when his several faculties are at variance on the subject. 
 A faith predicated on the infallibility of the Bible, which 
 in many instances runs counter to itself, is not a safe guide 
 to the future destiny of an immortal spirit, thirsting for 
 enlarged supplies of knowledge and holiness. 
 
 What is termed evil in connection with the spiritual or 
 mental part of man, results from his not being perfect, as 
 God is perfect. This is a necessity. The creature must 
 be lower than the Creator. But the enquiry, not unnatu- 
 rally presents itself why has God placed man so low? 
 Why has He allowed so much seeming evil to exist that
 
 MAN'S TRUST IN GOD. 105 
 
 man's happiness and well being are apparently put in 
 jeopardy? Why was man not endowed, at his creation, 
 with a free agency so limited as materially to diminish 
 the evil that now attends him? These are questions 
 which are altogether beyond our present understanding. 
 The proper answer is known only to God ; but that it is 
 best to be as it is, there can be no doubt. It is incon- 
 ceivable that what God has done involves other than the 
 greatest possible good. Man is to comprehend so much 
 of God's purposes or ways, as is necessary for his good 
 and happiness while in this life in order to prepare him 
 for the next. God's infinite perfections guarantee this; 
 and His benevolent purposes, in creating man, are beyond 
 the possibility of question. To feel such trust in God as 
 this acknowledgment implies, is man's highest privilege, 
 and his indispensable solace. God has given him this 
 abiding confidence, with its attendant charm of reliance, 
 through such means as admit of no failure. A majority of 
 mankind may never proclaim it in words ; but neverthe- 
 less each and every human being, that ever came to con- 
 sciousness, proclaims it in thousands of ways that are 
 pleasing to God. The multitudes of cheerful spirits, and 
 bright and happy upturned faces, that we meet daily, 
 exhibit a never flagging hope of better things to come. 
 This blessed hope is an emanation from God, to cheer us 
 onward; and it betokens more and more precious trea- 
 sures in store for us hereafter. For God can neither 
 deceive, nor engender delusive hopes, to cheat or mislead 
 his creatures. 
 
 Time, with its never ceasing tread, hurries man to his 
 unseen destiny, and yet he trembles not, nor fears. Let all 
 bless God in their hearts, that such is the glorious reward 
 of this implicit trust founded in the depths of each human
 
 106 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 soul, echoed from heart to heart, and chimed throughout 
 all nature by its every aspect and mood. It must all be 
 well for those who have the great, the just, the perfect 
 God for their pilot and sponsor ; and, vast as is the differ- 
 ence between the perfection of God and the frailty of 
 short-sighted man, yet man is still encouraged to make 
 efforts though feeble they may be to approach God's 
 goodness and knowledge, and to start on the high career 
 of assimilating himself to God's perfection. He finds that 
 at each step he gains new accessions of strength, brighter 
 light, and stronger aspirations and impulses to press 
 onward. This encouragement and this helpjcome from 
 Him who knows the vastness of the object aimed at, the 
 means to be used, and the degree of success that awaits 
 the seemingly futile effort. These conceptions open to our 
 view a prospect of stupendous magnificence and glory. 
 They show that it is in reserve for man to progress through 
 countless ages, adding knowledge to knowledge, and excel- 
 lence to excellence, and to be ever approaching nearer and 
 nearer to God's perfect holiness. They intimate that man 
 is permitted to be an active and free agent, under God's 
 supervision, in contributing to his own advancement and 
 the carrying out of God's benign purposes. May not this 
 view, to some extent, illustrate the wisdom of God in 
 placing man so low, and with such a glorious career 
 before him? May not the sum total of man's happiness 
 be greater, as he is ever emerging from a dimmer to a 
 brighter light from one stage of happiness to another, 
 still higher ever advancing in his aims and longings for 
 an existence far above, and superior to this, where he will 
 be blessed with an increased knowledge of the mysteries 
 of creation and God's wondrous ways? Does not this 
 accord with what we know of our own natures and expe-
 
 PAIN A BLESSING. 107 
 
 rience here? Is not our appreciation of the things 
 around us assisted by contrast? Are not our very plea- 
 sures heightened by expectation ? Each aim we have 
 accomplished, begets higher aims, nobler purposes and 
 increased energies, if we are but true to ourselves and our 
 innate promptings and inspirations. Each and every 
 gloomy, dark foreboding that lies in the path of life will 
 ultimately, under pod's inscrutable providence, be made 
 subservient to our welfare and happiness. This is con- 
 stantly being illustrated, during our brief sojourn on 
 earth ; and to an extent, and in ways so mysterious and 
 uniooked-fyr, that the evidence of our senses leads us to 
 the same conclusions as does faith, based upon God's wis- 
 dom, goodness, and justice, and manifested throughout all 
 His works. God seems to take delight in making dark- 
 ness available and subservient to the appreciation of the 
 splendor of His works, and to a reverence and worship of 
 Himself. The high sense of beauty, and the pious emo- 
 tions that spring up within us on viewing the countless 
 stars spangling the firmament, would be lost to us but 
 from being contrasted with the darkness of the night. 
 Viewed from the shaded side of earth and of life, the true 
 glory of heaven is better seen, and the value of God's 
 goodness and wisdom is more appreciated. 
 
 That species of evil which is denominated pain, and 
 which relates to the physical, or material part of man, is 
 unmistakably ordained of God for man's ultimate good. 
 Matter, unlike the mind or spirit of man, is destined to 
 dissolution and to a return to dust. Man, by his intui- 
 tions and by the other faculties of his rnind, desires, and 
 is led to the preservation of the body, to the fullest extent 
 practicable. Without the instrumentality of pain, man 
 would not be able to do his body the good offices and ser-
 
 108 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 vices which he does now, and which are indispensable to 
 the continuation of his species, even for but a very brief 
 space of time. Each and every sensation of bodily pain 
 is a warning that the welfare of the body is endangered, 
 and requires the good offices of its co-partner the intel- 
 lect in its behalf. This monitor, pain, therefore, of all 
 others, is the one most likely to be recognized and obeyed; 
 and, in general, as the danger is more imminent, so is the 
 monitor more persistent in his demands for an immediate 
 attention to his warnings. As a general rule, whatever 
 pertains to the health, vigor, and preservation of the body 
 is attended with more or less pleasure ; while whatever 
 tends to its destruction is painful. We not only, there- 
 fore, have a sleepless sentinel on duty, to proclaim 
 approaching danger ; we have premiums offered for 
 attending to the legitimate wants of our own bodies, and 
 for striving to promote our own happiness. How beauti- 
 fully and forcibly does this illustrate God's benevolence 
 and more than fatherly care over us! The contemplation 
 of it adds confirmation to confirmation, and faith to faith 
 if such a thing be possible that man's greatest ultimate 
 good is perfectly consistent with his seemingly lowly and 
 apparently unfortunate condition here, moral and physical. 
 It is an unmistakable evidence that God's consummate 
 wisdom can bring beauty out of seeming uncomeliness, 
 and clear up and disperse all the apparent gloom and 
 imperfection, in His infinite perfection and brightness. 
 
 In the present world, man so far as his body is con- 
 cerned is subject to casualty and the destructive powers 
 of nature, equally, with the lower animals. But as this 
 life is only the beginning of an existence that will never 
 end, and is under the Divine guidance, one can but have 
 faith that it matters little at what period of time the
 
 MAN'S INDIVIDUALITY HEREAFTER. 109 
 
 transit, to the higher life, takes place. If it were impor- 
 tant, life would not have been subject to the numerous 
 contingencies that now beset it. And yet the teaching 
 of God through our instincts, is to cling to life while we 
 may, leaving the time of our departure to casualties 
 beyond our control. In reflecting upon this, how com- 
 forting is it to know that we are the objects of God's 
 goodness and care. We see but the threshold of our 
 destined existence. We have but to strive unceasingly, 
 and never to weary in well-doing, confidently leaving the 
 issue to God. 
 
 But this subject of our existence here and hereafter, 
 and of the connection between the two periods, may well 
 bear to be further contemplated. This life, then, and this 
 earth are but the time and place, the when and where, 
 each human soul embarks for eternity. The longest life 
 is but as a moment of time, in comparison with the soul's 
 duration. The earth is but the stage whereon each 
 human soul, among the myriads that are launched into 
 eternity, is moulded, and like the person individually 
 endowed with an identity peculiar to itself and resembling 
 none other precisely. The belief that our individuality 
 and identity in this world shall be preserved to us in the 
 world to come that we shall connect the consciousness of 
 ourselves beyond the grave with that of ourselves here, 
 and be so recognizable by others is corroborated by a 
 fact in our human experience, that cannot be gainsayed. 
 Millions upon millions of inhabitants come and go upon 
 the face of the earth ; and yet no two among them bear 
 such close resemblance as to prevent intimate acquaint- 
 ances singling them out from all others. And as with 
 the body, so with the soul. We, none of us have, an 
 exact spiritual counterpart a fact that is obvious to all
 
 HO ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 students of the inner man, though not palpable at a 
 moment's glance, as is the corporeal divergence. Now 
 this being the case the extreme difference between the 
 most dissimilar persons being so small that they may be 
 classed as a whole, and yet so distinctly marked that 
 each stands out as it were alone is it possible not to see 
 herein a purposed design of God? And to what purpose 
 can this point, more rational and more in accordance with 
 His perfect plans, than that the probation, intended to 
 lead man Heavenward, and barely dawning here on the 
 longest-lived, shall continue when we go hence, through 
 what is our morning, up to the splendor of an everlasting 
 day? The more we contemplate God's wisdom and the 
 harmonious workings of his systems, the more are we 
 confirmed in this view? It is at least more probable that 
 God will give the being, whom He himself created, an 
 opportunity of learning to comprehend His mysteries, and 
 of rendering Him homage, than that, after a mere com- 
 parative spasm of existence, man is at once promoted to a 
 region of eternal bliss, or plunged into everlasting tor- 
 ment. That this cannot be so, and be consistent with 
 God's justice, is the more manifest, when we remember 
 that a large portion of the human race have their sojourn 
 upon earth curtailed by causes beyond their own con- 
 trol to the hundredth part of that of others, and that 
 surrounding circumstances must often alone determine 
 man's progress towards the Heaven or the hell, which the 
 theologians flaunt before him. We know that these same 
 churchmen have great difficulty in reconciling this, their 
 peculiar phase of God's character, with the other attri- 
 butes wherein they clothe Him. The true solution of 
 this whole difficulty is to clear away church theology and 
 substitute in its place a wholesome belief that God has
 
 LIMITED 'FREE AGENCY. 
 
 assigned eternity for the endless education and the mode 
 and manner of it is of God's ordaining, who shall doubt 
 its bringing all men to supreme bliss in God's good time ? 
 
 Since no man can be wise, as God is wise, and since 
 neither human reason, nor experience, -can supply the 
 deficiency, in working out his destiny under his free 
 agency, instinct makes up for what he lacks in other 
 respects. But since man, as now constituted and endowed, 
 is always liable to deviate from right, and so bring more 
 or less mental or bodily pain upon himself and others, 
 some might say, why not have prevented the possibility 
 of evil if evil it be by giving man such instincts as 
 would have made it entirely unnecessary that he should 
 be constituted a free and consequently an accountable 
 agent? But will any one say that he would have pre- 
 ferred this? Would he not rather say: "The present 
 system of limited agency is far more satisfactory to me? 
 To have no control over my destiny annihilates my indi- 
 viduality. Rather let me have the responsibility which 
 attaches to free agency, than the degradation which is 
 involved in not having any share in shaping out rny pre- 
 sent life and future destiny. Rather let me, under the 
 influence of volition and by actions that are my own, 
 enter into the joys, sympathies, and griefs of life as it is. 
 This best satisfies my nature, and the cravings of my 
 spirit. Let me be loved, because of the peculiarity and 
 personality which is the result of my own volition and 
 acts;, and let me lovo those whom I may love, because 
 they have had a share in the making up of their own 
 peculiar personality. In this is the crowning joy of life." 
 
 May not the crowning joys of Eternity be considered 
 in a somewhat similar light ? May not influences in a 
 measure akin to this, ultimately prevail in perfecting
 
 112 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 man's love of his Maker? Intuition as we have fre- 
 quent occasion to remark renders it imperative that 
 man should acknowledge a God above him. So ar, there 
 is no exercise of free-will. It is only an acquaintance 
 with God's works and an insight into His dealings with 
 man, that can convert this knowledge into reverence. 
 Herein, the free-will is partially exercised. But it is only 
 a thorough appreciation of God's infinite loveliness, that 
 can impart full impulse to volition, and transform this 
 reverence into love that is worthy of its object. Nature 
 endues a mother with affection for the child born of her 
 unattractive, ugly, peevish, troublesome though it be. 
 This is instinct. How much more intense is her attach- 
 ment, if the little being be supremely fair and gifted with 
 every infantile grace ? This is love. So it may be with 
 man hereafter, when, in another stage of his existence, 
 the marvellous beauty of God's character and attributes 
 are gradually revealed to him. We believe, indeed, that 
 God has predetermined to make His self-constituted and 
 self-sustained perfection apparent to all men. 
 
 We believe that every man will eventually love Him, 
 and strive more and more to serve Him not alone from 
 those spontaneous movements within, that impose no 
 restraint on his own free agency, but also from these 
 emotions that emanate from his own free-will. 
 
 The instincts of man, which have reference to his 
 spiritual or divine nature, are the primary foundation of 
 man's religion. The office of the reasoning faculties is 
 distinct from that of the instincts. The instincts are 
 more necessary, because they are ever shedding upon our 
 onward path a light indispensable to us, in groping our 
 way through this chequered scene. They are the inex- 
 haustible fountain, whence is drawn every noble purpose,
 
 GOD'S LAWS UNCHANGEABLE. H3 
 
 every incentive to good, kind, and generous deeds. Man, 
 as a free agent, acting under and by force of his reason 
 and all his faculties, other than instinct, would stumble, 
 fall, and utterly fail in his progress through life; but as 
 it is, he has ever with him a safe pilot a guardian angel, 
 as it were, guided by a higher mind than his own. There 
 are certain duties that God has assigned to man during 
 his stewardship here, the proper performance of which is 
 too important and too difficult of understanding to be 
 entrusted to man's reasoning faculties alone, even when 
 of the highest order and fully matured, much less when 
 the reverse is the case. Instinct is indispensable to the 
 welfare both of the body and soul. It is given by God 
 to ensure that, while man is to a certain extent entrusted 
 with working out his own destiny, God's benevolent pur- 
 pose towards him shall ultimately prevail. And while 
 there is, judging from observation here, a vast difference 
 in the endowment of individuals, in relation to all those 
 faculties of the mind which are subject to cultivation and 
 improvement, there is little or no difference in relation to 
 instinct the office of which is so important, that all 
 God's living creatures have it, in ample strength and in 
 ample time. This is not the case with those other facul- 
 ties called mental. These are developed, in process of 
 time, according to our advantages, by observation, by 
 experience, by comparison, and by study. This being 
 so, the improvement of them exhibits itself at different 
 periods and in different degrees, in different individuals. 
 This is manifest to all men. We all recognize it in this 
 life, however it may be in the next. 
 
 Does God govern mankind entirely by laws established 
 at the first co-eval with the creation of man ; or has he 
 subsequently, and from time to time, enacted and made 
 8
 
 114 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 operative new laws to meet unforeseen contingencies? Is 
 God moved from day to day and from hour to hour by 
 prayeY, or otherwise, to reverse or modify his general 
 laws for the government of men, by means of what are 
 termed special providences ? If men are to be held 
 accountable for the breach of God's law, justice demands 
 that the law should be stable and sure, not vacillating or 
 shifting, the same deed being right to-day, and wrong 
 to-morrow, and vice versa/ otherwise, man is without a 
 reliable rule of conduct, and his never varying instinct 
 and innate perception of right and wrong have no parallel 
 in the laws of God, no immovable standard of moral right 
 by which he can constantly direct his course. 
 
 Now, plain and undeniable as seem the conclusions 
 here suggested, they are directly in the face of those of 
 Christian theology ; they cannot both be true ; and if the 
 Christian theology be true, then God contrary to Bible 
 phraseology is a being of change ; and this makes the 
 inference irresistible, that He was not equal to adjusting 
 all things aright from the first, but only after trial, obser- 
 vation, and second thought. If this view of God is to be 
 taken as glorifying and worshipping Him, we not only 
 fail to perceive that such is the fact, but deem such view 
 most irreverent. 
 
 With a view to bringing the light to be derived from 
 history to bear on the question, as to whether God's 
 government was perfect from the first, or required subse- 
 quent radical amendments and a never ending round of 
 adjustments called special providences, by way of testing 
 the rationale of what is termed supernatural revelation, 
 we will state a supposed example. Let us say that five 
 persons have appeared upon the earth at various periods, 
 but all after many generations of men had lived and died
 
 SUPPOSED SAVIOURS. 115 
 
 thereon. Each of these persons claimed to be entrusted 
 by God with a message of vital importance .to every 
 member of the human family; the character and import 
 of which had never before been made known to man. 
 The pretended new communication from God was to the 
 effect, that every individual must have an unwavering 
 belief that a certain person, who was then, or had been, 
 or was to come, upon the earth, was the only medium 
 through which men could be saved ; that all who had 
 this faith would receive eternal happiness, and all who 
 had it not, eternal damnation. Up to this point, each of 
 these five persons delivered similar messages ; but here 
 they diverged. Each now personally, or by followers, 
 was declared to be the one designated by God as he to 
 whom the faith in question must be given in order to 
 obtain salvation. Suppose that these five messengers 
 were named respectively, Christ, Zoroaster, Buddha, 
 Godama, and Mohammed, each claiming to be the only 
 Saviour of mankind. 
 
 Now this supposed case furnishes substantially the 
 facts that have actually taken place among men ; and 
 the result is that faith, more or less strong, has been 
 divided between the several persons named as Saviours. 
 The number professing faith in Jesus or living in so- 
 called Christian countries comprises about one-third of 
 the inhabitants of the globe. This being the case, is 
 there any tenable reason why the Christian theology 
 should be held right, and all the others wrong? "We 
 deem them all alike fallacious. God sends his laws for 
 the government of mankind into the world, by each and 
 every inhabitant thereof each being his own messenger ; 
 and as the law enjoined by this message is of the same
 
 116 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 import at all times ^and in all places, this message 
 demands our faith in preference to any other. 
 
 Again: if a man claims that he was the h'rst person to 
 whom God made known a new law, to be added to His 
 former laws for the government of mankind which had 
 answered their purpose for generation after generation of 
 men, but which now required amendment and addition 
 we cannot credit him. We have unbounded and unex- 
 tinguishable faith, that God is perfect and unchangeable, 
 and that His laws to govern man must have been perfect 
 and all-sufficient from the first. We cannot put faith in 
 any one who pretends that God added to His original 
 code, a vital and imperative law for man's government, 
 long after many men had lived and died. None, we say, 
 who hold that God is perfect and unchangeable, can pos- 
 sibly credit such a story; neither can they reconcile it to 
 their views, that God, who makes sure that all his ways 
 are perfect, should confide to a single individual an all- 
 important message intended for the benefit of each one of 
 the human race. 
 
 To those whose conception of God is no higher than 
 one involving additional enactments, alterations, and espe- 
 cial providences, as unforeseen occasions may require for 
 the government of the world, another difficulty presents 
 itself. If, according to their theory, it becomes necessary 
 for God to bring forward through the especial messenger, 
 for the regulation of man's relations with his Maker; and 
 if two persons appear simultaneously, each claiming to 
 be from God; both giving contradictory versions of the 
 claimed will of God how, under these circumstances, are 
 the advocates for the supernatural to determine which is 
 the true and which the lying messenger? The Bible 
 itself, will not certainly give them much aid in distin-
 
 SUPPOSED SAVIOURS. 117 
 
 guishing the false from the true, if we may judge by its 
 many warnings. Ahab consulted four hundred prophets; 
 they were all impostors, with the exception of Micaiah. 
 "The prophets," saith. the Lord to Jeremiah, "prophesy 
 lies in my name ; I sent them not, neither have I com- 
 manded them ; neither spake I unto them : they prophesy 
 unto you a false vision and divination, and a thing of 
 nought, and the deceit of their heart;" and elsewhere, 
 " Thus saith the Lord of hosts, hearken not unto the 
 words of the prophets that prophesy unto you; they make 
 you vain ; they speak a vision of their own heart, and 
 not out of the mouth of the Lord." Jesus, himself, did 
 not implicitly rely upon his own universal recognition. 
 " Then," said he, "if any man shall say unto you, Lo, here 
 is Christ, or there, believe it not. For there shall arise 
 false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great 
 signs and wonders ; insomuch that, if it were possible 
 they shall deceive the very elect." 
 
 Christian theology then, has no other foundation than 
 the conflicting claims of numerous prophets and miracle- 
 workers ; a majority of whom, according to Bible narra- 
 tive, are false. We fail to perceive that any one of them 
 has more claims to be credited than another; and must 
 consequently conclude that they are all alike incredible. 
 
 Saying we believe in Jesus, is unintelligible, unless we 
 specify the nature of our belief, inasmuch as various 
 descriptions of belief have been connected with the 
 name of Jesus. During the few years of his public 
 career, he assumed three distinct positions before the 
 world, while, during the first half century after his death, 
 yet another and totally distinct position was assigned to 
 him.
 
 118 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Belief in Jesus, has therefore, been construed to sig- 
 nify in the first place, that he was a teacher of the way 
 to the inheritance of eternal life ; secondly, that he was 
 the Messiah, the person designated by the prophets, to 
 rule over the Jews forever on earth ; thirdly, that he was 
 destined to reign forever over a new world after the 
 destruction of the old one to be inhabited by the 
 righteous only ; fourthly and lastly, that he is co-equal 
 with God, and the Saviour of all men who entertain this 
 belief. 
 
 Now these several offices three of which were assumed 
 by Jesus, while the fourth was thrust upon him after his 
 death differed so essentially from each other, as to 
 render it absolutely impossible that they could all have 
 been fulfilled. Passing by Jesus' first and unobjectionable 
 position that of a teacher of divine truths, or in other 
 words, of natural religion we ask, how could he reign 
 everlastingly as King of the Jews on the earth that then 
 was, and yet reign everlastingly also on a new earth 
 which he was to build up from the ashes of the old one ? 
 It is just as plain that Jesus has never ruled here in any 
 Kingship as that the earth never has been destroyed 
 according to his prediction. What he predicted therefore, 
 with so much eloquent earnestness, is both impossible 
 according to reason, and flatly contradicted by facts. 
 Adding to this the fourth office thrust upon Jesus, the 
 puzzle is complete. Where shall we turn for a reliable 
 guide to true belief? we say that men should turn to the 
 One God, Jehovah. He points unmistakably to the first 
 and only religion, which Jesus taught with signal effect, 
 and which embraced his true mission, and the only 
 rational portion of his course.
 
 JESUS' SECOND COMING. 119 
 
 All the early followers of Jesus clung to the first and 
 third of the beliefs enumerated above, and confidently 
 looked for the destruction of the earth that was to be 
 replaced by a new one, and for Jesus' second coming to 
 rule over them forever thereupon. They clung to this 
 belief and this expectation, up to, and long after the time 
 predicted by Jesus for its fulfilment. In fact, the expecta- 
 tion of a coming milleniurn, so-called, upon earth, over 
 which Jesus is to rule forever, has not yet entirely died 
 out. The belief and expectation, no doubt originated in 
 the declarations of Jesus himself, which assumed a very 
 definite form, as he drew toward the close of his career. 
 " For," said he, " as the lightning cometh out of the east, 
 and shineth even unto the west ; so shall also the coming 
 of the Son of man be. For wheresoever the carcass is, 
 there will the eagles bo gathered together. Immediately 
 after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be dark- 
 ened, and the indon shall not give her light, and the stars 
 shall fall from Heaven, and the powers of the heavens 
 shall be shaken. And then shall appear the sign of the 
 Son of man in Heaven ; and then shall all the tribes of 
 the earth mourn, and they shall see the Son of man 
 coming in the clouds of Heaven with power and great 
 glory. And he- shall send his angels with a great sound 
 of a trumpet ; and they shall gather together his elect 
 from the four winds, from one end of Heaven to the other. 
 Now learn a parable of the fig-tree : When his branch is 
 yet tender, and putteth forth leaves, ye know that sum- 
 mer is nigh. So, likewise, ye, when ye shall see all these 
 things, know that it is near, even at the doors. Verily, 
 I say unto you, This generation shall not pass till all 
 these things be fulfilled. Heaven and earth shall pass 
 away, but my words shall not pass away."
 
 120 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 These citations embody Jesus' reply to the question of 
 his disciples: "Tell us, when shall these things be? 
 and what shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end 
 of the world." Jesus, moreover, elsewhere likened his 
 coming Kingdom of Heaven, to a net which is made 
 instrumental in dividing the godly from the ungodly. 
 Some further light is also thrown upon the literal signifi- 
 cation of Jesus' announcement, by Peter's words, in his 
 second Epistle, " But the day of the Lord will come as a 
 thief in the night ; in the which the heavens shall pass 
 away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with 
 fervent heat ; the earth also, and the works that are 
 therein shall be burned up. * * * Nevertheless, we, 
 according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new 
 earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." 
 
 With reference to the expected destruction and renova- 
 tion of the earth, Mr. Lecky, in his " History of Euro- 
 pean Morals" has a comprehensive foot note: "The 
 belief," says he, " that the world was just about to end, 
 was, as is well known, very general among the early 
 Christians, and greatly affected their lives. It appears 
 in the New Testament, and, very clearly, in the epistle 
 ascribed to Barnabas in the first century. The persecu- 
 tions of the second and third centuries revived it, and 
 both Tertullian and Cyprian strongly assert it. With the 
 triumph of Christianity, the apprehension for a time sub- 
 sided ; but it reappeared with great force when the dis- 
 solution of the empire was manifestly impending, when it 
 was accomplished, and in the prolonged anarchy and suf- 
 fering that ensued. Gregory of Tours, writing in the 
 latter part of the sixth century, speaks of it as very 
 prevalent; and St. Gregory the Great, about the same 
 time, constantly expresses it. The panic that filled
 
 MAN'S CRAVING FOR TRUTH. 121 
 
 Europe at the end of the tenth century has been often 
 described. The fulfillment of these predictions of Jesus 
 and his disciples in relation to the destruction of the 
 world by fire, like those in respect to his second coming, 
 has been so long delayed beyond the expected time, that 
 the theologians have been obliged either to abandon them, 
 as fallacious, or to assign to them a meaning totally 
 different from the obvious and originally received one, 
 deduced from the plain meaning of words. The new 
 world is still to be created, just as Jesus' promised throne 
 of David remains still unoccupied. 
 
 The great craving of man's spirit is for the discovery of 
 truth. To gain an insight into the mysteries of the uni- 
 verse, gives other and higher delight, than merely to 
 admire its beauties. The first faint symptoms of this 
 passion for such it is are exhibited in early childhood. 
 The inquisitive boy either cuts the bellows, to see where 
 the wind comes from^ or takes a watch to pieces, to find 
 what makes it tick. During adolescence and maturity, 
 the zest for knowledge increases in intensity with the dis- 
 covery of each new truth ; and as truths are ascertained, 
 and multiply, and their wonderful harmony with each 
 other, is observed, the dawning of light within the soul 
 gains strength and becomes more luminous. 
 
 The poetical part of man's nature has its foundation in 
 truth and harmony the great characteristics of God. 
 The poetic instinct is the legitimate offspring of the intui- 
 tions that apply to man's higher nature and destiny ; and 
 these in conjunction with his" other faculties, form the 
 ladder, as it were, upon which he ascends heavenward. 
 When the spirit soars into the higher regions of imagina- 
 tion, under the excitement of a sense of the beautiful, 
 harmonious, and truthful, it is but God's mode of giving
 
 122 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 man a ray of that sublime light, which shines brighter 
 and brighter as he presses forward in the right direction 
 an indication that the soul is capable of a more exalted 
 state of existence and happiness than it has yet realized, 
 or than the things of this earth can reveal. It is the 
 whispering of God, to allure man to the sure path that 
 leads to his more congenial abode to his true destiny. 
 This perception and natural leaning, by and through our 
 instincts, to the well-being and happiness of ourselves 
 and our species, is analogous to that which incites the 
 bird of passage to mount upon its wings, and speed its 
 way from colder regions to the warmer climes of the 
 South, there to pass the winter season, and then again to 
 return to the North, the better to rear its young. The 
 still, small voice, that charms the bird hither and thither, 
 communicates not an idle tale; it is truth, big with 
 utility, involving life and death. The bird that pours 
 forth its tuneful strains, perched upon the tree-top, sings 
 not in vain ; in Nature's good time, his mate, the harbin- 
 ger of love and gladness, and fruitfulness, will come, and 
 God's all-wise and benevolent purposes will be answered. 
 And so of that chant of love which Nature causes to 
 vibrate in the virgin and unwedded heart. It is but the 
 budding of the highest bliss, that earth has in store for 
 humanity. It is God's mode of making his children sub- 
 servient to the accomplishment of his great ends. All 
 Nature is full of melody, to those who know how to listen. 
 Music, sometimes the more enchanting for being dimly 
 audible, is ever attuning tne emotional soul to the lovely 
 and the sublime, and training it to a higher and higher 
 estate. Unwritten poetry, we say, pervades all nature. 
 Man is attuned to its harmony and its inspiration. The 
 infinite fancies and fond imaginings of man are not with-
 
 YEARNINGS OF THE HUMAN SOUL. 123 
 
 out an actually existing object, either here or elsewhere ; 
 neither are they without utility. They contribute, immea- 
 surably to the charms of life. They foster hope, that 
 blessed boon to man. They stimulate to nobler deeds, and 
 lead to loftier aspirations. Fiction and poetry, which 
 transport and thrill the soul in books do but portray some 
 truth or truths recognized already as existing in nature. 
 If not, the spirit heedeth not ; the charm is wanting, and 
 the springs of life go still unquickened. Poetry may, not 
 inaptly, be likened to the flowers that contain the 
 embryo of luscious fruit, and that are all the sweeter and 
 more attractive because they promise "something more 
 valuable than the present sense enjoys. Not that the 
 flowers themselves are without real utility. By their 
 fragrance and beauty, they furnish a feast to some of the 
 organs of man, no less than does the fruit to others. 
 There is no quality or organ of man's nature, either of 
 body or mind, that is devoid of utility. No such anom- 
 aly can emanate from the Deity. Man's body, it is true, 
 cannot subsist on music, but it furnishes a rich feast to 
 his higher being. It can, and does, feed that part of his 
 nature, wherewith he is enabled to appreciate and enjoy 
 the harmony of God's works. As truth after truth is 
 added to the store of man's knowledge in relation to God 
 and his works, the more and deeper is he impressed with 
 the glory of the author of the universe and the wonderful 
 harmony and accord of all created things. 
 
 This advance in knowledge, and appreciation of God's 
 greatness and goodness, we deem, will be without end. 
 The lower animals, and the physical part of man's being, 
 find the means of satisfying their wants and. cravings in 
 things pertaining to earth. Not so with the human soul ; 
 it has longings not satisfied in this life, qualities and
 
 124 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 powers for the enjoyment of a nobler and higher existence, 
 vhich find not the means of their realization here. There 
 is nothing waste and nothing meaningless in the feelings 
 and faculties, wherewith living creatures are endowed. 
 For each desire there is a corresponding object ; for each 
 faculty there is room and opportunity for exercise, either 
 in the present life or in futurity. But for the immortality 
 of the soul, man's endowments would not be in harmony 
 with his destiny. He would be an exception to God's 
 universal order and fullness of all things an anomaly in 
 nature irreconcilable with the known and only con- 
 ceivable attributes and ways of God. 
 
 It is evident from the wide-spread and extensive practice 
 of using idols in devotional service, that it proceeds from 
 some strong, legitimate trait in human nature. All the 
 prominent errors of man so proceed. Among the power- 
 ful propensities which God has given to man is a restless 
 desire to search after, and penetrate into, the wonderful 
 mysteries of the spiritual and physical- universe. But for 
 this thirst for, and advancement in, and acquaintance 
 with the knowledge and ways of God, man would fail to 
 prepare himself for his future destiny as God intended he 
 should. Man, in his eagerness to see God, climbs the 
 tree, as did Zaccheus, or builds a tower as did Nimrod. 
 In primitive times the lowly in intellect and culture 
 endeavored to portray God, the incomprehensible, by the 
 help of tangible things ; and having singled out a figure 
 or symbol, availed themselves of it as giving some idea 
 of God. They, then, through such a symbol, poured out 
 their spontaneous adoration to that mysterious Being, 
 whose wisdom, through His works, they saw pervading 
 all things, yet not otherwise visible to the physical 
 eye. God, however, designed man for development and
 
 THE TRINITY. 125 
 
 advancement, as he did the child in his progress from 
 infancy to manhood. The appliances and helps suited to 
 these ends, for one age and stage of growth, are unsuited 
 to a more advanced one. The present state of knowledge, 
 cultivation, and intellectual development in all civilized 
 nations is such, that man should now allow nothing to 
 stand in the way between his own spiritual eye and the 
 great Spirit which fills the universe. 
 
 There is no room or occasion for a second or third per- 
 son in the Godhead. The Spirit of God pervades the uni- 
 verse. It is an Infinite Mind, and must, of necessity, be 
 a unit. What God wills to do, and what God executes, is 
 without effort. No other idea is consistent with Infinity. 
 The utility or possibility of there being two or three 
 co-equal infinite Gods is as incomprehensible to man, as 
 that there can be two or three infinite divisions of space ; 
 or that there can be two or three independent existences 
 of time. Yet, two, and even three, co-equal Gods are 
 claimed as the Roek on which the Christian Church is 
 founded. This is idolatry. 
 
 The Christian Church claims, too, the infallibility of 
 the Bible, notwithstanding irrefutable evidence to the 
 contrary, and thereby again sets up an idol. The wor- 
 ship of Jesus and the Virgin Mary is as much idolatry as 
 is the worship of the sun, the moon, the stars, and other 
 objects, worshipped by what are called idolatrous nations. 
 They who worship God through these material objects, 
 which are symbolical of the true light emanating from 
 Him who is infinite, and ineffable light itself, are much 
 more excusable, in view of the greater intelligence claimed 
 by Christians in these later times. 
 
 The various trains of thought and reasoning which lead 
 men from a consideration of the natural world to a con vie-
 
 126 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 tion of the existence, tlie power, the providence of God, 
 do not require, for the most part, any long or labored 
 deduction, to give them their effect on the mind. The 
 notion of such supremacy is universal and innate. In 
 many nations, in many periods, this persuasion has been 
 mixed up with much that was erroneous and perverse. 
 But the opinions of the intellect or the fictions of the 
 fancy, do not weaken the force of such conviction. The 
 belief of a supreme and presiding power runs through all 
 these errors ; and while the perversions are manifestly 
 the work of caprice and allusion, and vanish at the first 
 ray of sober enquiry, the belief itself is substantial and 
 consistent, and grows in strength upon every new exami- 
 nation. It is an assurance that the mere existence of a 
 law, connecting and governing any class of phenomena, 
 implies a presiding intelligence, which has preconceived 
 and established the law. We cannot, then, represent to 
 ourselves the universe governed by general laws, other- 
 wise than by conceiving an intelligent and conscious 
 Deity, by whom any such laws were originally contem- 
 plated, established, and applied. 
 
 The impression which thus arises, of design and inten- 
 tion exercised in the formation of the world, or of the 
 reality of a Prime Cause, "operates on men's minds so 
 generally, and increases so constantly on every additional 
 examination of the phenomena of the universe, that we 
 cannot but suppose such a belief to have a deep and stable 
 foundation. Indeed, science shows us, far more clearly 
 than the conceptions of every-day reason, at what an 
 immeasurable distance we are from any faculty of con- 
 ceiving how the universe, material and moral, is the work 
 of the Deity. But with regard to the material world, 
 we can at least go so far as this ; we can perceive that
 
 GOD'S LAWS. 127 
 
 events are brought about, not by insulated interpositions 
 of divine power, exerted in each particular case, but by 
 the establishment of general laws. This, which is the 
 view of the universe, proper to science, whose office it is to 
 search out these laws, is also the view which, throughout 
 this work, we have endeavored to keep present to the 
 mind of the reader.- We have attempted to show that it 
 combines itself most readily and harmoniously with the 
 doctrines of Natural Religion, that the arguments for 
 those doctrines are strengthened, the difficulties which 
 affect them removed, by keeping it steadily before us. 
 We conceive, therefore, that the religious philosopher will 
 do well to bear this conception in his mind. God is the 
 author and governor of the universe, through the laws 
 which He has given to its parts, the properties which He 
 has impressed upon its constituent elements: these laws 
 and properties are, as we have already said, the instru- 
 ments with which He works: the institution of such laws, 
 the selection of the quantities which they involve, their 
 combination and application, are the modes in which He 
 exerts and manifests His power, His wisdom, and His 
 goodness: through these attributes, thus exercised, the 
 Creator of all, shapes, moves, sustains and guides the 
 visible creation. 
 
 How strongly then, does science represent God to us as 
 incomprehensible ! His attributes as unfathomable ! His 
 power, His wisdom, His goodness, appear in each of the 
 provinces of nature which are thus brought before us ; 
 and in each, the more we study them, the more impres- 
 sive, the more admirable do they appear. When, then, 
 we find these qualities manifested in each of so many 
 successive ways, and each manifestation rising above the 
 preceding by unknown degrees, and through a progression
 
 128 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 of unknown extent, what other language can we use con- 
 cerning such attributes, than that they are infinite f 
 What mode of expression can the most cautious phi- 
 losophy suggest, other than that He, whom we thus 
 endeavor to approach, is infinitely wise, powerful, and 
 good? 
 
 But with sense and consciousness, the history of living 
 things only begins. They have instincts, affections, pas- 
 sions, will. How entirely lost and bewildered do we find 
 ourselves, when we endeavor to conceive these faculties 
 communicated by means of general laws ! Yet they are 
 so communicated from God, and of such laws He is the 
 law-giver. At what an immeasurable interval is He thus 
 placed above everything which the creation of the inani- 
 mate world alone would imply ; and how far must He 
 transcend all ideas founded on such laws as we find 
 there ! But we have still to go further, and far higher. 
 The world of reason and of morality is a part of the same 
 creation, as the world of matter and of sense. The will 
 of man is swayed by rational motives ; its workings are 
 inevitably compared with a rule of action; he has a con- 
 science which speaks of right and wrong. These are 
 laws of man's nature no less than the laws of his material 
 existence, or his animal impulses. 
 
 All the laws which govern the moral world are expres- 
 sions of the thought and intentions of our Supreme Ruler 
 in relation to man. All the contrivances for moral no 
 less than for physical good ; for the peace of mind and 
 other rewards of virtue, for the elevation and purification 
 of individual character ; for the civilization and refinement 
 of States, their advancement in intellect and virtue ; for 
 the diffusion of good and the repression of evil ; all the 
 blessings that wait on perseverance and energy in a good
 
 MORAL LAWS. 129 
 
 cause ; on unquenchable love of mankind, and uncon- 
 querable devotedness to truth ; on purity and self-denial ; 
 on faith, hope, and charity ; all these things are indica- 
 tions of the will, and future intentions of that God of 
 whom we have endeavored to track the footsteps upon 
 earth, and to show his handiwork in the heavens. "This 
 God is our God, for ever and ever." And if, in endeavoring 
 to trace the plan of the vast labyrinth of laws by which 
 the universe is governed, we are sometimes lost and 
 bewildered, and can scarcely, or not at all, discern the 
 lines by which sorrow, and vice, and injustice from man 
 to man, fall in with a scheme directed to the strictest 
 right and greatest good, we yet find no room to faint or 
 falter ; knowing that these are the darkest and most 
 tangled recesses of our knowledge ; that into the.m science 
 has as yet cast no ray of light; that in them reason has 
 as yet caught sight of no general law by which we may 
 securely hold : while, in those regions where we can see 
 clearly ; where science has thrown her strongest illumina- 
 tion upon the scheme of creation ; where we have had 
 displayed to us the general laws which give rise to all 
 the multifarious variety of particular facts ; we find all 
 full of wisdom, and harmony, and beauty ; and all this 
 wise selection of means, this harmonious combination of 
 laws, this beautiful symmetry of relations, directed, with 
 no exception which human investigation has yet dis- 
 covered, to the preservation, the diffusion, the well-being 
 of those living things, which, though of their nature we 
 know so little, we cannot doubt to be the worthiest objects 
 of the Creator's care. We find if we never experienced 
 pain, we should be every moment injuring ourselves with- 
 out perceiving it. Without the excitement of uneasiness, 
 without some sensation of pain, we should perform no 
 9
 
 130 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 function of life, should never communicate it, and should 
 have none of its pleasures. Hunger, which compels us 
 to take our required nourishment, is the commencement 
 of pain. Ennui, which stimulates us to exercise and 
 occupation, is a pain. Love itself is a longing which 
 becomes painful until it is met with corresponding attach- 
 ment. In a word, every desire is a want, a longing, a 
 beginning of pain. Pain is therefore the. main-spring of 
 all the actions of animated beings. Inasmuch as want 
 involves pain, and since all our pleasures proceed from 
 the gratification of our legitimate wants, it is apparent 
 that God can, and does cause, even pain and want to pave 
 the way to man's happiness and well-being. 
 
 That all foreseeing Power, who is the guardian of our 
 infirmities, has supplied to human weakness what human 
 wants required. There is a principle in our mind, which, 
 to us, is like a constant protector. It may slumber, 
 indeed, but it slumbers only at seasons when its vigilance 
 would be useless. It awakes, at the first intimation of 
 danger ; and it becomes more watchful and vigorous, in 
 proportion to the violence of the attack which it has to 
 dread. 
 
 It is well that man is constituted independently of his 
 own will, and that he has so little power in shaping the 
 circumstances amid which he moves. He would have 
 needed a far more comprehensive view than he is equal 
 to, both of what is best for men in a community, and for 
 man as an individual, had he a creature of such brief 
 and narrow survey been left with the fixing either of his 
 own principles of action, or of his relation with the exter- 
 nal world. That constitutional shame that quick and 
 trembling delicacy a prompt and ever-present guardian, 
 appearing as it does in very early childhood, is most
 
 CONSCIENCE. 131 
 
 assuredly not the result of our anticipating either present 
 or distant consequences. Thus, with reference to our ani- 
 mal instincts, to which we have already alluded. Other 
 forces than those of human prudence and human principle 
 seem to have been necessary for restraining within legiti- 
 mate bounds a most powerful and fascinating incentive, 
 which, when improperly indulged, is deteriorating to the 
 moral character; and which, when once permitted to lord 
 it over the habits, so often terminates in the cruel disrup- 
 tion of families and the irretrievable ruin and disgrace of 
 the offender. It is not by any prospective calculation of 
 ours that natural modesty acts herein as a strong precau- 
 tionary check. It is directly implanted by One, who sees 
 the end from the beginning, and has made it available to 
 all men at all times by a monitor set up within us. Con- 
 science, as the supreme arbiter of all our actions, superin- 
 tends all our senses, passions, and appetites, and judges 
 how far each of them is either to be indulged or restrained. 
 When conscience prevails over the other principles of our 
 nature, then every man is led, by the very make and 
 mechanism of his internal economy, to feel that this is 
 as it ought to be ; or if these others prevail over con- 
 science, that this is not as it ought to be. The object of 
 conscience is the subordination of the whole inner man to 
 its dictates, and its proper, its legitimate business, is to 
 prescribe what man shall be and what he shall do. 
 
 Righteousness, it is felt, would not have been so en- 
 throned in the moral system of man, had it not been 
 previously enthroned in the system of the universe. This 
 is not a local or geographical notion. It is not, therefore, 
 the peculiarity of one creed, or of one country. It circu- 
 lates at large throughout the family of man. We can 
 trace it in the religion of savage life where theology has
 
 132 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 not found its way ; it mantains its authority over the 
 artificial theology of a more complex and idolatrous pagan- 
 ism. Neither crime nor civilization can extinguish it ; and 
 whether we find it in the fierce and frenzied Cataline, or 
 in the tranquil contemplative musings of Socrates and 
 Cicero, we find the impression of at once a righteous and 
 a reigning sovereign. 
 
 The law of conscience may be regarded as compris- 
 ing all those virtues which the hand of the Deity has 
 inscribed on the tablet of the human heart ; and it is an 
 argument, for these being the very virtues which charac- 
 terize and adorn Himself, that they must have been trans- 
 cribed from the prior tablet of His own nature. 
 
 Conscience speaks the same language, and owns one 
 and the same moral directory all the world over. True to 
 her office she gives forth the same lessons, in all the coun- 
 tries of the earth. Let the mists of passion and artificial 
 education be only cleared away ; and the moral attributes 
 of goodness and righteousness and truth will be seen 
 undistorted, and in their own proper guise and there is 
 not a heart or a conscience throughout earth's teeming 
 
 o o 
 
 population, which could refuse to do them homage. In 
 spite of the occasional diversity of moral judgments which 
 are vastly less wide and numerous than is generally sup- 
 posed, there is a fixed standard of morals, to the greater 
 principles of which, a full and unanimous homage is ren- 
 dered from every quarter of the globe. On the whole, 
 then, it is evident that conscience is founded on human 
 nature, and forming a constituent part of it, and may be 
 regarded as a faithful witness for God, the author of that 
 nature, and as rendering to His character a consistent 
 testimony. This ascendant faculty of man, which may 
 be termed the divinity within us, notwithstanding the
 
 CONSCIENCE. 133 
 
 occasional sophistry of the passions, is on the whole, 
 representative of the Divinity above us. Whenever an 
 act of iniquity or an outrage is done to the law of con- 
 science, there is felt a reaction within, which tells that 
 the outrage is resented. Then it is that conscience 
 makes most emphatic assertion of its high prerogative, 
 and, instead of coming forth as the benign and generous 
 dispenser of its rewards to the obedient, it comes forth 
 like an offended monarch in the character of a severe 
 avenger. In that instant pleasure and instant pain, 
 wherewith conscience follows up the doings of man, we 
 behold not only a present judgment, but a present execu- 
 tion of the sentence, to the end that immediate repentance 
 and amended ways may follow. 
 
 God is the rewarder of virtue. He hath so constituted 
 our nature that, in the very flow and exercise of the good 
 affections, there shall be the oil of gladness. There is 
 instant delight in the first conception of benevolence. 
 There is sustained delight in its continued exercise. 
 There is consummated delight in its happy smiling, and 
 prosperous result. Kindness and honesty and truth are 
 of themselves and irrespective of their Tightness, sweet 
 unto the taste of the inner man. Malice, envy, falsehood, 
 injustice, irrespective of their wrongness, have of them- 
 selves, the bitterness of gall and wormwood. 
 
 It is thus manifest that a state of well-doing stands 
 associated with a state of well-being. The special virtue 
 of temperance is not more closely associated with the 
 health of the body, than the general habit of virtue is 
 with a wholesome and well conditioned state of the soul. 
 There is then no derangement, as it were, in the system 
 of our nature all the powers, whether superior or subor- 
 dinate, being in their right places, and all moving without
 
 134 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 discord and without dislocation. In short, God has so 
 framed the creatures of His will, as that their perfect 
 goodness and perfect happiness are one. 
 
 To educatp and win man to his greatest happiness, and 
 true destiny, God has spread diversified loveliness over 
 the panorama of visible things, thrown innumerable walks 
 of enchantment around us ; turned the sights and sounds 
 of rural scenery into the ministers of exquisite enjoyment ; 
 and caused the outer world of matter to image forth in 
 profusion those various qualities which please or power- 
 fully affect us in the inner world of consciousness and 
 thought. God, we say, has thus multiplied our enjoy- 
 ments, and invested them with such qualities as suit the 
 constitution of the human mind. He has pencilled them 
 with the very colors or moulded them into the very shapes 
 which suggest either the graceful or the noble of the 
 human character. 
 
 He has so formed our mental constitution, and so 
 adapted the whole economy of external things to the 
 stable and everlasting principles of virtue, that in effect 
 the greatest virtue and the greatest happiness go hand in 
 hand. But the union of these two does not constitute 
 their unity. Virtue is not right because it is useful ; 
 but God has made it useful, because it is right. He 
 both wills virtue, and wills the happiness of his crea- 
 tures this benevolence of will, being itself, not the 
 whole, but one of the brightest moralities in the charac- 
 ter of the Godhead. He wills the happiness of man, 
 but wills his virtue more ; and accordingly, has so con- 
 structed both the system of humanity and the system of 
 eternal nature, that only through the medium of virtue 
 can any substantial or lasting happiness be realized. 
 Finally, it is worthy of special note that while conscience
 
 MAN'S CONFIDENCE IN NATURE. 135 
 
 exercises the same authority and gives the same lessons, 
 approves and disapproves of the same things all the 
 world over, it never condemns in matters concerning the 
 thousands of disputed creeds and theologies abroad in the 
 world ; may not this be taken as proof positive that 
 dogmas and doctrines form no part of genuine religion ? 
 
 The Christian theology being entirely based upon super- 
 natural or special providences in contradistinction to the 
 absolutely stable and unalterable laws of God, we cite a 
 passage hereupon, from the writings of Dr. Chalmers. 
 It will be seen that the views here expressed are com- 
 pletely adverse to the idea of vacillating and shifting 
 laws, such as theologians pretend to recognize in God's 
 government of the affairs of this world. 
 " This disposition to count on the uniformity of Nature, 
 or even to anticipate the same consequents from the same 
 antecedents, is not the fruit of experience, but anterior to 
 it ; or at least anterior to the very earliest of those of her 
 lessons which can be traced backward in the history of 
 an infant mind. Indeed, it has been well observed by 
 Dr. Thomas Brown, that the future constancy of Nature 
 is a lesson, which no observation of its past constancy, 
 or no experience could have taught us." 
 
 At whatever stage of the experience the inference may 
 be made, whether longer or shorter, whether oftener or 
 seldomer repeated the conversion of the past into the 
 future seems to require a distinct and independent prin- 
 ciple of belief; and it is a principle which, to all appear- 
 ance, is as vigorous in childhood as in the full maturity 
 of the human understanding. The child who strikes the 
 table with a spoon for the first time, and is regaled by 
 the noise, will strike again, with as confident an expecta- 
 tion of the same result as if the succession had been
 
 136 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 familiar to it for years. There is the expectation before 
 the experience of Nature's constancy ; and still the topic 
 of our wonder and gratitude is, that this instinctive and 
 universal faith in the heart should be responded to by 
 objective nature, in one wide and universal fulfillment. 
 
 The proper office of experience, in this matter, is very 
 generally misapprehended, and this has mystified the real 
 principle and philosophy of the subject. Her office is not 
 to tell, or to reassure us of the constancy of Nature ; but 
 to tell what the terms of her unalterable progressions 
 actually are. 
 
 The human mind from its first outset, and in virtue of 
 a constitutional bias co-eval with the earliest dawn of 
 the understanding, is prepared and that before experience 
 has begun her lessons, to count on the constancy of 
 Nature's sequences. But at that time, it is profoundly 
 ignorant of the sequences in themselves. It is the proper 
 business of experience to give this information; but it may 
 require many lessons before that her disciples be made 
 to understand what be the distinct terms even of but one 
 sequence. Nature presents us with her phenomena in 
 complex assemblages ; and it is often difficult, in the work 
 of disentangling her trains from each other, to single out 
 the proper and casual antecedent with its resulting con- 
 sequent, from among the crowd of accessory or accidental 
 circumstances by which they are surrounded. There is 
 never any uncertainty as to the invariableriess of Nature's 
 successions. The only uncertainty is as to the steps of 
 each succession and the distinct achievement of experience 
 is to ascertain these steps. And many mistakes are com- 
 mitted in this course of education, from our disposition to 
 confound the similarities with the samenesses of Nature. 
 We neyer misgive in our general confidence that the
 
 MAN'S CONFIDENCE IN NATURE. 137 
 
 same antecedent will be followed by the same consequent; 
 but we often mistake the semblance for the reality, and 
 are as often disappointed in the expectations that we 
 form. This is the real account of that growing confi- 
 dence, wherewith we anticipate the same results in the 
 same apparent circumstances, the oftener that that result 
 has in these circumstances, been observed by us as of 
 a high-water about twice every day, or of a sunrise 
 every morning. It is not that we need to be more 
 assured than we are already of the constancy of Nature, 
 in the sense that every result must always be the sure 
 effect of its strict and casual antecedent. But we need to 
 be assured of the real presence of this antecedent, in that 
 mass of contemporaneous things under which the result 
 has taken place hitherto ; and of this we are more and 
 more satisfied with every new occurrence of the same 
 event in the same apparent circumstances. This too is 
 our real object in the repetition of experiments. Not that 
 we suspect that Nature will ever vacillate from her con- 
 stancy for if by one decisive experiment we should fix 
 the real terms of any succession, this experiment were to 
 us as good as a thousand. But each succession in Nature 
 is so liable to be obscured and complicated by other influ- 
 ences, that we must be quite sure, ere we can proclaim 
 our discovery of some new sequence, that we have pro- 
 perly disentangled her separate trains from each other. 
 For this purpose we have often to question Nature in 
 many different ways ; we have to combine and apply her 
 elements variously ; we have sometimes to detach one 
 ingredient, or to add another, or to alter the proportions 
 of a third and all in order, not to ascertain the invaria- 
 bleness of Nature, for of this we have had instinctive cer- 
 tainty from the beginning ; but in order to ascertain what
 
 138 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 the actual footsteps of her progressions are, so as to, con- 
 nect each effect in the history of Nature's changes with 
 its strict and proper cause. Meanwhile, amid all the sus- 
 pense and the frequent disappointments which attend this 
 search into the processes of nature, our confidence in the 
 rigid and inviolable uniformity of these processes remains 
 unshaken a confidence not learned from experience, but 
 amply confirmed and accorded to by experience. For 
 this instinctive expectation is never once refuted, in the 
 whole course of our subsequent researches. Nature, 
 though stretched on a rack, or put to the torture, by the 
 inquisitions of science, never falters from her iramuta- 
 J)ility ; but persists, unseduced and unwearied, in the 
 same response to the same question; or gives forth, by a 
 spark, or an explosion, or an effervescence, or some other 
 definite phenomenon, the same result to the same circum- 
 stances or combination of data. The anticipations of 
 infancy meet with their glorious verification in all the 
 findings of manhood ; and a truth which would seem to 
 require Omniscience for its grasp, as co-extensive with all 
 Nature and all history, is deposited by the hand of God, 
 in the little cell of a nursling's cogitations. In the 
 instinctive, the universal faith of Nature's constancy we 
 behold a promise. In the actual constancy of Nature, we 
 behold its fulfillment. When the two are viewed in con- 
 nection, then, to be told that Nature never recedes from 
 her constancy, is to be told that the God of Nature never 
 recedes from his faithfulness. If not by a whisper from 
 His voice, at least by the impress of His hand, He hath 
 deposited a silent expectation in every heart ; and He 
 makes all Nature and all history conspire to realize it. 
 He hath not only enabled man to retain in his memory a 
 faithful transcript of the past, but, by means of this con-
 
 MAN'S CONFIDENCE IN NATURE. 139 
 
 stitutional tendency, this instinct of the understanding, as 
 it has been termed, to look with prophetic eye upon the 
 future. It is the link by which we connect experience 
 with anticipation a power or exercise of the mind co-eval 
 with the first dawnings of consciousness or observation, 
 because obviously that to which we owe the confidence so 
 early acquired and so firmly established, in the informa- 
 tion of our senses. Nature never disappoints, or which is 
 equivalent to this, the Author of Nature never deceives us. 
 The generality of Nature's laws is indispensable, both to 
 the formation of any system of truth for the understand- 
 ing and to the guidance of our actions. But ere we can 
 make use of it, the sense and the confident expectation of 
 this generality must be previously in our minds ; and the 
 concurrence, the contingent harmony of these two ele- 
 ments; the requisite adaptation of the objective to the sub- 
 jective, with the manifest utilities to which it is subser- 
 vient; the palpable and perfect meetness which subsists 
 between this intellectual propensity in man, and all the 
 processes of the outward universe while they afford incon- 
 testable evidence to the existence and unity of that design, 
 which must have adjusted the mental and the material 
 formations to each other, speak most decisively, in our 
 estimation, both for the truth and the wisdom of God. 
 
 We have long felt this close and unexcepted, while at 
 the same time, contingent harmony, between the actual 
 constancy of Nature and man's faith in that constancy, to 
 be an effectual preservative against that scepticism, which 
 would represent the whole system of our thoughts and 
 perceptions to be founded on an illusion. Certain it is, 
 that besides an indefinite number of truths received by 
 the understanding as the conclusions of proof more or less 
 lengthened, there are truths recognized without proof by
 
 140 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 an instant act of intuition not the results of a reasoning 
 process, but themselves the first principles of all reasoning. 
 There is a comfort in being enabled to vindicate the 
 confidence which Nature has inspired as in those cases, 
 where some original principle of hers admits of being 
 clearly and decidedly tested. And it is so of our faith 
 in the constancy of Nature, met and responded to, 
 throughout all her dominions, by nature's actual con- 
 stancy, the one being the expectation, the other its rigid 
 and invariable fulfillment. This perhaps is the most pal- 
 pable instance which can be quoted, of a belief anterior 
 to experience, yet of which experience affords a wide and 
 unexcepted verification. It proves at least of one of our 
 implanted instincts, that it is unerring ; and that, over 
 against a subjective tendency in the mind, there is a 
 great objective reality in circumambient nature to which 
 it corresponds. This may well convince us, that we live, 
 not in a world of imaginations but in a world of realities. 
 It is a noble example of the harmony which obtains, 
 between the original make and constitution of the human 
 spirit upon the one hand, and the constitution of external 
 things upon the other; and nobly accredits the faithful- 
 ness of Him, who, as the Creator of both, ordained this 
 happy and wondrous adaptation. That we are never mis- 
 led in our instinctive belief of nature's uniformity, demon- 
 strates the perfect safety wherewith we may commit our- 
 selves to the guidance of our original principles, whether 
 intellectual or moral assured, that, instead of occupying 
 a land of shadows, a region of universal doubt and deri- 
 sion, they are the stabilities, both of an everlasting truth 
 and an everlasting righteousness with which we have 
 to do." This is directly opposed to special providences, 
 without which Christian theology is baseless.
 
 THE MORAL LAW. 141 
 
 Our ideas of the moral attributes of God must be 
 derived from our own moral perceptions. It is only by 
 attending to these, that we can form a conception of what 
 His attributes are ; and it is in this way we are furnished 
 with the strongest proofs that they really belong to Him. 
 The peculiar sentiment of approbation with which we 
 regard the virtue of beneficence in others, the peculiar 
 satisfaction with which we reflect on each of our own 
 actions as have contributed to the happiness of mankind, 
 and we may add, the exquisite pleasure accompanying the 
 exercise of all the kind affections, naturally lead us to 
 consider benevolence or goodness as the supreme attribute 
 of the Deity. It is difficult, indeed, to conceive what 
 other motive could have induced a Being, completely and 
 independently happy, to have called his creatures into 
 existence. The evils which we suffer are parts of a great 
 system conducted by Almighty power, under the direction 
 of infinite wisdom and goodness. 
 
 The creation of beings endowed with Free-will, and 
 consequently liable to moral delinquency, and the govern- 
 ment of the world by general laws from which occa- 
 sional evils must result furnish no solid objection to the 
 perfection of the universe. When man, ignorantly or 
 knowingly, violates any of God's laws, he receives the 
 punishment consequent upon his action and best for his 
 ultimate welfare. Such punishment is therefore in accord- 
 ance with God's goodness and justice utility being the 
 sole principle of action, as well in regard to punishments 
 as rewards. 
 
 The various duties of life agree with*each other in one 
 common quality, that of being obligatory on rational and 
 voluntary agents ; and they are all enjoined by the same 
 authority the authority of conscience. These duties,
 
 142 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 therefore, are but different articles of one law, which is 
 properly expressed by the word Virtue ; or still more 
 unequivocally, by the phrase, The Moral Law. 
 
 The practice of morality is facilitated by repeated acts ; 
 and, therefore, the word Virtue may with propriety be 
 employed to express that habit of mind which it is the 
 great object of a good man to confirm. " He that ruleth 
 his spirit feels himself greater than he that taketh a 
 city." "It is pleasant," says Dr. Tillotson, "to be vir- 
 tuous and good, because that is to excel many others. It 
 is pleasant to grow better, because that is to excel our- 
 selves." We are under an obligation to right, which is 
 antecedent, and, in order and nature, superior to all other. 
 
 Dr. Clarke has expressed himself nearly to the same 
 purpose. " The judgment and conscience of a man's own 
 mind concerning the reasonableness and fitness of a thing, 
 is the truest and most formal obligation, for, whoever acts 
 contrary to this sense and conscience of his own mind, is 
 necessarily self-condemned, and the greatest and strongest 
 
 */ O 
 
 of all obligations is that which a man cannot break 
 through without condemning himself. So far, therefore, 
 as men are conscious of what is right and wrong, so far 
 they are under an obligation to act accordingly." This 
 view of human nature is the most simple, so it is the 
 most ancient which occurs in the history of moral science. 
 It was the doctrine of the Pythagorean school, as appears 
 from a fragment of Theages, a Pythagorean writer, pub- 
 lished in Gale's Opuscula Mythologiea. It is also 
 explained by Plato, in some of his dialogues. Adam 
 Smith says, " Up6n whatever we suppose our moral fac- 
 ulties to be founded ; whether upon a certain modification 
 of reasons, upon an original instinct called a moral sense, 
 or upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot be
 
 SCIENCE THE ALLY OF RELIGION. 143 
 
 doubted that they are given us for the direction of our 
 conduct in this life. They carry along with them the 
 most evident badges of their authority, which denote that 
 they were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of 
 all our actions ; to superintend all our senses, passions, 
 and appetites; and to judge how far each of them was to 
 be either indulged or restrained. Since these, therefore, 
 were plainly intended to be the governing principles of 
 human nature, the rules which they prescribe are to be 
 regarded as the commands and laws of the Deity, promul- 
 gated by those vicegerents which he has thus set up 
 within us. * * * * By acting according to their dictates, 
 we may be said, in some sense, to co-operate with the 
 Deity, and to advance, as far as in our power, the plan of 
 Providence." 
 
 Again: "Therefore, all things whatsoever ye would 
 that men should do to you, do ye even so to them; for 
 this is the Law and the Prophets." (Matthew vii. 12.) 
 This golden rule was embodied in the words of Confucius, 
 the Chinese sage, h' ve hundred years before Christ ; and 
 again by Hillel, a Hebrew president, thirty years before 
 Christ. But all men have been under its influence, and 
 have been actuated by it, to a greater or less extent, since 
 the existence of man, independent of its having been 
 spoken or written. The principle upon which the saying 
 is founded is innate imperative, in a degree, and none 
 can disregard it. 
 
 The generality or constancy of Nature's laws is indis- 
 pensable, both to the formation of any system of truth 
 for the understanding, and to the guidance of our actions. 
 The stability of God's law, we say, is indispensable to 
 our being educated to its observance, and yet the churches 
 inculcate, that it -is vacillating or being changed from day
 
 144 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 to day, at the instance of prayer or other causes moving 
 God to reverse his general laws, the better to provide for 
 some special and unforeseen contingency. On this one 
 question, as to whether God's purposes and ways are 
 unchangeable or whether they are vacillating, hangs the 
 truth or fallacy of the pretended fall of man, and the 
 Christian scheme, for his restoration. Mr. Buckle has 
 well observed that the ancient superstition is now slowly 
 though surely dying away, which represented the Deity 
 as being constantly moved to anger, delighting in seeing 
 His creatures abase and mortify themselves, taking plea- 
 sure in their sacrifices and their austerities, and, notwith- 
 standing all they could do, constantly inflicting on them 
 the most grievous punishments, among which the different 
 forms of pestilence were conspicuous. It is by science, 
 and by science alone, that these horrible delusions are 
 being dissipated. Events, which formerly were deemed 
 supernatural visitations, are now shown to depend upon 
 natural causes, and to be amenable to natural remedies. 
 Man can predict them, and man can deal with them. 
 Being the inevitable result of their own antecedents, no 
 room is left for the notion of their being special inflic- 
 tions. This great change in our opinions is fatal to 
 theology, but serviceable to religion. For, by it, science, 
 instead of being the enemy of religion, becomes its ally. 
 That this remarkable improvement, the relieving of 
 religion from dogma, is due to the progress of physical 
 science, is apparent, not only from general arguments 
 which would lead us to anticipate that such must be the 
 case, but also from the historical fact, that the gradual 
 destruction of the old theology is everywhere preceded by 
 the growth and diffusion of physical truths. The more 
 we know of the laws of Nature the more clearly do we
 
 PROVIDENTIAL INTERFERENCE. 145 
 
 understand that every thing which happens in the mate- 
 rial world, pestilence, earthquake, famine, or whatever it 
 may be, is the necessary result of something which had 
 previously happened. Cause produces effect, and the 
 effect becomes, in its turn, a cause of other effects. In 
 that operation, there is no gap, and no pause. The chain 
 is unbroken ; the constancy of Nature is unviolated. Our 
 minds become habituated to contemplate all physical 
 phenomena as presenting an orderly, uniform, and spon- 
 taneous march, and running on in one regular and unin- 
 terrupted sequence. This is the scientific view. It is 
 also the religious view. Against it, we have the theolo- 
 gical view ; but that which has already lost its hold over 
 the intellect of men is now losing its hold over their 
 affections, and is so manifestly perishing, that at present 
 no educated person ventures to defend it, without so 
 limiting and guarding his meaning, as to concede to its 
 opponents nearly every point which is really at issue. 
 
 " While, however, in regard to the material world, the 
 narrow notions formerly entertained are, in the most 
 enlightened countries, almost extinct, it must be confessed 
 that, in regard to the moral world, the progress of opinion 
 is less rapid. The same men, who believe that Nature is 
 undisturbed by miraculous interposition, refuse to believe 
 that man is equally undisturbed. In the one case, they 
 assert the scientific doctrine of regularity ; in the other, 
 they assert the theological doctrine of irregularity." 
 
 "The doctrine that God governs the world by super- 
 natural and irregular means instead of never varying 
 laws, is not only unscientific, but it is eminently irreli- 
 gious. It is, in fact, an impeachment of one of the 
 noblest attributes of the Deity. It is a slur on the 
 omniscience of God. It assumes that the fate of nations, 
 10
 
 146 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 instead of being the result of preceding and surrounding 
 events, is specially subject to the control and interference 
 of Providence. It assumes that there are great public 
 emergencies, in which such interference is needed. It 
 assumes that, without this interference, the course of 
 affairs could not run smoothly ; that they would be jangled 
 and out of tune ; that the play and harmony of the whole 
 would be incomplete. And thus it is that the very men, 
 who at one moment proclaim the divine omniscience, do 
 at the next moment advocate a theory which reduces that 
 omniscience to nothing, since it imputes to an All-wise 
 Being, that the scheme of human affairs, of which He 
 must from the beginning have foreseen every issue and 
 every consequence, is so weakly contrived as to be liable 
 to be frustrated ; that it has not turned out as He could 
 have wished; that it has been baffled by His own crea- 
 tures; and that, to preserve its integrity, its operations 
 must be tampered with and its disorders redressed. The 
 great Architect of the Universe, the Creator and Designer 
 of all existing things, is likened to some clumsy mechanic, 
 who knows his trade so ill, that he has to be called in to 
 alter the working of his own machine, to supply its defi- 
 ciencies, to fill up its flaws, and to rectify its errors." 
 
 "Those who cling to these errors, do so from the 
 influence of tradition, rather than from complete and 
 unswerving belief. From the beginning, there has been 
 no discrepancy, no incongruity, no disorder, no interrup- 
 tion, no interference ; but all the events which surround 
 us, even to the furthest limits of the material creation, 
 are but different parts of a single scheme, which is per- 
 meated by one glorious principle of universal and unde- 
 viating regularity."
 
 ERRONEOUS IDEAS OF HEAVEN. 147 
 
 Faith in an existence beyond the grave involves by 
 necessity the belief that man's spiritual individuality, his 
 consciousness of personal identity, is preserved to each in- 
 dividual ; else the faith, with which God has inspired him 
 in relation to happiness in another world, would be a 
 delusion. Man can have no conception of future happi- 
 ness, or attach any value to the idea of it, apart from 
 associations with his present existence, or unless he blends 
 with it some recollection of his past existence, peculiari- 
 ties, and identity. Let a man contemplate his mind and 
 spirit waking up in eternity as from a sleep, with all their 
 faculties in full vigor, co-operating and performing their 
 normal functions as when united to the body here, and pos- 
 sessing all the peculiarities that distinguished them indi- 
 vidually, yet without the slightest remembrance or con- 
 sciousness of his former being would such a future be 
 deemed of the smallest worth by any one? If we are 
 not to know ourselves in the next world and to associate 
 our existence here with that of the world to come, then 
 it matters little whether it be another or ourself that 
 secures a more or less happy state in eternity, or any 
 existence whatever beyond the grave. 
 
 In the infancy of the human race, when men were 
 slowly elaborating forms of speech to give utterance 
 to their thoughts, and communicate with their fellows, 
 words were invented, that, however originally useful in 
 themselves, -have helped, in the progress of time, to cir- 
 cumscribe the intellect they were intended to enlarge. 
 Such words, to this day, exercise a prejudicial effect, and 
 convey false meanings and impressions. Thus the Bible 
 accounts of Heaven and Hell give an altogether erroneous 
 idea of the imaginary states which they profess to pre- 
 figure. Heaven is represented as a place above the
 
 148 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 earth a place heaved-up, like a vault or arch over the 
 earth, in which God is supposed to dwell. The discovery 
 that the earth is a globe, and not an extended plane, ought 
 to suggest an idea of Heaven more correctly applicable to 
 the fact; for it makes the words "up" and "down" mathe- 
 matically incorrect, and pertinent only to that apparent 
 plane commanded by the human eye. Still, however, not 
 only the ignorant, but the educated, continue to speak of 
 "Heaven" as a place above the earth as the abode of 
 God a place inhabited in eternity only by those who 
 believe in certain doctrines which are inculcated here, 
 and where the enjoyments prepared for them are, accord- 
 ing to most creeds, far more carnal than spiritual, and 
 pertain to the things upon which the sensual are most 
 addicted to set a value. . For the faithful Christian, there 
 are crowns of gold, to be worn in a city which is paved 
 with gold, whose foundations are garnished with all 
 manner of precious stones, and whose twelve gates are of 
 pearl. There are beautiful bowers and fountains, and 
 lovely "houries" for the eternal delight of the good Mus- 
 sulman. There are happy hunting grounds for the 
 immortalized Red Indian. 
 
 In like manner, the word "Hell," which originally 
 meant a "hole," or the "grave," has been used to 
 create an idea opposite to Heaven the heaved-up abode 
 of bliss, and to signify a place below the earth a place 
 of eternal punishment the abode of the Devil, the rep- 
 resentative of the principle of evil, where unbelievers 
 will be tormented forever in fire and brimstone. As- 
 tronomy ought to make an end of both of these erroneous 
 ideas, for it proves that the universe is the abode of God 
 the universe that embraces the earth, the stars, and every 
 other system that pervades the infinity of space. There
 
 ATTRIBUTES OF GOD. 149 
 
 is therefore no room for Hell. The glorious universe 
 swallows up every atom of space that exists. If the 
 terms are admissible in any sense, Heaven is in reality a 
 comparatively advanced state of happiness here and 
 hereafter, brought about by obedience to God's laws. 
 Hell, in like manner, is the state of mind, here and here- 
 after, produced by disobedience to those laws. It is, 
 within certain limits, for man himself to decide or control, 
 by his own conduct, the amount of either that shall be 
 his portion. 
 
 At every step in a train of argumentation, we are in 
 the habit of affirming one thing to be true, because of its 
 logical connection with another thing known to be true. 
 But, as this process of derivation must have a limit, it is 
 obvious that at the starting point to which some, at least, 
 of these trains of reasoning are traced back, there must 
 be truths which instead of borrowing their credibility 
 from others announce themselves immediately to the 
 mind, by the original and independent and inherent evi- 
 dence pertaining to them. 
 
 Now, among those primary convictions of the under- 
 standing these truths which come by necessity, first- 
 handed from God to man we shall, for our present pur- 
 pose, cite only the one from which all others radiate, to 
 wit, the existence of a God who is the Creator and Ruler 
 of the universe including man. Upon this undisputable 
 truth we claim may be founded with implicit confi- 
 dence, the following propositions : That He who made the 
 universe has no peer, no equal, is One and indivisible : 
 That He is absolute in power ; and that there is no devil 
 or other being disputing His sway, or at enmity with Him. 
 That He is infinite in justice and goodness, and hence 
 could not have so ordained man and his surroundings, as
 
 150 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS, 
 
 to permit of other than eventual supreme good to each 
 human being. 
 
 We hold that these views in relation to God, naturally 
 flow from the bare contemplation of Him, whose know- 
 ledge and power were and are equal to creating and sus- 
 taining the universe. We hold also, that experience, 
 which shall never end, commences betimes in the life of 
 each man, to confirm him the more and more in his early 
 conceptions of God's excellence and glory. 
 
 This prime conviction of the existence of a God, and 
 the natural deductions from it, practically over-ride all 
 false teaching, come it from whatsoever source it may, and 
 is ever confirming the true. We have said that a self- 
 evident truth, which must by necessity come to the mind 
 of every man first-hand, is the only reliable basis, no 
 less than the continuous cement of all sound reasoning. 
 Where do the Christian Churches find this basis and this 
 cement? Is it in their traditions, in their theologies bor- 
 rowed from the ancients, in their fabulous records contra- 
 dicted by history, in the unfulfilled predictions of their 
 oracles, in their miracles, which will not bear the test of 
 science, in their self-bestowed certificates of their own 
 infallibility, in the bloody doings of their hierarchy during 
 the dark ages, in their repulsive creed that dooms the vast 
 majority of mankind to everlasting anguish? 
 
 Furthermore, the need of a base, or foundation cor- 
 responding in solidity, and of universal acceptation with 
 that of the existence of a one Omnipotent and indivisi- 
 ble God whereupon to rest the doctrines peculiar to the 
 Christian theology, as distinguished from natural religion, 
 is visible in the multiplicity of Christian sects, in their 
 wars and persecutions among themselves in other times 
 and in their divisions and heart-burnings of to-day. This
 
 GOD IN NATURE. 151 
 
 again brings up the question which distinguishes theology 
 from religion. 
 
 God hath so constituted us, that we thirst for knowl- 
 edge, adapted to our taste for the beautiful ; and He has 
 formed the world without, to awaken echoes in the soul 
 within, so as to promote at one and the same time the 
 enlargement of the experience, the quickening of the 
 understanding, and the refinement of the feelings. 
 
 Each class of objects furnishes its quota of evidence. 
 The physical works of God give indications of power and 
 skill. The providence of God exhibits a governing and 
 controlling energy. Our spiritual natures lift us to the 
 conception of a living and spiritual God. 
 
 The phenomena, which prove the existence of God, 
 also demonstrate that he delights in the happiness of his 
 creatures. How delightful to find that every adaptation 
 indicating design also indicates benevolence, and that we 
 have as clear evidence of the goodness as of the very 
 existence of God. Let it be observed, too, that the mind, 
 as its general conceptions expand, will also have its idea 
 of God expanded. When Nature is viewed in a nar- 
 row spirit, it may leave the impression that there is an 
 unseemly warfare, and that there are numberless contra- 
 dictions in the universe. The light of knowledge, as it 
 rises, dispels these phantoms, and discloses among appa- 
 rent incongruities and contentions, a unity of being in the 
 Creator and Governor of all things. 
 
 The workings of conscience in the soul, besides furnish- 
 ing a. curious subject of inquiry, carry us down into the 
 very depths of our nature, and thence upwards to some of 
 the highest of the Divine perfections. It is by this light, 
 which God has furnished to all men, and the training
 
 152 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 resulting from bis unalterable laws, tbat God's goodness 
 will become more and more apparent. 
 
 We have seen tbat in Judaism, Mabommedanism, Hin- 
 dooism, Buddhism, Christianity, and every description of 
 creed under the sun, the will of a living Being is asserted 
 as the ground of all things ; they all speak of Him as 
 declaring Himself, and as exercising a continual, not an 
 occasional, government over men. The universal recogni- 
 tion of a Divine, personal, unseen, Sovereignty ; of One 
 who is not sought out oy men, but who calls them to do 
 His work, is the foundation, and strength of actual reli- 
 gion. He calls upon them to obey a Will ; each act of 
 obedience brings them into closer acquaintance with Him 
 who gives the command. 
 
 Man is taught that the evil which he is conscious of 
 in himself, and which he sees in others, comes from 
 unlikeness to the perfect Being in whose image he is 
 created. He has but a glimpse of the Divine purposes 
 and character, but it is such a glimpse, as is suitable to 
 his necessities. He is taught that righteousness is a 
 reality ; that the government of the world is based upon 
 it ; that wrong and oppression are not meant to triumph. 
 
 But such a Revelation as this, could never merely be 
 delivered to men as a book of sentences or maxims ; it 
 must come forth in a history of Divine law and human 
 acts. It must show how the Divine Will directed events 
 by means of a never-varying law and disciplined men for 
 that perfect good, that knowledge of himself which He 
 had designed for them. It must show how He cultivates 
 the faculties which He has given to His creatures, how 
 He enables them to overcome the darkness and difficulties 
 in the midst of which they are struggling. Thus securing 
 the predominance of right over wrong, and virtue over
 
 THE DIVINE CHARACTER. 153 
 
 vice, and the clearer and clearer view of God's goodness 
 and perfection. 
 
 In primitive times men in striving to comprehend the 
 characteristics of God, resorted by way of illustration, to 
 those traits in human character, which are quite at vari- 
 ance with His nature. In many cases this course mis- 
 leads rather than edifies. Such passions and emotions, 
 while especially adapted to the necessities of finite beings 
 of limited power and knowledge and liable to err, have no 
 counterpart in God's higher nature. His infinite power, 
 knowledge, foresight, justice, goodness, in short, His 
 supreme perfections preclude any such emotions, passions, 
 or qualities, as repentance, anger, pity, hope, fear, love, 
 mercy, hatred, forgiveness, surprise, gladness, levity, 
 revenge, disappointment, rejoicing, or jealousy. Nothing 
 can take place which God did not foresee would take place 
 at the time of establishing His perfect design, to be worked 
 out under the unalterable laws that He ordained for the 
 purpose. Since, therefore, it is man's high privilege to 
 advance in the knowledge and appreciation of God's 
 goodness and perfections, in contemplation of Him we 
 should avail ourselves of the highest intellectual culture 
 at our command. In this way, we confirm, and add to 
 the original conception of God, taught us by natural reli- 
 gion. This will lead us to a vastly more elevated idea of 
 God, than those teachings which inculcate that He is 
 finite and vacillating, and which reduce Him to a level 
 with His dependent, short-sighted creatures. Love, mercy, 
 and forgiveness can not apply to God in the sense in 
 which these emotions are understood and expressed by 
 man. Justice, and goodness supersede them. God's 
 ordinances regulated by His infinite wisdom are such, that 
 the exercise of mercy and forgiveness would be less just
 
 154 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and beneficial to man than otherwise, both in this life and 
 the life to come. It is far better for God to exact to the 
 utmost that penalty which He has attached to man's mis- 
 doings, not as punishment, but as remedy inasmuch as it 
 is imposed upon him with the sole object of training and 
 fitting him to the destiny that God originally designed for 
 him. A jury sometimes recommends a criminal whom 
 they have condemned to the mercy of the court, because 
 they are not altogether satisfied that the culprit is guilty 
 by the strict interpretation of the law, or because they 
 find mitigating circumstances in his case. Not so with 
 God He is enabled by His perfect fore-knowledge and 
 wisdom to make sure that the crime and the punishment 
 are in exact fitness to each other ; and since they are so 
 adjusted for man's best interests, it would be unmerciful 
 to destroy this fitness, by the relaxation of any portion of 
 the penalty originally attached to man's misdoings. The 
 same considerations apply to love. If God's original laws 
 are strictly just, and all-sufficient for carrying out His 
 perfect purpose and who shall doubt it any exercise of 
 love that would alter man's original relation to those laws, 
 would be unjust to him. God's justice is exact to the 
 most minute point, and admits of no amendment. Any 
 exercise of love or mercy, on God's part that would 
 reverse His original decrees, presupposes God to be falli- 
 ble or unable to ordain all things aright from the first. 
 
 The parable of the Prodigal Son is intended to incul- 
 cate the idea that God rejoices more over the repentance 
 of a sinner, than over the well-doing of a just man. What 
 a striking example of the unwarrantable application of 
 human passions to the Deity is this ! It is natural that 
 a father should experience an agreeable surprise and ela- 
 tion at the return of a wayward son to duty. Eut God
 
 NO REMISSION OF PENALTIES. 155 
 
 Las ordained that he who sins shall assuredly repent ; and 
 what God has imperatively ordained to take place can 
 afford Him no surprise or rejoicing at its consummation. 
 Every event or issue is the even flow of the purpose He 
 foresaw and intended from the beginning ; therefore, the 
 parable in question is not a true illustration of the attri- 
 butes or emotions of God. Sincere repentance tends, most 
 forcibly, to turn men from their evil ways ; and, there- 
 fore, Jesus did well when he charged his Apostles to 
 preach repentance, but inconsistently when he inculcated 
 the idea that repentance brings remission of the penalty 
 due to sin. This is impossible, inasmuch as the punish- 
 ment which sin entails is the sole cause of the repentance. 
 The effect of punishment and repentance for sin were 
 never meant to be retrospective ; but are intended to warn 
 us against the commission of sin in future. For instance, 
 the burnt child dreads the fire. This wholesome dread in 
 no wise assuages the pain of the burn ; but it is an impor- 
 tant lesson to the child to enable it to steer clear of sim- 
 ilar dangers, and the more effectual, as the pain is more 
 severe. God's goodness and justice are here shewn in 
 exacting the penalty, and thereby producing the repent- 
 ance ; since repentance leads to man's best interests. 
 
 Even the appellation of Father, accorded to God by 
 Jesus much as it has done and is calculated to do in 
 giving some appreciation of God's goodness and care over 
 His creatures falls as far short of giving the true idea of 
 the extent and beneficial exercise of God's goodness, as 
 weak man falls short of God's perfection. God, in dis- 
 pensing happiness to His creatures, goes to the extreme 
 bounds that is well for them, but never beyond. God, 
 knowing all things, does all things with a perfection 
 beyond man's conception. Neither Father, nor any other
 
 156 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 human idea or figure of speech, can fully represent God's 
 goodness to His creatures. Jesus says truly, " there is 
 none good but God." 
 
 This view of divine government involves a much more 
 elevated idea and worship of God, than any other. The 
 perfect foreknowledge and power of God enabled Him so 
 to constitute man, and to ordain such laws for his govern- 
 ment, as to meet the exact requirements under every 
 possible contingency, without addition, amendment, altera- 
 tion, or abatement. In this perfect work is the strongest 
 possible manifestation of God's equal justice and goodness 
 to all men. The high and the humble are alike amenable 
 to His unalterable laws ; and those laws are in exact 
 accordance with man's best interests.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO BIBLE CRITICISM. 
 
 GOD'S instructions to man through Nature, in relation 
 to his duties here, are so plain and unmistakable that 
 they cannot but be understood alike by all men, in all 
 ages of the world. Hence the inference is irresistible 
 that whatever is claimed to be a revelation from God in 
 relation to man's duty, whether in and through the Bible, 
 by miracles, or through any other means whatsover, if it 
 be not so plain and devoid of obscurity as to be understood, 
 in this way, by all men, cannot have emanated from God. 
 
 No man is bound to accept, as true, any averment in 
 the name of religion, which is repugnant to the dictates 
 of his own conscience, or inconsistent with the justice and 
 goodness of God. It was never intended that anything 
 should be received as infallibly true, except that which 
 we perceive intuitively, or which is palpable from obser- 
 vation, or subject to unmistakable demonstration. 
 
 The character of the proof of the three following assump- 
 tions is such that universal assent is given to them ; first, 
 the truth of the existence of the One God, Jehovah ; 
 second, the immortality of the soul ; third, that it is 
 man's duty and interest to conform to> the moral, and 
 other laws pertaining to his being. 
 
 Strong conclusions ought not to be drawn from impro- 
 bable statements or imperfect premises. God requires
 
 158 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 that we should believe only so much as can be fairly 
 deduced from the premises, or only so much as the credi- 
 bility of the statement warrants. 
 
 God has given us our mental faculties to enable us to 
 discriminate between truth and error, and he who makes 
 not this use of them arrives at truth, if at all, by mere 
 chance. 
 
 We cannot come to a full conviction of the truth of a 
 proposition, except on evidence which we deem full and 
 infallible. Every substantial structure must have a foun- 
 dation proportionally substantial. 
 
 Maintaining these axioms, we now proceed to remark 
 upon the Bible, assuming that if in its entire scope, it be 
 a true revelation from God, as Christian theology claims 
 it to be whether its contents be derived from natural or 
 supernatural sources, or in part from each there should 
 be perfect harmony throughout. No one can, consistently, 
 object to subjecting the claimed truth of the Bible to the 
 most rigid test, either by comparing its various parts, one 
 with the other, or with the established facts of Nature, or 
 with the moral consciousness of man ; or by any other 
 available mode of investigation. The Bible should be 
 able to withstand the most rigid scrutiny, when viewed 
 in connection with whatever truths may serve to throw 
 light upon it ; and it should be proof against such logical 
 deductions as may be brought to bear against it. 
 
 We believe the Bible to be true, only so far as its 
 teachings are in accordance with the teachings of God to 
 all mankind, through their natural faculties, holding that 
 there is no such thing as supernatural revelation. We 
 believe also that ail pretended deviations from the order 
 which God established at the beginning are unproved, 
 and have their origin and advocacy, in human ignorance
 
 VAGUENESS OF PROPHECIES. 159 
 
 or fraud. Evidence of this is furnished most abundantly 
 in Bible record, as we shall attempt to show. Bible 
 authority will also be claimed as legitimate, for the pur- 
 pose of controverting dogmas and doctrines that are pro- 
 fessedly founded on its contents. 
 
 VAGUENESS OF PROPHECIES. 
 
 All the prophecies, and most of the parables of Jesus, 
 are so extremely vague and uncertain in their meaning 
 (if any meaning they have) as to be susceptible of innu- 
 merable interpretations, all equally plausible, if compared 
 one with another ; and yet not one of the constructions 
 put upon the Bible text, is sufficiently plain to be for a 
 moment relied on as a guide to that duty, and faith upon 
 which, the churches aver, hangs man's eternal welfare. 
 And even those portions of the Bible, which are less 
 obscure than some to which we have alluded, are made to 
 have a far-fetched spiritual significance, totally at vari- 
 ance with the wording. This answers a double purpose. 
 First, it rescues the dogmas, creeds, and theologies of the 
 churches and clergy, partially from discredit and over- 
 throw ; and secondly, whenever a figurative mode of 
 expression is substituted for the plain meaning of words, 
 it operates so that there can be no end to equivocation 
 and misrepresentation. Hence, each of the many sects 
 finds material for a specious building up its respective 
 tenets, and each can make it appear that its church is the 
 only gate through which to pass on to eternal bliss. None 
 are wanting in zeal in pushing their peculiar views, (all 
 of which depart more or less from the early teachings of
 
 160 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Jesus,) solely for the love of the dear people ; and yet 
 they are ever mindful of the toll which the wayfarer must 
 pay at their gate. Let us look at a few examples of this 
 mode of interpretation. 
 
 The plan of salvation taught by the Churches, is 
 through faith in the divinity of Jesus. This involves the 
 question whether the Prophets were or were not super- 
 naturally endowed, and enabled to designate, centuries 
 beforehand, the identical person who afterwards was 
 claimed to be both God and man, co-equal with Jehovah ; 
 and whether Jesus was he whom they designated as that 
 person. 
 
 In order to prove that he was, resort is had to compli- 
 cated prophecies, visions, dark sayings, and dreams, all of 
 them most vague and uncertain in their interpretation 
 if indeed they have any definite meaning. This very 
 much confuses church teaching ; but it holds church-goers 
 in wonderment and awe, at the profundity of the Teacher 
 who claims to penetrate and expound this deep, and to 
 them unfathomable, system a system from which it is 
 claimed that most vital truths are extracted, and without a 
 knowledge of which truths, and the aid of their Teachers, 
 they the less knowing are led to believe that they 
 would be irrevocably lost. 
 
 As to the visions, dreams, and prophetic utterances of 
 mere men, as mediums for promulgating laws that are to 
 be accepted and binding on other men, some few remarks 
 may be pertinent. A man declares that God has super- 
 naturally revealed to him a new law, to be obeyed by all 
 other men ; and that God has attached to the neglect of 
 said law the penalty of everlasting torment. Now how 
 can we know this to be true, without supernatural revela- 
 tion, to assure us that the prophet himself bears a true
 
 SUPERNATURAL INSPIRATION INCREDIBLE. 161 
 
 message from God? It is the essence of a law, that he 
 who is commanded to obey, should have a knowledge of 
 the authority of him who promulgates that law. But 
 there is no intuition or natural sense within us tending to 
 the recftgnition of these prophecies, utterances, dreams, 
 and visions, as being from God. Hence we are not 
 bound to obey what is called supernatural revelations, 
 having no reliable evidence of their truth, further than 
 the mere assertion of him who claims to have a message 
 from God. 
 
 Now, if God ever speaks to man supernaturally, (which 
 we feel assured he never does,) the fact can only be known 
 by those to whom God has so spoken. No man can pos- 
 sibly bring home to another's understanding, how he can 
 have been spoken to directly and supernaturally, unless 
 the one to whom he addresses himself has also been 
 spoken to supernaturally. If a man perceive the course 
 which he supposes to be proper for himself and others to 
 pursue, through his intuition, conscience or natural sense, 
 it is easy to explain to another how God communicated 
 this, His will, because God has in like manner so commu- 
 nicated with all men. In this way we can give more or 
 less credit to communications, coming through others, 
 when they say that those communications were received 
 in a natural way : yet only when they bear evidence of 
 having been so received, and in proportion to the credi- 
 bility of the person ; lind so far as the character of what 
 is communicated may be consistent with reason. But if 
 a man says he has been supernaturally inspired to com- 
 municate God's will to men, and he communicates that 
 which is a new thing, unheard of before by any one, 
 strange, and not in itself in conformity with man's natural 
 reason, intuitions, instincts, and conscience is it obli- 
 11
 
 162 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 gatory on any second person to shape his conduct, in 
 accordance with such pretended supernatural communica- 
 tion ? What possible claim can such a man have on the 
 credulity of others as having truly received from God a 
 correct exposition of His will ? 
 
 God has shown and beyond the ability of man to 
 throw a shadow of doubt on the subject that He makes 
 His will and laws, for the government of all lower 
 animals, perfectly efficient. His ends and purposes, 
 through the instincts and intuitions implanted in each 
 respective race, at the first, operating uniformly and uni- 
 versally, are, we have a right to conclude, exactly suited 
 to the bringing about of the results which He intended at 
 the creation. That this analogy holds good in relation to 
 man, may be doubted by some, but cannot be disproved. 
 No good reason can be advanced why God should govern 
 all the lower animals by a mode entirely in accordance 
 with His perfect foreknowledge and infinite power, and 
 yet govern mankind in a way most palpably inferior, so 
 much so as to require (according to popular theology) that 
 each one of the human family, should report to God by 
 words of mouth, such special amendments to his general 
 laws as they may think necessary to their individual wel- 
 fare. Now this is equivalent to attributing to God an 
 absence o/ that foresight, power and infinite perfection 
 which He has made so manifest throughout all His work. 
 We are, therefore, under the thorough conviction, that 
 God governs man by His immutable laws, first estab- 
 lished, operating alike upon every individual, for his best 
 interest, and requiring no alteration or amendment. This, 
 alone is consistent with God's foreknowledge, justice, 
 power, goodness and majesty.
 
 FAILURE OF PRECISE PREDICTIONS. 163 
 
 All the prophecies which admit of a definite construc- 
 tion, both as to the things predicted and the time of their 
 coming to pass, have entirely failed to come to pass. The 
 following furnishes an example : And as he sat. upon the 
 Mount of Olives, the disciples came unto him privately, 
 saying: " Tell us when shall these things be, and what 
 shall be the sign of thy coming, and of the end of the 
 world ?" (Matthew xxiv. 3.) The answer to these ques- 
 tions, we may fairly infer is contained in the following 
 language made use of by Jesus : " Immediately after the 
 tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and 
 the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall 
 from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be 
 shaken. And then shall appear the Son of man in 
 heaven, and then shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, 
 and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of 
 heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send 
 his angels with a great sound of a trumpet ; and they 
 shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from 
 one end of heaven to the other. Now learn a parable of 
 the fig tree. When his branch is yet tender and putteth 
 forth leaves, ye know that summer is nigh. So likewise 
 ye, when ye shall see all these things, know that it is 
 near, even at the doors. Verily I say unto you, This 
 generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled." 
 (Matthew xxiv. 29, 34.) And again: "Verily I say 
 unto you, There be some standing here which shall not 
 taste of death until they see the Son of man coming in his 
 kingdom." (Matthew xvi. 28.) Now these prophecies 
 admit .of no prevarication or shuffling, as is the case with 
 most of them ; and there can be no doubt that when 
 Jesus made the prediction, that His second coming in 
 person in the clouds of heaven, with power and great
 
 164 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 glory, should take place before the generation of men to 
 whom He was then speaking should all pass away, he 
 fully believed it would be fulfilled within the prescribed 
 time, which is distinctly marked in the most unmistakable 
 terms. The failure is complete. No person 'can argue 
 to the contrary, with any show of candor. This, of itself, 
 in all fairness, is fatal to the pretensions of Jesus' divinity, 
 and is highly damaging to all His claims based upon the 
 prophecies of tbe Old Testament. Strauss remarks on 
 this subject; "Here we stand face to face, with a deci- 
 sive point. The ancient Church clung to this part of the 
 doctrine of Jesus, in literal signification, nay, it was, pro- 
 perly speaking, built upon this foundation, since without 
 the expectation of His near return, no Christian whatever, 
 would have come into existence. For us, Jesus exists 
 only as a human being. To a human being no such thing 
 as he here prophesied of himself, could happen. If he 
 did prophesy it of himself, and expect it himself, it proves 
 that he conceived himself to be that which he was not." 
 "All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in 
 parables ; and without a parable spake he not unto them : 
 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the 
 prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables ; I will 
 utter things which have been kept secret from the foun- 
 dation of the world." Matthew xiii. 34, 35. Here he, 
 who is claimed as God, is represented as making it a 
 studied point to shape his conduct in accordance with 
 prophecy. But while Jesus shaped his sayings and con- 
 duct specially with a view of making them thus conform, 
 his followers put a construction on them not warranted by 
 the text, and thus gained for him that credence without 
 which he would not now stand before Christendom as he 
 does.
 
 PARABLE OF THE LOST SHEEP. 165 
 
 Now, as to the parable of the Lost Sheep : "Then drew 
 near unto him all the publicans and sinners, for to hear 
 him. And the Pharisees and Scribes murmured, saying, 
 This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them. And 
 he spake this parable unto them, saying, What man of 
 you, having an hundred sheep, if he lost one, doth not 
 leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after 
 that which is lost until he find it? And when he hath 
 found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And 
 when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and 
 neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have 
 found my sheep which was lost. I say unto you, that 
 likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that 
 repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons 
 which need no repentance." Luke xv. 1, 11. This 
 teaching is of doubtful utility, if nothing more. It indi- 
 cates that a person's character is elevated by wrong-doing. 
 God's mode of reclaiming the erring is by shewing them 
 their folly through the upbraidings of conscience or by 
 other punishments, thereby producing a sense of degrada- 
 tion or pain and unhappiness. This produces repentance 
 and amended ways by necessity, sooner or later, and 
 always in God's good time, which we deem better than 
 rejoicing over the sinner, since it is God's mode of train- 
 ing to virtue. It is obvious that God's mode is directly 
 opposed to the deductions of Jesus from the parable on 
 this subject. 
 
 Again : the Parable of the Prodigal Son : " Father, I 
 have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no 
 more worthy to be called thy son. * * * But the father 
 said to his servants, bring forth the best robe, and put it 
 on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. 
 And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it ; and let us
 
 166 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 eat and be merry. Now his elder son was in the field : 
 and as he came and drew nigh to the house, he heard 
 music and dancing : And he called one of the, servants, 
 and asked what these things meant. And he said unto 
 him, thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the 
 fatted calf, because he hatli received him safe and sound. 
 And he was angry, and would not go in : therefore came 
 his father out and entreated him. And he answering, 
 said to his father, Lo, these many years do I serve thee, 
 neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment ; 
 and yet thou never gavest me a kid, that I might make 
 merry with my friends. But as soon as this thy son was 
 come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou 
 hast killed for him the fatted calf." Luke xv. 21, 23, 
 25, 30. This represents wrong-doing; and repentance 
 therefor, as being more commendable than a uniform 
 course of correct conduct. This is not in accordance with 
 the self-respect which God has implanted within the 
 nature of man, neither is it in accordance with the aggre- 
 gate sense of right. The human father of the parable 
 may be supposed to be in doubt as to whether his erring 
 son would ever return to duty and to his home, and may 
 be considered as acting but the natural part of a Father, 
 in rejoicing at the unexpected return of his wayward child. 
 But God, knowing and controlling all things, can never 
 (like the human father) be in doubt, can never be sur- 
 prised, can never rejoice over an unexpected occurrence. 
 Hence, the Parable here in view, is inappropriate when 
 applied in this way. 
 
 Furthermore : " There was in a city a judge, which 
 feared not God neither regarded man. And there was a 
 widow in that city ; and she came unto him saying, 
 Avenge me of mine adversary. And he would not for
 
 ERRONEOUS DEDUCTIONS. 167 
 
 awhile but afterward he said within himself; though I 
 fear not God, nor regard man, Yet, because this widow 
 troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by. her continual 
 coming she weary me. And the Lord said, hear what 
 the unjust judge saith." 
 
 "And shall not God avenge his own elect which cry day 
 and night unto him, though he bear long with them? 
 I tell you he will avenge them speedily." Luke xviii. 
 2, 3, 4i 5, 6, 7, 8. 
 
 Now the prominent teaching of this parable is that God 
 will avenge only his own elect, and that, for the sole 
 purpose of getting rid of the annoyance of their long- 
 continued importunities. But how much does this view 
 conflict with that unbounded goodness and long forbear- 
 ance which all Christians of the present day ascribe to 
 God ! If it be said that it was .designed to applaud and 
 encourage long-continued pleading and importuning for 
 the redress of grievances, or the avenging of our adversa- 
 ries, then we answer that it is not in accordance with the 
 following teaching of Jesus : " Your Father knoweth what 
 things ye have need of before ye ask Him." "Use no 
 vain repetitions." "Not every one that saith unto me, 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, but 
 he that doeth the will of my Father which is in Heaven." 
 All which passages go to prove, that it is his works, and 
 not much speaking that are acceptable to God. 
 
 And still another : When a certain rich ruler asked 
 Jesus what he must do to inherit " eternal life," his reply 
 was to this effect : "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell 
 all that thou hast and give it to the poor, and thou shalt 
 have treasure in Heaven ; and come and follow me. For, 
 verily, I say unto you, A rich man shall hardly enter into 
 into the Kingdom of Heaven." Matthew xix., 21, 23.
 
 168 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 
 Again, "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of 
 
 a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the Kingdom 
 of God. When his disciples heard this they were exceed- 
 ingly amazed, saying, Who then can be saved?" Mat- 
 thew xix. 24, 25. And again : In the parable of the 
 rich man and Lazarus, the following occurs : " Son, 
 remember that thou in thy life-time receivedst thy good 
 things, and likewise Lazarus evil things ; but now he is 
 comforted, and thou art tormented." Luke xvi. 25. 
 " Blessed be ye poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." 
 " But woe unto you that are rich, for ye have received 
 your consolation." Luke vi. 20, 24. The teaching of 
 these parables and sayings can have but one object, that 
 is, to represent poverty and suffering as virtues, and. the 
 true road to Heaven, and to make riches an insurmounta- 
 ble obstacle to future happiness. Self-preservation is the 
 strongest law which God has implanted within man ; and 
 out of this grows the incentive to acquire, and store up 
 the necessaries and luxuries of life ; the legitimate doing 
 of which increases a man's usefulness to himself and 
 fellow-men. This is so universally recognized, that the 
 instructions of Jesus on the subject are entirely disre- 
 garded by the disciples of Christianity, not excepting the 
 clergy, which practically falsifies the Bible, whereof it is 
 said every word must be received as truth. 
 
 Again : " These twelve Jesus sent forth, and com- 
 manded them, saying, Go not into the way of the Gen- 
 tiles, and into any city of the Samaritans enter ye not ; 
 But go rather to the lost sheep of the House of Israel." 
 Matthew x. 5, 6. " I thank thee, 0, Father," said 
 Jesus, " because thou hast hid these things from the wise 
 and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Mat- 
 thew xi. 25. This is inconsistent with the idea that
 
 ERRONEOUS DEDUCTIONS. 169 
 
 Jesus' mission was to raise all who fell through Adam, 
 and of his being the Saviour of all mankind. 
 
 Again : " But I say unto you, Love your enemies, 
 bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, 
 and pray for them which despitefully use you and perse- 
 cute you." Matthew v. 44. "Ye have heard that i L 
 hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a 
 tooth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil ; but 
 whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn to 
 him the other also, And, if any man will sue thee at the 
 law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 
 And, whosoever shall compel thee to go a mile, go with 
 him twain. Give to him that asketh thee, and from him 
 that would borrow of thee turn not thou away." Mat- 
 thew v. 38, 42. These injunctions are at variance with 
 the well-defined characteristics of human nature, and con- 
 sequently unsuited to the practices of every-day life, 
 inconsistent with self-preservation, and a becoming dig- 
 nity and self-respect. 
 
 Lastly : " Now, when Jesus was risen early the first 
 day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene. 
 * * * Afterward he appeared unto the eleven. * * * 
 And he said unto them. Go ye into all the world, and 
 preach the Gospel to every creature. He that believ- 
 eth and is baptized, shall be saved, but he that believ- 
 eth not shall be damned. And these signs shall follow 
 them that believe. In my name shall they cast out 
 devils ; they shall speak with new tongues. They shall 
 take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly thing it 
 shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on the sick, 
 and they shall recover." Mark xvi. 9, 14, 16, 17, 18. 
 Now, since nothing is said to the contrary, it is fair to 
 presume that these things were spoken by Jesus as per-
 
 170 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 taming to all future time. But will any one pretend that 
 in these days there is a verification of the truth of these 
 declarations ? Rather, is it not apparent that the reverse 
 is the case ? 
 
 A man born in a Mohammedan country believes in 
 Mohammed. A Chinese believes in Confucius; and so 
 with the followers of every other system of theology on 
 the face of the globe. All, or most of the founders of 
 the different systems, claim supernatural origin and 
 endowments for themselves, or are believed to have pos- 
 sessed them, by their followers. People who are educated 
 to believe in a particular faith, think that on such belief 
 depends their salvation. Now, could we have any better 
 proof than this, that one has as little foundation as the 
 other, to rest upon not even excepting the Christian 
 theology ? There is no merit or demerit, no salvation or 
 condemnation, either for belief or non-belief, in any of 
 these theologies. God is too just and good to ordain that 
 the doom of an immortal soul shall be determined by the 
 merest accidental circumstance, in no way involving the 
 voluntary action or accountability of the individual soul. 
 
 The early teachings of Jesus are comprised in his 
 enjoining the duty of love to God and man, which he 
 repeatedly says is all that is necessary for salvation. 
 These teachings, however good in themselves, had nothing 
 new or peculiar in them, but were taught, substantially, 
 and with equal, if not with greater force and fullness, by 
 Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, Mohammed, and all the 
 other founders of theology and great Teachers of religion 
 and morals. Did not the Greek and Roman philosophers, 
 Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Democritus, Pythagoras, Epi- 
 curus, Pindar, and Solon, recognize as a rule of conduct, 
 the great principles of moral deportment contained in the
 
 CHRISTIANITY NOT ORIGINAL. 171 
 
 early teachings of Christ, to wit, love of God and good 
 works ? Indeed, all nations on the face of the globe, as 
 far back as history will carry us, have in substance, advo- 
 cated and been governed by this religion, which is com- 
 mon to all. 
 
 Every doctrine, creed, theology, dogma or faith, that 
 has ever been claimed to be, or which has gone by the 
 name of religion, other than natural religion, has been 
 embraced by a portion, only, of the different nations and 
 peoples of the earth ; springing up during one age of the 
 world, gone in the next. On the contrary, all agree, and 
 at all times and in all places, that love to God and love to 
 man, and the conforming to the moral law, is the bounden 
 duty of every accountable member of the human family. 
 But here the boundary of harmony on religious subjects 
 is reached. This universal religion has been, and is, 
 preached and urged upon the observance of mankind, in 
 connection with thousands of different doctrines, creeds, 
 theologies, ceremonies, and forms, which are claimed as 
 essential parts of worship : each sect contending for its 
 own peculiar views, in relation to doctrines, creeds, and 
 theologies, with such pertinacity and bitterness, as to 
 cause wars, that have resulted in the massacre of millions 
 upon millions of human beings, and that continue to be 
 the source of most lamentable contentious and crimina- 
 tions, and of irreligious conduct generally. It is submitted 
 therefore, whether this state of facts, which is verified by 
 history, does not indicate, unmistakably, what it is that 
 constitutes the religion which God intended and insured 
 for universal adoption by nations and individuals, or, in 
 other words, whether it does not furnish a sure criterion, 
 by means of which the wheat and the chaff may be dis- 
 tinguished each from the other.
 
 172 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 The principal written codes connected with the worship 
 of God in various countries, and which have been more 
 or less the cause of disastrous wars and disgraceful feuds 
 ampng men, are the following : the Zend A vesta of the 
 Parsees ; the Vini Pidimot of the Burmese Empire ; the 
 Rig Veda of the Hindoos ; the Koran of the Mahomme- 
 dans ; and the Bible of the Christians. But we would 
 ask, is it at all a part of the duty which God exacts of 
 man, to pay homage to, or to worship, any of the persons, 
 whom these books or records glorify ? Godama, Mahomet, 
 Zoroaster, Buddha, and Jesus, all claim to be either gods 
 or supernaturally endowed by God. Which of them shall 
 we acknowledge ? We would submit also, that, whereas 
 the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, and many other symbols, 
 have been adopted by various sects, either as substantial 
 parts or as adjuncts of worship, so also does the Christian 
 theology require divine honor to be paid to the Virgin 
 Mary, and that three Gods be worshipped instead of the 
 One living and true God. Wherein, we ask, lies the dif- 
 ference ? May there not be a good side and an evil side, 
 in all these cases alike good, inasmuch as the symbol 
 leads up to the God above it evil, whenever and wher- 
 ever devotion stops short at the symbol? 
 
 It is very important that the truth on this subject 
 should be determined, and be set forth by those among us 
 who make a profession of teaching. But, bound by the 
 rules of their Church and constrained by habit, the clergy 
 advocate a certain set of special tenets, even whilst the 
 most learned and sensible men among them acknowledge, 
 in their own hearts, that what may be called the techni- 
 calities of their faith are not based on reliable evidence. 
 Intelligent observation of God's dealings with the human 
 race around them, and a careful study of the record of
 
 SIMPLICITY OF TRUE RELIGION. 173 
 
 i 
 
 past ages, lead them to the just conclusion that the reli- 
 gion which God teaches is love for Himself and His laws, 
 and the golden rule, " Do unto others as you would they 
 should do unto you." Yet they lack the moral courage 
 to preach this sublime and simple doctrine, preferring, in 
 deference to custom and in fear of giving offence, to reit- 
 erate Biblical stories that are disproved by investigation, 
 or that have much in common with other creeds which 
 they affect to despise. 
 
 And yet how pathetically do these same Christian 
 clergymen appeal for pecuniary aid, to the end that they 
 may convert the Heathen ! Their object, meanwhile, is 
 not to promulgate the practical religion which Jesus 
 taught with such wonderful effect both by precept and 
 example, and which consists entirely of love to God and 
 good will to man ; neither is it to inculcate morals based 
 on good works taught in the law of God. It is their own 
 Christian theology, which they are bent upon instilling 
 into the Heathen mind, its main point being a theoretical 
 belief in man's fall through Adam, and resurrection 
 through Jesus. It is evident, or it should be, indeed, to 
 all reasonable minds, that God sent His only true and 
 all-sufficient religion to the Heathen in common with all 
 men. Else what becomes of all those who either never 
 heard of Jesus ; or, if they did, have no more desire to 
 believe in him than a Christian has to believe in Moham- 
 med, or to become an Israelite? 
 
 The theology for means of sending which to the 
 Heathen each creed, sect, and denomination of Christians 
 so pathetically pleads consists of dogmas and theologies 
 tacked on to the pure religion of Jesus and of Nature. 
 Each has a different dogma, each has variations in its
 
 174 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 faith. How are the Heathen to choose between one and 
 another ? 
 
 In all countries, whether Heathen or Christian, there 
 are those who mingle the spurious with the good ; conse- 
 quently Heathen teachers have false gods and false 
 theologies of their own, which they trade in, with equal 
 results as the Christians. They see that the same is done 
 in Christian countries, and they laugh at the idea of a 
 comparatively small number of Christians dictating creeds 
 and theologies to the balance of mankind, quadrupling 
 them in number, and as likely to be right as themselves. 
 Hence it is just as reasonable to suppose, that the 
 Heathen should attempt to benefit Christian communi- 
 ties, by sending them their Bibles, which contain moral 
 codes and precepts equally as good, and, in fact, dogmas 
 and theologies as ingeniously contrived, as well authen- 
 ticated, and as plausible in their claim to divine origin as 
 the Christian Bible. Their oracles, too, whose names are 
 taken to designate the various theologies which prevail 
 among them, have as valid a claim, by miracles and pro- 
 phecies, to supernatural endowments (or to Divinity itself) 
 as have the Christian Churches on behalf of Jesus. But 
 it is not Jesus himself, who is reponsible for the system 
 which has been engrafted on his name. It is his pro- 
 fessed followers who have perverted his teaching. His 
 answer was, when he was asked, " Master, which is the 
 great commandment in the law?" "Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, 
 and with all thy mind. This is the first and great com- 
 mandment. And the second is like unto it. Thou shalt 
 love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two command- 
 ments hang all the law and the prophets." Matthew 
 xxii, 37, 38, 39, 40. And when, again, he was asked,
 
 CHRIST'S REAL TEACHINGS. 175 
 
 " Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may 
 have eternal life ?" His answer was, " Why callest thou 
 me good ? there is none good but one, that is God : but if 
 thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments. He 
 saith unto him, which ? Jesus said ; Thou shalt do no 
 murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not 
 steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness. ' Honor thy 
 father and thy mother; and, Thou shalt love thy neighbor 
 as thyself." (Matthew xix, 17, 18, 19.) In ail this, he 
 docs not require, but actually declines, having any honor 
 done to himself as a condition of entering into eternal 
 life. All that he requires is, that a man should love 
 God, the Father, and do those good works which He 
 prescribes for him to do. If there had been anything 
 else, would not Jesus have told him what it was ? It was 
 a most momentous question which had been asked of him. 
 It was necessary, therefore, that he should be most pre- 
 cise and accurate in answering it ; and yet he did not say, 
 "believe in me; through me alone, and the shedding of 
 my blood, canst thou be saved," but simply, "keep the 
 commandments." "Not everyone that saith nnto me, 
 Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven," 
 said he, on another occasion, " but he that doeth the will 
 of my Father which is in Heaven." (Matthew vii, 21.) . 
 And this will of the Father he exemplified in his own 
 life. He " went about all the cities and villages, teach- 
 ing in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the 
 kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease 
 among the people." (Matthew ix, 35.) . 
 
 The worship of the Father alone, by good works, and 
 not by praying to and worshipping him, Jesus, was the 
 requisite, as he conceived, for entering into the kingdom 
 of heaven. Jesus, in this, practiced what he preached.
 
 176 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 He went about diligently and zealously preaching natural 
 religion, healing the sick, and rebuking those who thought 
 that they could get to Heaven by crying to him " Lord, 
 Lord !" instead of exhibiting in their daily conduct a life 
 of good works : so that we have the express authority of 
 Jesus for saying, that love to God and kind offices one 
 toward another is the whole duty of man, which again is 
 in accordance with THE FIRST AND ONLY TRUE RELIGION. 
 
 Bible descriptions of God and His attributes purport 
 to be derived from God Himself, through His super- 
 natural revelation, to particular individuals. But this 
 revelation, if such it be, represents God as intensely 
 human, both in form and character. It ascribes to Him 
 many of the weaknesses and faults, and much of the short- 
 sightedness, of the frailest of men ; and it is totally 
 unlike the revelation which He has made of Himself to 
 all men, through the works of Nature. He has written 
 Himself upon the broad face of the Universe, and in the 
 depth of men's soul's, in such legible characters, and 
 established such laws in relation to man, as to ensure 
 that His will shall be done and man's happiness secured 
 in God's good time. In addition to this, He has por- 
 trayed Himself, in every phase of creation, with a beauty 
 and grandeur, that man becomes more and more capable 
 of appreciating. 
 
 Now, we ask, shall this sublime record, which God has 
 made of Himself, be for a single moment tarnished by a 
 forced conjunction with views of Him that are impious? 
 If so, let those suffer the damaging consequences, who 
 teach such doctrine. Yet we are told that these descrip- 
 tions of the Almighty must be believed in as infallibly 
 true, by all men, as a condition of happiness beyond the 
 grave. And what are they ? Read what the writers of
 
 GOD'S EVIL PASSIONS. 177 
 
 the Christian Bible say, and then judge for yourselves. 
 Very few -quotations will suffice to show in what abomi- 
 nable form the Creator has been represented, by those 
 who declared themselves to be his messengers. 
 
 In the first place, he is represented as being addicted 
 to furious anger, and this to such a degree that, were any 
 of his creatures to manifest the same disposition, they 
 would be looked upon as monsters. Take the following 
 examples: "The fierce anger of the Lord" Numbers, 
 xxv. 4 : " The anirer of the Lord shall smoke " Deute- 
 
 * O 
 
 ronomy, xxix. 20 ; " Through the anger of the Lord it 
 came to pass" 2 Kings, xxiv. 20; "Let -the Lord be 
 angry " Genesis, viii. 30 ; "And provoked the Lord to 
 anger" Judges, ii. 12; "The children of Israel have 
 only provoked me to anger " Jeremiah, xxxii. 30 ; "And 
 I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make 
 them drunk in my fury " Isaiah, Ixiii. 6. 
 
 Hatred and a fierce thirst for vengeance are attributed 
 to him in a similar manner : " I hate robbery for burnt 
 offerings " Isaiah, Ixi. 8; "Because the Lord hated 
 us" Deuteronomy, i. 27; "Therefore have I hated 
 it" Jeremiah, xii. 8: "There I hated them, * * * I 
 will love them no more" Hosea, ix. 15; "Jacob have 
 I loved, but Esau have I hated " Malachi, i. 23. To 
 illustrate the Almighty's revengeful tendencies, turn to 
 Exodus, xx. 5, where we are told that he will visit the 
 iniquities of fathers upon the children, nay even upon four 
 generations of unborn children ; to Deuteronomy, vii. 10 ; 
 "He repay eth them that hate him to their face, to 
 destroy them;" to Isaiah, xlvii. 3; "I will take ven- 
 geance," Ixiii. 4, and; "The day of vengeance is in 
 mine heart ;" to Romans, xii. 9 ; " Vengeance is mine ;" 
 and especially to 1 Samuel, xv. 2, 3, " Thus saith the
 
 178 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Lord of Hosts, I remember that which Amalek did to 
 Israel. * * * Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly 
 destroy all that they have, and spare them not ; but slay 
 both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, 
 camel and ass." 
 
 Jealousy also, such as we find attributed to certain 
 gods and goddesses in Pagan mythology, is set down as 
 one of God's characteristics : "I, the Lord, thy God, am 
 a jealous God" Exodus, xx. 5; "They provoked him 
 to jealousy with strange gods " Deuteronomy, xxxii. 16 ; 
 " He is a jealous God " Joshua, xxiv. 19 ; " Then will 
 the Lord be jealous for his land " Joel, ii. 18 ; " God is 
 jealous and the Lord revengeful " Nahum, i. 2 ; "I am 
 jealous for Jerusalem " Zechariah, i, 14 ; "I will give 
 thee blood in fury and jealousy." Ezekiel, xvi. 38. 
 
 Even ignorance is attributed to the Almighty, the 
 words that follow being put into His mouth Genesis, 
 xviii. 21 : " I will go down now, and see whether they 
 have done altogether according to the cry of it which is 
 come unto me, and if not I will know." Job also repre- 
 sents the Omnipotent as condescending to ask Satan about 
 His doings, as if He were not also omniscient. 
 
 They presume even, these writers under so-called inspi- 
 ration, to speak of His indulgence in scornful laughter ; 
 sis in Psalm, ii. 4, " He that sitteth in the heavens shall 
 laugh, the Lord shall have them in derision," and again, 
 lix. 8, " Thou, 0, Lord, shall laugh at them, thou 
 shalt have all the heathen in derision." 
 
 Fickleness and alternation of purpose, common human 
 infirmities, are represented as among His peculiarities. 
 In Genesis we are told that " it repented the Lord that 
 He had made man on the earth, and it grieved Him at 
 His heart." Yet it must be owned, the sacred writers
 
 GOD'S EVIL PASSIONS. 179 
 
 are not unanimous in attributing to God this tendency to 
 change of mind. Thus, in Exodus, xxxii. 14, we read, 
 " The Lord repeated the evil which He thought to do 
 unto His people ;" and in 1 Samuel, xv. 29, " The strength 
 of Israel will not repent, for He is not a man that He 
 should repent." It is written in Psalms, cxvi. 45, " He 
 repented, according to the multitude of His mercies ;" in 
 Jonah, iii. 10, " God repented of the evil that He had 
 said ;" and in Jeremiah, xviii. 8, " If a nation turn, I will 
 repent of the evil." Yet we find in James, i. 17, "The 
 Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither 
 shadow of turning." 
 
 It would perhaps be almost sufficient to have cited the 
 Lord's alleged repentance over the superior being of his 
 own creation, which the same authority tells us, He had 
 pronounced " very good ;" but we cannot omit to remind 
 the reader of the very curious story of Moses pleading 
 with the Lord, as it stands in Exodus, xxxiii. 7-14. The 
 Lord told Moses that the Israelites were a stiff-necked 
 people, given up to idols, and announced their consequent 
 fate in these strange words: "Now, therefore, let me 
 alone, that my wrath may wax hot against them, and 
 that I may consume them." But Moses was emphatic 
 and plain-spoken in his remonstrance, for such it may be 
 iustly termed. "Turn from thy fierce wrath," says he, 
 without flinching, "and repent of thy evil against thy 
 people." We know what ensued; "And the Lord 
 repented of the evil which he thought to do unto his 
 people." 
 
 But let us pass on, from the attempt to assimilate the 
 Creator and the creature, so far as passions and sensations 
 are concerned, and observe how this degrading process 
 has been applied to corporeal resemblance. Head, feet,
 
 180 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 anns, bands, eyes, mouth, nostrils, back and bosom, figure 
 more or less frequently bnt always with a familiarity 
 that ought to be revolting in the Biblical descriptions 
 and allusions. 
 
 11 Ephraim is the strength of my head," says the 
 Psalmist, Ix. 7; Isaiah, lix. 17, puts " a helmet of sal- 
 vation upon his head ;" and St. John the divine Reve- 
 lations, xix. 12 saw in a vision that "on his head were 
 many crowns." The footsteps and the feet of the Al- 
 mighty are often referred to; as in Isaiah, vi. 2, "With 
 twain He covered his face, and with twain He covered his 
 feet;" Psalm, Ixxvii. 19, " Thy footsteps are not known," 
 and Ixxiv. 3, " Lift up thy feet ;" Revelations, i. 15, "His 
 feet like unto fine brass." Further than this, we find, 
 Psalm, cviii. 9, the homely expression : " Over Edom 
 will I cast out my shoe," coupled with that other most 
 undignified phrase: " Moab is my wash-pot." The arms 
 of the Almighty are often mentioned, sometimes as bared 
 for the execution of His vengeful purposes, sometimes as 
 opened for sheltering the righteous. The hand of the 
 Lord, as though it were a human hand, appears still more 
 frequently in the sacred Scriptures. Psalm, Ixxv. 8 " In 
 the hand of the Lord there is a cup, and the wine is red." 
 1 Samuel, v. 6 " But the hand of the Lord was heavy 
 upon them of Ashdod;" Numbers, xi. 23 " Is the Lord's 
 hand waxed short?" Exodus, ix. 3 "The hand is upon 
 thy cattle;" Psalm, Ixxiv. 2; "Why withdrawest thou 
 thy hand, even thy right hand? Pluck it out of thy 
 bosom." This last citation, serves to illustrate how the 
 Lord God is supposed to have a bosom, being more direct 
 than that one in John, i. 18, "The Son which is in the 
 bosom of the Father." So constant are allusions to the 
 Almighty's mouth, and to what proceedeth out of it, that
 
 GOD LIKENED TO MAN CORPOREALLY. 181 
 
 we limit ourselves to one note-worthy instance. In the 
 Book of Numbers, xii. 8, God is made to say with refer- 
 ence to Moses : " With him will I speak mouth to mouth, 
 even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the simili- 
 tude of the Lord shall he behold." As to the eyes of 
 God, reference to them, in as it were a physical sense, is 
 continual. Thus, in Proverbs, xv. 3, we read : " The eyes 
 of the Lord are in every place, beholding the evil and the 
 good ;" in Deuteronomy, xxxii. 10 " He kept him as the 
 apple of His eye ;" and in Psalm, xxxiv. 15, " The eyes 
 of the Lord are upon the righteous." The verse last 
 quoted concludes thus, " and his ears are open unto their 
 cry," which reminds us that we omitted the "ears," when 
 naming the bodily points wherein God and man are fami- 
 liarly assimilated in the Scriptures. Mention is also made 
 of the Almighty's nostrils. " By the blast of God they 
 perish," says Job, iv. 9 "and by the breath of His 
 nostrils are they consumed." David, 2 Samuel, xxii. 9, 
 asserts that, because God was wroth, " There went up a 
 smoke out of His nostrils, and fire went out of His mouth, 
 which kindleth coals." Is it not somewhat strange, that 
 expressions, precisely similar, are applied by Job, xli. 20, 
 21 to his description of the leviathan :- " Out of his nos- 
 trils goeth smoke. * * * His breath kindleth coals." 
 Furthermore, Isaiah, Ixv. 5 makes the Lord, with refer- 
 ence to " a rebellious people," use this expression : " These 
 are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day ;" 
 and in Leviticus, xxvi. 31 Jehovah declares : " I will 
 not smell the savor of your sweet odors." On the other 
 hand, in Genesis, viii. 21 we are told how the Lord God, 
 inhaling the scent of Noah's sacrifice on emerging from 
 the ark, " smelled a sweet savor." Lastly, as though to 
 lower still more these associations and similitudes, so
 
 182 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 derogatory to all reverential feeling, Holy Writ informs 
 us that the Divine Being has a back. Jeremiah, xviii. 
 17, puts this phrase in his mouth: "I will scatter them 
 as Avith an east wind before the enemy ; I will shew them 
 the back, and not the face, in the day of their calamity ;" 
 and Isaiah says, xxxviii. 17 "Thou hast cast all my 
 sins behind thy back." Moses also Exodus, xxxiii. 23, 
 makes the Lord say, in anticipation of the promised inter- 
 view : " And I will take away mine hand, and thou shalt 
 see my back parts, but my face shall not be seen." 
 
 We have thus glanced in detail at some of the instances, 
 in which the mysterious Founder and Ruler of the Uni- 
 verse is vulgarized and falsified in the Bible, by human 
 beings presuming to attribute to Him a share in their 
 own mental and corporeal faculties. To them might be 
 added the profane and inadmissible idea of Jehovah 
 speaking to Moses "face to face, as a man speaketh unto 
 his friend," Exodus, xxxiii. 2; of God riding upon a 
 cherub and flying, Psalm, xviii. 10 ; of the Lord being 
 "a man of war," and of his wearing a "vesture" or a 
 "breast-plate ;" of the Lord coming down to see the Tower 
 of Babel, Genesis, xi. 5. As well might it be thought 
 in accordance with God's justice, that He should, through 
 Moses, enjoin the Israelites to borrow jewels of gold and 
 silver from their Egyptian neighbors, when on the point 
 of departure through the Red Sea. They must have 
 known, as God must have known, that the pretended 
 borrowing would be nothing better than fraud and rob- 
 bery. Exodus, xii. 35, 36. 
 
 It has been well asked whether a mandate ever issued 
 from the lips of a blood-thirsty Oriental despot more terri- 
 ble than that concerning Amalek, which is quoted above ; 
 and whether we, at the peril of our salvation, are to
 
 BLIND RELIANCE ON SCRIPTURE. 183 
 
 believe that such an injunction came from the Creator, 
 rather than from the mouth of the cruel-minded Samuel, 
 who " hewed Agog in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." 
 To this may be added the query, with reference to several 
 of the foregoing citations, whether any Christian would 
 tolerate, in the way of illustration, a statue or picture, 
 wherein the Almighty Father was depicted as a human 
 being inflamed with human passions ; though, when the 
 ear alone is appealed to, we not only tolerate the idea, but 
 cling to it with such passionate earnestness as to persecute 
 with the extreme of resentment any one who will not 
 adopt it as an article of his creed. How, also, can the 
 God who affirms, " I am the Lord, I change not," (Mala- 
 chi, iii. 6,) be described by different individuals, as con- 
 stantly varying, unless they themselves were giving utter- 
 ance to their own human conceptions of what a God 
 should be ; and even, in this, differed amongst them- 
 selves? Is it not more rational, to believe that God has 
 been clothed with human attributes by man, rather than 
 than that the Lord of all creation puts on the contempti- 
 ble dress worn by mortals who live in one of the smallest 
 of the worlds which He has made? Surely such con- 
 siderations should serve to wean us from that blind rever- 
 ence to the identical words of Scripture, in which most of 
 us have been educated. Nor can this reverence be justi- 
 fied by affirming that the language, to which we have 
 taken exception, is only conventional or metaphorical. 
 Who shall dare to say that God cannot give such a 
 description of Himself as is consistent with His attri- 
 butes, except through a certain phraseology ? The idea 
 is impious, as every thoughtful mind must recognize. At 
 the same time it must be owned, that this habit of incor- 
 porating humanity with the God-head has taken hold of
 
 184 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 all nations in all time, and has, so to say, been rubbed 
 into all theologies. How far this arises from man's ina- 
 bility to comprehend what lies outside of and beyond him- 
 self, is touched upon elsewhere ; but there can be no 
 doubt that it has been fostered, in large degree, by what 
 a writer already cited, has termed the exigencies of the 
 priesthood. 
 
 Without the fiction, says he, that the Almighty heard 
 and spoke in reply to a special class only, the hierarchy 
 could not exist. They feign, therefore, to have divine 
 powers a pretension readily conceded, by those who are 
 unable or unwilling to think for themselves. By this 
 division of labor, the ecclesiastic becomes as implicitly 
 trusted as the lawyer or the physician. But, as there is 
 in all educated men a propensity to search out the founda- 
 tion of the claim to superiority which is advanced by 
 professional men generally, so also is there, in some, a 
 strong determination to examine the claims of those who 
 assume the power to dictate to the Almighty, what He is 
 to do with mortals when they become immortal. 
 
 If investigation and the light of modern science, acting 
 upon our finer sense, overthrow our faith in the Bible, 
 as an inspired record, they lead us to a more profound 
 acknowledgement of the Almighty's power, justice, and 
 wisdom. " God is a spirit, and they who worship Him 
 must worship Him in spirit and in truth." This is alto- 
 gether a different thing, from a blind reliance upon the 
 utterances of prophets and the interpretations of priests. 
 
 The most pernicious error of church teaching is, that 
 sin can be compounded for, that the just punishment due 
 to sin can be evaded through what theologians call " The 
 scheme of salvation." Now the natural effect of this 
 popular dogma is, that those who believe, or think they
 
 COMPOUNDING FOR SIN. 185 
 
 believe, such teaching concern themselves more about the 
 escape they are to make from punishment, than they do 
 about the shunning of sin. While men act upon the idea 
 that the penalty for sin can be avoided or bargained for, 
 they are comparatively indifferent to any work of self- 
 discipline, or the correction of their faults. All this is 
 at direct variance with the teachings of God, through 
 His natural laws. He therein recompenses every man 
 according to his works. In this there is no prejudice, no 
 favor, no spite, no partiality, no escape from just penalty, 
 no possibility of losing a just reward, no bargaining, no 
 compromise, no evasion, no substitution. Any one of 
 these would be less just and good, than for God to exact 
 the whole penalty attached to the breach of His inex- 
 orable law. He punishes to correct, to bring to repent- 
 ance, to save to the blissful end in store for us. 
 
 The third chapter in Genesis professes to give an 
 account of man's first sin, and has been made the basis 
 of that fundamental article of the Christian faith, " The 
 fall of man." The conclusions drawn from this chapter 
 are not warranted by the words of the narrative, which 
 we shall now proceed to show. 
 
 Not once in the Old Testament, either in the law or in 
 the Prophets, is the story at all alluded to. All their 
 notions of God and man were totally at variance with the 
 idea of man having been made originally perfect. Jesus 
 never alluded to this in any of his discourses ; on the 
 contrary, he declares that there is none perfect but God ; 
 and this, taken in connection with the fact that he 
 nowhere intimates that man fell through Adam, ought to 
 be conclusive with all who believe in Jesus' divinity, that 
 man was no more perfect at the Creation, than he was in 
 Jesus' day, or in our own. The first time that Moses'
 
 186 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 k 
 
 story is appealed to as historical, is in the writings of the 
 Apostle Paul. It is upon his probable acceptance of the 
 narrative, in an unwarranted literal sense, and upon false 
 inferences drawn by him from it, that the prevailing idea 
 of the utter corruption and curse of mankind, through the 
 fall, and of their recovery or redemption by the substitu- 
 tion of a victim in their place, is founded. 
 
 But see what serious results this leads to. All who 
 believe the doctrine of Christian theology which is based 
 upon man's supposed original perfection and subsequent 
 fall, it is said, will be saved: but all. who do not believe 
 in it will be damned. To admit this is to represent God 
 as cursing the whole human family, for the sin of one of 
 their number; and only removing that curse from those 
 who believe in the shedding of the innocent blood of a 
 victim, of whom but a small minority have ever heard. 
 
 The error which lies at the root of this delusion is the 
 idea, that man was originally made perfect ; and that he 
 fell from that state of purity and perfection, dragging with 
 him his whole posterity. Now we boldly assert that 
 Adam and Eve were not created spiritually perfect as 
 God is perfect, but perfect as God intended that man 
 should be. The story itself not only does not say that 
 they were ; it gives not the remotest intimation of such 
 a thing. They are represented as believing a serpent, or 
 perhaps the evidence of their own senses, rather than the 
 words of God, and as soon as they are tempted they yield 
 at once. 
 
 The fact is, they could not have been made perfect. 
 There is no such thing as perfection in any created being. 
 If there were, there would be more Gods than one : for 
 whatever is perfect is God.
 
 ADAM'S DOOM NOT SPIRITUAL. 187 
 
 * 
 
 But this inference is evaded by a qualification. Theo- 
 logians tell us that they mean relative perfection not 
 that man could be made perfect as God is perfect, but 
 that he was made good and happy. This we admit ; 
 God could not make anything but what is good and happy. 
 But He could, and did make beings, who, when they 
 were produced by His windorn and goodness, were not 
 only without a knowledge of physical cause and effect, 
 but without a knowledge also of moral cause and effect. 
 All that took place with regard to man's experience of 
 good and evil was, that being created with a free-will he 
 at once put that free-will into full exercise, and of course 
 learned what he did uot know until the experiment was 
 tried. 
 
 Again, there is not a word in the story about everlast- 
 ing death, or the torment of the soul. "Ye shall surely 
 die," was understood by Adam and Eve as referring to the 
 death of the body ; because the narrator goes on to describe 
 their being driven out of Paradise, lest they should eat of 
 the tree of life, and live forever. Nothing can be plainer 
 than that natural death is here meant. This view of the 
 subject is further enforced by the following declaration, 
 " Unto dust shalt thou return." The Apostle Paul quotes 
 it in that sense, when he says, " By one man sin entered 
 into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed 
 upon all men, for that all have sinned," though the first 
 part of this assertion is shown elsewhere to be inaccurate, 
 inasmuch as science proves that death had entered the 
 world long before the date assigned by theologists. Again, 
 there is no allusion whatever to a substitute or sacrifice as 
 the mode of removing the curse, and appeasing the wrath 
 of God. There is not a single word spoken by God to 
 Adam and Eve about redemption or atonement. If such
 
 188 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 a theory had been true if the narrative in Genesis were 
 supernaturally suggested it would surely have contained 
 some intimation of it, when God pronounced the curse. 
 This being a matter of the very highest importance, not 
 only to Adam and Eve, but also to their posterity, we can- 
 not conceive, the goodness of God precludes the bare idea, 
 that he could have withheld it from man. 
 
 The answer to this is, that God did, at once, inform 
 Adam of his intention ; that He gave him a distinct and 
 unmistakable intimation of it when He said, " I will put 
 enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy 
 seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head and thou shalt 
 bruise his heel." Genesis, iii. 15. But how can this be 
 called a plain and unmistakable intimation of the scheme 
 of salvation ? It is as dark a parable as any tLat could 
 be constructed ; and we think it so obscure, except as to 
 the natural enmity that exists between the two, that it 
 would be useless to argue on it. 
 
 Turn, in the next place, to the statement, "And the 
 Lord God took the man and put him into the garden of 
 Eden, to dress it and to keep it." Gen. ii. 15. 
 
 Church theology inculcates the idea that labor was 
 imposed upon Adam in consequence of his first transgres- 
 sion ; but it is evident, from the above text, that previous 
 to Adam's sinning, as it is called, the dressing and keep- 
 ing of the garden was enjoined on him. This, no one can 
 deny, was bodily labor, by any fair interpretation. Adam 
 was also required to give names to every living creature. 
 Could he have done this, except at the expense of mental 
 labor, even though every beast of the field and every fowl 
 of the air was brought to him for this purpose ? 
 
 As a consequence of Adam's eating the fruit, God cursed 
 the serpent who tempted him, through Eve. as well as the
 
 THE STORY OF THE FALL OF MAN. 189 
 
 ground upon which he trod ; neither of which is supposed 
 to be morally accountable. The curse on the serpent, such 
 as it was, in any sense is applicable only to his physical 
 nature. 
 
 And the curses, referred to, which pertain to man, do 
 not necessarily grow out of man's moral offence. The fair 
 inference is the reverse of this. The sin, according to the 
 narration, was prompted by the craving of man's animal 
 nature, not at the expense of any moral delinquency, such, 
 for instance, as appropriating the fruits of a fellow-being's 
 labor, in a dishonest way. For, according to the story, 
 Adam and Eve were the only persons then upon the earth, 
 and being in harmony, it is said, in partaking of the 
 fruit ; their action consequently involved no sin one 
 against the other. 
 
 A sense of shame, occasioned by the sudden discovery 
 of the nakedness of one's person does not involve the idea 
 of moral degradation ; it rather indicates a lively percep- 
 tion of the propriety of things ; and when this state of 
 things is accompanied with strenuous efforts to hide the 
 nakedness which caused the shame, as in Adam's and 
 Eve's case, it is highly deserving of praise. If the story 
 be credited, such must have been the view which God 
 took of the matter, when he sympathized with them to 
 the extent of helping the naked pair out of their dilemma 
 by clothing them with skins, thus rewarding instead of 
 punishing them and showing that their course met God's 
 approbation, instead of condemnation. Hence, the eaters 
 of the forbidden fruit could not have been deemed guilty 
 by God, at least, in a moral point of view, else he would 
 have left them to the punishment, which under his unal- 
 terable laws ever attaches to moral delinquencies. This 
 view is fully sustained by the narrative of the matter in
 
 190 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 question ; the only punishment which is indicated therein, 
 being death of the body, and labor, which we assert is a 
 blessing, and not a curse. 
 
 There is another view of this subject, which is adverse 
 to theologians. The reading of Genesis leaves the impres- 
 sion, that a very short time only could have elapsed 
 between the eating of the fruit, which it is alleged brought 
 death into the world, and the time of God's clothing the 
 naked pair with the skins of animals. Now, if it be true 
 that, up to the eating of the fruit by Adam, none of God's 
 creatures had died, it begets the query, how it came to 
 pass that that there were skins of animals immediately at 
 hand in a fit condition for comfortable clothing. 
 
 O 
 
 If, to account for these inconsistencies, it be said that 
 God can do all things that he wills to do, we answer that 
 when men. say God has done things totally inconsistent 
 with his uniform mode of action, and give no reliable 
 proof of the truth of their assertion, we have a right to 
 infer even more ; and to be quite sure that the story has 
 its origin in man's imagination and not in the doings of 
 God. This story in Genesis rests upon the sole authority 
 of Moses; it is irrational, improbable, and contradictory to 
 itself; but worse than this, the Church has founded a 
 theplogy upon it, totally unwarranted by the wording or 
 spirit of the narrative. 
 
 The gist of the theological system consists in their 
 claiming that Adam's alleged sin tainted his moral nature; 
 and this enables them to transfer the final test of the 
 truth or fallacy of their dogma beyond the grave. Thus, 
 they elude detection of their error, since no man returns 
 thence to confront them. 
 
 One of the evils inflicted upon Adam according to the 
 narrative was additional labor, not labor primarily.
 
 ITS INCONSISTENCIES. 191 
 
 The ground, by virtue of the curse, became harder to 
 till, outside, than within the garden in which he was first 
 placed. It was, therefore, the body, and not the moral 
 nature of Adam, that had to pay the penalty, if penalty 
 it be to labor, which we deny. 
 
 And again, Eve was visited with increased pain in 
 child-bearing, and not with any new source of sorrow. 
 This also pertains to the body. It is not a consequence 
 of moral guilt, not entailing inward reproaches, as when 
 one offends against the laws of chastity, for example. 
 And if these evils in our physical nature do terminate in 
 the death of the body, the death of the body is an advan- 
 tage, because it leaves the soul untrammelled, and ena- 
 bles it to draw nearer to God, who is the source of happi- 
 ness. 
 
 " And the Lord God said, behold the man is become as 
 one of us to know good and evil." Genesis, iii. 22. If 
 this be true, God looked upon man, after his transgres- 
 sion, as more like Himself than before. He certainly 
 became a wiser being ; and we cannot understand how 
 wisdom can be a curse to man. It brought with it a 
 knowledge, that if we offend against the laws of God we 
 must suffer for it. But God was too good to allow us to 
 go on suffering in this world forever, for our short-sigh.ted- 
 ness and folly : He therefore made it impossible for us 
 to do so, by allowing death to terminate our career. That 
 man might not go further, and take and eat of the fruits 
 of life, and live forever, God allowed death to be made 
 the gate, through which we are to pass to a state of ever- 
 lasting progression in wisdom and felicity. 
 
 But to go further into this incredible narrative "And 
 they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not 
 ashamed." Genesis, ii. 25. This happy state of nudity
 
 192 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and innocence, then, was that which they gloried in, before 
 the fall. But what next? When they discovered, by 
 eating of the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and 
 evil, that the condition in which they were was unseemly, 
 they experienced a sense of shame, as indicated by their 
 use of fig leaves, and they were afraid, and went and hid 
 themselves ; and so, when God found them thus, in order 
 to hide their nakedness, we are told, " Unto Adam also 
 and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins and 
 clothed them." Genesis, iii. 21. 
 
 These, then, are the consequences of Adam and Eve's 
 eating of the fruits of the tree of knowledge of good and 
 evil. Being redeemed or saved from them, of course the 
 converse becomes the proper order of things. So that, 
 when a man is redeemed or saved to eternal life by the 
 plan of salvation through Jesus, he might go naked and 
 feel no shame ! 
 
 Again, " Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from 
 the garden of Eden to till the ground from whence he was 
 taken." (Genesis, iii. 23.) It appears from the scope of 
 this verse, that God turned Adam out of Paradise to till 
 the ground outside of its limits, not because he ate of the 
 fruit by means of which he had assimilated himself to 
 God by gaining a knowledge of good and evil, but rather 
 lest Adam should partake of the tree of life, and live 
 forever, and thus reverse one of the results of his partak- 
 ing of the fruits of the tree of knowledge, to wit, the 
 mortality of the body. So God compromised the matter, 
 being content to let all the consequences of eating the 
 forbidden fruit remain, except that the body should 
 return to the dust whence it was taken. And to make 
 quite sure that Adam did not render this inoperative, 
 He placed a guard over the tree of life. This, we con-
 
 BIBLE ACCOUNT OF THE FALL OF MAN. 193 
 
 ceive to be the natural rendering of the story of "The 
 Fall," and this, if any credence is to be given to it at all, 
 must be much nearer the truth than the different and far- 
 fetched construction which the Christian Churches put on 
 it when they deduce from it the doctrine that man fell 
 from the original state of innocence, that he must be 
 redeemed therefrom by the sacrifice of Christ, and that 
 our salvation depends on our belief in this complicated 
 dogma. 
 
 We submit then, is not the course which is attributed 
 to God, in the fable we have just criticised, an imputation 
 against His omnipotence, His wisdom, and His stability 
 of purpose ? His laws are immutable ; they never vary ; 
 and from the first they were framed for man's best inter- 
 ests and happiness. The death of the material portion 
 of animals is one of those laws, which was in the order 
 of things from the first. Had it been otherwise, the 
 increase of the human race, at the rate at which men 
 have multiplied since the creation, would have been suffi- 
 cient to fill the earth so full, that they could not find 
 standing room, not to say food enough to subsist upon. 
 No, God has a more beneficent purpose in view, than to 
 make earth man's continual abiding place. He places 
 us here, that he may train us for a much higher and 
 wider state of existence beyond the grave. Death, then, 
 was no accident ; neither was it visited upon man as a 
 punishment for his delinquencies, but as an important 
 step in his advance toward God. 
 
 What theologians term " The Fall of Man," is based 
 by them upon the fable in the first book of Moses, called 
 " Genesis," the substance of which is as follows : The 
 first human pair was placed in the garden of Eden, where 
 everything around them was in perfect harmony with 
 13
 
 194 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 their nature, their tastes, and their appetites : " And the 
 Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden : and there 
 he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the 
 ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is 
 pleasant to the sight, and good for food." 
 
 In the first place, it is said, or may be inferred from 
 subsequent words, that in some respects Nature itself was 
 very different from what we find it now. Originally, 
 there were no such things as thorns, or briars, or noxious 
 weeds and plants infesting the ground and annoying and 
 perplexing the man, who was placed upon the earth to 
 enjoy perpetual happiness thereon. These things sprang 
 up at, and in consequence of the sin of Adam. 
 
 "And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast heark- 
 ened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the 
 tree of which I commanded thee saying, Thou shalt not 
 eat of it : cursed is the ground for thy sake : in sorrow 
 shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life. Thorns 
 also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee ; and thou 
 shalt eat the herb of the field." 
 
 The elements also were so propitious, and the climate 
 so congenial and healthy ; that they suffered no incon- 
 venience from the former, nor could the seeds of disease 
 be implanted within them by the latter, although their 
 physical construction was precisely what it is now. " They 
 were both naked," implying that, having neither the rigor 
 of coldness in winter nor the fierceness of heat in summer 
 to contend with, their bodies did not therefore require any 
 protection in the way of clothes. This is further implied 
 by the theological view, that man if he had not fallen 
 was to live without labor, and hence could not have pro- 
 vided himself with clothing. Since animals also were to 
 live forever, man could not be clothed with their skins ;
 
 BIBLE ACCOUNT OF THE FALL OF MAN. 195 
 
 and yet, contrary as it may seem to this idea, God made 
 them garments, or coats of skins, as soon as their sense 
 of shame made it necessary. Again, " For in the day 
 that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die," implies 
 that but for an act of disobedience which he might or 
 might not commit neither death, nor its antecedents, 
 pain and disease, could have ever visited them. Neither 
 was the nature of the animals what it subsequently 
 became. They were all peaceful and happy and harmo- 
 nious, none carnivorous ; but all gregarious and living 
 upon herbs : " And to every beast of the earth, and to 
 every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth 
 upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every 
 green herb for meat." Man himself was an entirely dif- 
 ferent creature to what he became, immediately after eat- 
 ing the fruit of which God his Maker had commanded 
 him not to eat. He was good and holy and just and 
 true ; and consequently he was perfectly happy. 
 
 This is, substantially, a picture of what is presented to 
 us from the pulpit, concerning man and his estate before 
 he ate of the forbidden fruit. It is what is claimed by 
 theologians as a fair deduction from the account given in 
 the Book of Moses, to which we have referred. 
 
 But is it in accordance with the facts or phenomena 
 of Nature, and with the wisdom of God ? If this dogma 
 of the Church be true, it results in lowering the attributes 
 of the Almighty, and in representing Him as a Being 
 whose laws and plans, pertaining to all created things, 
 were liable to be thwarted by a single act of His creature 
 man ; and to the extent of necessitating an entire revision 
 of those laws and those plans. It results in an imputa- 
 tion upon His omnipotence, His wisdom, His goodness, 
 and His unchangeableness. It results in the theory that
 
 196 OXE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 man both constitutionally and morally is not the same 
 being that he was at his creation, or at the time when he 
 was first called to take upon him the original organism of 
 his type. In a word, it results in the imputation that 
 God, who, according to His very nature, never varies nor 
 modifies nor adapts His laws to any contingency, was 
 instead of being supreme so far subject to the caprice of 
 man as to be compelled to abandon His original plan, and 
 reconstruct or re-organize His laws pertaining to the vege- 
 table, animal, and spiritual affairs of our globe. Now God 
 is a Being of absolute powers and perfections, of infinite 
 wisdom and goodness ; and by necessity, in carrying out 
 His designs at creation, He must have made everything 
 perfect both as a whole and in its several parts, so that 
 entire harmony ensues and no revision or amendment is 
 admissible. God made man with such faculties, physi- 
 cally and mentally and morally, as in His wisdom He 
 deemed best. He is omniscient and unchangeable. He 
 cannot therefore be turned aside in His purposes. That 
 infinite goodness and wisdom, which originally governed 
 Him in His designs toward man, must ever remain 
 intact. Man was made perfect, as man, and no higher, 
 else he would have been something more, or other, 
 than man. Nothing is conceivable of God, than that 
 everything which He has created, and the laws by which 
 His creation is governed, have been and must be from 
 first to last in perfect harmony each with the other, and 
 with His will and pleasure. It is indispensable that they 
 should be. But how does this accord with Christian 
 theology, according to which, a single breach of Adam's 
 duty wrought a total change in most, if not all, of God's 
 original ordinances in relation to man, the lower animals, 
 and even the plants ?
 
 MAN'S ORIGINAL CONDITION. 197 
 
 Let us look at this matter more closely. If God's 
 original design in regard to man and His ordinances for 
 the accomplishment of His designs were in exact con- 
 formity with each and every part of His general plan, 
 nothing wanting, nothing useless ; and if His original 
 plan and purpose was what theologians assert it to have 
 been then certain properties and affections, which now 
 pertain to our nature, had no use or part in that organi- 
 zation. Up to the time of Adam's first transgression, 
 there could have been no repugnance to evil, since evil 
 was not then contemplated by God. There could have 
 been no preference for the good, since there was nothing 
 contrary thereto, there being no evil with which to con- 
 trast the good. Conscience could have had no existence 
 in man. Sin being a surprise to God, conscience to 
 rebuke it could have had no part in God's original design. 
 Modesty, that exquisite trait in the nature of man, could 
 have had no part in his original constitution, since God 
 did not foresee that the first pair would do 'that which 
 made their nakedness appear in a new light to them. 
 And yet, according to the narrative, the instant it was 
 called into requisition, modesty very naturally performed 
 the duties of its office even before God had called the 
 offenders to account for doing that which required its 
 first blush. This shows that man was at first as now ; 
 and is of itself fatal to the theological deduction from 
 the narrative as it stands. And now, before proceeding 
 to show at some length, how absurd is the theological 
 view of the consequences entailed upon certain parts of 
 animal creation by Adam's fall, we interpolate one remark 
 that properly belongs to a more general consideration of 
 the subject. Theologians hold and repeat unceasingly 
 that death is but the passage or gate to heaven which
 
 198 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 opens to those who believe. If this be so, it follows 
 according to the doctrine that Adam and all his posterity 
 were originally intended to dwell forever in this lower 
 world that if Adam had not sinned we should all have 
 been deprived of that blissful abode, which we are led to 
 believe is a transcendantly more happy place than was 
 even Paradise itself! So that, notwithstanding man is 
 said to have done very wrong in disobeying God, yet he 
 did the very best that he could for his own advantage. 
 The Church, perhaps, may be able to reconcile this diffi- 
 culty, when it explains why man is permitted to eat meat, 
 though God said to him: "Thou shalt eat the herb of the 
 field." God's perfection is a guarantee of the exact fit- 
 ness and harmony of His creation as a whole, and as 
 seen in the various laws, means, and appliances for carry- 
 ing out His purposes. There is nothing wanting, nothing 
 useless each and every part being indispensable to the 
 accomplishment of His perfect end. Now this involves 
 that, if God's original purpose in creating what pertains 
 to this earth was in accordance with the theory of the 
 Christian theology on the subject, to wit, that all God's 
 creatures were to live forever happy, and in harmony with 
 each other, committing no breach of His laws, having no 
 pain, misery, or discomfort, either of body or mind then, 
 the instant Adam first disobeyed these laws, the harmony 
 and fitness of all must have been changed, to produce 
 another harmony under the condition of things as they 
 now exist. Adam, himself, must necessarily have been 
 reorganized. He must instantly have been so trans- 
 formed, as to adapt him to his present wants and his 
 present nature. In fact this change relates alike to all 
 men, to the intuitions, instincts, and physical structure of 
 all, and to every property of the body and mind' of all.
 
 INSTANT CHANGE IN ANIMAL LIFE. 199 
 
 And thus also with the lower creation. All the birds, 
 fishes, animals, and insects, that are now carnivorous, 
 must have had their instirlctive propensities altered. 
 New means of capturing, eating and digesting such food 
 as they now eat must have been instantly furnished 
 them, to accommodate them to the new order of things 
 an immense work to be performed, as it seems to us, on 
 account of so unimportant a transaction as that to which 
 it is attributed. The beasts and birds of prey must have 
 been provided with sharp fangs and hooked claws, to 
 enable them to secure their victims ; and the appliances 
 which they have for masticating flesh, must have been 
 given them at the same time. All the animals and birds 
 that feed upon carrion must have had their cravings of 
 appetite adapted to such food, and their sense of smell 
 made surprisingly keen, to apprise them of its locality at 
 long distances. The hen must have been gifted with the 
 instinct, that causes her to call her chickens under her 
 wings, when the hawk is in sight. The dog must have 
 had the instinct given him, that warns him of danger 
 when he smells a snake whose bite he, intuitively, knows 
 to be fatal. The instinct that makes living things flee, 
 or otherwise strive to protect themselves, when their 
 natural antagonist presents itself, must also have been 
 called into requisition. In fact, all the instincts and 
 propensities that pertain to the preservation of life, and 
 to defence at the approach of a natural enemy, must have 
 been given to all living things, the moment death became 
 inaugurated because of Adam's sin. 
 
 Again, all living creatures, that, in their living state, 
 are designed as food, for other living creatures, must have 
 had their means and propensity for propagating their kind
 
 200 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 materially increased, to answer to the state of things that 
 then came about. 
 
 If God's purposes were, that animated things should 
 not prey upon each other, why did He make such numer- 
 ous kinds and species of animals, birds, insects and fish, 
 with organs, functions, instincts and propensities, espe- 
 cially adapted and only calculated for the purpose? 
 Why did He not endow them with those other faculties 
 absolutely necessary for maintaining life according to 
 what theologians call God's original plan? That God 
 from their creation, intended that one creature should 
 prey upon another, is strongly indicated by the fact, that 
 those animals, birds and fishes of the larger series, which 
 are not liable to be used as food by others, propagate their 
 kind in much less abundance than do those which are 
 made to be devoured : What vast, but what appropriate 
 disproportion is there between sharks and herrings, 
 between hawks and sparrows, between tigers and buf- 
 faloes, between swallows and insects on the wing ! 
 
 Again : it is certain that, to maintain the order and fit- 
 ness of things which God designed, animals of all kinds 
 require a certain area or space for their occupancy, in pro- 
 portion to their numbers. It is also apparent that the 
 aggregate of animal life is materially increased by the 
 different kinds and varieties of species that exist ; and 
 that the well-being of each is promoted by the existence 
 of not over ascertain number of another kind. That is to 
 say, there might have been too many of one or more kinds 
 to produce the best result. If this be true, it is probable 
 that the devouring of one by another is among the means 
 that Nature uses for preventing this inconvenience. There 
 is another provision of Nature apparently tending to the 
 same end it has been ordained that an insect shall, under
 
 DEATH INDISPENSABLE. 201 
 
 certain contingencies, deposit its eggs in or on the body of 
 another living insect or animal of a different species. The 
 etfect of this is to increase the number of one, and to 
 diminish that of the other kind. This provision of 
 Nature, whereby insects and other animate things feed 
 one upon another and upon the eggs of each other, is, we 
 say, among the arrangements of God to maintain an equi- 
 librium, or proper proportion between the kinds, and to 
 prevent the earth from being overstocked, as ib soon would 
 be under the theological version of God's original decrees. 
 The same arrangement prevails with regard to the birds 
 of the air, and the beasts of the field and forest. Life and 
 death are linked together, and depend on each other by 
 and through God's ordinances in such a way that it is not 
 possible that it can have been anything else than His 
 original purpose that they should both prevail. The prey- 
 ing of one species of animated nature upon another is 
 totally at variance with the dogmas of the theologians on 
 this very subject. They say that it was God's original 
 design that all living things that came into being on the 
 earth or in the waters should live forever. The fallacy of 
 this is at once shown by the use of figures. At the rate 
 at which living things now multiply, the number would 
 very soon be so great, if all continued to live, that further 
 increase in numbers would be totally impracticable. This 
 result would render all the provisions that now exist for 
 the production and consequent perpetuation of animal life 
 perfectly useless. And yet these embrace so wide a range 
 and are so intimately interwoven with the organs, func- 
 tions, and instincts of animal nature that it is impossible 
 to conceive that God's plan for perpetuating the inhabi- 
 tants of the world was not at first as now. It is impossible 
 to conceive, for example, that the beautiful and pure rela-
 
 202 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 tionship which exists between parents and children should 
 not remain an ever-living and active principle a never- 
 ceasing symbol, in some degree parallel to the relationship 
 that exists between God, who is a Father and more than a 
 Father, and all His happy children, here and hereafter a 
 monument of His benign goodness to all the children of 
 men. To return to our point : even the living things of 
 the sea must have had their nature greatly changed. 
 Before death came into the world through Adam's sin, 
 they must have fed on the fruits and herbs of their own 
 expansive and aquatic fields. It is true that the primary 
 source whence food is derived for the growth and support 
 of animals is in the air, in the water, and in the earth. 
 It is also true that animals cannot draw their support 
 directly from the inorganic matter contained in these ele- 
 ments. It can only be converted into pabulum adapted 
 to their support by and through the instrumentality of 
 plants. Vegetation, therefore, links together animal life 
 and inorganic matter. Vegetation is the prime medium 
 in bringing the means of life and animation out of inert 
 matter. On the land, where plants are in greater abun- 
 dance and enjoy more of the elements of thrift than is the 
 case in the sea, their office is performed more extensively ; 
 and the pabulum suitable for the sustenance of both large 
 and small animals is furnished in much greater abundance 
 than is the case in relation to those which inhabit the 
 waters, and derive their support through the medium of 
 animalcules. Out of this results the important office of 
 the animalcules that exist in such vast numbers in water. 
 They save up and accumulate, as it were, the comparative 
 lesser supply of food by aquatic plants. When inorganic 
 matter has once passed through the medium of plants into 
 suitable food for animals, it is retained in that state
 
 THE FOOD OF ANIMALS. 203 
 
 through the instrumentality of animalcules, which serve 
 as a guard over every avenue of its return into its original 
 state. In this way abundant means of food is furnished 
 to all the grades of aquatic animal life ; and thus the other- 
 wise too scanty vegetation of the waters is made sufficient 
 to the end in view. The plant product the organic mat- 
 ter, be it vegetable or animal is seized upon in all its 
 stages of decomposition by the animalcules which exist in 
 myriads, and is thus converted into their own tissue, and 
 turned back into animal life in its various grades, they 
 themselves being preyed upon by larger classes of animals. 
 Now, all this is a part of a vast, complicated, and yet 
 harmonious system ordained by God, and made to operate 
 in perfect accordance with all his other systems. This 
 perfect whole is entirely at variance with the idea of the 
 theologians, that God's original purpose was that each 
 individual creature in the sea, as well as on land, should 
 live forever on vegetable matter alone that is to say, if 
 the inhabitants of the waters were to exist in anything 
 like the numbers in which we find them now. If vege- 
 table matter only was to be food for them, such food must 
 have been vastly increased in quantity. Otherwise, not 
 one aquatic animal could exist, in proportion to the thou- 
 sands that now teem in the waters. And the same would 
 have been the case, in a less degree, with land animals, if 
 all were dependent on vegetable food alone and one did 
 not prey upon the other. We conclude, therefore, that, if 
 the theological view of the original ordinances of God in 
 relation to animal creation is right, then the animalcules 
 found both in fresh and salt water, in which decaying 
 vegetable or animal matter exists, had no office, or at least 
 not their present use in the economy of Nature.
 
 204 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Let us look now at another branch of this interesting 
 subject. To ensure that the face of the earth shall be 
 perpetually clothed with verdure, most beautiful to the 
 eye and most pleasing to the taste, God has caused the 
 seeds of innumerable varieties of plants to be produced 
 in superabundance, to be wafted by the winds or carried 
 by the waters over and through hill and dale and valley, 
 and sowed by the birds of the air and the beasts of the 
 field and forest. Numerous and manifold x are the seeds 
 thus scattered abroad ; and these take root and spring up, 
 in proportion to the space and fertility of the soil requi- 
 site for the rearing of healthy specimens. The multi- 
 plicity of seeds, and the varied and ample mode of dis- 
 tribution that prevails, not only ensures that there shall 
 be no lack in numbers and dissemination ; it furnishes an 
 abundance from which to select the best samples. This 
 God has provided for by His unalterable laws, as well in 
 the vegetable as in the animal world. And those laws 
 operate in favor of the specimens of each variety, whose 
 incipient stage gives the* best promise for future excel- 
 lence. The young tree or bush, that makes haste if we 
 may so speak to shoot above and over-top its neighbors, 
 receives upon its branches and leaves more light, more 
 air, and more of the rays of the sun, so essential to its 
 growth, than is the case with the less thrifty of its kind 
 standing near by. This is true, in various degrees, with 
 every variety of plant and herb. To that which hath, 
 more is given. The unthrifty fall a prey to the strong of 
 their own, or other kinds ; and this applies with equal, if 
 not with greater force, to animal as to vegetable life. 
 The weak and unthrifty have impediments thrown in 
 their way that the strong -know not of. To the same end, 
 is the greater belligerent propensity of male than of
 
 BEAUTIFUL LAWS OF NATURE. 205 
 
 female animals. It is in order that the progeny may be 
 sired by the more healthy and vigorous of the respective 
 kinds ; and hence a higher grade of excellence is main- 
 tained among the animal tribes than would otherwise be 
 the case. From this rivalry for precedence in the animal 
 department of nature, as well as the vegetable, death 
 frequently ensues. Even death, we say, so far as we 
 can see, is ordained to the end that life may be more 
 abundant, beautiful, and excellent; that freshness, buoy- 
 ancy, and the green leaf may predominate. Was this 
 forced unexpectedly upon Omnipotence, by the sin of 
 Adam, or was it originally ordained as the result of God's 
 wisdom and goodness? Although we may not compre- 
 hend the length and breadth of God's logic in all this, 
 nevertheless our faith is complete that it is and was right, 
 first and last Christian theology to the contrary, not- 
 withstanding. The present order has, most unquestion- 
 ably, much to do with the keeping of all the things of 
 the earth, fresh, beautiful, and more comely than would 
 otherwise be the case. 
 
 Upon the whole, it is evident, therefore, that the laws 
 pertaining to the animal and vegetable portion of the 
 world were, at the first, adjusted to the order of things as 
 they now exist. Death and decomposition were intended 
 constantly to contribute to a new organization of life and 
 beauty. If not, Adam's one mistake operated to convict 
 God of millions of mistakes, involving a radical change 
 in man, and the lower animals to suit them to present cir- 
 cumstances. Now, which of these two propositions is the 
 more credible, and more in accordance with true religion 
 
 o 
 
 and reverence for our Maker that God made the blunder 
 in question, or that the story has its origin and advocacy 
 in the priesthood ? Grant that there was a time when
 
 906 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 the first man had not performed any act either good or 
 bad, pertaining to the duties for which he was held 
 responsible. So circumstanced, he was, of course, with- 
 out committed sin, and therefore personally innocent. Is 
 not this true, at some time, with regard to every man 
 that ever arrived at a moral accountability ? In this 
 respect, at least, it is evident that all men including 
 Adam start, on a perfect equality, to traverse their 
 course through time and in eternity. Now, that Adam 
 was, from the first, gifted with some agency over his 
 volitions and actions, and that his original nature and 
 knowledge was not such as to ensure that he would not 
 err in the exercise of his limited agency, is shown by the 
 Bible story of his fall. That he did err, precisely after 
 the manner of all men, as soon as he was put to the test, 
 is also shown by the same account. 
 
 It is, therefore, difficult to see how it can be said that 
 Adam in any way differed, from first to last, from the 
 present type of humanity. Standing as a figure of the 
 first man, Adam was, at one period of his existence, 
 guiltless of any committed or personal sin, and to that 
 extent, in God's sight he was innocent, true and good. 
 Every man, arriving at a state of accountability, is pre- 
 cisely in the same condition. But, say the Churches, 
 man's nature is corrupt ; he is at enmity with God ; 
 and this was brought about by Adam's sin, where is 
 the evidence ? If all men, at one period of their lives, 
 advance from the same stand-point, all men like Adam, 
 being fallible, are not only liable but they are sure to 
 err. Adam so erred, without having been subject to the 
 taint of corruption as the theologians have it by the 
 sin of any preceding man. The Bible narrative on this 
 subject leads to the inference, that, very early after he
 
 GOD'S ORIGINAL LAWS UNCHANGED. 207 
 
 was put to the test of choosing the good and avoiding the 
 evil which is literally the business of life with all men 
 he did precisely the. same thing that all other men do. 
 At times he did what is right ; and at times he did what 
 is wrong. It is in that way we gain experience, and are 
 trained to the practice of virtue. God alone is always 
 right, always good ; and the idea that He originally 
 cretted man short-sighted and liable to err, as we now see 
 him, militates nothing against His goodness, since He has 
 ordained that which shall be effectual to the diminution 
 of man's ignorance and the supplying of his short-com- 
 ings, by His own infinite knowledge and perfection. God 
 has never been thwarted, disconcerted, nor interfered with, 
 in the slightest degree, by either man or devil. He is 
 supreme in all things. His plans and doings were all 
 perfect from the first, and need no altering. They cannot 
 be altered. The very idea of God, when contemplated in 
 the fullness in which it is man's highest privilege to view 
 Him, amounts to demonstration that He is unchangeable. 
 This alone is consistent with the perfections of God, and 
 in direct opposition to the teachings of Christian theology. 
 We insist, therefore, that man and all the lower animals 
 that now inhabit the earth bear the same stamp and 
 impress that God originally gave them ; and that human 
 nature is ever the same in its incipient stage subject to 
 be assimilated more and more toward God's perfections, 
 under the influence and teaching; of His unchanging laws, 
 
 ^ O O 
 
 ordained for the purpose at man's creation. This may, 
 figuratively, be termed the m partaking of the tree of know- 
 ledge of good and evil. None are shut out from it. All 
 eat of it, even in this first stage of our existence ; but 
 with various degrees of success ; and in God's good time,
 
 208 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 none will fail to profit by it. We shall eat, and live 
 forever. 
 
 If on the other hand, it shall be alleged that God fore- 
 saw what Adam would do in the matter in question, and 
 provided all things before-hand so as to meet the exact 
 case, so say we ; and Adam as the representative of man- 
 kind, is now as at first, and as God intended he should be 
 from the first. 
 
 In relation to the origin of man, we cite the following 
 extracts from Humbolt and other German writers, which 
 in substance repudiate the Hebrew tradition : 
 
 " We do not know," says Wilhelm von Humbolt in an 
 unpublished work, " either from history or from authentic 
 tradition, any period of time in which the human race has 
 not been divided into groups. Whether the gregarious 
 condition was original, or of subsequent occurrence, we 
 have no historic evidence to show. The separate mythi- 
 cal relations, found to exist independently of one another 
 in different parts of the earth, appear to refute the first 
 hypothesis : and concur in ascribing the generation of the 
 human race to one pair. The general prevalence of this 
 myth has caused it to be regarded as a traditionary 
 record, transmitted from the primitive man to his descend- 
 ants. But this very circumstance seems rather to prove 
 that it has no historical foundation, but has simply arisen 
 from an identity in the mode of intellectual conception, 
 which has everywhere led men to adopt the same conclu- 
 sions regarding identical phenomena ; in the same manner 
 as many myths have doubtless arisen, not from any his- 
 torical connection existing between them, but from an 
 identity of human thought and imagination. It is in 
 vain that we direct our thoughts to the solution of the 
 great problem of the first origin ; since man is too inti-
 
 ORIGIN OF THE HUMAN RACE. 209 
 
 mately associated with bis own race, and with the rela- 
 tions of time, to conceive of the existence of an individual, 
 independently of a preceding generation and age." 
 
 " Nothing remains but to embrace the opinion, that the 
 distinct characteristics of the human race were imprinted 
 at all times ; or that in general mankind does not descend 
 from one man and woman, from Adam and Eve but 
 from several human pairs." 
 
 " Inasmuch, as it has never yet occurred to anybody to 
 sustain that all figs have sprung from a solitary primitive 
 fig, even as little can any one admit the whole of man- 
 kind to be derived lineally from a single human pair. 
 Wherever the conditions of life were found, life has 
 sprung forth." 
 
 According to these views, the whole story in the Book 
 of Genesis relating to Adam and Eve which is the sole 
 authority as to the first human pair being placed in the 
 Garden of Eden is altogether fallacious, a view in which 
 we entirely concur. 
 
 Now, as the Christian theology is wholly based on the 
 story taken in its literal significance, upon the authority 
 of a single person who is claimed to have recorded it two 
 thousand years after its supposed occurrence, there is cer- 
 tainly left but a very slender foundation, whereon to build 
 one's hopes or fears of eternal salvation or destruction. 
 
 We find that, according to Bible narrative, Adam was 
 created in such a condition of life that had he not broken 
 the commandment of God, he would have enjoyed it in 
 the paradise of Eden, everlastingly. But he ate of the 
 tree of knowledge of good and evil, of which God had 
 told him : "Thou shalt not eat of it; for in the day that 
 thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die." And now, lest 
 he should put forth his hand, and eat of the tree of life and 
 H
 
 210 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 live forever, God thrust him out of Paradise. By which 
 it appears, that if Adam had not sinned, he would have 
 had an eternal life on earth, both bodily and spiritually. 
 But, as he did, physical mortality became the lot, both of 
 him and his posterity. Not that actual death then 
 entered ; for Adam then could never have had children ; 
 whereas, he lived long after, and saw a numerous progeny 
 spring up around him. Where therefore it is said, " In 
 the day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die," 
 Genesis, ii. 17; and, "unto dust shalt thou return," 
 Genesis, iii. 19 ; it must needs be meant that his body 
 would become mortal, and be sure to suffer death. 
 
 But, added to this idea, the theology of the Christian 
 churches teaches also, that Adam's sin degraded the 
 spiritual nature of mankind. This doctrine is not war- 
 ranted by the language of the Bible. " For God doth 
 know, that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes 
 shall be opened ; and ye shall be as gods, knowing good 
 and evil." Genesis, iii. 5. "And the Lord God said, 
 Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good 
 and evil ; and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take 
 also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever : There- 
 fore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of 
 .Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken." 
 Genesis, iii. 22, 23. 
 
 Now, it is difficult so perceive how man's arriving at a 
 knowledge of good and evil, and thereby assimilating 
 himself to God, is to be construed into man's degradation 
 
 O 
 
 or fall. Is it not rather an advance in the right direc- 
 tion? Does not knowledge tend to elevate, rather than 
 to degrade? Some knowledge must be had of evil, in 
 order to lead us to the highest appreciation of the good, 
 the true, and the right. God therefore trains man in the
 
 ETERNAL LIFE IS TO BE EARTHLY. 211 
 
 direction of his own perfections, by rewarding virtue and 
 punishing vice, which tends to constantly increasing 
 knowledge of good and evil ; and thus man is conducted 
 to the happy destiny which God designed for him. 
 
 But to proceed with the argument on the theory that 
 man did fall, and that it became necessary that some one 
 should restore him. 
 
 If, as it is said, Jesus has made satisfaction for the sins 
 of all that believe in him, and therefore recovers to all 
 believers that " Eternal life " which was lost by the sin 
 of Adam, it must, in this sense, be recovered for them on 
 earth. Herein, alone, is it that the comparison of St. 
 
 A 
 
 Paul holds good, when he says, "As by the offence of one, 
 judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so 
 by the righteousness of one, the free gift came upon all 
 men to justification of life." Romans, v. 18, 19; or as 
 he more perspicuously expresses it, in those other words 
 of his : " For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall 
 all be made alive." 1 Corinthians, xv. 22. 
 
 The place then, wherein men are to enjoy eternal life, 
 which Jesus hath obtained -for them, can be none other 
 . than here, where, having first obtained it, they lost it ; 
 and where, last of all, they recover it again, through him. 
 For if, as in Adam all die, that is, if in Adam all have 
 forfeited paradise and eternal life on earth, and returned 
 to dust again ; even so in Christ shall all be made alive, 
 that is, all shall be made alive on earth, in the flesh. If 
 tins, we say, be not the meaning of the words, then 
 words fail to convey any adequate idea of the text. The 
 Psalmist not only corroborates, but he strengthens this 
 view of the subject. " For there," says he, that is on 
 Mount Zion, (the place which is made to represent Jeru- 
 salem upon earth,) "the Lord commanded the blessing,
 
 2J2 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 even life forever more."- Psalm, cxxxiii. 3. Jolm also, 
 in the Revelations, does the same thing: "To him that 
 overcometh, I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is 
 in the midst of the paradise of God." Revelations, ii. 7. 
 This was the tree of Adam's eternal life, which, from the 
 wording of the fable, was evidently intended to be on 
 earth. But, for our further confirmation, the same Apostle 
 says again, "I, John, saw the holy city, the new Jeru- 
 salem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as 
 a bride adorned for her husband." Revelations, xxi. 2. 
 And again, to the same effect, he remarks, "And he car- 
 ried me away in the Spirit, to a great and high mountain, 
 and shewed me that great city, the holy Jerusalem, 
 descending out of heaven from God," Rev. xxi. 10 ; 
 implying that the new Jerusalem, the paradise of God, at 
 the coming again of Jesus, should come down to God's 
 people from heaven ; and not that they should go up to it 
 from earth. This differs nothing from that, which the 
 two men in white clothing, that is, the two angels, said 
 to the Apostles who were looking upon Jesus ascending: 
 " This same Jesus, who is taken up from you into heaven, 
 shall so come, as you have seen him go into heaven." 
 Acts, i. 11. This is equivalent to saying that Jesus will 
 come down to govern them under his Father, here, eter- 
 nally; and not take them up, to govern them in Heaven 
 above. It answers also to the restoration of the kingdom 
 of God instituted under Moses, which was a political 
 government of the Jews on earth. 
 
 Now referring again to the first part of the argument 
 if Adam and Eve had not sinned, and had lived on the 
 earth, together with their posterity, forever, it is manifest 
 that the earth could not have contained the aggregate. If 
 immortals could have generated as mankind do now, the
 
 SALVATION NOT SPIRITUAL. 213 
 
 earth, in a short space of time, would not have sufficed for 
 them to live in. 
 
 Again, the joys of that " life eternal," in Scripture lan- 
 guage, are all comprehended under the name of Salvation. 
 Now, to be saved, is to be secured, either respectively 
 against special evils, or absolutely against all evils com- 
 prehending want, sickness, and even death itself. If, 
 therefore, man was created an immortal being, not subject 
 to corruption, and having nothing in him that tends to 
 dissolution, and if he fell from that state of happiness by 
 the sin of Adam, it follows that to be saved from sin, in 
 his case, is to be saved from all the evils and calamities 
 that sin brought upon him. . So that the meaning of the 
 Scriptural term, "remission of sins," is one and the same 
 with salvation from death and misery. This is manifest 
 from the words of Jesus, when he cured a man sick of the 
 palsy, He began by saying, "Son, be of good cheer, thy 
 sins be forgiven thee " (Matthew, ix. 2 ;) and, being 
 murmured at by the Scribes for this act, asked them, 
 "Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, 
 or to say, Arise and walk?" (Matthew, ix. 5.) Of course, 
 he meant that the two things were synonymous that 
 "Thy sins be forgiven thee," and "Arise and walk," 
 would produce the same effect. Reason, too, teaches us 
 that since death and misery are, according to Bible teach- 
 ing, the punishments of sin, redemption from sin must also 
 be redemption from death and misery ; that is to say, abso- 
 lute salvation. 
 
 But salvation may also be a special remedy against 
 particular evils and what are they ? Examples are the 
 best means of teaching us. " And he said, the Lord is my 
 rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer ; the God of my 
 rock ; in Him will I trust ; He is my shield and the
 
 2H ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 horn of my salvation, my high tower and my refuge, my 
 Saviour thou savest me from violence. I will call on 
 the Lord, who is worthy to be praised : so shall I be saved 
 from mine enemies." (2 Samuel, xxii. 2, 3, 4.) "And 
 the Lord gave Israel a Saviour, so that they went out from 
 under the hand of the Syrians ; and the children of Israel 
 dwelt in their tents, as beforetime." (2 Kings, xiii. 5.) 
 Now, these quotations, and many others of a similar 
 character, which could be selected, most unquestionably 
 have reference to the realization of an earthly salvation, 
 which is described and marked out precisely at length in 
 the following passages from, the book of Isaiah : " Look 
 upon Zion, the city of our solemnities ; thine eyes shall 
 see Jerusalem, a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall 
 not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall 
 ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be 
 broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a 
 place of broad rivers and streams ; wherein shall go no 
 galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. 
 For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our law-giver, the 
 Lord is our King ; he will save us. Thy tacklings are 
 loosed ; they could not well strengthen their mast ; they 
 could not spread the sail ; then is the prey of a great spoil 
 divided ; the lame take the prey. And the inhabitants 
 shall not say, I am sick ; the people that dwell therein 
 shall be forgiven their iniquity." (Isaiah, xxxiii. 20, 24.) 
 In these words we have the place from whence salvation 
 is to proceed, namely, " Jerusalem," " a quiet habitation ;" 
 and the eternity of it, "a tabernacle that shall not be 
 taken down," &c. Is it not, therefore, evident that the 
 Scriptures foretell that salvation shall be on this earth? 
 If this is not sufficiently emphatic, examine the following 
 texts from the same prophet. "And they (that is, the
 
 SALVATION NOT SPIRITUAL. 215 
 
 Gentiles who had any Jew in bondage) shall bring all 
 your brethren, for an offering unto the Lord out of all 
 nations, upon horses and in chariots, and in litters, and 
 upon mules, and upon swift beasts, to my holy mountain 
 Jerusalem, saith the Lord, as the children of Israel bring 
 an offering in a clean vessel into the house of the Lord." 
 " And I will also take of them for priests and for Levites, 
 saith the Lord." (Isaiah, Ixvi. 20, 21.) Whereby it is 
 manifest that the chief seat of God's kingdom, which is 
 the place from whence the salvation of the Gentiles was 
 to proceed, was Jerusalem. 
 
 But, to pursue this subject still further : The prophet 
 Joel, in describing the day of judgment, says that God 
 will " shew wonders in Heaven, and in earth, blood, and 
 fire, and pillars of smoke ; the sun shall be turned into 
 darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and 
 terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass 
 that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall 
 be delivered : for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be 
 deliverance." (Joel, ii. 30, 31, 32.) Obediah, in his 
 single chapter, says the same thing : " Upon Mount Zion 
 shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness ; and the 
 house of Jacob shall posess their possessions " (verse 17) 
 that is, the possessions of the heathen. These possessions 
 he designates more particularly in the following verses, by 
 the title of " the Mount of Esau," " the Land of the Phil- 
 istines," "the fields of Ephraim," "of Samaria," "Gilead," 
 and " the cities of the South ;" and then he concludes with 
 these words, " the kingdom shall be the Lord's." All 
 these places are said to be for salvation, -and for the king- 
 dom of God, after the day of judgment upon earth. 
 
 By examining the term "world," as made use of in the 
 Bible, this will become still more apparent. There we
 
 216 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 have it referred to in three different senses, as the old 
 world, the present world, and the world to come. Of the 
 first, St. Peter speaks in the following language, " And 
 spared not the old world, but saved Noah the eighth per- 
 son, a preacher of righteousness, bringing the flood upon 
 the world of the ungodly." 2 Peter, ii. 5 which evi- 
 dently means the world that existed from Adam, to what 
 is called the Deluge. Of the present world, Jesus him- 
 self thus speaks, "My kingdom is not of this world; if 
 my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants 
 fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews." John, 
 xviii. 36. Jesus means the world then actually around 
 him, which was then, and which is now, inhabited by the 
 human race, as contradistinguished from the world over 
 which he expected to rule at his second coming. And of 
 this world to come to which Christ alluded, the Apostle 
 Peter again enlightens us: "Nevertheless we, according 
 to his promise, look for new heavens, and a new earth 
 wherein dwelleth righteousness." 2 Peter, iii. 13. This 
 is also that world, whereunto Christ coming down from 
 heaven in the clouds, with great power and glory, shall 
 send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from 
 the four winds, arid from the uttermost parts of the earth, 
 and thenceforth reign over them under his Father, ever- 
 lastingly. 
 
 The only article of faith, which the Scriptures make 
 simply necessary to salvation, is this, that Jesus is "The 
 Christ." By the name of Christ, at that time, was under- 
 stood "The king;" the anointed one; the one whom 
 God had before promised, by the prophets of the Old Tes- 
 tament, to send into the world, to reign over the Jews, 
 and over such nations as should believe in him, under 
 himself, eternally ; and to give them that eternal life,
 
 THE WORLD, PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 217 
 
 which was lost by the sin of Adam, namely, life everlast- 
 ing in the flesh upon earth. The aim of all the Evan- 
 gelists, who give us such a graphic description of the life 
 of Jesus, was to establish that One article of Faith, that 
 Jesus is "The Christ." The sum and substance of Mat- 
 thew's Gospel is this, that Jesus was of the stock of 
 David, and that he was born of a Virgin. These arc 
 considered perhaps, the strongest marks by which the 
 true Christ was to be identified ; but they are not all. 
 They are confirmed, we are taught, by the following cor- 
 roborative evidence. The Magi came to worship him as 
 such, that is as "The King of the Jews." Herod, for 
 the same cause, sought to kill him. John the Baptist 
 proclaimed him. He declared himself; and his Apostles 
 also preached, that he taught the law, not as a scribe, but 
 as a man of authority that is, as a man in a supreme 
 position. He cured diseases by his word only, and did 
 many other miracles, which t were foretold the Christ 
 should do. He was saluted king, when he entered into 
 Jerusalem. He forewarned his disciples, and others, to 
 beware of any except himself, who should pretend to be 
 Christ. He was taken, accused, and put to death, for 
 saying he was that king. The cause of his condemna- 
 tion, written on the cross, was, "Jesus of Nazareth, The 
 King of the Jews." All these, and many other examples 
 of a like character, teach, (and teach nothing more nor 
 less than this,) that men should believe that "Jesus is the 
 Christ." We gather these quotations from the History 
 of Jesus, written by Matthew. The other three Evan- 
 gelists who wrote of him, with some few discrepancies, 
 additions, and subtractions, say pretty much the same 
 things. The whole and sole design therefore of the Evan- 
 gelists, was to impress and establish this one idea.
 
 218 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Indeed John makes it the sum total of his history. 
 "These things were written," says he, "that ye might 
 believe, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God ; and 
 that believing ye might have life through his name," 
 John, xx. 31 that is to say, life everlasting upon earth 
 in the flesh. The Apostles, even in the lifetime of Jesus, 
 were sent to preach the kingdom of God: "And he sent 
 them to preach the kingdom of God." Luke, ix. 2. 
 And again, "As ye go, preach, saying, The kingdom of 
 heaven is at hand." Matthew, x. 7. Now what can 
 we gather from this, but that he sent them to preach 
 that he was "The Messiah," " The Christ," "The King," 
 which was to come ? Their preaching, likewise, after his 
 death, was the same. This is manifest from an account 
 which Luke gives in the Book of Acts, of a riot which 
 such preaching occasioned at Thessalonica. "The Jews," 
 says he, " which believed not, moved with envy, took 
 unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and 
 gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, 
 and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring 
 them out to the people. And when they found them not, 
 they drew Jason and certain brethren unto the rulers of 
 the city, crying, these that have turned the world upside 
 down, are come hither also, whom Jason hath received; 
 and these all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar ; saying 
 that there is another King, one Jesus." Acts, xvii. 
 5, 6, 7. 
 
 Jesus himself, no doubt, at one period of his life, 
 favored this idea. The following suggestion which he 
 made to the Jews with reference to himself evidences that 
 he did, "Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye 
 have eternal life ; and they are they that testify of me." 
 John, v. 39. Of course he could have reference, in these
 
 CHRIST'S PRETENDED MIRACLES. 219 
 
 words, to no other writings than those of the Old Testa- 
 ment, the New Testament not then being in existence. 
 Admitting then that the Old Testament Scriptures do 
 bear all the marks whereby men might have known Jesus 
 when he came amono: them such as those to which we 
 
 O 
 
 have before referred, to wit: that he should descend from 
 David ; be born at Bethlehem, and of a Virgin ; and that 
 he should do great miracles by which it should be known 
 that he was come to be a temporal King; and, The King 
 of the Jews ; which he never was still, does this war- 
 rant theologians in putting a totally different construction 
 on it, by going further and saying that he was not only a 
 temporal king, but that he was the King of Kings, and 
 Lord of Lords? What authority have they for doing 
 this ? We shall presently shew. 
 
 The principal evidence, which Christians have to pro- 
 duce in support of the Divinity of Jesus is the working of 
 miracles. In order to claim credence for his miracles, 
 they are necessarily compelled to admit the validity of 
 the miracles of Moses and of the Old Testament gene- 
 rally, some of which are said to have been wrought by 
 persons who were considered types of Jesus. We will 
 examine into the nature of these first, therefore. Now it 
 must be admitted that there are some references made in 
 the Scriptures themselves, to the power of working won- 
 ders, even by men who were represented to be at variance 
 with God and His people. In fact, the ability to perform 
 such acts is conceded to them. But they are also said to 
 have been produced by magic and incantation. 
 
 For example, when we read that after the rod of Moses 
 had been cast on the ground, and had become a serpent, 
 (Exodus, vii. 2,) the magicians of Egypt did the same by 
 their enchantments. Again, after Moses had turned the
 
 220 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 waters of the Egyptian streams, rivers, ponds, and pools 
 of water into blood Exodus, vii. 22 the magicians did 
 so likewise by their enchantments. And again, when 
 Aaron had, by the power of God, brought frogs upon the 
 land Exodus, viii. 6 the magicians also did so by their 
 enchantments, and they " brought up frogs upon the land 
 of Egypt." 
 
 Now, enchantment is not, as many think it, a working 
 of strange effects by spells and words, but imposture and 
 delusion wrought by legerdemain ; and so far is it from 
 being supernatural, that the impostors, who practice it, 
 resort neither to the study of science nor of nature. Ail 
 they do is to impose upon the ignorance, stupidity, and 
 superstition of the most credulous. So that all that mira- 
 cle-working consists in is this, that the enchanter has 
 made himself master in the art of deception. It is, there- 
 fore, not a good or laudable thing to do ; it is bad, wicked, 
 and detestable ; and abhorrent to every sensible mind. 
 
 What a reputation for miraculous powers (before the 
 science of the course of the stars was discovered) might 
 not a man have gained, had he truly foretold, that on a 
 certain day or at a certain hour, the Sun would be dark- 
 ened ! A juggler, also, by handling the appliances of his 
 profession, (if such tricks were not now ordinarily prac- 
 tised,) might gain for himself such renown for ability to 
 work miracles, as would suggest that he was aided by the 
 devil, at least, if by no higher power. 
 
 But when we take a more sensible view of the matter, 
 and look upon the impostures which are wrought by con- 
 federacy, there are few things, (however impossible they 
 may appear,) that cannot be done or seem to be done. 
 And, however, glaring the fraud may be, it still finds 
 dupes enough ready to believe in it. Two men conspir-
 
 SOME MIRACLES EXPLAINED. 221 
 
 ing, one to seem lame, the other to cure him with a 
 charm, might deceive many ; but many conspiring one 
 to seem lame, another to cure him, and all the rest to 
 bear witness to the cheat might deceive many men. 
 
 The seeming miracle of raising Lazarus from the dead, 
 (if it were ever enacted/) was, no doubt, the result of 
 collusion ; so also was the raising to life of the ruler's 
 daughter, and of the son of the widow of Nain. We hesi- 
 tate not to say the same in regard to all other instances, 
 where the gaining of credence in miracle-working has been 
 attempted. 
 
 None of the miracles, with which the old histories are 
 filled, took place at a period of scientific culture. Scruti- 
 nizing observation, which has never once been deceived, 
 teaches us that miracles never happen, save in times and 
 countries wherein they are believed without examination, 
 and before persons whose minds are already prepared to 
 believe them. No miracle ever occurred, in the pres- 
 ence of men capable of testing its mysterious character. 
 Neither common people, nor men of the world, are able to 
 apply the test. It requires much precaution and long 
 habits of scientific research. In our days, have we not 
 seen almost all respectable people made dupes of by the 
 grossest frauds and the most puerile illusions ? Transac- 
 tions said to be marvellous and attested by the whole 
 population of small towns, have thanks to a severer 
 scrutiny been satisfactorily explained. And, if it can be 
 proved that no contemporary so-called miracle will bear 
 to be inquired into, is it not probable also, nay, is it not 
 more than probable, that the miracles of the past, which 
 have all been performed among an ignorant populace, 
 would equally present their share of illusion, were it pos- 
 sible to criticise them in detail ?
 
 222 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 It is not, then, in the name of this or that philosophy ; 
 but in the name of universal experience, that we banish 
 miracles from history. Up to this time the performance 
 of a miracle has never been proved. 
 
 In the aptitude of mankind to give too hasty belief to 
 pretended miracles, therefore, how very wisely put, is the 
 caution in the beginning of the thirteenth chapter, and 
 again, at the end of the eighteenth chapter of Deuter- 
 onomy that we take not any for prophets, who teach * 
 any other religion, than that which God, through his 
 messenger, Moses, hath established ; nor any, though he 
 teach the same religion, whose prediction we do not see 
 come to pass ! 
 
 Jesus taught another religion than that of Moses ; and 
 his prediction, that his second coming would be during 
 the lifetime of some who heard him so predict, did not 
 come to pass. By this it is proved, that the Bible test 
 of a reliable worker of miracles is adverse to the preten- 
 sions set up in behalf of Jesus. He also failed to estab- 
 lish his claim, in relation to having been sent of God to 
 be temporal ruler of the Jews, either by miracles or other- 
 wise. Unfulfilled also is the idea of Jesus in relation to 
 the destruction of the earth by fire, and the formation of 
 a new one in its place, wherein he claimed that the 
 righteous alone were to dwell, and were to be ruled over 
 by him. All of this was to take place, according to 
 Jesus' own prediction, before the then generation should 
 pass away ; yet now, after eighteen hundred years, it 
 remains unaccomplished. 
 
 We add a few remarks in regard to the pretended 
 miracles, described by the writers of the New Testament 
 as having been worked by Jesus.
 
 FURTHER EXPLANATIONS. 223 
 
 There is undoubtedly a class of diseases which may 
 not be cured by a charm, or by the force of imagination, 
 or immediately by soothing influences. 
 
 Of this sort was that of the woman with the issue of 
 blood of long standing. Yet there is another class of 
 complaints, or conceits, which may be so cured, or at 
 least appear for a time to be so. Hence, the account 
 given in the Gospels, in many cases, corresponds to 
 appearances exhibited at the time. When Jesus dis- 
 missed the woman having the issue of blood, with the 
 words, "Thy faith hath made thee whole," he could not 
 have expressed himself more modestly, and, it may be, 
 that he spoke not altogether inappropriately. She may 
 in some degree have been benefitted by her faith ; but 
 she could not have been instaneously and entirely cured 
 of a disorder, like the one in question. Faith, hopeful- 
 ness, and buoyancy of spirits have a marked tendency to 
 produce beneficial effects, and generally do so in almost 
 all descriptions of diseases. But this in a way altogether 
 natural, never supernatural or miraculous. The firm 
 belief which many persons had in Jesus as a wonder- 
 worker, no doubt had more or less influence, for a time at 
 least, as is evident from the fact that in his home at 
 Nazareth, by reason of the unbelief of the people, it was 
 only in a few cases that he had succeeded. Matthew, 
 xiii. 58. It was supposed, at the period in question, that 
 there were processes, more or less efficacious, for driving 
 diseases away. On this account, the occupation of exor- 
 cist or conjurer was a regular profession, like that of phy- 
 sician, and it may be fairly assumed that Jesus had, in 
 his lifetime, the reputation of possessing the profoundest 
 secrets of this art. Many singular incidents were related, 
 in connection with his cures, in which the credulity of the
 
 224 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 people gave full scope for his encouragement, as at this 
 day. In Syria, they regard as mad, or possessed by a 
 demon, people who are only somewhat eccentric. A 
 gentle word in such cases often suffices to drive away the 
 demon. And such were, doubtless, the means employed 
 by Jesus. At that time, also, the fashionable form of 
 complaint among the Jews was, possession of devils, 
 which accounts for his popularity as a caster of them out. 
 We have seen this morbid condition re-appearing in our 
 own days, in connection with the newly arisen belief 
 in spirits and devils. Nervous and mental diseases, 
 which otherwise would have appeared simply in the form 
 of convulsions, periodical craziness, and the like, appeared 
 in connection with that superstition as madness, produced 
 by demoniacal possession, that could only be removed by 
 operating on the delusion. There is every probability 
 that, as to the cause of this disease, Jesus shared the ideas 
 of his age. Hence, on account of its frequently yielding 
 to his denunciation, in the name of God, he considered 
 this fact a sign of the Messianic times, though he laid 
 the less stress upon the fact as regarded himself and his 
 disciples, because he saw the same effect produced by 
 others whom, in this respect, he placed without hesitation 
 on a par with himself. 
 
 In cases of cure of this kind by the imagination, it 
 could not but happen sometimes that, with the excite- 
 ment, the imagined relief produced by it also passed 
 away, so that the old complaints returned. Jesus himself 
 speaks of such relapses, not merely with reference to sick 
 persons who had been cured by himself, but generally, so 
 that we may be sure that they had happened in his own 
 experience, as well as in that of others. As regards the 
 re-possession, he explains it as the return of the devil that
 
 DIFFERENT MIRACLES. 225 
 
 had been driven out, with a fresh accession of strength. 
 We infer from this, that he looked upon the cause of 
 these complaints as a supernatural one, and his power of 
 removing them as by no means absolute. 
 
 Now we have to speak of quite another description of 
 miracles, said to have been enacted by Jesus, which 
 involves the question, whether God's laws in relation to 
 physical nature are invariably the same. The affirma- 
 tive is at this day so well established by science and 
 every other available test, that to argue the subject is 
 frivolous. We therefore deem it impossible, that Jesus 
 should ever, by a mere blessing, have enormously in- 
 creased existing means of nourishment. It is impossible, 
 that he could have changed water into wine. Nor can 
 he, in defiance of the law of gravity, have walked upon 
 the water without sinking. He cannot have recalled 
 really dead men to life. Narratives of this kind have 
 their existence in fable only ; never in fact. The gross 
 ignorance and the dark superstition of the people, in 
 Jesus' time, make it perfectly intelligible that even cures, 
 effected by means obviously natural, were considered as 
 miracles. 
 
 If Jesus could cure some diseases supernaturally by 
 the mere word of command, why not all ? Why resort 
 to manipulation, and the applying of spittle and clay to 
 the eyes of the blind, and the cleansing with water, 
 according to Bible narrative? Here is evidently a judi- 
 cious discrimination between complaints which may be 
 affected purely by the imagination, and those in which it 
 was deemed necessary to resort to material appliances. 
 Natural means were evident, while credit was given (for 
 whatever good may have resulted) to supernatural means. 
 15
 
 226 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Again, the most wonderful and startling of all the mira- 
 cles said to have been performed by Jesus, was that called 
 the raising of Lazarus. If this ever had the appearance of 
 being performed, it is certain that Lazarus was not dead ; 
 and the presumption is, that Jesus knew it. This is to be 
 inferred from the fact that he, himself, intimated to his dis- 
 ciples that Lazarus was only asleep. Let any candid reader 
 examine the following narrative with a critical eye, and see 
 if something of this kind of collusion cannot be detected in 
 it: "Therefore his sisters sent unto him, saying, Lord, 
 behold he whom thou lovest is sick. When Jesus heard 
 that he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the 
 glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified 
 thereby. These things said he ; and after that he saith 
 unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth ; but I go that I 
 may awake him out of sleep. Then said his disciples, 
 Lord, if he sleep he shall do well. Howbeit Jesus spake 
 of his death ; but they thought that he had spoken of 
 taking of rest in sleep. Then said Jesus unto them plainly, 
 Lazarus is dead. And I am glad for your sakes that I 
 was not there, to the intent ye may believe ; nevertheless 
 let us go unto him. Jesus saith unto her, Said I not unto 
 thee, that if thou wouldst believe thou shouldst see the 
 glory of God ? Then they took away the stone from the 
 place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his 
 eyes and said, Father I thank thee that thou hast heard 
 me. And I knew that thou hearest me always ; but 
 because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they 
 may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus 
 had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come 
 forth. And he that was dead came forth, bound hand 
 and foot, with grave clothes ; and his face was bound about 
 with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him and let
 
 JEWISH TESTS OF THE MESSIAHSHIP. 227 
 
 him go. Then many of the Jews which came to Mary, 
 and had seen the things which Jesus did, believed on 
 him." 
 
 According to the testimony of the Apostle Paul, it was 
 a national peculiarity of the Jews to desire signs from a 
 man in whose doctrine they were asked to believe. Moses 
 was supposed to have spoken to the people, before the 
 suppression of the rebellious adherents of Korah. Num- 
 bers, xvi. 28, " Hereby ye shall know that the Lord 
 hath sent me to do all these works ; for I have not done 
 them of mine own mind." "The Jews," St. Paul 
 remarks, "require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wis- 
 dom." 1 Corinthians, 22. 
 
 As the national legend of the Hebrews had attributed 
 to Moses, one of the most eminent prophets, a series of 
 such miracles as might then be read in the books held 
 sacred by them, it was natural that miracles should, in 
 like manner, be expected of every one who claimed to be 
 a prophet or the Messiah, and that a Teacher should not 
 be held in full estimation by the people if he were without 
 this proof of having received credentials from above. 
 Accordingly, it is quite certain, as we read in the Gospels, 
 that en more than one occasion, when Jesus put forward 
 pretensions which none but a Prophet could put forward, 
 he was met by the demand for an accrediting sign. 
 "Master," said they, as we read in the Gospel of Mat- 
 thew, " we would see a sign from thee." On two other 
 occasions, likewise, they accosted him with the expres- 
 sions of a wish of this kind, and for what they define 
 more accurately as a sign from heaven, Matthew, xvi. 1 ; 
 Mark, viii. 2. But Jesus refused to comply with their 
 demands. Up to this time, his pretension went no further 
 than that he was a teacher sent from God. He relied
 
 228 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 upon the excellence of the doctrine that he taught, as an 
 evidence that he was sent ; and this he declared. He, 
 therefore, returned a summary answer to the demand for 
 a sign. No sign whatever, said he, shall be given to 
 this evil and adulterous generation. By the term " gen- 
 eration," we understand him to mean his contemporaries 
 generally, whose want of susceptibility and whose per- 
 versity in the case of the Pharisees and Scribes, came 
 under his observation in' a particularly glaring manner. 
 It was not until later, and probably after he had con- 
 ceived the idea that he was the promised Messiah, that 
 he saw the policy of yielding as he did to the impor- 
 tunities for a sign. The answer that Jesus gave to the 
 messengers of the Baptist, who were sent to him in con- 
 sequence of a series of miracles which he was then per- 
 forming, and to which he appealed as a proof of his Mes- 
 sianic commission, appears to stand in direct contradiction 
 to his refusal to perform signs and wonders. When John 
 the Baptist sent to ask Jesus whether he was the promised 
 Messiah, or whether they were to look for another, John 
 must have been in doubt, whether those miracles similar 
 ones to which had been performed by the Prophets in the 
 Old Testament did also, on this occasion, announce only 
 a Prophet, or, lastly, and once for all, the Messiah. The 
 sequel has shown that Jesus was not the expected Mes- 
 siah, inasmuch as he never occupied the throne of David. 
 But, however Jesus might disclaim the performance of 
 material miracles, it was supposed, according to the mode 
 of thought of the period, and of his contemporaries, that 
 miracles he must perform whether he would or not. As 
 soon as he was considered a Prophet Luke, vii. 16 and 
 we cannot doubt that he might attain this character as 
 well as the Baptist, even without the performance of
 
 JEWISH TESTS OF THE MESSIAHSHIP. 229 
 
 miracles miraculous powers were attributed to him, they 
 came of course into operation. From that time, wherever 
 he showed himself, sufferers regularly crowded upon him 
 in order only to touch his garments, because they expected 
 to be cured by doing so. Matthew, xiv. 36 ; Mark, iii. 
 10, vi. 56; Luke, vi. 19. And it would have been strange 
 indeed, if there had been no cases among all these, in 
 which the force of excited imagination, or impressions 
 half spiritual and half sensuous, produced either actual 
 removal or temporary mitigation of disease. Such effect 
 was ascribed to the miraculous powers of Jesus. 
 
 But, besides, and beyond these signs as a test of the 
 truth of the mission of a prophet, there were other means 
 by which the Jews examined his claims, and particularly 
 the claims of one aspiring to the Messiahship. Their 
 conceptions of the Messiah, though different in different 
 persons, agreed nevertheless in this that the Messiah, 
 after the opening of his kingdom, would continue to reign 
 over his followers for a period far exceeding the natural 
 duration of human life. According to Luke, his dominion 
 was, absolutely, to have no end : " He shall be great, and 
 shall be called the Son of the Highest : and the Lord 
 God shall give unto him the throne of his father David : 
 And he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever ; and 
 of his kingdom there shall be no end." Luke, i. 32, 33. 
 
 This idea we find borrowed from the prophets David, 
 Isaiah, Daniel, and others, where the duration of his 
 reign is said to be a thousand years, as in Revelations, 
 xx. 4. If he died at last, this death was to happen to 
 all life on earth, for the purpose of bringing about a 
 change into the super-terrestrial state. But in no case 
 could he die, until he had finished his work and executed 
 all that was expected of him. In no case could he be
 
 230 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 cut off, as a condemned criminal, submitting to superior 
 power. 
 
 Now both these contingencies had occurred to Jesus. 
 His ministry, as the pretended Messiah, was broken off; 
 and it was broken off by the violence practised against 
 him by the Jews, even before it had fully begun. The 
 case, then, immediately after the decease of Jesus, 
 between the Jews of the ancient faith, and his adherents, 
 stood as follows. The former said, " Your Jesus cannot 
 have been the Messiah, because the Messiah is to continue 
 forever. He was not to die until after a long period of 
 dominion as the Messiah, at the same time enjoying 
 earthly life as all others. But your Jesus has died before 
 the time by a disgraceful death, without having done any- 
 thing expected of the Messiah." On the other hand, the 
 latter said, "As Jesus, our Messiah, died so early, the 
 prophecies, which promise to the Messiah that he shall 
 endure forever, can only have meant that his death 
 should not subject his soul to a continuance in hell, nor 
 his body to corruption." Psalm, xvi. 10; Acts, ii. 21; 
 but that he should migrate into a higher life with God, 
 from whence he will return to earth at his own time, in 
 order to bring to a conclusion his work that was inter- 
 rupted through your guilt." Now which interpretation is 
 the most credible and probable ? Let us look further. 
 
 All the prophecies, that can, with any consistency, be 
 construed to have any relation to the office of Jesus' Mes- 
 siahship, point to his sitting on the throne of David in 
 the capacity of an earthly king, and thence redeeming 
 the Jews from personal, and, perhaps, incidentally from 
 some degree of spiritual and mental bondage. Isaiah, ix. 
 6,7.
 
 THE THRONE OF DAVID. 231 
 
 That the Jews, at the time of Jesus' ministry among 
 th?m, so understood it, will be seen by the following cita- 
 tion : " There came wise men from the east to Jerusalem, 
 saying, Where is he that is born King of the Jews ? for 
 we have seen his star in the east, and are come to worship 
 him. * * * And when he Herod had gathered all 
 the chief priests and scribes of the people together, he 
 demanded of them where Christ should be born. And 
 they said unto him, In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is 
 written by the prophet : And thou Bethlehem, in the land 
 of Juda, art not the least among the princes of Juda ; for 
 out of thee shall come a Governor that shall rule my 
 people Israel." Matthew, ii. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6. This is fur- 
 ther evinced by the inscription which Pilate caused to be 
 put on the cross upon which Jesus was crucified, to wit : 
 " Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews," and to which 
 the Jews objected, saying, " Write not The King of the 
 Jews, but that he said, I am King of the Jews." John, 
 xix. 21. He was accused then by the Jews, of claiming 
 to be their king; and it is evident that the accusation 
 was a just one. 
 
 Indeed, even after his death, it was still the belief of 
 the Apostles that he was a Prince and a Saviour, and that 
 he was raised up to sit on the throne of David. In the 
 first sermon that Peter preached (which was on the day 
 of Pentecost,) he addressed himself thus to the assembled 
 multitudes that surrounded him : " Men and brethren let 
 me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he 
 is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto 
 this day. Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that 
 God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of 
 his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ 
 to sit on his throne," &c. Acts, ii. 20. And when this
 
 232 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 same Apostle, and some others of bis brethren bad been 
 arrested for preaching, in his name, after the alleged resur- 
 rection and ascension of Jesus, Peter in bis defence 
 remarked, " Him hath God exalted with his right hand 
 to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to 
 Israel, and forgiveness of sins." Acts, v. 31. 
 
 This proves that they still adhered to the idea that his 
 mission was to save the Israelites from bondage, through 
 the medium of his being their Prince ; and from their 
 sins, by preaching repentance to them. But, was the son 
 of Mary, the wife of Joseph, who was called Christ, sent 
 to sit upon the throne of David ? 
 
 This was the question that was fairly presented to the 
 Jews, both by Jesus and his disciples before his death, 
 and by his Apostles after his death ; and it is quite cer- 
 tain that it took a political phase, and was canvassed, on 
 the side of the Apostles, with equal skill and ardor, as 
 are such questions now. The point at issue was, belief 
 or non-belief, as to whether Jesus as the appointed of 
 God, was to occupy the throne of David. Human nature 
 and political intriguing having the same sway over men's 
 minds then as at present, it is not improbable that all 
 things, which were promised to those that believed, were 
 so promised in order to swell up a majority, so that Jesus 
 might be declared a King by acclamation, and the leaders 
 in that doctrine be thus enabled to divide the spoils. By 
 the flatteries of his immediate followers, and of those who 
 espoused his cause, he was made to believe without doubt 
 that he was the person selected by God to serve in the 
 capacity here indicated ; and hence, in view of his princely 
 honors and the high source of his appointment, he allowed 
 others to call him, and called himself, " Christ," " Lord,"
 
 JESUS' PROGRESSIVE IDEAS. 233 
 
 and " the Son of God," as was the manner of the Jews, 
 in relation to persons who were held in high estimation. 
 
 This was his attitude, and these were his claims, when 
 the question was being agitated, by the people, as to his 
 title to the Jewish throne. They were instilled and fos- 
 tered within him. by the fanaticism of his followers, who 
 repeatedly proclaimed with shouts and acclamations, that 
 he was the promised Messiah. The King whom the Jews 
 expected to reign over them. Mark, xi. 9. We read in 
 St. Matthew's Gospel that the multitudes that went 
 before and that followed, cried, saying, " Hosanna to the 
 Son of David, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of 
 the Lord, Hosanna in the Highest." And again, in St. 
 John, " that when he perceived that they would come, 
 and take him by force, and make him a King, he 
 departed again into a mountain himself alone." This he 
 did, probably, because, by his far-sightedness, he saw that 
 the time had not yet come for him to assert his right to 
 the position. There being, at that moment, no general 
 movement of the populace to support him in his claim. 
 
 When Jesus had completely given up his association 
 with Judaism he was filled with revolutionary ardor. 
 The innocent aphorisms of the first part of his prophetic 
 career, in part borrowed from the Jewish rabbis anterior 
 to him, and the beautiful moral precepts of his second 
 period, are exchanged for a decided policy. The Messiah 
 had come ; and he was the Messiah. The Kingdom of 
 God was about to be revealed ; and it was he who would 
 reveal it. It was by crises and commotions that it was 
 to be established. " From the days of John the Bap- 
 tist," saith he, "until now, the Kingdom of Heaven suf- 
 fereth violence, and the violent take it by force ;" (Mat- 
 thew, xi. 12 ;) and again, "The law and the prophets
 
 234 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 were until John ; since that time the Kincrdom of God 
 
 O 
 
 is preached, and every man presseth into it." John, 
 xvi. 16. 
 
 He had previously contented himself with quietly 
 teaching the doctrines of purity and truth. Now he pre- 
 sented a different attitude before the world. He was 
 above, and beyond, a mere simple teacher of morality. 
 He was a prophet, and more than a prophet, and to be 
 obeyed. A kingdom was to be established by him. 
 
 In his paroxysm of heroic will, he believed himself all 
 powerful. If the earth would not submit to this supreme 
 transformation, it must be broken up, purified by fire, 
 and by the breath of God. A new heaven and a new 
 earth would be created, and instead of men it would be 
 peopled with the angels of God. 
 
 A radical revolution, embracing even nature itself, was 
 now the fundamental idea of Jesus. But much darkness 
 mixed itself with even his most correct views. Some- 
 times strange temptations crossed his mind. In the 
 desert of Judea, Satan had offered him the kingdoms of 
 the earth. Not knowing the power of the Roman 
 Empire, he might, with the enthusiasm there was in the 
 heart of Judea, which ended soon after in so terrible an 
 outbreak, hope to establish a kingdom by the number 
 and the daring of his partisans. Many times, perhaps, 
 the supreme question, presented kself will the kingdom 
 of God be realized by force or gentleness, by revolt or by 
 patience? Much vagueness no doubt tinged his ideas. 
 Our principles of positive science are offended by certain 
 of the dreams contained in the programme of Jesus. 
 
 There was a contradiction between belief in the ap- 
 proaching end of the world, and the general moral system 
 which he advocated in prospect of a permanent state of
 
 HE BECOMES IMPERIOUS. 235 
 
 humanity. He prepared his disciples for treating the 
 civil powers with contempt by not deigning to make any 
 defence when brought before them. He wished to anni- 
 hilate riches and power ; and it was his dream to effect a 
 great social revolution, in which rank would be over- 
 turned, and where all authority in this world would be 
 humiliated except his own, he fancying himself destined 
 to have supreme rule. 
 
 He gradually became more and more imperious. At 
 about thirty years of age, he made the proclamation of 
 his Messiahship, and the affirmation of the coming catas- 
 trophe in which he was to figure as judge, clothed with 
 the full powers which had been delegated to him by the 
 Ancient of days. "The Father," said he, "judgeth no 
 man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son," 
 John, v. 22; evidently imagining that he, to whom the 
 title of the Son was given, would be appointed to judge 
 his fellow-creatures. His family were strongly opposed 
 to him, and plainly refused to believe in his mission or 
 pretensions. The Nazarenes, much more violent, wished, 
 it is said, to kill him by throwing him from a steep rock: 
 "And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these 
 things were filled with wrath, and rose up, and thrust 
 him out of the city and lead him unto the brow of the 
 hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast 
 him down headlong." Luke, iv. 28, 29. 
 
 If Jesus conceived that he was the Messiah, and 
 referred the prophecy in Daniel to- the Messiah, and 
 expected in accordance with it, to come with the clouds 
 of heaven in .his own person, as proclaimed by him, he 
 not only appears to us in the light of a fanatic, but we 
 see also an unallowable self-exaltation in a man's (and it 
 is only of a human being that we are everywhere speak-
 
 236 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 ing) so putting himself above every one else, as to con- 
 trast himself with them as their future judge. And, in 
 doing so, Jesus must have completely forgotten how he 
 had on one occasion disclaimed the epithet of good, as one 
 belonging to God alone. 
 
 The title of "Son of David" was the first which he 
 accepted, probably without being concerned in the inno- 
 cent frauds by which it was sought to secure it to him. 
 The universal belief was, that the Messiah would be son 
 of David, and like him would be born at Bethlehem. 
 The first idea of Jesus was perhaps not precisely this. 
 But public opinion on this point made him do violence to 
 himself. The immediate consequence of the proposition, 
 "Jesus is the Messiah," was this other proposition, "Jesus 
 is the son of David." He allowed a title to be given 
 him, without which he could not hope for success. In 
 this, as in many other circumstances of his life, Jesus 
 yielded to the ideas which were current in his time, 
 although they were not precisely his own. He associated 
 with his doctrine of the "kingdom of God" all that could 
 warm the heart and the imagination. It was thus that 
 we have seen him adopt the baptism of John, although 
 it could not have been of much importance to him. "The 
 woman saith unto him, I know that Messias cometh, 
 which is called Christ, when he is come, he will tell us 
 all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee 
 am he." John, iv. 25, 26. It is evident that Jesus 
 made no such announcement in relation to himself during 
 the early part of his ministry. The remark of the woman, 
 and his reply, is proof that no such idea was then current. 
 And this is corroborated by John while imprisoned, 
 sending to inquire of Jesus whether he laid claim to 
 being the expected Messiah. Now if the character and
 
 OBJECT OF CHRIST AND APOSTLES. 237 
 
 mission of Jesus was what the theologians claim, it is 
 incomprehensible why his course and conduct in each and 
 every part, and as a whole, should not have been more in 
 conformity with our conception of a fair representation of 
 normal man and a perfect God than was the case. Jesus 
 was probably led to imagine that he was the expected 
 Messiah by the homage done to him by his admirers, and 
 those who deceived themselves about him. This idea, 
 however, he abandoned as far as he himself was con- 
 cerned ; and he must have felt, (and felt most bitterly at 
 the last,) that he had been deceiving himself as to his 
 true position, otherwise he would not have exclaimed as 
 he did, " My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" 
 Mark, xv. 34. 
 
 This one acknowledgment, of his subordination to God, 
 made so exactly after the manner of an ordinary man 
 disappointed in his aim and unexpectedly brought to the 
 last struggle of life, should set at rest, as we conceive, 
 the assumption that he was either the predicted Messiah 
 or co-equal with God. When he answered the woman as 
 he did, it is probable that he thought himself to be what 
 he said he was. He thought, likewise, no doubt, that 
 by gaining the confidence and credence of the people in 
 him as the Christ, it would favor his ascension to the 
 throne, as the King of the Jews. The great desideratum 
 with him and with his Apostles was, to induce the people 
 to believe that the person, then among them, was the 
 Christ, was the identical person to whom the Prophets 
 pointed as destined to rule as King over the* Jews per- 
 petually, upon earth. A majority of such believers being 
 obtained, the road was plain and the way sure, to the 
 aggrandizement of both him and themselves. And so 
 confident were they in their expectations of success, that
 
 238 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 politician-like, they began to squabble and to importune 
 him, in advance, for the honors and spoils that would fall 
 to the lot of each, when he should have attained to the 
 throne. That this squabbling for place had relation to 
 temporal affairs matters pertaining to this life and not 
 to those beyond the grave, is shown by the Gospel itself. 
 St. Luke says, (ix. 46,) "Then there arose a reasoning 
 among them, which of them should be greatest;" and 
 again, xxii. 24 to 29, And there was also a strife 
 among them which of them should be accounted the 
 greatest. And he said unto them, The kings of the Gen- 
 tiles exercise lordship over them ; and they that exercise 
 authority upon them are called benefactors. But ye shall 
 not be so; but he that is greatest among you, let him be 
 as the younger ; and he that is chief, as he that doth 
 serve. For whether is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or 
 he that serveth ? is not he that sitteth at meat ? but I 
 am among you as he that serveth ? Ye are they which 
 have continued with me in my temptations. And I 
 appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father hath appointed 
 unto me. That ye may eat and drink at my table, in 
 my kingdom, and sit on thrones, judging the twelve tribes 
 of Israel." Now, no one will deny, we presume, that 
 this has reference to temporal affairs, and that it was so 
 understood by those to whom it was spoken. If so, it 
 evidently accounts for the Apostles being stimulated to 
 use every available device for the purpose of making and 
 retaining believers ; and it is corroborated by the kind of 
 teaching or belief which Jesus was so solicitous to incul- 
 cate in relation to himself, as shown by reference also 
 to Gospel authority. St. Matthew, xxii. 41, 42, says: 
 " While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus 
 asked them, saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son
 
 OBJECT OF CHRIST AND APOSTLES. 239 
 
 is lie? They say unto him, The son of David." Again, 
 "And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the 
 temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the son of 
 David." Mark, xii. 35. His motive in asking these 
 questions is unmistakable, and shews how anxious he was 
 to have his lineal descent traced from the house of David, 
 and consequently his title to the throne of the Jews estab- 
 lished, arid believed in, and publicly proclaimed. Hence 
 his declaration: "Whosoever therefore shall confess me 
 before men, him will I confess also before my Father 
 which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny me before 
 men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in 
 heaven." Matthew, x. 32, 33. 
 
 The importance of confession before men is manifest ; 
 and especially in such a case as this, where Jesus was to 
 be proclaimed as King. It is not at all an uncommon 
 thing for men of influence to declare, and commit them- 
 selves in favor of a certain political tenet, or on the side 
 of an individual who is an aspirant for a high position in 
 the government of a country ; and it is often the case, 
 that the public announcement of such a course gives 6clat 
 and impetus to the cause or party interest which is being 
 pushed forward. A large portion in all communities, who 
 do not take the trouble to think for themselves, is con- 
 tinually, heedlessly, and thoughtlessly following the lead 
 of prominent men. 
 
 Viewed in this light, the public avowal of Jesus had a 
 two-fold advantage, first, of binding the new disciples 
 more firmly to the new faith, and secondly, of increasing 
 the popularity of the pretender. But when viewed in 
 relation to religious matters, one cannot avoid calling to 
 mind that precept which condemns such a course, and 
 which teaches us to be more modest and retiring. "He
 
 240 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 that exalteth himself shall be abased ; but he that hurn- 
 bleth himself shall be exalted." This will occur to us 
 more strongly, when Jesus' avowal is viewed in relation to 
 the ostentation of the Pharisees, who sounded a trumpet 
 before them in the synagogues and in the streets, that 
 they might be seen and heard of men, as Jesus himself 
 had noted and condemned. 
 
 All conceivable good was promised for simply believing 
 in Jesus' divine right to the throne of his ancestors, and 
 the public committal to such espousal of Jesus' preten- 
 sions, by baptism. The Apostles, like the politicians of 
 our day, had learned from experience, that one party is 
 constantly winning back some portion of the converts 
 which the other had made ; hence, the policy of sealing 
 the new faith with a public pledge and formal act. 
 
 This temporal or worldly interest, it is evident, was the 
 great and only object that led and stimulated Jesus, and 
 his disciples, to encourage such zeal in the belief and 
 pledge in question. In all such efforts to propagate the 
 interests of their Master, the conduct of the Apostles, was 
 true to the instincts of the most adroit politicians fully 
 up to the best party manoeuvring of our day and lacks 
 nothing in the adaptation of the means to the ends, pro- 
 vided double-dealing and false pretenses are conceded to 
 be admissible in such matters. But, when men teach 
 that all, who do not believe that Jesus was the person to 
 whom the prophets had reference in their predictions, 
 when they assigned a king to the Jews, will be con- 
 demned by God to everlasting torment, they teach what 
 is opposed to every rational and just view that can be 
 taken on the subject ; and, as it has never been pro- 
 pounded to nor heard of by one in a thousand of the men 
 born into the world, it is impossible that anything, which
 
 PRIESTHOOD NATURALLY INCENSED. 241 
 
 places God so directly at variance with even man's sense 
 of justice, can be true. 
 
 Whe.n Jesus undertook to teach natural religion, which 
 is love to God and good will towards men manifested by 
 good works, he struck at the root and influence of the 
 whole system of the Jewish religion and priesthood. In 
 speaking of God as the Father of all mankind, he incurred 
 their displeasure, and raised their ire beyond measure ; 
 because they claimed that they alone were the children of 
 God. When he denounced their ceremonials, their sacri- 
 fices, their pride, and their self-righteousness, he brought 
 upon l)imself a storm of persecution and abuse which, at 
 last, instigated them to murder him. That he disap- 
 proved of, and highly condemned their whole ceremonial 
 law and teaching, as works of supererogation and hypo- 
 crisy, the following denunciations against them, proves : 
 " If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy 
 and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guilt- 
 less " Matthew, xii. 7 ; "For, laying aside the command- 
 ment of God, ye bold the tradition of men as the washing 
 of pots and of cups ; and many other such like things ye 
 do" Mark, vii. 8; "Ye reject the commandment of 
 God that ye may keep your own tradition " Matthew, 
 vii. 9 ; " And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the 
 hypocrites are ; for they love to pray standing in the 
 synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they 
 may be seen of men " Matthew, vi. 5 ; "They think 
 that they shall be heard for their much speaking " Mat- 
 thew, iii. 7 ; " Your Father knoweth what things ye have 
 need of before ye ask Him " Matthew, vi. 8. 
 
 Now, what could have been better calculated to raise 
 against Jesus the fierce indignation of the priests, than 
 such an unmitigated condemnation of the very things 
 16
 
 242 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 they most trusted in, and from which they derived their 
 great power and influence. The religion which he taught, 
 and which harmonizes so beautifully with the true instincts 
 of natural religion, could not but become popular with the 
 common people, and to such an extent, that the priesthood 
 were alarmed 'lest they should lose their long enjoyed 
 ascendency. The result was, that they could *not rest 
 satisfied until they had succeeded in having Jesus 
 arraigned before the Roman authorities, on the double 
 charge of laying claim to be King of the Jews, and blas- 
 phemy ; " But the Jews cried out, saying, If thou let 
 this man go thou art not Coesar's friend : whosoever 
 maketh himself a king speaketh against Caesar." John, 
 xix. 12; "Then the high priest rent his clothes and 
 saith, What need we any further witnesses? Ye have 
 heard the blasphemy." Mark, xiv. 63, 64. The plan 
 adopted by his enemies was to convict him by the testi- 
 mony of witnesses ; and, by his own avowal of blas- 
 phemy and outrage against the Mosaic religion, to con- 
 demn him to death according to their law; and then 
 to get their verdict sanctioned by Pilate, the Roman Gov- 
 ernor. The fatal sentence which Jesus had really uttered : 
 " I am able to destroy the temple of God, and to build it 
 in three days," was cited by two witnesses. To blas- 
 pheme the temple of God was, according to the Jewish 
 law, to blaspheme God Himself. "And whoso shall 
 swear by the altar sweareth by it, and by all things 
 thereon. And he that sweareth by the temple, sweareth 
 by it, and by him that dwelleth therein." Matthew, xxiii. 
 21, 22. Now, these crimes were punished by the law 
 with death ; " And thou shalt speak unto the children of 
 Israel, saying, Whosoever curseth his God shall bear his 
 sin. And he that blasphemeth the name of the Lord, he
 
 CHRISTIAN SACRIFICE ABSURD. 243 
 
 shall surely be put to death." Leviticus, xxiv. 15, 16. 
 Accordingly, with one voice, the assembly declared him 
 guilty of a capital crime, which decision being confirmed 
 by Pilate, his execution took place. His conviction and 
 death, under the foregoing circumstances, it is well known, 
 were brought about at the instigation and by the hatred 
 of the priesthood, in consequence of his espousal and per- 
 sistent teaching of the religion of the heart and conscience. 
 He, it was, we all know, who was the great champion 
 and defender of the simple doctrines of love to God and 
 love to man, apart from the sacrifices and ceremonies of 
 the Jewish ritual. This, as we have said, greatly incensed 
 the priests, because it brought into disrepute their whole 
 system. It diminished the influence which they had 
 gained through their ceremonies and sacrifices, and made 
 them (themselves) unpopular. And, having crucified him 
 under these, false pretenses, by this act, they caused him 
 to become a thousand fold more potent to do the very 
 thing they sought to get rid of by procuring his death. 
 This admirable trait in human character the enthusiastic 
 espousal of the cause, and the yielding of our sympathies 
 on the side of the oppressed and ill-used so increased 
 his popularity, that the views which he took of religion, 
 and his power of discrimination between the good, the 
 false, and the true, only served the more to increase the 
 popularity of natural religion. At the same time it is to 
 be observed that all this occurred in the midst of the Jews, 
 whose natural leanings and old habits induced them, in 
 course of time, to graft upon the purer doctrines, that 
 Jesus taught, a portion of their own rites and ceremonies. 
 Among these, sacrifice was pre-eminent. But what was 
 worse still, they took, as the basis of their creed and 
 worship, the sacrifice of the death of him, to whom such 

 
 244 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 a creed and worship were so obnoxious as to merit and 
 receive his most unsparing and untiring opposition. And 
 in this connection it is important to bear in mind, that 
 Jesus himself said not a word to justify this interpretation 
 of his death. On the contrary, he said everything that 
 he could against the principle of Judaism, on which it all 
 rests. His course in this respect is most significant; and 
 if candidly considered, from a common sense point of 
 view, will, as we conceive, leave this fundamental doc- 
 trine of the Christian Church without a rational founda- 
 tion to rely on. There is not the faintest allusion in any 
 of Jesus' discourses or parables, to his being a sacrifice 
 for sin, or to God's requiring any blood to be shed before 
 he would forgive sinners. With this indisputable fact 
 before us, it is incomprehensible, how they, who now 
 teach this doctrine, can justify themselves in allowing this 
 Jewish excrescence to be grafted upon the religion origi- 
 nally taught by Jesus. We can, to some extent, excuse 
 the Jews for carrying with them the doctrines to which 
 they had been accustomed for ages, but for others, who 
 look with aversion upon the Jewish sacrifices, even of 
 animal life, there can be no excuse. The result is, that a 
 leading doctrine of Christian theology has come down to 
 us from that very class of men, who hated and stoned 
 Jesus and put him to death. This is not only a different 
 mode of worship from that which he taught, but it is at 
 direct variance with it. 
 
 The Churches teach that Jesus came to abolish the old 
 Jewish law and its ceremonies, and especially that part of 
 the law which relates to sacrifices ; and that, as a substi- 
 tute, therefore, he offered the shedding of his own blood 
 upon the cross as an atonement for the sins of the people. 

 
 JESUS REPUDIATES SACRIFICE. 245 
 
 Now, this teaching Jesus himself contradicts. He says 
 he came to bear witness to the truth of the moral law, and 
 to call sinners to repentance. When he is asked what is 
 necessary to be done that we may inherit eternal life, he 
 gives full and explicit directions, comprised in what we 
 term the commandments. In them we do not find that 
 sacrifice of himself, or of anything else, is mentioned. 
 
 When he is asked the question referred to, he does not 
 seem to have entertained the idea that he was the pre- 
 dicted Messiah. Neither did he imagine that he was to 
 
 O 
 
 be made a substitute for ths sacrifices of the Jewish reli- 
 gion. Hence, he had nothing whatever to say about sal- 
 vation through his atonement. 
 
 The young man, who enquires of Jesus as to the condi- 
 tions of entering into eternal life, is told to keep the com- 
 mandments. He says he has done so, from his youth up. 
 He is then told that, on account of this, he is not far from 
 the Kingdom of Heaven. But the reason, assigned for 
 his not absolutely attaining thereunto is that he does not 
 exercise charity. He is allowed, therefore, to go away 
 with the impression, that if he can only do this he is 
 safe ; and yet we are told by the theology of the times, 
 that there was something else necessary to which Jesus 
 did not make the remotest allusion. 
 
 Now, all this is irreconcilable and at variance with 
 God's indisputable justice and goodness. It is impossible 
 to conceive that God should punish any one of His crea- 
 tures everlastingly, for not believing that, which they 
 never had the slightest intimation that it was any part of 
 their duty to God or man to believe. We defy any one 
 to find one single passage in the whole New Testament, 
 wherein Jesus declares it necessary, or wherein he even 
 solicits belief in himself as a sacrifice. He calls upon men,
 
 246 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 we admit, to believe in him, as being the predicted Mes- 
 siah and as a true teacher ; but never as a true Saviour of 
 the souls of men beyond the grave, by any other means 
 than the saving efficacy of the doctrine which he taught. 
 In order to shew still more convincingly that Jesus did 
 not teach that anything else was necessary for salvation 
 than good works, and that no such thing as sacrifices, 
 either of slain beasts or of himself, was in any way 
 required, we now refer to the occasion when we were 
 taught upon what principle we shall all be judged. Jesus 
 there imagines himself to be the arbiter, who is to decide 
 between men and their God ; and, in so doing, assimilates 
 men under two conditions to a promiscuous flock of sheep 
 and goats. As a shepherd, says he, divideth his sheep 
 from the goats so will he divide the good from the bad ; 
 and he will set the sheep those who represent the good 
 on the right-hand, but the goats the bad on his left. 
 "Then," he continues, "shall the King say to those on 
 his right-hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit 
 the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the 
 world. For I was a hungered, and ye gave me meat : I 
 was a stranger and ye took me in : Naked and ye clothed 
 me : I was sick and ye visited me : I was in prison and 
 ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, 
 saying, Lord, when saw we thee a hungered and fed thee ? 
 or thirsty and gave thee drink ? When saw we thee a 
 stranger and took thee in ? Or when saw we thee sick, 
 or in prison and came unto thee ? And the King shall 
 answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inas- 
 much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these 
 my brethren, ye have done it unto me." He then goes 
 on to address, in their own proper character, those on His 
 left in a correspondingly diverse manner.
 
 THE OLD TESTAMENT ON SACRIFICE. 947 
 
 What then are Ae conditions here laid down, as those 
 upon which men are to be acquitted or condemned, by 
 the most solemn tribunal sitting upon men's actions that 
 could be pictured to the imagination ? Are they, whether 
 a man believed in thjs dogma, or that dogma? Whether 
 the Jew attended to the strict observance of the sacrifices 
 and ceremonies of his religion, or not? Whether the 
 Christian believed in the sacrifice of Christ or not? 
 Whether the Mahommedan believed in Mahommed or 
 not ? The Hindoo in Juggernaut ? or the Chinese in 
 Confucius ? Nothing of the kind. Belief in no man is 
 required. Faith in no system is expected. The offering 
 of no sacrifice is looked for. What is requisite is simply 
 this, doing unto others as we would they should do unto 
 us. Love to God, and love to man, manifested by our 
 works of charity and goodness, an amplifying, so to say, 
 of Jesus' final exhortation to the rich man already men- 
 tioned. 
 
 But the Bible furnishes other evidence tending to the 
 same conclusions. The Old Testament is so full of the 
 condemnation of sacrifices and other superstitions from 
 the pens of prophets and others that only a limited num- 
 ber of examples can be selected for these pages. What 
 said Samuel to King Saul, after the latter had returned 
 from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and brought with 
 him the best of the sheep and the oxen for sacrificial pur- 
 poses, contrary to the instructions which he had received 
 to slay all and spare none, neither man nor woman, infant 
 nor suckling, ox nor sheep, camel nor ass? "Hath the 
 Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as 
 in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is 
 better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of 
 rams." 1 Samuel, xv. 22. What saith the Psalmist?
 
 248 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 "Sacrifice and offering tbou didst not*desire; mine ears 
 bast thou opened ; burnt offering and sin-offering hast 
 tbou not required." Psalm, xl. 6. And again, " For 
 thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I give it tbee : 
 tbou deligbtest not in burnt offering." Psalm, li. 16. 
 What saitb the wise man, Solomon ? " Keep thy foot 
 when tbou goest to the bouse of God, and be more ready 
 to hear than to offer the sacrifice of fools." Ecclesiastes, 
 v. 1. What say the prophets Isaiah, Jeremiah, Hosea, 
 and Malacbi? "To what purpose is the multitude of 
 your sacrifices unto me ? saith the Lord : I am full of the 
 burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts : and I 
 delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of 
 he-goats." Isaiah, i. 11. "Bring no more vain obla- 
 tions : incense is an abomination unto me : the new moons 
 and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away 
 with : it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting." Isaiah, 
 i. 13. " To what purpose cometh there to me incense 
 from Sheba, and the sweet cane from a far country? your 
 burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices 
 sweet unto me." Jeremiah, vi. 20. " They sacrifice flesh 
 for the sacrifices of mine offerings, and eat it : but the 
 Lord accepteth them not ; now will he remember their 
 iniquity, and visit their sins." Hosea, viii. 13. "The 
 Lord will cut off the man that doeth this, the master and 
 the scholar, out of the tabernacles of Jacob, and him that 
 offereth an offering unto the Lord of hosts." Malachi, 
 ii. 12. 
 
 Lastly, we cite this remarkable passage from Hosea, 
 vi. 6. " For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice ; and the 
 knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." Twice 
 did Jesus himself make distinct reference to this injunc- 
 tion, and emphasize its plain language by application to
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT ON SACRIFICE. 249 
 
 actual circumstances. When the Pharisees reproached 
 him for eating with publicans and sinners, he said, " Go 
 ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy and 
 not sacrifice." When they reproached his disciples for 
 plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath day, he told them, 
 " If ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy 
 and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guilt- 
 less." 
 
 And Jesus' adoption of Hosea's very language leads us 
 on, from the Old Testament to the New. Nor herein is 
 there need of further proof, than this adoption affords, 
 that Jesus himself attached no importance to sacrifices. 
 As to ceremonies this is the estimate that he set upon 
 them : " Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
 crites ! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, 
 and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judg- 
 ment, mercy and faith." Nevertheless, one scribe may 
 be excepted, he of whom St. Matthew relates that he 
 approved Jesus' outspoken doctrine, to the effect that 
 true religion consisted in loving God with all the soul, 
 and loving man as one's self. This, saith the scribe, is 
 more than whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices. And 
 when Jesus saw that he answered discreetly, he said 
 unto him, " Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." 
 Mark, xii. 34. Surely one sentence of denunciation, from 
 him who is considered the head and front of Christianity, 
 ought to suffice for uprooting a system based essentially 
 upon the very principle denounced by him. Jesus throws 
 contempt upon sacrifice. The Christian churches exalt 
 and magnify it as the sine qua non in man's salvation. 
 Pay no heed to sacrifices, says Jesus. His churches say, 
 practically, let us make Christ himself part and parcel 
 of the system that he repudiates !
 
 250 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Not having been influenced by personal contact with 
 Jesus, St. Paul apart from his frequent reference to the 
 comparative merits of faith and good works appears 
 never to have freed his mind from a certain ideal connec- 
 tion between sacrifice and salvation. It is true, he warns 
 the Corinthians, that " circumcision is nothing and uncir- 
 cumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the command- 
 ments of God;" and that he tells the Hebrews, that "it 
 is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should 
 take away sins." But he tells these latter also, that 
 " without blood is no remission ;" nay, he goes further 
 still, and would have the Hebrews believe, that the sacri- 
 fice of Christ was needed on Christ's own behalf! So 
 astounding is this dogma, that it seems to have staggered 
 the Church itself, if one may judge by the eloquent 
 silence of the preachers in regard to it. The precise 
 expression runs thus, Hebrews, ix. 12: "Neither by 
 the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood, he 
 entered in once into the holy place." Furthermore, the 
 very phraseology used by Paul, on two occasions, shows 
 how this sacrificial notion was rooted in him. He exhorts 
 the Romans " to present their bodies a living sacrifice, 
 holy, and acceptable unto God;" and the Jews to "offer 
 the sacrifice of praise to God continually." 
 
 It has been established that Jesus nowhere either 
 taught, or gave countenance, in any way to the worship 
 of sacrifices, or to any other kind of worship, except that 
 enjoined by natural religion. The same cannot be said, 
 however, with regard to his Apostles, after his death. It 
 was then, that they began to foist their own habitual 
 traditions upon his unincumbered doctrine and thus to 
 make worship widely different from, that which he had 
 advocated. Nor had they any consistency about them.
 
 THE NEW TESTAMENT ON SACRIFICE. 251 
 
 They blew hot and cold, almost in the same breath. 
 Sometimes they preached one thing and sometimes another. 
 Take for example, that most inconsistent man of all, Peter, 
 termed by one branch of Christians, the infallible founder 
 of their Church, and in whose power they put the keys to 
 unlock and lock, both heaven and hell. What absurdities 
 is he not responsible for. Examine the first sermon which 
 he preached, as recorded in the second chapter of the book 
 of Acts. 
 
 This was an important occasion. It was an occasion 
 when, we are told, men from almost every country on 
 the face of the earth were gathered together at Jerusalem ; 
 and for the first, and perhaps the last time, heard an ex- 
 position of the doctrine of salvation from the mouth of one 
 who might be looked upon as qualified to teach it. 
 
 But what does Peter say, in this discourse, about either 
 the old sacrifices of the Levitical priesthood, or the sac- 
 rifice of Jesus upon the cross? Not one word. He 
 speaks of Jesus as a man a man, mark you a man 
 approved of God ; as having, by the determinate counsel 
 of God, been taken and crucified and slain; as having 
 been raised from the dead ; as having ascended to heaven ; 
 and as having been made both Lord and Christ. But he 
 does not utter a single syllable about Jesus having been 
 made a sacrifice ; still less does he insist, as the Church 
 does, that unless we believe in him as such, we cannot be 
 saved. No. Is it to be inferred then, that those persons 
 present from every nation under heaven, were to compre- 
 hend this new and complicated dogma by intuition, and 
 were then to go and preach or tell it to their friends? 
 Or are we not rather in a more sensible and natural 
 manner, to say, that Peter neither intended, nor did they 
 understand anything of the kind ? The latter deduction
 
 252 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 is assuredly the first one, and is corroborated by Peter's 
 continued silence on this point when he, together with 
 the other Apostles, was asked by those who were so much 
 concerned: "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" 
 His reply was : " Repent and be baptized every one of 
 you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of 
 sins" the baptism signifying a pledge to adhere to the 
 teaching of Jesus as the way to righteousness. Again, 
 not one word was said about Jesus beino- crucified as a 
 
 o 
 
 sacrifice for sin. The omission is the more striking from 
 the fact that Peter was fresh from communication with 
 him. That he subsequently fell back into his old ways 
 is on record. His Master was not with him, to keep him 
 on the right path. He had been slippery in his dealings 
 with Jesus, himself, and is accused, by his associate Paul, 
 of having played fast and loose in the matter of circum- 
 cision, and in that of eating with the Gentiles. Be this 
 as it may, in course of time, they all conspired to make 
 Jesus a substitute for those sacrifices with -which they 
 were so fully imbued, that they could not cease to cling to 
 them ; although they found that those of the Jewish order 
 were too gross and too much opposed to his own teachings 
 to be intermingled with his more refined teaching. When 
 we say all, we should probably except St. James. It is 
 to be noted that, in the five chapters of his general 
 Epistle, he does not once allude to the sacrifice of Jesus, 
 and very sparingly to Jesus himself, save when he declares 
 that " the corning of the Lord draweth nigh." In one 
 memorable verse also, he gives his views of " pure religion 
 and undefined before God and the Father," which consists 
 in comforting the afflicted, and leading a pure life not in 
 believing that man is saved only by the death of Christ. 
 In another verse, he says concisely, " Thou belie vest that
 
 CHRIST DENOUNCES SACRIFICE. 253 
 
 there is one God ; thou doest well," not two Gods, or 
 three. 
 
 The Church argues an analogy between the sacrifice of 
 Christ on the cross, under what it calls the new dispensa- 
 tion, and animal sacrifice, as practised under the old. 
 Now it is shown elsewhere, from the Old Testament, that 
 the whole system of sacrifice was rather tolerated than 
 approved by God. At the same time, there is not the 
 slightest evidence that Jesus and his disciples ever parti-, 
 cipated in the sacrificial services of the Jewish synagogue, 
 though they frequented it, to read, or to teach, or to pray 
 therein. This we say is remarkable, and adds another 
 proof that Jesus and his Apostles, at all events during his 
 lifetime, never countenanced, by any means whatever, 
 sacrifices of any kind. Indeed we are told that he took 
 a scourge of small cords and drove out the buyers and 
 sellers of the things that were used in the Temple, and in 
 this way shewed his displeasure at their being brought 
 there at all, for any such purpose. 
 
 We submit from the evidence here presented, whether 
 any sober-minded man can conscientiously, and without 
 misgivings, stand by a system, that God so unsparingly 
 denounced, and that Jesus himself never approved. 
 
 With a view of discussing this question, in its every 
 phase, we proceed further to confirm what has hitherto 
 been said, in a more general way. Epiphanius says of 
 the Ebiontes Heares, xxx. 16 that in their pretended 
 Gospel of Matthew there occurs this expression of Christ : 
 " I am come to do away with sacrifices, and if you do not 
 cease to sacrifice, the anger of God will not cease from 
 you." 
 
 This horror of bloody sacrifices the Ebionites had in 
 common with the Esseues. Jesus had a conviction that
 
 254 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 reconciliation with God was only attainable by purely 
 inward means. And hence his displeasure at the gross 
 materialism of the sacrificial service. 
 
 Thus did Jesus, not only by words, " have mercy and 
 not sacrifice " Matthew, xii. 7 but by his example, 
 condemn the whole system. And yet how remarkable it 
 is that this very system was at length engrafted upon the 
 pure natural religion which he advocated ! 
 
 Renan says, one idea, at least, which Jesus brought 
 from Jerusalem, and which henceforth appears rooted in 
 his mind, was that there was no union possible between 
 him and the ancient Jewish religion. The abolition of 
 the sacrifices which had caused him so much disgust, the 
 suppression of an impious and haughty priesthood, and, 
 in a general sense, the abrogation of the law, appeared to 
 him absolutely necessary. From this time he appears no 
 more as a Jewish reformer, but as a destroyer of Judaism. 
 Certain advocates of Messianic ideas had already admitted 
 that the Messiah would bring a new law, which should be 
 common to all the earth. The Essenes, who were scarcely 
 Jews, also appear to have been indifferent to the temple 
 and to the Mosaic observances. But these were only iso- 
 lated or unavowed instances of boldness. Jesus was the 
 first who dared to say that from, the time of John, the 
 Law was abolished : " The law and the prophets were 
 until John : since that time the Kingdom of God is 
 preached, and every man presseth into it." Luke, xvi. 
 16. That is to say, independent of any sacrifice. Now, 
 the Churches claim that the law of God required for the 
 remission of sins, up to the time of the shedding of the 
 blood of Christ, the sacrifices enjoined by the ceremonial 
 law ; and that this shedding of his blood was accepted by 
 God as a crowning and final sacrifice for the remission of
 
 CHRIST DENOUNCES SACRIFICE. 255 
 
 the sins of all who believe in its efficiency. This is not 
 in accordance with Jesus' declaration that the law pre- 
 vailed not after John, whose death took place before that 
 of Jesus. Consequently, before the shedding of Jesus' 
 blood there was no sacriHcial law in existence, and there- 
 fore it could not have been substituted for, or abrogated by 
 the shedding of Jesus' blood as they claimed. 
 
 When Jesus was driven to extremities, he lifted the 
 veil entirely, and declared that the Law had no longer 
 any force. On this subject he used striking comparisons. 
 " No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old gar- 
 ment, neither do men put new wine into old bottles." 
 Matthew, ix. 16, 17 ; Luke, v. 36. This was really his 
 chief characteristic as a teacher. Jesus was no longer a 
 Jew. He was in the highest degree revolutionary ; he 
 called all men to a worship founded solely on the fact of 
 their being- children of God. He advocated the religion 
 
 CD O 
 
 of humanity, established, not upon blood, but upon the 
 heart. He proclaimed the rights of man, not the rights 
 of the Jew ; the religion of man, not the religion of the 
 Jew ; the deliverance of man, not the deliverance of the 
 Jew. 
 
 Following out these principles, Jesus despised all reli- 
 gion which was not of the heart and conscience. The 
 vain practices of the devotees, the exterior strictness 
 which trusted to formality for salvation, had in him a 
 mortal enemy. The love of God, charity, and mutual 
 forgiveness, were his whole law. Nothing could be less 
 priestly. The priest, by his office, ever advocates public 
 sacrifice, of which he is the appointed minister. We 
 should seek in vain in the Gospel for one religious rite 
 recommended by Jesus. Those who imagined they could 
 win the Kingdom of Heaven by saying to him, " Rabbi,
 
 256 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Rabbi," he rebuked; and proclaimed that his religion 
 consisted in doing good. 
 
 Among the various books, or so-called, divine records, 
 which are claimed to be supernaturally inspired, there are 
 none so obscure as the Bible. The teachings or sayings, 
 of Jesus, which are recorded in the Bible, are mostly in 
 parables or riddles, whose meaning is so vague and uncer- 
 tain that no two persons would be likely to put the same 
 construction upon any one of them. Jesus adopted and 
 continued this course of teaching to the perplexity and 
 astonishment of his disciples, notwithstanding he was 
 constantly importuned for his reasons for so doing. In 
 which cases, when he answered at all, he said he did so, 
 that the prophecies might be fulfilled, or to prevent the 
 wise and prudent and the multitudes generally, from 
 receiving and understanding the truth his teachings 
 being intended only for his disciples and babes. This is 
 inconsistent with the idea of Jesus being either God, 
 or the Saviour of men. We cannot conceive of God's 
 shaping His course, professedly and especially, to suit the 
 vague prophecies of men, that He might the better gain 
 credence to His being God. Besides, such a course is 
 adverse, by its obscurity, to the Church's version of the 
 mission of Jesus, which teaches that he came to give 
 light, and thereby everlasting life to all men. He who 
 came to be the Saviour of all men, could not, surely, 
 studiously, hide the means of salvation from any. The 
 preceding remarks have been suggested by the following 
 Bible quotations, which seem to us to be entirely at 
 variance with the idea, that Jesus came to be the Saviour 
 of all men. 
 
 "And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why 
 speakest thou unto them in parables." "He answered
 
 OBSCURITY OF THE BIBLE. 257 
 
 and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know 
 the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it 
 is not given." "For whosoever hath, to him shall be 
 given, and he shall have more abundance : but whosoever 
 hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he 
 hath. Therefore speak I to them in parables : because 
 they seeing, see not ; and hearing, they hear not ; neither 
 do they understand." "And in them is fulfilled the pro- 
 phecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, 
 and shall not understand ; and seeing ye shall see, and 
 shall not perceive :" "All these things spake Jesus unto 
 the multitude in parables ; and without a parable spake 
 he not unto them:" "That it might be fulfilled which 
 was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will utter things 
 which have been kept secret from the foundation of the 
 world." Matthew, xiii. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 34, 35. 
 " I thank thee, Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, 
 because thou hast hid these things from the wise and 
 prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes." Matthew, 
 xi. 25. "And when he was alone, they that were about 
 him with the twelve asked of him the parable." "And 
 he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the 
 mystery of the kingdom of God : but unto them that are 
 without, all these things are done in parables." " That 
 seeing they may see, and not perceive ; and hearing they 
 may hear and not understand, lest at any time they should 
 be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them." 
 Mark, iv. 10, 11, 12. Such is the Bible version of the 
 sayings of Jesus. Their import is totally inconsistent with 
 his pretended divine mission. It is not in harmony with 
 Peter's remark, that God is no respecter of persons. 
 Neither does it accord with the idea that God's creatures 
 are all alike the objects of His care and goodness. If 
 17
 
 258 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Jesus came, as a messenger from God, out of love and 
 kindness to mankind, to enable all to obtain eternal life 
 through his teaching, then it would seem, according to the 
 best human understanding, that all his teachings should 
 be such as all men could unmistakably comprehend and 
 avail themselves of. God's teaching is heard and heeded 
 throughout the universe. To this premeditated obscurity 
 in the teachings of Jesus, and of the Bible record gene- 
 rally, is due in a great measure the number and variety 
 of sects, and the difficulty in coming at anything definite 
 on the subject of religion or even theology. 
 
 It is well to notice some of the results of the many con- 
 structions that have been put upon the Bible, In illus- 
 trating its various readings and their results, we quote 
 from sundry authorities mentioned here below. The 
 innumerable sects arid parties into which Christianity is 
 divided each laying claim to exclusive sanction and 
 authority from the Bible each declaring its own views 
 right, and all who differ from it wrong, are each sup- 
 ported by Scripture texts of the most plausible aspect. 
 "The Trinitarian denounces the Unitarian, and the Uni- 
 tarian the Trinitarian ; and both unite in condemning the 
 Roman Catholic in some of his peculiar doctrines. The 
 Armenian denounces the Calvinist's views, as a system 
 consisting of human creatures without liberty, doctrine 
 without sense, faith without reason, and God without 
 mercy." Archd. Jortin. The Calvinist on the other 
 hand represents Armenianism as "delusive, dangerous, 
 and ruinous to immortal souls." Close s Sermons. And 
 the Unitarians declare them both to be "mischievous 
 compounds of impiety and idolatry." Disc, on Priestly. 
 Archbishop Magee, on the other hand, denounces the 
 Unitarian system as "embracing the most daring impie-
 
 SECTARIAN RECRIMINATION THE RESULT. 259 
 
 ties that ever disgraced the name of Christianity ; and 
 declares that if Unitarianism be well founded, Christianity 
 must be an imposition." All .sects join in denouncing the 
 Methodists "as misled fanatics, alienated from all know- 
 ledge of the true God." Divine Truth. The Church of 
 
 O 
 
 England denounces the whole body of dissenters " as 
 accursed, devoted to the devil, and separated from 
 Christ," Canon, v. vii ; and the Bishop of London 
 Letters on Dissent. declares them "to be actuated by 
 the devil, with the curse of God resting heavily on them 
 all." "The dissenters are not slow in retaliating on the 
 Church of England. They say that it is an obstacle to 
 the progress of truth and holiness in the land, that it 
 destroys more souls than it saves, and that its end is most 
 devoutly to be wished for by every lover of God and 
 man." Christian Observer. "The Roman Catholics 
 declare their Church to be ' the only true one,' while all 
 others join in denouncing them as the 'scarlet whore of 
 Babylon,' and a combination of idolatry, blasphemy, and 
 devilism.'" Guns. Apostasy. "The Romanist retorts 
 again, by consigning every sect and description of reli- 
 gionists to eternal damnation as heretics and schismatics, 
 and their clergy as desecrating thieves and ministers of 
 the devil." Rheims Test. 
 
 It would be an endless task to enumerate the names 
 and tenets of the various sects which constitute that 
 "chaos of confusion" denominated "the Christian Church," 
 all derived from this one book, the Bible, which is declared 
 to be an emanation from the Almighty, and a revelation 
 of His will to all men. 
 
 From the rapid advancement of civilization, the increase 
 of the wealth and the luxuries of life, the clergy of mod- 
 ern times have found it necessary to make further changes
 
 260 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and modifications in the religion of Jesus, so as to accom- 
 modate it to their own views and the peculiarities of the 
 times. His name is still .assumed as the foundation of 
 their religion ; but little attention is paid either to His 
 precepts or example. In reality, only the shadow of the 
 religion taught by Jesus now remains. 
 
 In view of all this, can the reader hesitate to acknow- 
 ledge, that a religion so divided against itself has no 
 claim, either to be the true religion, or of divine origin? 
 Can any one imagine for a moment how, amidst such an 
 infinite mass of obscure texts, contradictory opinions, and 
 glaring discrepancies, all seriously derived from the pages 
 of this book, that it is a correct and useful system of reli- 
 gion ? 
 
 Truth belongs to all times and to all men. That the 
 truth is not evident in Scripture is proved by the innu- 
 merable sects into which Christianity has split ; for when 
 truth is clear and evident it is impossible to divide people 
 into parties or factions. What would be the true religion, 
 if there were no sects ? That in which all minds must 
 necessarily agree. Sectarianism and error are but syn- 
 onyms ; for "the word of God" can convey but one 
 meaning. We would only ask how many meanings have 
 the Scriptures, the assumed word of God, conveyed 
 count the different sects ! 
 
 People in all ages, from the inborn delight which man 
 derives from the wonderful and mysterious, have, at all 
 times and in all places,- been readily persuaded to lend their 
 belief to the supernatural and the invisible. Hence, one 
 great cause of the enormous superstructure in the Chris- 
 tian religion, of prophecies and miracles, of dreams and 
 visions, of angels and devils, and other supernatural and 
 invisible agents, which have been worked up into the few
 
 JESUS DI*D NOT CLAIM DIVINITY. 261 
 
 simple and truthful precepts, which Jesus, during the 
 early part of his public career, enforced with so much zeal 
 and eloquence. 
 
 No great events in history have happened without 
 having given rise to a cycle of fables. At a certain period 
 in his career Jesus began to imagine that he saw in him- 
 self traits of character corresponding to the Messiah. 
 Perhaps a sagacious observer might have recognized from 
 this point the germ of the narratives which were to attri- 
 bute to him a supernatural birth, and which arose, it may 
 be, from the idea, very prevalent in antiquity, that the 
 incomparable man could not be born of the ordinary rela- 
 tions of the two sexes, or in order to respond to an imper- 
 fectly understood chapter of Isaiah, which was thought to 
 foretell that the Messiah should be born of a virgin. At 
 times they connected him, from his birth, with celebrated 
 men, such as John the Baptist, Herod the Great, Chal- 
 dean Astrologers, who, it was said, visited Jerusalem 
 about this time, and two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, 
 who had left memories of great sanctity. It was, espe- 
 cially, after the death of Jesus that such narratives 
 became greatly developed. That he never dreamed of 
 making himself pass for an incarnation of God, is a 
 matter about which there can be no doubt. Such an idea 
 was entirely foreign to the Jewish mind ; and there is no 
 trace of it in the Gospels. Certain passages, expressly 
 exclude this idea, and we only find it indicated in portions 
 of the Gospel of John, which cannot be accepted as 
 expressing the thoughts of Jesus. Sometimes he even 
 seems to take precautions to put down such a doctrine. 
 The accusation that he made himself God, or the equal 
 of God, is presented, even in the Gospel of John, as a 
 calumny of the Jews. In this last Gospel he declares
 
 262 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 himself to be less than his Father. John, xiv. 28. 
 Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not revealed 
 everything to him. He is Son of God, but so are all 
 men. He calls God his Father. Every one should feel 
 that God is more than a father. " All who are raised 
 again will be sons of God." Luke, xx. 36. The divine 
 son-ship was attributed in the Old Testament to beings 
 whom it was by no means pretended were equal with 
 God Genesis, vi. 2 ; Job, i. 6 ; ii. 1 ; xxviii, 7 ; Psalm, 
 ii. 7; Ixxxii. 6; 2 Samuel, vii. 14. The word "son" 
 has the widest meaning in the Semitic language, and in 
 that of the New Testament. The transcendent idealism 
 of Jesus never permitted him to have a very clear notion 
 of his own personality. He is his Father, his Father is 
 he. He lives in his disciples : he is everywhere with 
 them. Matthew, xviii. 20 ; xxviii. 20. His disciples 
 are one, as he and his Father are one. John, x. 30 ; 
 xvii. 21. In general, the later discourses of John, espe- 
 cially chapter xvii., express one side of the psychological 
 state of Jesus, though we cannot regard them as true his- 
 torical documents. 
 
 No idea of the laws of nature marked the limit of the 
 impossible, either in his own mind, or in the minds of his 
 hearers. The witnesses of his miracles thanked God " for 
 having given such power unto men." Matthew, ix. 8. 
 He pardoned sins. Matthew, ix. 2. He was superior to 
 David, to Abraham, to Solomon, and to the prophets. 
 Matthew, xii. 41, 42; xxii. 43. We do not know in 
 what form, nor to what extent these affirmations of him- 
 self, were made. Jesus ought not to be judged by the law 
 of our petty conventionalities. The admiration of his 
 disciples overwhelmed him, and carried him away. It is 
 evident that the title of Rabbi, with which he was at first
 
 HIS OPINION OF HIMSELF. 263 
 
 contented, no longer sufficed him. There was no super- 
 natural for him, because there was no nature. Intoxi- 
 cated with infinite love, he forgot the heavy chain which 
 holds the spirit captive ; he cleared at one bound the 
 abyss, which the weakness of the human faculties has 
 created between God and man. The belief .that certain 
 men are incarnations of divine faculties or "powers," was 
 wide-spread. For nearly two centuries, the speculative 
 minds of Judaism had yielded to the tendency to personify 
 the divine attributes, and certain expressions which were 
 connected with the Divinity. Thus, " the breath of God," 
 which is often referred to in the Old Testament, is consid- 
 ered as a separate being, the " Holy Spirit." In the 
 same manner the "Wisdom of God," and the "Word of 
 God " became distinct personages. This was the germ of 
 the process which has engendered the hypothesis of Chris- 
 tianity, and all that dry mythology, consisting of personi- 
 fied abstractions, to which resort is had when desiring to 
 pluralise the Deity. 
 
 Jesus appears to have remained a stranger to these refine- 
 ments of theology, which were soon to fill the world with 
 barren disputes. It was John the Evangelist, or his 
 school, who afterwards endeavored to prove that Jesus 
 was the Word, and who created, in this sense, quite a 
 new theology, very different from that of the " kingdom of 
 God." See John, Gospel, i. 1-14; 1 Epistle, v. 7. The 
 essential character of the Word was that of Creator and 
 of Providence. Now, Jesus never pretended to have 
 created the world, nor to govern it. His office was to 
 judge it, to renovate it. The position of president at the 
 final judgment of humanity, was the essential attribute 
 which 'Jesus attached to himself and the character which 
 all the first Christians attributed to him. Acts, x. 42.
 
 264 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 At all events, the strictness of a studied theology Ly no 
 means existed in such a state of society. All the ideas 
 we have just stated, formed in the mind of the disciples a 
 theological system so little settled, that the Son of God, 
 this species of divine duplicate, is made to act purely as 
 man. He is tempted he is ignorant of many things. He 
 corrects himself. Comp. Matthew, x. 5, with xxviii. 19. 
 He is cast down, discouraged. He asks his Father to 
 spare him trials He is submissive to God as a son. 
 Matthew, xxvi. 39. " He who is to judge the world does 
 not know the day of judgment." Mark, xiii. 32. He 
 takes precautions for his safety. Matthew, xii. 14-16; 
 xiv. 13. Soon after his birth he is concealed to avoid 
 powerful men who wish to kill him. Matthew, ii. 20. 
 In exorcisms, the devil cheats him, and does not come out 
 at the first command. Matthew, xvii. 20 ; Mark, ix. 25. 
 In his miracles we are sensible of painful effort, through 
 exhaustion, as if something went out of him. Luke, viii. 
 45, 46 ; John, xi. 33, 38. The need Jesus had of obtaining 
 credence, and the enthusiasm of his disciples, heaped up 
 contradictory notions. To the Messianic believers of the 
 millenarian school, and to the enthusiastic readers of the 
 books of Daniel and Enoch, he was the Son of man : to 
 the Jews holding the ordinary faith, and to the readers of 
 Isaiah and Micah, he was the Son of David : to the dis- 
 ciples he was the Son of God, or simply the Son. Others, 
 without being blamed by the disciples, took him for John 
 the Baptist risen from the dead ; for Elias ; for Jeremiah, 
 conformable to the popular belief that the ancient pro- 
 phets were about to re-appear, in order to prepare the 
 time of the Messiah. Matthew, xiv. 2 ; xvi. 14 ; xvii. 3. 
 Honesty and imposture are words which, in our rigid con- 
 sciences, are opposed, as two irreconcilable terms. In
 
 THE MEANS OF PROOF. 265 
 
 the East, they are connected by numberless subtle links 
 and windings. The authors of the Apocryphal books of 
 "Daniel" and of "Enoch," for instance, men highly 
 exalted, in order to aid their cause, committed, without 
 a shadow of scruple, an act which we should term a fraud. 
 Two means of proof, miracles and the accomplishment of 
 prophecies, could alone, in the opinion of the contempora- 
 ries of Jesus, establish a supernatural mission. Jesus, 
 and especially his disciples, employed these two processes 
 of demonstration, where Jesus had conceived that the 
 prophets had written only in reference to him. He recog- 
 nized himself in their sacred oracles; he regarded himself 
 as the mirror in" 1 which all the prophetic spirit of Israel 
 had read the future. In many cases, these comparisons 
 were quite superficial, and are scarcely appreciable by us. 
 They were most frequently fortuitous, or insignificant cir- 
 cumstances, in the life of Jesus, which recalled to the dis- 
 ciples certain passages of the Psalms and Prophets, in 
 which, in consequence of their constant pre-occupation, 
 they saw images in him. Matthew, i. 23, iv. 6, 14 ; 
 xxvi. 31, 54, 56; xxvii. 9, 35. The exegesis of the 
 time consisted thus almost entirely in a play upon words, 
 and in quotations made in an artificial and arbitrary 
 manner. 
 
 As to miracles, they were regarded at this period as the 
 indispensable mark of the divine, and as the sign of the 
 prophetic vocation. The legends of Elijah and Elisha 
 were full of them. It was commonly believed that the 
 Messiah would perform many. John, vii. 34 ; Esdras, 
 xiii. 50. In Samaria, a few leagues from where Jesus 
 was, a magician, named Simon, acquired an almost divine 
 character by his illusions. Acts, viii. 9. Jesus was 
 therefore obliged to choose between these two alterna-
 
 266 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 tives either to renounce his mission, or to become a, 
 miracle-worker. It must be remembered that all anti- 
 quity, with the exception of the great scientific schools, 
 and their Roman disciples, accepted miracles ; and that 
 Jesus not only believed therein, but had not the least idea 
 of an order of nature regulated by fixed laws. His know- 
 ledge on this point was in no way superior to that of his 
 contemporaries. 
 
 The lapse of time has changed that which constituted 
 the power upon which the Christian theology is founded, 
 into something offensive to our ideas. Criticism expe- 
 riences no embarrassment in the presence of this kind of 
 historical phenomena. 
 
 With reference to our argument that there is One God, 
 and one only, we next invite the reader's attention to 
 forty-three selected texts, affirming that fact. 
 
 1. " Thou shalt have no other gods before me." Exo- 
 dus, xx. 3. 
 
 2. " Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest 
 know that the Lord is God ; there is none else besides 
 him." Deuteronomy, iv. 35. 
 
 3. " Know therefore this day, and consider it in thine 
 heart, that the Lord he is God in heaven above, and upon 
 the earth beneath : there is none else." Deuteronomy, 
 iv. 39. 
 
 4. " Hear, Israel : the Lord our God is one Lord." 
 Deuteronomy, vi. 4. 
 
 5. "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god 
 with me : I kill, and I make alive ; I wound, and I heal ; 
 neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." 
 Deuteronomy, xxxii. 39. 
 
 6. " There is none holy as the Lord ; for there is none 
 besides thee: neither is there any rock like our God." 
 1 Samuel, ii. 2.
 
 TEXTS IN FAVOR OF ONE GOD ONLY. 267 
 
 7. " Wherefore thou art great, Lord God : for there 
 is none like thee, neither is there any God besides thee, 
 according to all that we have heard with our ears." 2 
 Samuel, vii. 22. 
 
 8. "For who is God, save the Lord? and who is a 
 rock, save our God" ? 2 Samuel, xxii. 32. 
 
 9. "And he said, Lord God of Israel, there is no god 
 like thee in heaven above ; or on earth beneath, who 
 keepest covenant and mercy with thy servants that walk 
 before thee with all their heart." 1 Kings, viii. 23. 
 
 10. "And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, 
 Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cheru- 
 bims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the king- 
 doms of the earth; thou hast made heaven and earth." 
 2 Kings, xix. 15. 
 
 11. "Now therefore, Lord our God, I beseech thee, 
 save thou us out of his hand, that all the kingdoms of 
 the earth may know that thou art the Lord God, even 
 thou only." 2 Kings, xix. 19. 
 
 12. " Thou, even thou, art Lord alone : thou hast made 
 heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their host, the 
 earth and all things that are therein, the seas and all that 
 is therein ; and thou preservest them all ; and the host of 
 heaven worshippeth thee." Nehemiah, ix. 6. 
 
 13. " That men may know that thou, whose name 
 alone is Jehovah, art the Most High over all the earth." 
 Psalm, Ixxxiii. 18. 
 
 14. "For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: 
 thou art God alone." Psalm, Ixxxvi. 10. 
 
 15. "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and 
 will not be afraid : for the Lord Jehovah is my strength 
 and my song; he also is become my salvation." Isaiah, 
 xii. 2.
 
 268 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 16. "0 Lord of hosts, God of Israel, that dwellest 
 between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou 
 alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth , thou hast made 
 heaven and earth." Isaiah, xxxvii. 16. 
 
 17. "Now, therefore, Lord our God, save us from 
 his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know 
 that thou art the Lord, even thou only." Isaiah, xxxvii. 
 20. 
 
 18. "I am the Lord ; that is my name : and my glory 
 will I not give to another, neither my praise to graven 
 images." Isaiah, xlii. 8. 
 
 19. "For I am the Lord thy God, the Holy One of 
 Israel, thy Saviour ; I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethi- 
 opia and Seba for thee." Isaiah, xliii. 3. 
 
 20. "I, even I, am the Lord; and besides me there is 
 no Saviour." Isaiah, xliii. 2. 
 
 21. "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no 
 God besides me : I girded thee, though thou hast not 
 known me." Isaiah, xlv. 5. 
 
 22. " That they may know from the rising of the sun, 
 and from the west, that there is none besides me : I am 
 the Lord, and there is none else." Isaiah, xlv. 6. 
 
 23. "Verily, thou art a God that hidest thyself, God 
 of Israel, the Saviour." Isaiah, xlv. 15. 
 
 24. "For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens, 
 God himself that formed the earth and made it, he hath 
 established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to 
 be inhabited : I am the Lord, and there is none else." 
 Isaiah, xlv. 18. 
 
 25. "Tell ye, and bring them near ; yea, let them take 
 counsel together : who hath declared this from ancient 
 time ? who hath told it from that time ? have not I the 
 Lord? and there is no God else besides me; a just God
 
 TEXTS IN FAVOR OF ONE GOD ONLY. 269 
 
 and a Saviour: there is none besides me." Isaiah, xlv. 
 21. 
 
 26. "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of 
 the earth ; for I am God and there is none else." Isaiah, 
 xlv. 22. 
 
 27. " Remember the former things of old : for I am God, 
 and there is none else ; I am God, and there is none like 
 me." Isaiah, xlvi. 9. 
 
 28. " Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, 
 and shalt suck the breast of kimis: and thou shalt know 
 
 O 
 
 that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the 
 Mighty One of Jacob." Isaiah, lx. 16. 
 
 29. "I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, 
 I will not return to destroy Ephraim : for I am God and 
 not man ; the Holy One in the midst of thee ; and I will 
 not enter into the city." Hosea, xi. 9. 
 
 30. "Yet I am the Lord thy God from the land of 
 Egypt, and thou shalt know no god but me : for there is 
 no Saviour besides me." Hosea, xiii. 4. 
 
 31. "And the Lord shall be king over all the earth ; in 
 that day shall there be one Lord, and his name one." 
 Zechariah, xiv. 9. 
 
 32. "And he said unto him, Why callest thou me 
 good? there is none good but one, that is God : but if 
 thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." Mat- 
 thew, xix. 17. 
 
 33. "And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me 
 good? there is none good but one, that is, God." Mark, 
 x. 18. 
 
 34. "And Jesus answered him, The first of all the com- 
 mandments is, Hear, Israel; the Lord our God is one 
 Lord." Mark, xii. 29.
 
 270 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 35. "And the scribe said unto him, Well, Master, thou 
 hast said the truth : for there is one God ; and there is 
 none other but he." Mark, xii. 32. 
 
 36. "And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou ine 
 good? none is good, save one, that is, God." Luke, 
 xviii. 19. 
 
 37. "And this is life eternal, that they might know 
 thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast 
 sent." John, xvii. 3. 
 
 38. "As concerning therefore, the eating of those 
 things that are offered in sacrifice unto idols, we know 
 that an idol is nothing in the world, and that there is 
 none other God but one." 1 Corinthians, viii. 4. 
 
 39. "Now a mediator is not a mediator of one; but 
 God is one." Galatians, iii. 20. 
 
 40. "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." Ephesians, 
 iv. 5. 
 
 41. "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, 
 the only wise God, be honor and glory forever and ever. 
 Amen." 1 Timothy, ii. 5. 
 
 42. " For there is one God, and one mediator between 
 God and men, the man Christ Jesus." 1 Timothy, ii. 5. 
 
 43. " Thou believest that there is but one God ; thou 
 doest well : the devils also believe, and tremble." James, 
 ii. 19. 
 
 Here we have forty-three selected texts, affirming that 
 there is but one God. Five of these are the sayings of 
 Christ himself. Nine declare that God Jehovah is our 
 Saviour or salvation, and one is the endorsement of a 
 Scribe to the affirmation of Christ, that the Lord our God 
 is one Lord. Now this is remarkable. If Christ is God, 
 why is he not so accredited both in the Old and New Tes-
 
 FURTHER PROOFS. 271 
 
 taments ? This is not the case in either one or the other. 
 It is easy to make an assertion we admit, and if that 
 assertion is unsupported by good and reliable evidence, it 
 is of no account. But if a man makes an assertion on the 
 authority of competent testimony, that assertion is entitled 
 to our respect and belief. Now, it is asserted by a large 
 majority of the Christian Churches that Christ is God : 
 but whence do they derive their evidence to support them 
 in such an assertion ? We know of none that carries any 
 weight with it, and there is certainly none in the Book 
 which they rely upon as infallibly true. We assert that 
 Christ was not God ; and this, on the testimony of God 
 Himself, and the man Jesus, whom the Churches deify. 
 Can God lie ? He says, He is not a man that He can 
 lie : nor the Son of Man that He can repent. No one 
 can fail to sec then, from the numerous foregoing texts, 
 that we have, abundant Bible authority in support of the 
 unity of the Godhead ; and that man's final deliverance 
 from infirmity and affliction will be wrought out for him 
 by the One God, who is both his Creator, Preserver, and 
 Redeemer. 
 
 By way of further proof, however, we will devote some 
 space to viewing the subject through a variety of phases. 
 If Jesus had been God, why did he, at the time of his 
 death, commend his soul to God? This we are told that 
 he most certainly did. "And about the ninth hour Jesus 
 cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, EH, lama sabacthani? 
 that is to say, My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken 
 me?" "And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he 
 said, Father into thy hands I commend my spirit : and 
 having said this, he gave up the ghost." 
 
 Jesus, it is said, was to be a propitiation for the sins of 
 mankind, on the assumption that he was God, and man,
 
 272 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 and without sin. But is this assumption consistent with 
 the assertion, that each and every part of the Bible is 
 true? To be without sin, the Bible says, is to t>e good. 
 Sin, therefore, presupposes the absence of goodness. Was 
 Jesus good in this way? As we have before shown, he 
 says himself, that there is none good but one, that is God. 
 He therefore, could not be without sin, neither could he be 
 that propitiation for sin that he is said to be, being not 
 without sin. 
 
 Again, it is said that after his resurrection, Mary met 
 him, and, we presume, was about to take hold of him, 
 when he said unto her, " Touch me not ; for I am not yet 
 ascended to my Father ; but go to my brethren and say 
 unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father ; 
 and to my God and your God." Now, Jesus here repre- 
 sents himself as standing in the same relation to God, as 
 did the woman to whom he was addressing himself. He 
 calls God his Father, in the same sense that he calls Him 
 her Father. If he, as he is said to have declared, was 
 one with the Father, how could he be Father to himself? 
 This is absurd. It makes the theory of the Divinity of 
 Jesus simply ridiculous. 
 
 Again, " Believest thou not that I am in the Father ; 
 and the Father in me ? the words I speak unto you I 
 speak not of myself ; but the Father that dwelleth in me, 
 he doeth the works." The Father dwelleth in every man 
 in the same sense. 
 
 " For both he that sanctifieth and they who are sancti- 
 fied are all of one : for which cause he is not ashamed to 
 call them all brethren." " Then, answered Jesus, and 
 said unto them, Verily, Verily, I say unto you, The Son 
 can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father 
 do : for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the
 
 FURTHER PROOFS. 273 
 
 Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and show- 
 eth him all things that himself doeth ; and he will show 
 him greater works than these, that ye may marvel." 
 
 " And he saith unto them, Ye shall 'drink indeed of my 
 cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized 
 with : but to sit on my right hand, and on my left, is not 
 mine to give, but it shall be given to them, for whom it 
 is prepared of my Father." This is precisely the reply 
 that any man, seeking to establish a kingdom, might 
 make to such a question. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto them, my meat 'is to do the will of 
 him that sent me, and to finish his work," which was, 
 to exhort to repentance, and love to God and man. " For 
 I have not spoken of myself ; but the Father which sent 
 me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and 
 what I should speak." " And I know that his command- 
 ment is life everlasting; whatsoever I speak, therefore, 
 even as the Father said unto me, so I speak." 
 
 So say the Quakers, and others, who conceive that they 
 have a call to preach. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto them, If God were your Father, ye 
 would love me : for I proceeded forth and came from God ; 
 neither came I of myself, but he sent me." 
 
 "If ye keep my commandments ye shall abide in my 
 love : even as I have kept my Father's commandments, 
 and abide in his love." 
 
 Any preacher of the Gospel might without any breach 
 of propriety, so remark to his flock. 
 
 " At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, 
 and ye in me, and I in you." That is, the preacher and 
 congregation alike, serving God, each in his appropriate 
 way, may have the same mind as the Father within each 
 of them. 
 18
 
 274 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 14 He that hath my commandments, and keepeth them, 
 he it is that loveth me, and he that loveth me shall be 
 loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will mani- 
 fest myself to him." 
 
 " That they all may be one ; as thou. Father, art in me, 
 and I in thee, that they also may be one in us ; that the 
 world may believe that thou hast sent me." Now, Jesus 
 might, with the greatest propriety, make use of such lan- 
 guage as this ; and yet be nothing more than a teacher, 
 in whom was a large supply of God's illuminating mind 
 and goodness. He did, no doubt, earnestly and elo- 
 quently, set forth, in the most -graceful and glowing colors, 
 much that was pure in the eyes of men, and make it 
 attractive to them ; and, having the faculty to do this, 
 he found a ready witness and response in the hearts of his 
 hearers. All this, however, is by no means an evidence 
 that he was more than a teacher of extraordinary ability. 
 
 During a considerable portion of his three years minis- 
 try, Jesus fully persuaded himself that, by divine right, 
 he was entitled to the throne of David. He did not 
 believe himself to be God, or to be equal with God ; but 
 without doubt he felt assured that he was the person 
 designated by the prophets, who was to be the earthly 
 ruler and deliverer of the Jews ; and this led him to act 
 in conformity with the idea. He fell naturally into the 
 custom of the times, by identifying himself with wonder- 
 workers. He performed what are called miracles, as many 
 others did, to impress the people with a deeper sense of 
 the validity of his claim to so exalted a position. 
 
 Like other men, he was created " in the image of 
 God;" St. Paul says of him, (Colossiaus, i. 15,) "who is 
 the image of the invisible God." But this did not make 
 him God, any more than it did other men, who are
 
 JESUS' IDEA OF HIS MISSION. 275 
 
 created in that image. An image is not the thing itself. 
 Conspicuous traits in him were, a vivid perception of the 
 truth as written upon the hearts of men, an apt mode of 
 presenting it in its purity and beauty, and intense zeal in 
 portraying it. "To this end," say he, "was I born, and 
 for this cause came I into the world, that I should bear 
 witness unto the truth. Every one that is of the truth, 
 heareth my voice." John, xviii. 37. And this "truth" 
 comprised the two absorbing ideas of his life the one 
 that he was appointed to mount the throne of David, and 
 the other that he was sent of God to preach and teach the 
 way to heaven by the practice of religion in its purity. 
 Throughout nearly the whole of his ministry, he mani- 
 fested extraordinary zeal and made the most strenuous 
 efforts in inculcating this double belief. Nor, considering 
 his enthusiasm and the personal gifts with which he was 
 graced, need we wonder that many of those about him, 
 gradually caught his spirit and espoused his cause. With 
 this his course of conduct was consistent ; but totally 
 inconsistent with his being God or 'co-equal with him. 
 
 The terms Christ, Messiah, and The Anointed One, 
 are synonomous. This will serve to explain how Jesus 
 conceived himself to be entitled, by virtue of the prophe- 
 cies, to each or any of these appellations, and saw therein 
 his right to the throne of David determined. It was in 
 fact, only with respect to these two pretensions that the 
 claims of Jesus were upheld before the Jewish people. 
 It was not until very late in his lifetime that he conceived 
 the idea of the destruction of the world, and the creation 
 of a new one wherein the righteous only should dwell, 
 being ruled over by himself everlastingly in the flesh. 
 
 The meaning which church doctrine gives to belief in 
 Jesus, at this day, is totally at variance with each and all
 
 276 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 of the views entertained of himself, and finds no warrant 
 either in the letter or spirit of his teachings, or in the 
 example which his life furnished when rationally inter- 
 preted. This makes church theology a thing totally dif- 
 ferent from the religion of Jesus. The terms of salvation 
 and the only ones that he prescribed were love of God, the 
 Father, good works, and kind offices one towards another. 
 Neither does he anywhere intimate, in any of his say- 
 ings or teachings that these terms of salvation were to 
 
 O O 
 
 be at all changed, added to, or diminished after his death. 
 It was left for the Apostle Paul, many years later, to put 
 forth a doctrine totally dissenting from that which Jesus 
 had taught with such marked effect during his ministry. 
 This doctrine of Paul, it is well known, is the basis of 
 the Christian theology of our day. In this, the main 
 features are, that Jesus voluntarily gave up his life to 
 redeem from the consequences of original sin all who 
 should have faith that he did actually suffer death for this 
 express purpose, that such atonement was both indispen- 
 sable and efficacious to the end in view, and that the real 
 worth of the sacrifice consists in the fact that the victim 
 was co-equal with God. 
 
 If the death of Jesus imposes a belief in this dogma 
 as an absolutely essential requisite to eternal life, it may 
 be answered, that belief therein is utterly beyond man's 
 will, seeing that it is inexplicable in itself and runs 
 counter to all we learn by study of God's dealings with 
 the world. It is, moreover, wholly out of the reach ot 
 those who never heard of it, comprising by far the majority 
 of those beings whom God created in his own image. 
 Furthermore, we ask, is the death of Jesus to give the lie 
 to his life? He preached, while alive, a doctrine that he 
 who runs may read. Is he, when dead, to be made the
 
 NO WARRANT FOR THIS IDEA. 277 
 
 centre-piece of a new and incomprehensible theory, under 
 which the burden of man's sins is to be shifted off his 
 own shoulders ? If this be so, while at the same time 
 all the laws and obligations imposed by God upon man 
 are left in force, then most assuredly the way to eternal 
 life has not been facilitated, but impeded by this vica- 
 rious offering on the cross. We hold that the death ot 
 Jesus works no change in the requisites for our mode of 
 salvation. He himself never claimed that it involved 
 any change whatever. We contend, therefore, that Paul 
 was at fault, in promulgating the idea that it did. Paul, 
 too, is evidently at variance on these doctrinal points with 
 James, and with Peter also during Jesus' lifetime at least, 
 and until after Peter's own first sermon was delivered, 
 and yet it is from their conflicting views that the present 
 system of Christianity is derived, and by them that it is 
 sustained. 
 
 According to the authority of the Apostle Paul and 
 the Churches that identify themselves with his views, 
 the particular kind of faith or belief in Jesus, which they 
 make indispensable for salvation, could have had no 
 existence before the death of Jesus. And the belief 
 which they imperatively demand is not that he will die 
 at some specified or indefinite time ; but that he did die. 
 The faith therefore upon which Paul and the Christian 
 churches rely for salvation, finds no analogy, precedent, 
 or support in the faith inculcated by Jesus, and avowed 
 by his Apostles during his lifetime. The new creed, for 
 so it may well be called, materially changes the order of 
 worship, or of Divine Service. Jesus himself made God 
 the Father the crowning object of his worship. The 
 Churches, on the contrary, put Jesus prominently in the 
 foreground. God the Father whom Jesus acknowledged
 
 278 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 as the source and fountain of all that is good, being com- 
 paratively kept out of sirrht. 
 
 The extreme views of Paul and the fickleness of Peter 
 hereon do not need any further elucidation ; but the sub- 
 joined passage from the Epistle of James (chapter ii.) 
 serves to show that this Apostle maintained that men 
 have been, and may be justified solely through good 
 works and the grace of Jehovah. And this view con- 
 forms with the largely preponderating weight of evidence 
 in the Scriptures: to wit, that Jehovah is the one and 
 only true God, Redeemer, and Saviour of mankind, in 
 proof of which we have elsewhere cited voluminous texts. 
 The Apostle James says, " What doth it profit, my 
 brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not 
 works? can faith save him? If a brother or sister be 
 naked, and destitute of daily food, And one of you say unto 
 them, Depart in peace, be ye warmed and filled ; notwith- 
 standing ye give them not those things which are needful 
 to the body; what doth it profit? Even so faith, if it 
 hath not works, is dead, being alone. Yea, a man may 
 say, Thou hast faith, and I have works ; shew me thy 
 faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith 
 by my works. Thou believest that there is one God, 
 thou doest well: the devils also believe and tremble. 
 But wilt thou know, vain man, that faith without 
 works is dead? Was not Abraham our father justified by 
 works when he had offered Isaac his son upon the altar? 
 Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by 
 works was faith made perfect? And the Scripture was 
 fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was 
 imputed unto him for righteousness and he was called the 
 Friend of God. Ye see then how that by works a man 
 is justified, and not by faith only."
 
 TEXTS DISPROVING JESUS' DIVINITY. 279 
 
 Abraham, it is true, is described as offering sacrifice; 
 but it was in accordance with custom, his whole-souled 
 faith being based on God -Jehovah, not Jesus. Therefore, 
 the only belief necessary in connection with good works, 
 to insure salvation, is belief in the Almighty Jehovah ; 
 and this is in flat contradiction to the doctrine of the 
 Churches. Thus we have Paul and the Churches, on one 
 side of this vexed and dogmatical question ; and Jesus, 
 James, Natural Religion, and the balance of Biblical 
 authority, on the other. 
 
 There is nothing in the Bible from Jesus shewing that 
 he ever entertained the idea that man was created perfect 
 and fell from that state through Adam, or that his (Jesus') 
 crucifixion would prepare the way for man's restoration in 
 accordance with the scheme of Christian Theology, neither 
 does the Bible furnish a single unequivocal declaration 
 from Jesus to the effect that he claimed himself to be 
 co-equal with God ; nor does it contain a solitary word 
 from him, that could bear such construction, which he did 
 not subsequently explain away, or which has not since 
 been proved to be erroneous. 
 
 In denying having claimed to be God, when the Jews 
 were about to stone him for what they deemed equivalent 
 to such a claim, he asserts that he made no such declara- 
 tion, or anything that could be construed into such, and 
 cites the Jewish laws, customs, and practices in support 
 of his assertion. John, x. 33, 34, 35, 36. 
 
 Furthermore, it is plain from the following texts, that 
 the term God, as applied to Jesus, does not necessarily 
 mean God the Creator of the universe : " Your eyes 
 shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods knowing good 
 and evil." Genesis, iii. 5 ; " And the Lord said unto 
 Moses, See I have made thee a god to Pharaoh."
 
 280 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Exodus, vii. 1 ; " Who is like unto thee, Ob, Lord, among 
 the Gods ?" Exodus, xv. 2 ; "For the Lord your God, is 
 God of Gods." Deuteronomy, x. 17 ; " Among the gods 
 there is none like unto thee, 0, Lord." Psalm, Ixxxvi. 
 8 ; " Thou, Lord, art high above all the earth ; thou art 
 exalted far above all Gods." Psalm, xcvii. 9. 
 
 Again, what could be more emphatic than the follow- 
 ing language of the Apostle Paul ? " For, though there 
 be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth as 
 there be gods many and lords many. Eut to us there is 
 but one God, the Father of whom are all things, and we 
 in Him ; and one Lord Jesus Christ by whom are all 
 things, and we by Him." 1 Corinthians, viii. 5, 6 ; 
 " For, therefore, we both labor and suffer reproach, because 
 we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, 
 especially of those that believe." 1 Timothy, iv. 10. 
 
 Now, within these three texts, three points are laid 
 down with decisive clearness. One is that the living God 
 is the Saviour of all men, as distinguished from Jesus, 
 who is nowhere, in the Bible, absolutely called the living 
 God. Another is, that there is but one God, the Father 
 of all men, and consequently the Father of Jesus. The 
 third is, that all men are in God the Father and He in 
 them. The expression of Jesus, "the Father is in me, 
 and I in Him," implied nothing more than that relation- 
 ship which exists between God and every one of mankind. 
 The same is true as to his saying, " I and my Father are 
 one " that is, I and my Heavenly Father are one in 
 purpose. Every man is an instrument in God's hands for 
 the accomplishment of his ends ; and inasmuch as God 
 has made sure that man shall co-operate with Him to 
 serve these ends, in the way and to the full extent of His 
 original intention every man in a certain sense is one
 
 JESUS' TEACHING. 281 
 
 in purpose with God. It is evident that this is all, that 
 Jesus could have meant by the expression. The closing 
 sentence in the last of the texts above quoted may per- 
 haps be taken as illustrative of the changing or mixed 
 nature of Paul's religious views. A Pharisee himself, 
 and the son of a Pharisee, and brought up at the feet o f 
 Gamaliel, he had nevertheless emancipated himself from 
 Jewish tradition, and was content to preach that true and 
 onlv religion which makes to use his own words " the 
 
 * O 
 
 living God the Saviour of all men." Not yet an advo- 
 cate of that awful doctrine of the church, which dooms 
 the great bulk of mankind to everlasting torment, he had, 
 as it were, a foretaste of its exclusiveness ; and this found 
 vent in his mild phrasing, especially of those that believe. 
 But whatever Paul's trimming, or meaning, all men believe 
 that there is a God to whom they are accountable, know 
 right from wrong, and believe that virtue is more estima- 
 ble than vice. But some men shape their daily conduct 
 under the influence of this belief, and actuated by their 
 agency more in accordance with their duty to God, their 
 neighbor, and their own welfare, than others. Every 
 man, owing in some measure to the various circumstances 
 which surround him, is at different times more or less 
 governed by varying influences. Hence, exhorting men 
 to repent of their evil deeds, and to practice good works, 
 is among the services which one man may render to 
 another ; and in this Jesus made himself conspicuous. 
 He exhorted men to be mindful of and to practice the 
 religion of the heart and conscience ; and no doubt with 
 marked success and excellent effect. And since such 
 practice is the important thing, the all-in-all, for this and 
 the future life, and, as the most stimulating influence 
 thereto came to the many by and through Jesus' iiistru-
 
 282 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 mentality, under the natural promptings originally im- 
 planted in man, it might with truth be said that the 
 things that were all-important came from God, by and 
 through Jesus, in a natural way. Thus simply is explained 
 the expression in the text, " Christ by whom are all things, 
 and we by him." 
 
 The exhorting men to repentance and the practice ot 
 good works, we say, was one among the services by which 
 Jesus made himself conspicuous. Repentance was the 
 great, the predominant theme of his life. It was more 
 on his lips than any other. His name was more inti- 
 mately associated with it, than with any other. It is evi- 
 dent, therefore, that he conceived that the great want of 
 the Jewish people, and particularly of the Jewish priest- 
 hood and others in authority, was repentance. And it was 
 for his persistent cry to this end, and his pretensions to 
 the Messiahship, that he suffered persecution and death. 
 On these two ideas he staked his all. And being instru- 
 
 o 
 
 mental in causing the Jewish people to repent and return 
 to a more consistent course, his disciples continued the 
 work in his name and under its prestige. 
 
 It is important here, however, to observe, that, accord- 
 ing to the record, Jesus in his last and most important 
 interview with his disciples, spoke not a single word that 
 can, by the remotest inference, be construed as enjoining 
 upon them to preach or inculcate belief or faith in certain 
 claims, since set up on his behalf. These were, that he 
 was co-equal with God, and that belief or faith in such 
 asserted dogma was indispensable to salvation. This 
 omission assists greatly in determining the much disputed 
 question of his relationship with God. As we before 
 remarked, there is no Bible record to show in a plain and 
 unmistakable manner, that Jesus, out of his own mouth,
 
 JESUS NEVER CLAIMED DIVINITY. 283 
 
 ever pretended to be co-equal with God, the Lord Jehovah. 
 On the other hand, there are numerous sayings of his 
 which disclaim, or are inconsistent with, any such preten- 
 sions. Take, for example, the following citations. He 
 had spoken of God as his Father : on account of which, 
 " The Jews took up stones and stoned him. Jesus 
 answered them, many good works have I showed you 
 from my Father ; for which of these works do ye stone 
 me ? The Jews answered him, saying, For a good work 
 we stone thee not : but for blasphemy, and because that 
 thou being a man inakest thyself God. Jesus answered 
 them, Is it not written in your law, I said ye are Gods ? 
 If he called them Gods unto whom the word of God came, 
 and the scripture cannot be broken ; Say ye of him whom 
 the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, Thou 
 blasphemest, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I 
 do not the works of my Father believe me not. But 
 if I do, though you believe not me, believe the works : 
 that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, 
 and I in him." John, x. 31-38. This is equivalent to 
 saying that it did not follow, nor did he intend it to be so 
 understood, that because he said, " the Father is in me 
 and I in him," he therefore claimed equality with God 
 the Father, and Creator of all mankind. In justification 
 of himself, he cites the license, which the Scriptures give, 
 to call those men gods unto whom the word of God came. 
 It is evident, therefore, from this explanation of his hav- 
 ing said, " I and my Father are one," that he meant that 
 he was God, only in the ordinary sense of the word ; that 
 by diligently doing the works of the one God, as others 
 had done unto whom the word of God came, he had the 
 same claim to such an honorable estimation and title. In 
 the event, however, of their not yet being prepared to
 
 284 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 acknowledge even this subdued claim, he took the pre- 
 caution to refer them to the result of his works, as prov- 
 ing that he was engaged in promulgating God's will, less 
 entangled with error than was the case with their then 
 accepted teachers. 
 
 It may be well to bear in mind, too, that the Apostle 
 Paul nowhere gives Jesus the title of the Living God ; 
 neither did he believe him to be the Saviour of men. 
 He speaks clearly to this point in two texts, one of which 
 has been already quoted : "For therefore we both labor 
 and suffer reproach, because we trust in the Living God, 
 who is the Saviour of all men." 1 Timothy, iv. 10 ; "As 
 concerning therefore, the eating of those things that are 
 offered in sacrifice to idols, we know an idol is nothing in 
 the world, and that there is none other God but one." 
 1 Corinthians, viii. 4. 
 
 Christian theology maintains that Jesus came into the 
 world and took on him the form of a man, for the express 
 purpose of suffering crucifixion as a propitiation for the 
 sins of the world. This is in direct contradiction to Jesus' 
 own declared views on the subject. He says : " To this 
 end was I born, and for this cause came I into the world, 
 that I should bear witness unto the truth." John, xviii. 
 37. In other words, he meant that his mission was to 
 preach natural religion, love to God, love to man, and 
 good works, uncontaminated by the dogmas of the Jewish 
 priests. This view is confirmed out of his own lips, in 
 another place : "I will have mercy, and not sacrifice : for 
 I am uot come to call the righteous but sinners to repent- 
 ance." Matthew, ix. 3. In fact what he here conceived 
 to be his relation to God and man corresponds exactly 
 with what any conscientious minister of the Gospel might 
 say of himself, and forces the conviction that he esteemed
 
 INGENUITY OF THE PRIESTS. 285 
 
 himself nothing more than man, in any sense of the word. 
 This estimate is consistent with the every-day practice of 
 his life. "And Jesus went about all the cities and vil- 
 lages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
 gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and 
 every disease among the people." Matthew, ix. 34. 
 
 No other view than this, of his own conception of his 
 vocation and office can, in our judgment, be derived from, 
 the Bible. None other, we think, can be reached by any 
 fair and rational construction, unbiased by preconceived 
 opinions imbibed from the false and forced constructions 
 of those who make it their business to mystify and 
 .entangle the dogmas, theologies, and creeds of their own 
 invention with true religion with the religion of nature 
 with the religion of which Jehovah is, at once, the 
 founder, the great high-priest, and the preserver, and of 
 which Jesus was, in much of his teachings though not 
 the author a remarkably true and zealous expounder. 
 At the same time, while there is no reliable proof that 
 Jesus is God, there is much to the contrary, which ought, 
 as we conceive, to be conclusive to all. The negative 
 evidence is so strong, that no one can pretend that Jesus 
 ever occupied the throne of David in the capacity pre- 
 dicted, or in any other. This alone, in all fairness should 
 suffice for the total discredit of all the prophecies upon 
 which his Messiahship has been based ; and would do so, 
 were it not for the ingenuity, adroitness, learning, mental 
 ability and persistence, of the leading priests in ancient 
 and modern times. The former, in an age when super- 
 stition and ignorance favored their designs, stimulated by 
 pecuniary interest, and a greed for domination, ensnared 
 their unsuspecting victims into a web of the marvellous 
 and mysterious, which for the unenlightened has a charm
 
 286 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 so intricate, so subtle, and so strong, that generations of 
 intellectual culture were required to extricate men from its 
 toils. As to the modern priesthood, while the craving 
 for wealth and power equally subsists in them, the 
 moment the fallacy of their teaching is detected, they 
 shape and twist their theology, interpreting this passage 
 of scripture symbolically, and that one literally, as serves 
 the occasion, so that it becomes well nigh impossible to 
 bring them to an acknowledgment of the untenableness 
 of their position. Thus, if they cannot elude detection 
 as to the hollowness of many among their ingeniously 
 contrived devices, they at least find some loop-hole for 
 escape ; and the more they are pressed to the wall by the 
 intelligence of the age, the more vehemently they cry out : 
 " He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but 
 he that believeth not, shall be damned." Nor could 
 there be a more striking instance of clerical perversion, 
 than occurs in reference to this denunciation. It is 
 applied from a thousand pulpits, to the whole complicated 
 theory of original sin and redemption by the blood of 
 Christ. Under what circumstances did Jesus utter it? 
 With respect to the scheme, as it is well called, of salva- 
 tion ? Not at all. Immediately preceding the record of 
 these words, is this verse, (Mark, xvi. 14 :) "Afterward 
 he appeared unto the eleven as they sat at meat, and 
 upbraided them with their unbelief and hardness of heart, 
 because they believed not them which had seen him after 
 he was risen." Not a word here touching sin or sacrifice. 
 It is only unbelief in his personal identity the unbelief 
 of his own disciples then before him that is so uncere- 
 moniously denounced by Jesus. But the time is fast 
 approaching, when all this cloud of error will be dispersed, 
 and the craft of a profession rendered futile. Human
 
 CHARACTER OF JESUS' PRECEPTS. 287 
 
 physical slavery has been compelled to succumb, at the 
 mandate of educated honesty. The enslavers of human 
 intellect must, ere long, lose their prestige over the intel- 
 lects of others, and cease to prey upon the pecuniary sub- 
 stance of their fellow-men. Conscience, common sense, 
 and culture, are fast gaining the mastery over church 
 theology and a dogmatic priesthood. 
 
 The doctrine of Jesus is nowhere more plainly laid 
 down, than in his own description of the view that will 
 be taken of the conduct of men by the final judge of the 
 world. "I was," says he, "a hungered, and ye gave me 
 meat : I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink : I was a 
 stranger, and ye took me in : Naked and ye clothed me ; I 
 was sick, and ye visited me : I was in prison, and ye came 
 unto me." In reply to the enquiry, when these things 
 were done in his behalf, the King says. that, "Inasmuch 
 as they were done to the least of his little ones, -they were 
 done unto him." Matthew, xxv. 35, 36. Such is what 
 Jesus considers to be requisite for entering into the King- 
 dom of Heaven, that is to say, good works, which are, 
 practically, love to God and love to man. He conceives 
 that there is nothing further required. The grand aim of 
 his own life, at least of the earlier parts of it, seem to have 
 been to manifest such a disposition. I am come, said he, 
 on another occasion, " not to destroy, but to fulfill the 
 law ;" and the context shows that he had reference to the 
 moral law of God, which was over him in common with 
 all mankind. He therefore exhorted all about him to 
 strive for this one thing, to become obedient to the laws of 
 God, that they might be like Him God. " Be ye, 
 therefore, perfect," said he, " as your Father also is per- 
 fect." Matthew, v. 48. His precepts and teachings in 
 detail, too, were all of this same character. " Blessed
 
 288 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 are the merciful," said he, " for they shall obtain mercy. 
 Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. 
 Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the 
 children of God." Matthew, v. 7, 8, 9 ; "Do not com- 
 mit adultery ; Do not steal ; Do not bear false witness ; 
 Defraud not ; Honor thy father and mother." Mark, x. 
 19 ; " Forgive men their trespasses." Matthew, vi. 14 ; 
 " Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye 
 even so to them, for this is the law and the prophets." 
 Matthew, vii. 12. Now, what a catalogue of good works 
 does he here collect which, while they have no reference 
 to any peculiar sentiments of his own, are accepted and 
 inculcated by him, as the teaching of God to all men, 
 through their intuitions ; and proper sense of right ; and 
 which he considered himself as much bound to obey as 
 ourselves. And that he and others who lived by this 
 rule, might be acknowledged as so doing, he gave a test 
 whereby men might judge in this matter : " Ye shall 
 know them by their fruits," said he ; and again, -' A 
 good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth 
 forth good things." He was a good man, but he claimed 
 to be nothing more. He nowhere speaks of himself as 
 God on the contrary he almost invariably calls himself, 
 " The Son of Man ;" and defends himself from the charge 
 of calling himself God, when using expressions that were 
 so construed, on the plea that such expressions were 
 allowable under the Jewish usages, without implying that 
 he made himself God. That this is his estimate of him- 
 self may be seen still more clearly. He quotes from the 
 Old Testament and, " The first of all the command- 
 ments " is ' Hear, 0, Israel; the Lord our God is ONE 
 LORD.' " He thus emphatically acknowledges that there 
 is but one God, which is equivalent to denying that he
 
 CHARACTER OF JESUS' PRECEPTS. 289 
 
 himself was God. But if this is not deemed sufficient, 
 hear what he says further : " Worship the Father in spirit 
 and in truth." John, iv. 23 ; " Jesus said unto them, My 
 meat is to do the will of him that sent me." John, iv. 
 34; "I speak not of myself; the Father which sent 
 me gave me the commandments." John, v. 37 ; " My 
 Father is greater than I." John, xiv. 28. Now, are not 
 these expressions equally applicable to, and proper to be 
 made by all men, who are teachers of true religion ? 
 So far as our knowledge extends, through our natural 
 instincts and intuitions, there neither is, nor can be, any 
 intermediate grade of being or beings between God and 
 man. 
 
 But is it claimed that he was sent by the Father, and 
 that he was endowed with supernatural powers, because 
 he said, "And this is life eternal that they might know 
 thee, the only true God, and Jtsus Christ whom thou 
 hast sent." John, xviii. 31. In the same sense God sends 
 every man into the world. It is the light of God in the 
 soul of man which is his true Teacher; "That was the 
 true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the 
 world." John, i. 9; "Behold the Kingdom of God is 
 within you." Luke, xvii. 21 ; "Fear not, for it is the 
 Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." Luke, 
 xii. 32. " Blessed are they who hear the word of God and 
 keep it," Luke, xi. 28, that is, blessed are they who 
 hear and obey the voice of conscience and the teaching of 
 the external universe ; " He that doeth truth cometh to 
 the light that his deeds may be made manifest that they 
 are wrought in God." John, iii. 21; "Jesus answered 
 them, my doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me," 
 John, vii. 16, it would be well if all teachers could con- 
 scientiously say this; "Jesus cried and said, he that 
 19
 
 290 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 believeth on me, believeth not on me, but on him that 
 sent me." John, xii. 44 ; which is of extreme signifi- 
 cance in determining this question, as it is equivalent to 
 saying that belief in him is a mere figure of speech, to 
 indicate belief in the God Jehovah. From this it is evi- 
 dent that, wherever Jesus speaks of man's welfare as 
 being advanced by love to, and belief in him, he simply 
 means that man is to believe in and love and practice 
 the doctrines which he is urging on the attention of his 
 hearers, and these are always of one and the same im- 
 port : love to God and man. Take collectively those 
 exhortations of Jesus which are recorded in the Bible ; 
 and, although they are not always in harmony or con- 
 sistent with each other, the only rational deduction and 
 conclusion to be drawn from them is, that he conceived 
 himself to stand in the same relation to God as other 
 men, except that he was inculcating a purer doctrine than 
 that taught by those about him. And it is this separa- 
 tion of true religion from error, at a day when it was so 
 pre-eminently needed, that made him dear to the people 
 of that period and his remembrance precious to succeed- 
 ing generations. His saying, " believe in me," meant 
 nothing further than believe in the doctrines which I 
 teach, and which go by my name, thus implying that he 
 .is but as other men, who advocate religion in its purity. 
 By thus associating himself with other men in the 
 duties of his office and ministry, it is evident that, accord- 
 ing to his view, they all stand in the same relation to 
 God ; that he and they are all alike the recipients of 
 God's love all alike subject to his laws, will, and guid- 
 ance. The only difference between him and those about 
 him was, that he set himself up as their Teacher, and 
 that they acknowledged themselves to be his disciples.
 
 CHARACTER OF JESUS' PRECEPTS. 291 
 
 This view of Jesus and his vocation is far better sup- 
 ported by his own sayings and doings, than the position, 
 attributes, and functions assigned to him by the Christian 
 Church. It may be that, at times, he went a little 
 beyond the natural teaching of God to all men no doubt 
 he did in some of the kindly feelings and offices, which 
 he conceived should be entertained and practised by men 
 one towards another. Perhaps in some particulars they 
 are too refined for general observance and application. 
 Indeed, it will be at once recognized that they are more 
 than average human nature is capable of manifesting. 
 Of such kind are these : " But I say unto you that 
 ye resist not evil : but whosoever shall smite thee on thy 
 right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man 
 will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him 
 have thy cloak also. And. whosoever shall compel tliee 
 to go a mile, go with him twain. Give to him that 
 asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn 
 not thou away. Ye have heard that it hath been said, 
 thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy. 
 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that 
 curse you, do good to them which hate you ; and pray for 
 them which despitefully use you and persecute you." 
 Matthew, v. 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44. 
 
 Still, making allowance for these exaggerations, we 
 maintain that the only practicable mode of manifesting 
 ardent love to God is the actual performance, with lively 
 diligence, of those things which are just, and true and 
 good. This is inculcated by Jesus in most impressive 
 terms, some of which we have quoted, and his seal is put 
 upon the worth of this practical faith, by his emphatic 
 saying, with reference to charities ; " Inasmuch as ye 
 have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren
 
 292 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 ye have clone it unto me." Whoever follows this course 
 faithfully and sincerely, we insist is a religious man in 
 the fullest sense of the word, notwithstanding the com- 
 bined declarations of all Christendom to the contrary. 
 
 The denunciations of Jesus were as emphatic as they 
 could be against those who incidentally perverted his 
 teachings, which, though imparted by God to all men 
 without Jesus' aid, were so enthusiastically enforced by 
 him as to produce great uneasiness and consternation 
 amongst the corrupt rulers and priesthood of his time 
 indeed, so much so', as to cause him to be falsely accused 
 and murdered on the cross, under pretence of judicial 
 authority. Among the rebukes administered by Jesus to 
 the priesthood of his day are there not some as applicable 
 now, to that same class of individuals, as they were then? 
 " For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the 
 tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups ; and 
 many other such like things ye do. Ye reject the com- 
 mandments of God that ye may keep your own tradi- 
 tion." " Making the word of God of none effect through 
 your tradition, which ye have delivered : and many such 
 like things do ye." Mark, vii. 8, 9, 13. 
 
 To the simple teachings of Nature and Jesus, theolo- 
 gians add that of natural depravity of man. This idea 
 is false in its conception. It is an imputation against 
 the wisdom and goodness of God, and blasphemous in its 
 character. It implies that God is neither Omnipotent 
 nor Omniscient ; that He is unable to create and control 
 all things aright according to His will and pleasure. 
 
 Exciting terror in the minds of men, by teaching the 
 doctrine of eternal torment, is another imputation against 
 God's infinite goodness. These and many others of a 
 similar nature, we hesitate not to say have had their ori-
 
 ANANIAS AND SAPPHIRA. 293 
 
 gin in the attempts of dishonest and designing men to 
 defraud their more honest and unsuspecting fellow-crea- 
 tures. Examples of this we have, even amongst the 
 earliest, and perhaps more sincere followers of Jesus ; 
 nay, even amongst those who are called his Apostles. 
 Take the well-known story of Ananias and Sapphira as 
 a sample : " Neither was there any among them that 
 lacked : for as many as were possessors of lands or houses 
 sold them and brought the prices of the things that were 
 sold, And laid them down at the Apostles' feet : and dis- 
 tribution was made unto every man according as he had 
 need. 
 
 " And Joses, who by the Apostles was surnamed Barna- 
 bas, (which is being interpreted. The son of consolation,) 
 a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus. Having land, 
 sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the Apos- 
 tles' feet." Acts, iv. 34, 35, 36, 37. "But a certain 
 man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a pos- 
 session. And kept back part of the price, his wife also 
 being privy to it, and brought a certain part and laid it 
 at the Apostles' feet. But, Peter said, Ananias, why 
 hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, 
 and to keep back part of the price of the land ? While 
 it remained, was it not thine own, and after it was sold, 
 was it not in thine own power ? Why hast thou con- 
 ceived this thing in thine heart ? Thou hast not lied 
 unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these 
 words, fell down and gave up the ghost : and great fear 
 came on them that heard these things. And the young 
 men arose, wound him up, and carried him out and 
 buried him. And it was about the space of three hours 
 after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came 
 in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye
 
 294 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so 
 much. Then, Peter said unto her, How is it that ye 
 have agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord ? 
 Behold the feet of them which have buried thy husband 
 are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she 
 down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost ; 
 and the young men came in, and found her dead, and 
 carrying her forth, buried her by her husband. And 
 great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many 
 as heard these things." Acts, v. 1 11. The idea at- 
 tempted to be inculcated by these representations is, that 
 God was so incensed and offended with the persons who 
 withheld a part of their possessions for their own use, 
 instead of giving it all to the Apostles, that He, instantly, 
 by an especial act, struck them dead. Now, this we hold 
 to be entirely at variance with God's dealings with his 
 creatures at this or any other time and place, and the 
 promulgation of such a story was, as we conceive, a 
 trick, a cheat, for the purpose of extorting money from 
 and gaining domination over those susceptible of being so 
 wrought upon through their fears. If it shall be sug- 
 gested as possible that the death of these persons took 
 place in accordance with the natural workings of God's 
 universal and never-varying laws, we reply : Had it 
 been Ananias alone who was said to be stricken dead, we 
 might attribute his death to the effect of sudden shame 
 or fear acting upon a system deranged by high nervous 
 excitement. Rare as such cases are, they are not entirely 
 inconsistent with the physical laws of our being, nor alto- 
 gether beyond our natural experiences. But, when a 
 second person, after so brief an interval, is put through 
 the same identical process of cross-questioning, condemna- 
 tion, and collapse, even the most extreme credulity takes
 
 RATIONAL EXPLANATION. 295 
 
 alarm and shies off. One fortuitous coincidence between 
 Peter's denunciation and the breaking of human heart 
 strings might be received as a possible circumstance. 
 Two such fortuitous coincidences, coming one close upon 
 another, pass all bounds of credibleness. If it be claimed 
 that the persons of the day of the early Apostles had 
 more tender consciences in regard to lying or false pre- 
 tence than those of our day, and, therefore, might be 
 more likely to die from a sense of shame on account of 
 having been detected in making false representations, it 
 so happens that we are not without means of testing the 
 susceptibility of the Apostles themselves, which at least 
 should not fall below that of the common people about 
 them. It appears from Bible record that Peter, the ver- 
 itable Apostle who accused Ananias of lying, spoke falsely 
 when he denied knowledge of Jesus thrice in succession. 
 But, when detected, he neither fell dead from shame, nor 
 was he stricken down by the Almighty. Again, the 
 character and the false spirit of Judas are indicated by 
 his betrayal of Jesus into the hands of his enemies, and 
 by his own thieving propensities. All this proves that 
 human nature was no better in the time of Peter and 
 Judas, than now ; and this puts it beyond possible 'credi- 
 bility that Ananias and his wife died (if death there was) 
 of a broken heart. 
 
 This leaves no alternative but to refer their death to a 
 supernatural cause. Now, we appeal to the rational and 
 common-sense men of our day, whether, if at this time, 
 and in any part of the world, an occurrence of the kind 
 under consideration was said to have taken place as a 
 supernatural and especial exhibition of God's vengeance, 
 for the cause assigned by the Apostle Peter, it would 
 receive the slightest credence ? And yet, this is the
 
 296 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 version that Peter gives of the pretended phenomena. 
 We further submit whether the claiming of Peter, that 
 God in his vengeance smote two persons dead in quick 
 succession, for the cause assigned, does not come with a 
 particularly ill grace from a person notoriously untruthful, 
 from one whom Jesus denounced as Satanic, and as savor- 
 ing not duly of the things of God. It is further submitted, 
 whether if the death of the persons in question did occur 
 at the time and place, and under the circumstances nar- 
 rated, is it not more likely that it resulted from foul play, 
 instigated by the Apostles for base purposes, rather than 
 that the immediate cause of death was the upbraidings of 
 conscience, fear, or the supernatural visitation of God mani- 
 fested for the express purpose of frightening people into 
 putting all their property at the disposal of the Apostles. 
 And this trick, as we deem it, had for a time the expected 
 effect; and "great fear came upon all the Church and 
 upon as many as heard these things." These people 
 were evidently made to fear lest they should not conform 
 to the wishes of the Apostles, and thereby subject them- 
 selves to the summary vengeance of God invoked by 
 them. And, we are told that "by the hands of the 
 Apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among 
 the people And of the rest durst no man join him- 
 self to them." Unclean spirits also, as we say, were pre- 
 tended to be cast out, another false pretence for the gain- 
 ing of power. " And believers were the more added to 
 the Lord, both men and women." 
 
 We have no doubt but that the character of this belief 
 was that, if they that is, all upon whom great fear 
 came did not blindly follow the bidding of the Apostles 
 in relation to the giving up all their property to them, 
 they could not escape the vengeance of the Lord, which
 
 THREAT OF ETERNAL PUNISHMENT. 297 
 
 the Apostles would invoke against them. This presents 
 a dark picture of human nature ; but the odium pertains 
 but to a comparative few the mass of mankind are of 
 the better sort. 
 
 We are happy to believe that a large majority of the 
 enlightened men of our day and country not only disbe- 
 lieve, that the man and his wife were stricken down by 
 God for the reason assigned by the Apostles ; they also 
 are shocked by the hypocrisy, and perchance the mur- 
 derous spirit, involved in the affair. But the Apostles 
 were not without their competitors and imitators in this 
 respect. There were at that time many different churches, 
 doctrines, and creeds, some of which preceded them. The 
 leaders of the earlier sects, perceiving that the new 
 comers were even more greedy than themselves claiming 
 not only a part of men's substance, but the whole feared 
 lest there would be nothing left. On this account, and 
 on account of the growing influence of the Apostles, they 
 often came in conflict with each other ; and one of the 
 results of these feuds, is thus set down . "The high priest 
 rose up, and all they that were with him, which is the 
 sect of the Sadducees, and were filled with indignation. 
 And laid their hands on the Apostles, and put them in 
 the common prison." Acts, v. 17, 18. 
 
 We trace, also in this transaction, the germ of that 
 dominating and grasping spirit which was carried to so 
 revolting a pitch by the Christian Church, during the 
 dark and middle ages, as is seen elsewhere in this work. 
 And yet, there are many practices, in some of the Chris- 
 tian Churches, at the present time, which are only a little 
 less glaring and despicable. 
 
 A striking analogy exists between Peter's intimidating 
 process for raising revenue for the Church, and that which
 
 298 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 yet so extensively prevails. We allude especially to the 
 menacing of the people by threats of everlasting punish- 
 ment if they do not embrace a particular dogma or article 
 of faith to the exclusion of many others. Might it not 
 be said, therefore, that herein Peter is the symbolic foun- 
 dation of the Church, which is so faithful to his propen- 
 sities, and which, we augur, will not be able much longer, 
 to withstand the flood of light, common sense, and reason, 
 that menaces it, both in this and other countries? 
 
 We proceed to point to some of the other devices, that 
 are resorted to at the present day, for swelling the coffers 
 of the Church, and which we conceive to be altogether 
 unjustifiable. Prominent among them is the preaching of 
 mystical and wonder-exciting dogmas and theologies, and 
 the exhibition of imposing ritualism, ceremonies, and 
 paraphernalia, the invention and traditions of men, so 
 appropriately condemned by Jesus in these pertinent 
 words : " For laying aside the commandments of God, ye 
 hold the tradition of men. * * * Making the word of 
 God of none effect through your traditions." Again, the 
 fable of Purgatory is instrumental in extracting large 
 sums from those who are made to believe that their 
 deceased friends are suffering terrific torments therein, 
 and can only be released from it by the prayers of the 
 Church, which prayers can only be procured by money 
 forthcoming. The granting of indulgences by the Church, 
 which in plainer language means the privilege to sin, and 
 absolution from the consequences of sin neither of which 
 God ever grants may also be named as prolific and dis- 
 graceful sources of revenue to the Church. Representing 
 God as punishing the smallest sin everlastingly, with the 
 most excruciating torment, in a wrathful and vindictive 
 spirit unless the sinner has full faith that Jesus is
 
 JESUS NOT A SAVIOUR. 299 
 
 co-equal with Jehovah, and that he (Jesus) is the only 
 Saviour of men from everlasting punishment, entailed on 
 them by reason of the sin of Adam is another of the 
 whips with which they scourge the people. This threat- 
 ening with God's vengeance all, who are not within the 
 pale of the Church, is of the same character as the farce 
 enacted by the apostles before mentioned, and is resorted 
 to with a similar view. Its object is to frighten into their 
 net all those who are susceptible of being so cperated 
 upon, and thus, incidentally, to swell the church's gain. 
 Such an intimidating process cannot be persisted in by the 
 clergy, with an eye single to the spiritual and temporal 
 welfare of their hearers, while at the same time they have 
 a full knowledge of the existence of such Bible testimony 
 as is here cited ; "Yet I am the Lord thy God from the 
 land of Egypt, and thou shalt know no God but me : for 
 there is no Saviour beside me." Hosea, xiii. 4; "I am 
 the Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour." 
 Isaiah, xliii. 3 ; "I, even I, am the Lord ; and beside me 
 there is no Saviour." Isaiah, xliii. 11 ; "And all flesh shall 
 know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeeme/, 
 the Mighty One of Jacob." Isaiah, xlix. 25; "We trust 
 in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, espe- 
 cially of those that believe," 1 Timothy, iv. 10; and 
 we insist that all men believe, as we heretofore endeavored 
 to show. The appellation of the Living God is nowhere 
 in the Bible applied to Jesus. Peter called him the Son 
 of the Living God, but we have before shown that this 
 might be applied to other men as well as to Jesus. In 
 addition to the foregoing, however, there are in the Bible 
 a dozen or more texts, directly affirming that there is but 
 one God, and not a word positively declaring that Jesus 
 is God co-equal with Jehovah.
 
 300 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 But further proof of the erroneous dogmas and decla- 
 rations of the Church can be furnished : "All flesh shall 
 see the salvation of God." Luke, iii. 4, 6; "And the 
 glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see 
 it together: for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
 Isaiah, xl. 5. These texts give assurance that each 
 human being will be saved by The Lord God-Jehovah, 
 to the enjoyment of His glory not by Jesus, as some 
 assert. They are also irreconcilable with the church 
 dogma, that the majority of mankind will be the subjects 
 of God's everlasting vengeance. If it shall be objected 
 that there is Bible authority for such a dogma, and suffi- 
 cient for it, then we say that this does but show that the 
 Bible is fallible, and the production of fallible men, since 
 God cannot contradict himself. 
 
 If the human soul is placed upon earth as a preparatory 
 measure to fit it for an existence in eternity, the natural 
 inference is, that the soul retains the main characteristics 
 throughout, and there is nothing in the so-called word of 
 God, to contradict this idea. The soul naturally craves 
 constant progression from one state to that of another. 
 A continued state of rest, even unattended with pain or 
 want, cannot afford happiness, nothing short of progress 
 from incident to incident, from new interests to new 
 interests, can satisfy the soul to be happy it must be in 
 harmony with the gravitating influence which is ever 
 leading it on the great mission of assimilating itself to its 
 Maker. Restlessness is one of the great features with 
 which God has endowed the soul, to the end that it may 
 never cease seeking Him and finding out more and more 
 the wondrous ways and mysteries of God, and glorifying 
 him and yet the theologians tell us that beyond the 
 grave the blessings of Christ's kingdom shall be peace and
 
 THE SPIRIT RESTLESS. 301 
 
 quietness forever. "And my people shall dwell in peace- 
 able habitations and in sure dwellings, and in quiet rest- 
 ing places." Isaiah, xxxii. 18. This is adverse to the 
 great purposes of God. The course of the human spirit 
 is onward. 
 
 Man, so far as we know, is the only created being 
 endowed with qualities capable of comprehending and 
 appreciating the wisdom, goodness and glory of God. 
 Shall his brief existence upon earth, while there is an 
 eternity before him, be the limit of time allowed to 
 complete his strivings to know God, the inexhaustible 
 no; the normal condition of the human soul is neither 
 perpetual rest in peace or perpetual torment, but a never 
 ceasing activity in cultivating and bringing itself more 
 and more to the appreciation of its Maker. The follow- 
 ing is quite as wide of the true nature of the soul as the 
 foregoing theological view. The Bible narrative in rela- 
 tion to our first parents, is so construed by the Church, as 
 to inculcate the idea that Adam and Eve and all their 
 posterity, were originally intended by God to live a life 
 of ease, and without labor, pain, care, death, or anything 
 else to disturb them from a perfect state of peace, happi- 
 ness and quietness, instead of experiencing the vicissi- 
 tudes incident to an active life of good works. A further 
 construction of the theologians put upon this fable, would, 
 if true, present the matter thus 
 
 If the first human pair had not eaten of the forbidden 
 fruit, no one of the human family would have perceived 
 that their nakedness was uncomely in the presence of 
 others ; in other words, there would have been no such 
 trait in human character as modesty. The inauguration 
 of modesty appears from the Bible narrative to have 
 been the very first consequences of disobedience of com-
 
 302 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 mand, and it is apparent, as the story goes, that God 
 recognized the sensation of shame which Adam and Eve 
 experienced in consequence of their nakedness as being 
 praiseworthy, inasmuch as he, without delay, assisted 
 them in administering to it by making both for Adam 
 and Eve coats of skins and clothing them. Another 
 inference from the narrative in question is, that but for 
 the disobedience of our original parents, no one of the 
 human family would ever have became so assimilated to 
 God as to know good from evil. The further inference 
 is that man, by his first breach of divine law, learned that 
 the true enjoyment of life and existence consisted in act- 
 ing in conformity to the law, which is equivalent to the 
 partaking of the tree of life. 
 
 Now admitting, for the argument, that these Bible nar- 
 ratives are other than fables, it follows th#t but for origi- 
 nal sin we should have been without modesty, without 
 any knowledge of the difference between good and evil, 
 without any assimilation to God, and without knowledge 
 of the way which leads to life eternal in short, on a 
 level with the brute creation. 
 
 Now, if all these consequences of original sin are to be 
 abolished according to the Church version of the subject, 
 by resurrection through Christ, would we be the gainers 
 by such restoration, to the original ignorance and absence 
 of shame of nudeness imputed to our first parents before 
 they had eaten the forbidden fruit. 
 
 It has been remarked that Jesus was persuaded, during 
 the latter portion of his ministry, that he was sent to be 
 " The King of the Jews," and to preach a purer doctrine 
 to the people than that which was taught through means 
 of the Jewish priesthood. He was also surrounded by 
 those who favored these ideas, and who were constantly
 
 BELIEF IN JESUS. 303 
 
 urging his claims to such a position and to such an office, 
 When they had succeeded in convincing themselves on 
 this point, they were naturally desirous to bring others 
 to the same conclusion. And there can be no doubt, but 
 that he also caught the spirit, and lent his voice to the 
 cry, "believe and be baptized!" This cry, from habit, 
 and from the consciousness that the doctrine which he 
 preached, led to life and happiness here and hereafter, 
 was constantly in his mouth. In this way he was 
 gradually led to associate himself with it. " Ye believe in 
 God," said he, "believe also in me." John, xiv. 1. But 
 that it was nothing more than the doctrine, which ho pro- 
 claimed as the way to eternal life and in which he soli- 
 cited belief, we infer from the record of John the Evan- 
 gelist, who speaks of him in these words ; " The same 
 came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all 
 men through him might believe." John, i. 7. When 
 this plain language is considered in connection with the 
 fact, that he denied that he was God or co-equal with 
 God, it fully warrants the view of his office and religious 
 sentiments which is taken in this work. 
 
 Now, the interpretation which the Churches put upon 
 belief in Jesus, and the one here adopted, cannot be re- 
 ceived together. So great is the difference between them, 
 that they are totally inconsistent with each other. Jesus 
 either meant that eternal life would result from belief in 
 his doctrine of love to God, and good works, or he meant 
 that belief in his being co-equal with God insured eternal 
 life. If he meant that the latter must be added to a life 
 of good works, it is inconceivable why he did not make 
 such a declaration in plain and unmistakable terms, which 
 he never did, at least there is no such record in the Bible. 
 On the other hand, he did declare repeatedly and expli-
 
 304 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 citly, in the plainest words and in the most impressive 
 manner possible, that the sura total of the requirements 
 for the inheritance of eternal life is, love to the One God, 
 love to man, and good works. Such a belief as this, 
 when taken in the sense here advocated, shows " the 
 Religion of Jesus " to coincide and harmonize with the 
 religion of the heart, the conscience, and the common 
 sense of all mankind. In short, it is in unison with the 
 religion of nature and of the God of nature, and shares 
 this marked feature with the actuating principle that 
 underlies the religion of every people on the face of the 
 globe, however debased by the infusion of absurd dogmas 
 and the practice of repulsive rites. 
 
 The church mode of interpreting the words of Jesus 
 makes our eternal happiness depend on our ability to 
 believe certain obscure passages of the Bible, containing 
 accounts of what one person says in relation to another ! 
 
 If belief comes at all, it must, of necessity, be involun- 
 tary. No man can have a real, honest faith, of the kind 
 just mentioned, except through intuition, or upon evidence 
 that is irresistibly convincing. Belief, therefore, not being 
 a matter of free agency, there can be no merit in its 
 adoption, whereas, on the contrary, good works, which a 
 man may, or may not do, constitute the only acceptable 
 mode of manifesting love to God. 
 
 Man's moral accountability to God, for his conduct here 
 can have reference only to those actions over which man 
 himself has any control, that is to say, those which, by 
 virtue of his free agency, he may do or leave undone 
 at his own will and pleasure. Belief in Jesus as a 
 God and a Redeemer, which the system of 'Christianity 
 demands as indispensable to salvation, is not among the 
 actions that man can control at will ; neither is it among
 
 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 3Q5 
 
 the convictions that come to us spontaneously, or by the 
 inevitable consequences of nature's universal teaching. 
 It is not like the assurance that there is an overruling 
 Intelligence, to whose laws we are each and all account- 
 able. Hence, the belief in question, if binding on us at 
 all, must of necessity be founded upon evidence, the 
 sufficiency or insufficiency of which it is in the capacity 
 of the reasoning faculties to scan, weigh, and determine. 
 Again: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting 
 life ; and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life : 
 but the wrath of God abideth on him." John, iii. 36. 
 This suggests the inquiry, what does believing on the Son 
 mean ? Is it that his teaching, or that believing on him, 
 personally as the Son, leads to everlasting life? If 
 we may rely upon the explanation from Jesus' own 
 mouth to believe in him, was to believe in his teach- 
 ing, and his teaching is not his own, but God's. He 
 said himself John, vii. 16, "My doctrine is not mine, 
 but his that sent me." In his solitary prayer, also 
 recorded by St. John in the 17th chapter of his Gospel, 
 Jesus says, in the 6th verse: "I have manifested thy 
 name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the 
 world, and they have kept thy word;" in the 8th verse, 
 *' For I have given unto them the words which thou gavest 
 me;" and again, in the 14th verse, "I have given them 
 thy word." Thus it is clear, on his owu testimony, that 
 it was God's doctrine that Jesus taught. What, also, said 
 Paul, narrating to Agrippa his own course, after his own 
 conversion? "Whereupon, King Agrippa, I was not 
 disobedient unto the heavenly vision, but shewed first 
 unto them of Damascus, and at Jerusalem, and through- 
 out all the coasts of Judea, and then to the Gentiles, that 
 they should repent and turn to God, and do works meet 
 20
 
 306 ONE RELIGION : MANY CEERDS. 
 
 for repentance." This is Paul's view of the obligations 
 of Christianity, in the way of teaching, even though the 
 vision that set him to work was in the form of the Lord 
 Jesus. Paul also, in the midst of Mars Hill, at Athens, 
 proclaimed Acts, xvii. 24, 27, 28, the "unknown" 
 God whom the Greeks ignorantly worshipped as " the 
 God that made the world arid all things therein." He 
 added, furthermore, the remarkable declaration, that the 
 Lord is not far from every one of us : " For in him we live, 
 and move, and have our being ; as certain also of your 
 poets have said, For we are also his offspring." Herein 
 we detect the recognition of that great first principle of 
 all religion which is implanted in us by God himself, and 
 a contradiction of the human dogma that consigns all men 
 to perdition, outside of a chosen few of the elect. 
 
 Just in proportion as a man teaches and practices the 
 laws pertaining to his existence, in more or less purity, 
 the more or less conspicuously does God appear in him. 
 Now, if any preacher of the present day were to commence 
 teaching the truths relating to man's well being here, 
 and to his happiness hereafter, unencumbered with church 
 dogmas, as were the teachings of Jesus, his hearers would 
 know at once that his doctrine came from God. Their 
 minds and consciences would both bear witness to it; 
 and it would seem to those, who first heard it, like a 
 miracle, because of its novelty. That a religious teacher 
 of our day should inculcate love to God manifested by acts 
 of kindness, one towards another, as the total requisite 
 for man's highest enjoyment, would seern almost incred- 
 ible. And yet, such was the teaching of Jesus, both by 
 precept and example. It was his everyday vocation, pur- 
 sued with untiring zeal, before he conceived the idea that 
 he was the Messiah. No wonder Nicodemus expressed
 
 JESUS AS A TEACHER. 3Q7 
 
 himself as he did. He instantly recognized that the 
 great celebrity which Jesus had obtained, grew out of the 
 excellency and purity of the doctrines which he taught ; 
 that he was admirably adapted to his mission of promul- 
 gating and enforcing unadulterated truth ; and of so point- 
 ing out the way that leads to eternal life, as to justify him 
 in saying, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." 
 
 But the religion, which Jesus associated with belief in 
 himself, is more fully illustrated by his last charge to his 
 disciples, when to push forward the good work which he 
 had commenced, he sent them to teach all nations, to take 
 his mantle upon them, to avail themselves of his renown 
 as a teacher, to assume his office, and to hand down to all 
 posterity the doctrines with which his name and fame 
 were identified. He charged them to preach repentance, 
 which is the turning point to a better course that which 
 works an aversion to sin, and which leads to a higher life. 
 All this shows that be believed in himself as a teacher of 
 God's laws in relation to man. His course and teaching 
 evince that his genius lay particularly in that line, as was 
 the case also with Zoroaster, Mohammed, Buddha, Con- 
 fucius, and other celebrated founders of religious systems 
 and expounders of morals. In him, as in the above men- 
 tioned persons, that peculiar faculty was most extraordi- 
 narily developed. He had a happy facility for laying bare 
 divine truths, and disentangling them of the bewildering 
 mazes into which designing men had woven them, for 
 base purposes. 
 
 Such we believe to have been the character of Jesus ; 
 and we believe, also, that his endowments, like those of 
 the persons cited above, although extraordinary, were 
 natural and not supernatural. In virtue of such quali- 
 ties, he became obnoxious to the grasping priesthood of
 
 308 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 the day, whom he never spared, and by whom he was 
 relentlessly pursued, dragged before the tribunal, spe- 
 ciously accused, and finally murdered. 
 
 But, if Jesus conceived that belief in him signified that 
 which his followers claimed for him, and that he was God 
 as they claim, we cannot comprehend how it was that he 
 did not make the subject so plain and unmistakable that 
 all mankind would have had their duty placed squarely 
 before them. Neither can we understand why their eter- 
 nal doom, for not exercising such a belief in him, was not 
 so emphatically taught them by natural intuition, or other 
 evidence, that they could not have misunderstood him. 
 How far this is from the fact, is indicated bv the number 
 of sects into which Christianity is split. 
 
 And yet those who profess to be his disciples teach, 
 that if men do not blindly believe, just what they pro- 
 pound foi them to believe, they are, for their contumacy, 
 to be condemned to everlasting punishment, and this too, 
 as before shown, in the face of an imperative law of 
 nature, which makes either intuition, or other evidence, 
 indispensable to belief. We persist that the individual 
 mind of the person to whom belief, in anything, is pro- 
 pounded, must be the final and sole arbiter. Therefore 
 every real not blind belief, in relation to Jesus, is 
 totally involuntary, and beyond man's control, and con- 
 sequently, involves neither merit nor demerit. 
 
 This holds good, also, in relation to those who have 
 never had any such dogma presented to their minds ; and, 
 is, therefore, not among the things for which God holds 
 them accountable. No one can believe a proposition with- 
 out convincing evidence of its truth, or withhold belief in 
 the face of such evidence. Nor can any man comprehend 
 how it is, that the simple fact of arriving at a state of
 
 NO GOOD RESULTS FROM THIS BELIEF. 309 
 
 mind called belief in the divinity of Jesus, and his sacri- 
 fice for sin, should entitle the believer to everlasting bliss, 
 while, at the same time such belief offers no suggestion 
 of, or stimulant to good works. 
 
 Action is the order of nature. It is, therefore, not 
 alone sufficient that man should have a proper conviction 
 of his duty he is required to act in accordance with it 
 as well ; but church doctrine says, "whosoever believeth 
 on me meaning Jesus shall inherit eternal life." And 
 this is repeated, again and again, without addition, sub- 
 traction, or qualification. 
 
 On the isolated acceptance of 'this question of belief 
 hariijs everlasting bliss ; on the converse everlasting death, 
 say the clergy. We hold that no state of the mind can 
 receive countenance from God which is not productive of 
 an active life of good works. Jesus taught this, and it 
 was the only, and the entire requisite which he made for 
 the inheritance of eternal life. 
 
 How can an impression or a conviction that there are 
 two Gods, or three Gods, in place of one God, be of any 
 effect in inciting men to the performance of what all 
 recognize as duty to the exercise, for instance, of charity, 
 which St. Paul himself declares to be greater than faith 
 or hope ? Is there any specific or magnified virtue in a 
 subdivided Godhead ? Does it tend to clear up any of 
 the mystery, in which the Supreme Being has, for the 
 present, been pleased to enwrap himself from our know- 
 ledge, or to enhance our ideas of his wisdom and power ; 
 to be told that Divinity is triune ? Are the attributes of 
 the Almighty more comprehensible or more striking, when 
 they are parcelled out into three divisions ; the Father's 
 portion being mainly wrath, the Son's portion being 
 mainly mercy, and the Holy Ghost's business being
 
 310 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 mainly that of a medium? We think they are not. We 
 can understand why it was, in Pagan mythology, that 
 Cerberus, the dog who kept the gates of hell, was repre- 
 sented with three heads. Thereby it might be supposed 
 that his ability to bark and bite was tripled. But that 
 entry through the gates of Heaven should also be guarded, 
 as it were by a triplex ideal that conveys through it a 
 sense of weakness, rather than of strength seems to us 
 a human device more strange and more unwarrantable. 
 Yet the theologians say that such belief is indispensa- 
 ble to salvation, and that salvation is at once secured by 
 it. This involves the idea that a transcendant change 
 takes place in every new convert from a belief in one 
 God to a belief in three Gods, from the moment of imbib- 
 ing the new notion ; and this is the turning-point accord- 
 ing to them, between everlasting bliss and perpetual tor- 
 ment. Carrying out this view, they assume a position, 
 which we deem inconsistent with the teaching of Jesus 
 himself, who is claimed as the basis of their creed. It 
 is that however barren of good works a man's life and 
 conduct may have been, or however vicious he may have 
 been up to the last hour of his existence at this latest 
 moment a belief in Jesus being God and Redeemer acts 
 as an infallible passport to Heaven. Now, this is tanta- 
 mount to a belief, that entertaining a bare idea for a few 
 moments suffices to ensure eternal happiness, in despite 
 of a life of sin, while a life of well-doing, without the 
 entertainment of this idea, is counted but as dross, and 
 cannot save. We say, on the contrary, such promptings 
 of the human heart, as are implanted by God, though 
 still under man's free control, tend exclusively to train 
 him to good works as between man and man. Shall then 
 the merit of a virtuous and useful life be made to hinge
 
 NO GOOD RESULTS FROM THIS BELIEF. 31 1 
 
 upon credence in a certain number of Gods ? Shall what 
 is meritorious to-day, be damnable to-morrow and vice 
 versa f It is indisputable, that individuals are constantly 
 shifting, from one side of this question to the other, 
 which involves, according to Christian theology, that the 
 individual, so often as he may change, becomes instantly 
 blessed or cursed, a saint or devil, a meet personage for 
 Heaven or for Hell. And here it may be said in passing, 
 that we agree with Jesus, who implies that Heaven and 
 Hell are in men's consciences, and as applicable to this 
 side of the grave as to the other. In Matthew, xii. 28, 
 he says : " The Kingdom of God is come unto you ;" 
 arlH in Luke, xvii. 21 he speaks more strongly still : 
 "Behold the Kingdom of God is within you." If this be 
 so, and if the difference of the beliefs in question works 
 the momentous difference that theologians maintain, it is 
 past comprehension why it does not exhibit itself in a 
 way not to be mistaken, between the conduct and condi- 
 tion of those espousing the two sides respectively. Why 
 is the visible state of the individual the same when he 
 enjoys Heaven by virtue of belief in the Trinity, and 
 when he is transferred thence to Hell as a consequence of 
 his belief in the one God Jehovah only ? Again, if it be 
 suggested that Jesus' mode of salvation, which is by good 
 works, and the church's mode, which is by faith alone in 
 Jesus, may be used in conjunction, we say that this 
 betrays a suspicion that the church may be wrong, and 
 consequently that both may be wrong. To make this 
 appear more absurd, let us place them once more one 
 against the other. Jesus claims that on his mode of 
 
 o 
 
 salvation hangs all the law and the prophets, and that 
 it is the only and all-sufficient one. The church claims 
 that their mode of salvation is the only one given under
 
 312 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 Heaven, whereby men may be saved, and that it is con- 
 sequently all-sufficient. Now, two all-sufficient and only 
 modes of salvation combined are superfluous and ridiculous. 
 
 It has been observed by a writer, often quoted, and 
 from whom much is borrowed in this instance, that 
 Jesus sought in every way to establish as a principle that 
 his Apostles were as himself. Matthew, x. 40, 42 ; xxv. 
 45 ; Mark, ix. 40 ; Luke, x.; John, xiii. 20. It was 
 believed that he had communicated all the marvellous 
 virtues to them, which he claimed to have been delegated 
 to him. 
 
 They prophesied and cast out demons, although certain 
 cases were beyond their power. Matthew, xvii. 18, ?9. 
 They also wrought cures, either by the imposition of 
 hands, or by the anointing with oil. Mark, vi. 13 ; 
 James, v. 14 ; one of the fundamental processes of Orien- 
 tal medicine. Lastly, like the Psylli of old, or like cer- 
 tain Bengalese of our day, they could handle serpents ; 
 and they could drink deadly potions with impunity. 
 Mark, xvi. 18 ; Luke, x. 19. But, whilst with the lapse 
 of time all this pretence of supernatural power becomes 
 more and more repugnant to our perceptions of truth, 
 there is no doubt that it was generally received by the 
 primitive Church, that it held an important place in the 
 estimation of the world around, and -that without it the 
 Christian theology would never have existed. Charla- 
 tans, as generally happens, took advantage of this move- 
 ment of popular credulity. Even in the lifetime of Jesus, 
 many, without being his disciples, cast out demons in his 
 name. The true disciples were much displeased at this, 
 and sought to prevent them. But Jesus, no doubt, saw 
 that it was better policy not to interfere with them. 
 Mark, ix, 38, 39; Luke, ix. 49, 50. It must be observed,
 
 WORKING OF MIRACLES. 313 
 
 moreover, that the exercise of these claimed gifts had 
 to some degree become a trade. Carrying the logic of 
 absurdity to the extreme, certain men pretended to cast 
 out in the name of Beelzebub, the prince of demons. 
 
 They assumed that this sovereign of the infernal regions 
 must have entire authority over his subordinates, and that 
 in acting through him they were more likely to make the 
 intruding spirit depart. Matthew, xii. 24, 28. Some 
 even sought to buy from the disciples of Jesus the secret 
 of the miraculous powers, which had been confided to 
 them. Acts, viii. 18, 19. This shows that there were 
 those of that day, who esteemed these pretended miracles 
 as but an ingenious trick, which might be performed by 
 any one who was instructed in the mode and manner of 
 effecting them. 
 
 It was only after the death of Jesus, that particular 
 Christian churches were established; and they were con- 
 stituted purely and simply on the model of the synagogue. 
 Nor did they draw within their folds all those who had 
 been more or less intimately associated with Jesus in per- 
 son. Joseph of Arimathea, Lazarus, Mary Magdalen, 
 and Nicodemus did not, it seems, become members of 
 these churches, clinging in preference to the tender and 
 respectful recollections which tfyey had individually pre- 
 served of him. 
 
 It is to be observed, also, that there is no trace in the 
 teaching of Jesus, of an apparent canonical law, ever so 
 slightly defined by him. It may be assumed, on the 
 contrary, that the idea of a newly written code and arti- 
 cles of religious faith, could never have been entertained 
 by him, for he deemed the true record to be inscribed on 
 men's hearts and alreadv transcribed into the moral com- 
 
 v 
 
 mandments extant in the Jewish law. Not only did he
 
 314 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 not write ; but it would have been useless and adverse to 
 the spirit of such an infant sect to get up any so-called 
 sacred books, inasmuch as they believed themselves to be 
 on the eve of the great final catastrophe. It cannot be 
 too often repeated that, when Jesus speaks of his kingdom 
 as not being of this world John, xxviii. 36 he means 
 the world which was then, and is now inhabited by the 
 human race, and that his world to come is the one 
 described in 2 Peter, iii. 13 in these words : "Never- 
 theless, we, according to his promise, look for a new 
 heavens and a new earth, wherein dvvelleth righteous- 
 ness." The first Christian generation lived almost 
 entirely upon delusive expectations and dreams. They 
 conceived themselves on the eve of seeing the then world 
 come to an end ; they looked for a new one, and they 
 regarded as useless everything which only served to pro- 
 long the then state of things upon that earth wherein they 
 were living. Possession of property was interdicted. 
 Luke, xiv. 33 ; Acts, iv. 32, and v. 1, 11. Although sev- 
 eral of these disciples were married, there was to be no 
 more marriage, on becoming a member of the sect. Mat- 
 thew, xix. 10, and following. The celibate was greatly 
 preferred ; even in marriage, continence was recommended. 
 Revelation, xiv. 4. At one time the Master seems to 
 approve of those who should mutilate themselves, in 
 prospect of the coining kingdom. Matthew, xix. 12. 
 Cessation from generating one's kind was sometimes con- 
 sidered as a sign and condition of fitness for the impend- 
 ing change. Matthew, xxii. 30 ; Luke, xxii. 35. The 
 rule that Jesus sought to institute, was severe in the 
 extreme'. He required from his associates a complete 
 detachment from the ordinary participation and interest 
 in worldly matter, in absolute devotion to his work of
 
 JESUS' TEACHING IMPRACTICABLE. 315 
 
 evangelizing the world. Jesus, during the latter part of 
 his lifetime, apparently believed that the impossible could 
 be attempted with impunity. He made no concession to 
 necessity. He boldly preached war against nature, and 
 total severance from ties of blood. "Verily I say unto 
 you," said he, " there is no man that hath left house or 
 parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom 
 of God's sake, who shall not receive manifold more in 
 this present time, and in the world to come life everlast- 
 ing." The Kingdom of God here spoken of, is the king- 
 dom to be established upon earth ; and the world to come 
 is like the present one, but in a regenerated state. His 
 followers were not to carry with them either money or 
 provisions for the way, not even a scrip or change of 
 raiment. They must practice absolute poverty, living on 
 alms and hospitality. The Father would send them his 
 spirit from on high, which would become the principle of 
 all their acts, the director of their thoughts, and their 
 guide through the world. If driven from any town they 
 were to shake the dust from their shoes, declaring always 
 the proximity of the kingdom of God, that none might 
 plead ignorance. "Ye shall not have gone over the cities 
 of Israel," added he, " till the Son of man be come." 
 
 In his severe view of the exigencies of religion, Jesus 
 went so far as to abolish all natural ties. His require- 
 ments had no longer any rational bounds. Despising the 
 healthy limits of man's nature, he demanded that man 
 should exist only for him, that man should love him alone. 
 "If any man come to me," said he, "and hate not his 
 father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, 
 and sisters, and his own life also, he cannot be my dis- 
 ciple." Luke, xiv. 26; "So likewise, whoever he be of
 
 316 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 you, that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my 
 disciple." Luke, xiv. 33. 
 
 Such was the substance of the public teachings of 
 Jesus, after he imbibed the visionary idea of his perpetual 
 rule, either in the then world, or in the new world, which 
 he predicted would speedily come. And all this was 
 demanded by him, solely for the sake of establishing a 
 belief that he was the Messiah predicted by the ancient 
 prophets, to reign over the Jews perpetually upon the 
 earth. The harsh and gloomy feelings of distaste for the 
 world, and of excessive self-abnegation, which Jesus 
 imposed upon himself and his followers in his later days, 
 withdrew him more and more, out of the pale of humanity. 
 It is certain that this idea of Jesus, if only on account of 
 the celibacy and poverty it imposed, could not be carried 
 out in practice. Common sense revolts at such extrava- 
 gances ; to demand the impossible is a mark of weakness 
 and delusion. 
 
 We may easily imagine that to Jesus, at this period of 
 his life, everything, which was not the kingdom of God, 
 according to his idea of it, had absolutely disappeared. 
 He was, if we may say so, totally outside of nature ; 
 family, friendship, country, had no longer, any meaning 
 for him. " Think not," said he, " that I am come to send 
 peace on earth : I came not to send peace, but a sword. 
 I am come to' set man at variance against his father, and 
 the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law 
 against her mother-in-law. And a man's foe shall be 
 they of his own household." Matthew, x. 34, 36 ; Luke, 
 xii. 51, 53. " I am come to send fire on the earth ; and 
 what will I, if it be already kindled ?" Luke, xii. 49. 
 " They shall put you out of the synagogues," he continued,
 
 JESUS' TEACHING IMPRACTICABLE. 317 
 
 11 yea, the time cometh that whosoever killeth you, will 
 think that he doeth God service." John, xvi. 2. 
 
 Sometimes one would have said that his reason was 
 disturbed. He suffered great mental anguish and agita- 
 tion. John xii. 27. The great vision of the kingdom of 
 God, which he fancied he was to establish, glistening 
 before his eyes, bewildered him. His disciples at times, 
 thought him mad; Mark, iii. 21, and following. His 
 enemies declared him to be possessed : Mark, iii. 22 ; 
 John, vii. 20; viii. 48. His excessively impassioned 
 temperament carried him incessantly beyond all rational 
 bounds. At this later period he disregarded all human 
 systems ; and his work not addressing itself to the reason, 
 that which he most imperiously required was an unques- 
 tioning faith faith in that which time and history have 
 demonstrated to have been visionary; Matthew, viii. 10; 
 ix. 2, 22, 28, 29; xvii. 19; John, vi. 29, &c. His pre- 
 vious gentleness seemed to have abandoned him ; he was 
 sometimes harsh and capricious; Matthew, xvii. 16; 
 Mark, iii. 15, 18; Luke, viii. 45; ix. 41. His disciples 
 at times, did not understand him, and experienced in his 
 presence a feeling akin to fear. Mark, iv. 40 ; v. 15; ix. 
 31 ; x. 32. Sometimes his displeasure at the slightest 
 opposition led him to commit acts as inexplicable and 
 absurd as cursing a fig tree because it did not bear fruit 
 out of season; Mark, xi. 12, 14, 20. 
 
 His struggle for the ideal against the real, became insup- 
 portable. Contact with the world pained and revolted him. 
 Obstacles irritated him. His ideas concerning himself, as 
 the Son of God, became disturbed, inconsistent, and exag- 
 gerated. The fatal law which condemns all impracticable 
 ideas to decay, so soon as an attempt is made to put them 
 into operation, applied to his. But even during the early
 
 318 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 part of the public ministry of Jesus, and while his mode 
 and manner of portraying the doctrines enjoined on man. 
 by natural religion, was in many respects unsurpassed, 
 there was in his teachings a want of consistency, an 
 absence of that harmony which is conspicuous in all 
 things which are unmistakably of God. For while Jesus 
 the God-Man, as the Church has it failed to act perfectly 
 his part as a man, he still more signally failed to duly 
 represent God, who, according to Bible record says, " I 
 am the Lord, I change not;" and of whom Balaam says, 
 " God is not a man, that he should lie." The Scriptures 
 do not bear out this claim to unchangeableness and infal- 
 libility in relation to Jesus. Several phases of character, 
 or functions were assumed at different times by Jesus, 
 during the few years of his public ministry. Each of 
 these offices or missions was totally inconsistent with the 
 others, as we shall show. 
 
 Jesus claimed in the first place, that his mission was 
 to lead or point all men by his teaching, to everlasting 
 happiness beyond the grave ; in the second place, he 
 claimed to be the Messiah appointed by God to rule man- 
 kind upon this earth, whereon all men were to live for- 
 ever ; thirdly, he claimed to be destined to rule everlast- 
 ingly, in person and in the flesh, over the whole human, 
 race, all of whom were to be righteous and happy, upon 
 a new earth, to be substituted for the present one, which 
 was to be destroyed by fire. Now Jesus' first claim, that 
 his teaching pointed to 'everlasting happiness beyond the 
 grave, is inconsistent with his second claim, which involved 
 that no man, after the kingdom of God was established 
 under him, was to die or pass the grave. His third 
 assumption, which involved the destruction of our present 
 earth, and a continued existence on this side of the grave,
 
 JESUS' CODE VISIONARY. 319 
 
 is alike inconsistent with his first assumptions, inasmuch 
 as teaching the way to happiness heyond the grave to a 
 people, who were never to pass the grave, would be out 
 of place ; and also, inasmuch as he could not possibly 
 rule as the Messiah contemplated on this earth, since the 
 earth was doomed to destruction. Now it is plain that 
 any one of these positions beitig accepted as true, stamps 
 the others as false. God cannot be false to Himself; he 
 cannot be one manner of Being to-day and another to- 
 morrow. As regards their fitness to the ordinary duties 
 and relations of life and society, it may be noticed further 
 that many of the doctrines of Jesus are irrational and 
 altogether impracticable. 
 
 God, according to Moses and the Church, tells us on the 
 authority of Paul's Epistle to Timothy, that "all Scrip- 
 ture is given by inspiration of God," and that, conse- 
 quently, we must have faith in Moses' announcements. 
 God, we say, put man into Paradise "to dress and keep " 
 the garden of Eden ; and this, be it observed, before man 
 had been doomed to labor in the sweat of his brow. But 
 Jesus, after this so-called curse had been affixed upon 
 humanity, inculcated a manner of living entirely at vari- 
 ance with its existence. Men were to take no thought 
 not undue thought, but no thought whatever as to their 
 means of subsistence. If smitten on one cheek, they 
 were to turn the other cheek to the smiter. If robbed of 
 their coats, they were to give up their cloaks also. Never 
 gaining or acquiring, they were to give and lend without 
 stint. They were not to pay even funeral rites to the 
 dead, in the urgency of their haste to follow after Jesus. 
 They were, for the same end, to give up their natural 
 affections toward father, mother, wife, and child, im- 
 planted in man from the first, and shared in part by the
 
 320 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 very beasts of the field. As to occupations, livelihood, 
 trade, industry, art, science, learning, the embellishments 
 of life, and the duties of man as a citizen all these mat- 
 ters are entirely ignored, or are dismissed contemptuously 
 as not worth thought or care. 
 
 How full of misery the world would have become, if 
 these injunctions had been obeyed, how starving and 
 utterly forlorn, it is needless to point out. But, without 
 dwelling upon the visionary tendencies of Jesus' code in 
 general, it cannot be inappropriate to remark how slightly 
 in these respects it has bound his followers. The name of 
 Jesus is forever in their mouths ; but they have wandered, 
 it must be owned, very far from his teachings. If he 
 varied thrice in his own promulgated views as to his mis- 
 sion and purposes, they by way of a fourth variation have 
 saddled him with the dogma of spiritual salvation through 
 sacrifice of himself. If he preached poverty and self- 
 abnegation, their church has sought power and accumu- 
 lated wealth, while they as individuals have entered with 
 full ardor and much success upon the multifarious pursuits 
 of man. 
 
 Having thus shown, as we conceive, that Jesus whom 
 the Church adores as perfect God and perfect Man was 
 neither a worthy representative of God's majestic attri- 
 butes, nor a fitting type of man under the various rela- 
 tions of life and under the nature which God has stamped 
 upon him, we ask what the conclusion must be. Who 
 shall say that God's representation of Himself through- 
 out the entire universe, and his impress upon broad 
 humanity, are not the true ones under which to live and 
 die? 
 
 It is probable that the reported raising of Lazarus from 
 death contributed sensibly to hasten the death of Jesus, as
 
 THE ARREST OF JESUS. 321 
 
 is shown in the latter part of the llth chapter of John's 
 Gospel. The disciples related the fact, with details as to 
 its performance, prepared in expectation of controversy. 
 The other miracles of Jesus were transitory acts, spon- 
 taneously accepted by faith, and exaggerated by popular 
 fame, and were not often referred to after they had once 
 taken place. This raising of Lazarus was an event held 
 to be publicly notorious, and by which it was hoped to 
 silence the Pharisees. The enemies of Jesus were much 
 irritated at all this fame; and, therefore, a council of the 
 chief priests was assembled, and in that council the ques- 
 tion was clearly put: "Can Jesus and Judaism exist 
 together?" To raise the question was to resolve it; the 
 high priest could easily pronounce his cruel axiom: "It is 
 expedient that one man should die for the people." The 
 priests saw, in the excitement created by Jesus, the prob- 
 able overturning of the Temple, the source of their riches 
 and honors. John, xi. 48. In a general sense, Jesus, if 
 he had succeeded in all he proposed, would have really 
 effected the ruin of the Jewish nation. Hence the men 
 of order, persuaded that it was essential for humanity that 
 the existing belief should not be disturbed, felt themselves 
 bound to prevent the new spirit from extending itself. 
 But never was seen a more striking example of how much 
 such a course of procedure defeats its own object. Left 
 free, Jesus would have exhausted himself in a desperate 
 struggle with the impossible. The unintelligent hate of 
 his enemies, resulting in his persecution and death, con- 
 tributed to, or was in reality an incident without which 
 he never would have obtained the notoriety that has 
 pertained in relation to him. The death of Jesus being 
 resolved upon, Matt., xxvi. 15 : Mark, xvi. 1, 2: Luke, 
 xxii, 1, 2, to escape from arrest, he withdrew to an 
 21
 
 322 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 obscure town called Ephraim, or Ephron, in the direction 
 of Bethel, a short day's journey from Jerusalem. John, 
 xi. 54. It seems that about this time the apprehensions 
 of Jesus that his life was in jeopardy took hold of his dis- 
 ciples. All felt that a very serious danger threatened the 
 Master, and that they were approaching a crisis. At one 
 time Jesus thought of precautions, and spoke of swords. 
 There were two in the company. "It is enough," said 
 he. Luke, xxii. 36, 38. He did not, however, follow 
 out this idea, seeing clearly that timid provincials would 
 not stand before the armed force of the great powers of 
 Jerusalem. There was, however, some show of resistance 
 on the part of the disciples on the occasion of the arrest 
 of Jesus. One of them Peter, according to an eye wit- 
 ness : John, xviii. 10, drew his sword and cut off the ear 
 of one of the servants of the high priest, named Malchus. 
 Jesus restrained this opposition, seeing the impossibility 
 of effectual resistance, especially against authorities who 
 had so much prestige ; and he was accordingly captured. 
 It thus appears that instead of Jesus having volunteered 
 to become a sacrifice for sin, according to the Christian 
 theology, he avoided being arrested and crucified to the 
 extent of his ability. Jesus' seeming anticipations of his 
 violent death, whether by crucifixion or otherwise, may 
 well have been the result of his having laid claim to the 
 Messiahship, and not the result of any supernatural fore- 
 knowledge, or of any voluntary offering of himself as a 
 ransom for the sins of the world. He was aware, from 
 current events, that whoever set up a claim to the Mes- 
 siahship put his life in jeopardy ; and, being an enthu- 
 siast in common with others of his time, he did not hesi- 
 tate so to risk it. Thus he might naturally predict that 
 it would be the forfeit of his course ; and this is the more
 
 HIS CRUCIFIXION. 323 
 
 likely, inasmuch as John was put to death by Herod for 
 having, as is vaguely suggested by Josephus, entered into 
 the politics of the times. This view is further corrobo- 
 rated by the frequent allusions of the Evangelists to 
 Jesus' reasons for moving from place to place. Occasion- 
 ally the cause assigned is a trivial one, such as the incon- 
 venient pressure of the multitude upon him. Sometimes, 
 also, the movement is recorded as a simple matter of fact. 
 But until longer escape was impossible the mention 
 of any danger immediately threatening the life or liberty 
 of Jesus was surely followed by a prudent retreat. John 
 the Baptist was beheaded ; " when Jesus heard of it he 
 departed thence by ship into a desert place apart." Mat- 
 thew, xiv. 13. The priests plotted against him; "after 
 these things Jesus walked in Galilee ; for he would not 
 walk in Jewry, because the Jews sought to kill him." 
 John, vii. 1. They took up stones to cast at him; "but 
 Jesus hid himself, and went out of the temple, goin f g 
 through the midst of them, and so passed by." John, 
 vii. 59. "They sought again to take him," says St. 
 John in his 10th chapter, verse 39 ; and he adds, " but 
 he escaped out of their hands." 
 
 Now, although we are told by the Church, and anathe- 
 matized if we don't believe it, that Jesus volunteered to 
 die upon the cross, we must repeat that the Bible record 
 proves precisely the reverse. If his zeal sustained and 
 bore him onwards until drawn within the fatal circle of 
 events, at least he evaded the penalty so far, and as often 
 as he could ; while, even in the closing scene, it is diffi- 
 cult to find any marks of superhuman power. Had it 
 been possible we speak on his own authority, as handed 
 down to us by his living followers lie would have had 
 the last agony spared him. In immediate anticipation of
 
 324 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 a cruel death, he prayed with more resignation than cour- 
 age, Abba Father, all things are possible unto thee ; take 
 away this cup from me: nevertheless, not what I will, 
 but what thou wilt. Mark, xiv. 36. On the cross he 
 uttered the words inexplicable if we put faith in the 
 Christian theology: "My God, my God, why hast thou 
 forsaken me?" Mark, xv. 34. It is strange, but not the 
 less true, that many martyrs to the faith of Jesus have 
 shown a holier faith, and a more enduring resolution, than 
 were exhibited by their Master, the Man-God himself. 
 And as there was nothing supremely heroic, assuredly 
 nothing divine, in the spirit in which Jesus encountered 
 death, nor anything uncommon in its manner, crucifixion 
 being an ordinary capital punishment in those days, so was 
 there nothing unique or mysterious in its apparent cause. 
 
 The course which the priests had resolved to take 
 against Jesus was quite in. conformity with their own 
 established laws. The plan of the enemies of Jesus was 
 to convict him by the testimony of witnesses who had 
 been suborned, and by his own avowals, of blasphemy, 
 and of outrage against the Mosaic religion, to condemn 
 him to death according to law, and then to get the con- 
 demnation sanctioned by Pilate. 
 
 On the trial of Jesus, the fatal sentence which he had 
 really uttered : "I am able to destroy the temple of God 
 and to build it in three days," was cited by two wit- 
 nesses. To blaspheme the temple of God was, according 
 to the Jewish law, to blaspheme God Himself. The 
 sentence was predetermined, and they only sought for 
 pretexts. Jesus felt this, and did not undertake a useless 
 defence. In the light of orthodox Judaism, he was truly 
 a blasphemer, a destroyer of the established worship ; and 
 the law punished such a criminal with death. With one
 
 JESUS' CHARACTER. 325 
 
 voice, therefore, the assembly declared him guilty of a 
 capital crime ; and Pilate's ratification of the condemna- 
 tion pronounced by the Sanhedrim was obtained, but not 
 without some reluctance on his part. In his eyes, it is 
 tolerably evident, Jesus was an inoffensive dreamer. But 
 he no doubt feared that too much indulgence shown to a 
 prisoner, to whom was given the title of the "King of 
 the Jews," and who claimed to be the Messiah, might 
 compromise him. He could scarcely have acted otherwise 
 than he did. It was then neither Tiberius nor Pilate 
 that condemned Jesus. It was the old Jewish party. It 
 was the Mosaic Law. Now, it is beyond question that 
 Jesus attacked this worship and aspired to destroy it. 
 The Jews expressed this to Pilate with a truthful sim- 
 plicity : " We have a law, and by our law he ought to 
 die." 
 
 The fate of Jesus was, therefore, the natural fate of a 
 religious reformer, in a cruel age, and among a fanatical 
 people. And it made a very slight, a scarcely perceptible 
 sensation. In this it resembled his life. The life of 
 Jesus was passed entirely in the restricted world in which 
 he was born. During his life he was never heard of in 
 Greek or Roman countries. His name appears only in 
 profane authors of a hundred years later, and then only 
 in an indirect manner, as in Tacitus and Josephus, in con- 
 nection with seditious movements provoked by his doc- 
 trine, or persecutions of which his disciples were the 
 object. The essential work of Jesus was to create around 
 him a circle of disciples whom he inspired with boundless 
 affection. His doctrine was so little dogmatic, that he 
 never thought of writing it or of causing it to be written. 
 Men did not become his disciples, by believing this thing 
 or that thing, but in being attached to his person and in
 
 326 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 loving him. A few sentences collected from memory and 
 especially the type of character he set forth, and the 
 impression he had left, were what remained of him. 
 Jesus was not a founder of dogmas, or a maker of creeds. 
 His power over the hearts of men consisted in his preach- 
 ing the religion of the heart and conscience, to which 
 Church theologies and dogmas have since been added and 
 placed in the foreground, while Jesus crucified is the 
 burden of pulpit oratory, to the exclusion of God. 
 
 If any one thing is conclusively established in the 
 New Testament, it is that Jesus and his disciples were 
 possessed with the idea of a coming Kingdom of God, 
 changing the whole aspect of the world and its affairs. 
 Their ideas, even Jesus' own ideas, as to what this King- 
 dom was to be and when it was to come, varied con- 
 siderably at various periods ; but it was ever present to 
 his mind and theirs in some shape, and its proclamation 
 was reiterated over and over again. The Evangelists 
 record how Jesus announced it with a fullness of detail, 
 and a splendor of phrase, that captivates all that is imagi- 
 native in human nature. There is to be an abomination 
 of desolation ; and the sun is to be darkened, and the 
 moon is to give her light no longer, and the stars are to 
 fall from heaven ; and the Son of Man is to come seated 
 on the clouds, and surrounded by angels, with power and 
 great glory, and the Elect are to be gathered together at 
 the sound of a trumpet ; and the King is to pass judgment 
 on a multitudinous assemblage from every corner of the 
 earth, calling the righteous into many mansions standing 
 ready for them, and casting the wicked out into everlast- 
 ing fire prepared for the devil and his angels. The 
 Apostles continue to foretell this coming of the Kingdom ; 
 but, warned by the failure of their Master's prediction as
 
 THE PROPHECIES IN REVELATIONS. 327 
 
 to the time of its coming, are more reticent as to particu- 
 lars, and less distinct in limiting the advent to the life- 
 time of any person or persons. In saying, however, that 
 the Apostles, so far as we know, were neither expansive 
 nor precise in dealing with this theme, we naturally 
 except St. John. He indeed, in his magnificent rhapsody 
 that bears the august name of " Revelation," may be 
 said to make amends for their short-coming. He is 
 strangely precise, especially in naming three years and a 
 half for the duration of the world as it was, in his curious 
 arithmetical calculation of the one hundred and forty-four 
 thousand chosen ones of the house of Israel, and in his 
 sealing up Satan in the bottomless pit for an exact period 
 of one thousand years as though the Almighty took 
 pleasure in round numbers, and as though damnation 
 through all eternity was not a prominent feature in the 
 perverted creed that grew out of Jesus' doctrines. On 
 the other hand, how lofty are his imaginings ! How 
 marvellous a compound of the grand and the terrific ! 
 How they pass in bewildering, yet fascinating, succession 
 before us the seven mystic candlesticks, and the sea of 
 glass, and the beasts full of eyes before and behind, and 
 the golden vials full of odors, which are the prayers of the 
 Saints, and Death on the pale horse, and the locusts like 
 unto horses prepared for battle, with the hair of women 
 and the faces of men and the tails of scorpions, and the 
 great red dragon, and the angels pouring out the vials of 
 God's distilled wrath, and the great city with its walls of 
 jasper and gates of pearls and foundations of sapphire, 
 chrysolite, topaz, and all kinds of jewels ! A magnificent 
 and fantastic poein is all this, we may well allow ; but, if 
 asked what connection it has with the practical teaching 
 of Jesus, who condensed religion into two short and
 
 328 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 simple dogmas, which it is needless to repeat here, we 
 should be compelled to turn to the clergy for an answer. 
 They would tell us, probably, that "all Scripture is given 
 by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for 
 reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness;" 
 and would bemoan our inability to perceive the force of 
 this remark from the pen of a man who is placed by 
 theologians in the position of a writer reviewing his own 
 works. They might point out, furthermore, how the 
 scholarship and research of learned commentators had 
 proved that certain parts of the apocalyptic vision eluci- 
 dated and tallied with certain parts of the prophetic 
 visions abounding in the Old Testament. But we confess 
 that our doubts as to the divine inspiration or intrinsic 
 worth of this Revelation would not hereby be greatly 
 diminished, while doubts would be suggested as to studied 
 effort, on the part of St. John to make the old and new 
 correspond. 
 
 It is to be observed, also, that not only were Jesus and 
 his immediate followers mistaken as to the manner in 
 which, and the exact time at which, this promised King- 
 dom was to come it has never come at all, though it is 
 confidently declared from pulpit to pulpit that not one jot 
 or tittle of Scripture can fail. If, therefore, they were 
 all mistaken on this point, is it not equally clear that 
 theologians must be mistaken in declaring Jesus to be 
 the Messiah ? This precludes the idea of his being the 
 Saviour. Jesus lived upon earth ; so much we know. 
 But he certainly never sat upon the throne of David ; 
 neither did he burn up the world and hold its gathered 
 inhabitants to judgment. 
 
 The truth is, this breaking down, this crumbling away, 
 of the Kingdom of God as pr6mised, drives us back to a
 
 THE KINGDOM OF GOD IN THE SOUL. 329 
 
 point, to which we have already adverted in effect, to 
 the Kingdom of God which exists within every human 
 soul. And it was to this, in our belief, that Jesus occa- 
 sionally referred in his earlier discourses, before his sense 
 of man's need of spiritual affinity with his Maker had 
 been disturbed *and then thrown into the back-ground, by 
 his enlarged and yet erroneous ideas concerning his own 
 proper mission concerning his temporal rule in the first 
 place, and subsequently his new heaven and new earth. 
 This, at least, may be said : it is as true for us as for 
 Jesus' actual hearers, that this inner Kingdom is already 
 established within us, nay, is part of our very nature, 
 though we may fail to comprehend it. It is for us to 
 look to it, that neither tradition, nor superstition, nor an 
 indolent assent to prevailing dogmas, clogs our under- 
 standing in this matter. It is for us to determine how 
 soon we shall free ourselves from all that is irrational, 
 and obscure, and fluctuating and contradictory in theology. 
 It is easy for us at any moment and without aid of priest, 
 or temple, or code, or teaching, to recognize as all sufficient 
 that first and only true religion, which was implanted in 
 man before any creeds were concocted, and will survive 
 in him as, one after another, their false claims to divine 
 origin are exposed. 
 
 Jesus said unto his disciples, " It is not ye that speak, 
 but the spirit of your Father which speaketh in you." 
 Matthew, x. 20. 
 
 " The words I speak unto you, I speak not of myself: 
 but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work." 
 John, xiv. 10. 
 
 " For I have not spoken of myself, but the Father 
 which sent me, he gave me a commandment what I 
 should say and what I should speak." John, xii. 49.
 
 330 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 These quotations furnish direct evidence that Jesus 
 places himself precisely on the same footing with his dis- 
 ciples, with regard to God being both their, and his 
 Father ; consequently, Jesus and his disciples were alike 
 the sons of God. And when he says that both he and 
 the disciples speak not of themselves, but are only the 
 mouth-piece and instruments of God, to speak His mind, 
 it follows likewise, that Jesus and the disciples stand in 
 the same relation to God, with regard to those traits and 
 functions of character and office, that distinguish each in 
 common, and in which they were all engaged. This will 
 be seen to be the case more especially from the following 
 texts which describe them to be all alike equally endowed 
 by God to work miracles. 
 
 Jesus said unto his disciples, "And these signs shall 
 follow them that believe ; in my name shall they cast out 
 devils; they shall speak with new tongues." "They 
 shall take up serpents ; and if they drink any deadly 
 thing, it shall not hurt them ; they shall lay hands on 
 the sick, and they shall recover." Mark, xvi. 17, 18. 
 If in answer to this it is objected that the difference 
 between the ability of Jesus, and that of his disciples, to 
 heal the sick, and work miracles, is that Jesus and not 
 God, gave power to the "latter, the objection is answered 
 by Jesus himself, in the following terms: "The words I 
 speak unto you, I speak not of myself but the Father 
 that dwelleth in me, he doeth the work." John, xiv. 10. 
 
 And in his own case, does he not acknowledge, by 
 thankfulness, that it was his Father, and not himself, 
 who raised Lazarus from the dead. "And Jesus lifted 
 up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast 
 heard me" John, xi. 41 which shows that the miracle, 
 if miracle it was, was worked by God, and not by Jesus.
 
 THE APOSTLES EQUAL TO JESUS. 331 
 
 And did not Martha, one of those who knew him best, 
 and whom he is said to have loved above ail others, 
 both understand, and express her understanding of the 
 matter, by saying that she knew, that whatsoever he 
 were to ask of God, God would give it to him. John, 
 xi. 22. And does not Jesus' silence on the occasion, 
 prove equivalent to giving assent to her ideas on the 
 subject? The miracle, therefore, if wrought at all, was 
 wrought by God, the Father, in answer to the prayer of 
 Jesus, and not by Jesus himself, in his own strength. 
 This much we grant for the strength of the argument 
 against the divinity of Jesus. The presumption is, how- 
 ever, that no such miracle was ever wrought; but that 
 the whole exhibition was gotten up to strengthen belief 
 in Jesus, for the sake of furthering his interests in relation 
 to his occupying the temporal throne of the Jews. 
 
 But again we have shown that the Apostles were equal 
 to Jesus, in all the qualities above enumerated, and 
 equality with God was never claimed for them, how is it 
 then, that these traits in the character of Jesus are cited 
 as proofs of him being co-equal with God the Father? 
 If the answer is, that Jesus on his own, and also on the 
 authority of the prophets, claims himself to have been 
 God, have we not shewn also that such a view as this 
 has been falsified by Jesus himself, where he in various 
 places denies such a claim, either directly or by fair impli- 
 cation. And as to the authority of the Prophets on this 
 subject, is not that set aside by their palpable errors, in 
 connecting Jesus with the expected Messiah, who was to 
 be the temporal ruler, or king of the Jews, which he 
 never was? Jesus neither claimed nor answered to the 
 description given, of the expected Messiah, in the sense 
 put upon it by the Church. Nor could he have been,
 
 332 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 unless he was co-equal with God, which he disclaims to 
 have been again and again. And if he had claimed to 
 be co-equal with God, he says himself, " If I bear wit- 
 ness of myself, my witness is not true." John, v. 31. 
 
 Peter declares; "Neither is there salvation in any 
 other for there is none other name under heaven given 
 among men, whereby we must be saved." Acts, iv. 12. 
 
 .But is Peter a competent witness? As regards his 
 veracity and good character, does he stand sufficiently 
 fair before men to be accredited ? Is his testimony of 
 much weight, under these, or any other circumstances? 
 Peter made a false assertion, and at three different times 
 repeated it. He thrice denied that he had any know- 
 ledge of Jesus, and more than once, on his oath. His 
 conduct was also highly censurable and dishonest in the 
 transaction wherein he procured, (or speciously lent him- 
 self to the procuring,) of very unreasonable sums of money 
 from his converts, by exciting in them the fear of instant 
 death, for their non-compliance with his most exorbitant 
 demands for the support of himself and his associates. 
 (See an account of his conduct in this respect, in another 
 part of this work.) 
 
 Why, the unjustifiable doings of Peter so incensed even 
 Jesus himself, that he was constrained to administer to 
 him a rebuke, which for its severity, exceeds anything 
 that Jesus ever uttered to .him, or any other of his dis- 
 ciples. "But he turned and said unto Peter, Get thee 
 behind me Satan; thou art an offence unto me; for thou 
 savorest not the things that be of God, but those that be 
 of men." Matthew, xvi. 23. 
 
 Now, in view of such offences as these, are we to be 
 asked to admit his testimony, either in this, or any other 
 case? If he would lie, and cheat, and perjure himself,
 
 GOD THE ONLY SAVIOUR. 333 
 
 would he hesitate to do all in his power to advance his 
 own interests by trying to persuade others to believe what 
 he did not believe himself? We should say, he would 
 not. He may, however, and probably did, have reference 
 to Jesus being the only Saviour of the Jews from physical 
 bondage, by becoming their King. If he did, his tes- 
 timony is more reasonable, and therefore more credible; 
 although he was mistaken. This is not the view which 
 Christian theologians take of it. They make it to mean 
 salvation from everlasting torment beyond the grave, for 
 original and actual sin. Peter's probable view of the 
 subject, untrue as it was, is more excusable than that of 
 the theologians, and especially when such texts as the 
 following are taken into consideration: "For I am the 
 Lord thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: 
 I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for 
 thee." Isaiah, xliii. 3. "I, even I, am the Lord; and 
 beside me there is no /Saviour." Isaiah, xliii. 2. "Tell 
 ye and bring them near ; yea, let them take counsel 
 together; who hath declared this from ancient time? 
 who hath told it from that time ? have not I the Lord ? 
 and there is no God else beside me, a just God and a 
 Saviour; there is none beside me." Isaiah, xlv. 21. 
 "Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt 
 suck the breasts of kings ; and thou shalt know that I 
 the Lord am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty 
 One of Jacob." Isaiah, Ix. 16. "For therefore, we both 
 labor and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living 
 God, who is the Saviour of all men, specially of those 
 that believe."! Timothy, iv. 10. 
 
 Can any one attempt, seriously, to maintain the infalli- 
 bility of the Bible, and the divinity of Jesus with such 
 unmistakable and glaring contradictions as these before
 
 334 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 his eyes? And these are but the thousandth part of 
 similar contradictions, some not quite perceivable at first 
 glance, but equally apparent and positive, on a critical 
 examination. 
 
 All men, by internal and external evidence, combined 
 and coming immediately from God, are brought to the 
 conviction that there is an over-ruling Intelligence an 
 infinite Mind which is the author and governor of all 
 things and beings, including man. Man only, however, 
 it is believed, has an innate sense of right and wrong, 
 and of his accountability to God for the proper discharge 
 of his duty. This law of his being is, we say, universal. 
 But, if we go further and say that religion takes in any 
 other object of faith than the one supreme and good God, 
 we are at fau.lt. No such innate or external evidence is 
 furnished to the entire race of men immediately from 
 God, with regard to the so-called supernatural faculties or 
 functions of Jesus. Nor have we any such grounds for 
 believing that he was other than man. God alone the 
 one God has the sole power to control all things, and is 
 the only giver of all good things. God alone, therefore, 
 is, and should be, the only object of man's worship. His 
 bounties come to man directly, as they do to the lower 
 animals, and not by mediation. But whether or not these 
 bounties come through one mode or another, this in no 
 way affects man's obligations, nor the worship due from 
 man to God. Neither does multiplying the objects of his 
 worship increase man's disposition to manifest grateful 
 emotions, or to perform good works. And this, for the all 
 sufficient reason that no man, not excepting those who 
 profess to understand it best the church dignitaries 
 can comprehend such an anomaly, as that Jesus can be 
 co-equal with God. Is not God infinite ; and does He not
 
 WORSHIP OF JESUS. 335 
 
 fill the Universe? What room or occasion, then, can 
 there be for another infinite Being? 
 
 There is no end to the mystery which the doctrine of 
 the Trinity involves. It adds mystery to mystery. 
 There is one thing, however, in relation to God which is 
 indispensable to man's welfare; and that is, that he 
 should perceive what his duty is, both to God and man. 
 This, God has made sure that all men shall know, at all 
 events to the extent of their needs, by implanting within 
 their very nature the seeds which must, sooner or later, 
 germinate, and bring forth their legitimate fruits, under 
 the influences which God has spread around them. It 
 would be infinitely better, in our estimation, if man would 
 attend to the manifest instructions of the Almighty, 
 instead of running after false gods as do those who direct 
 their worship almost exclusively to Jesus. But, admit- 
 ing that Jesus was sent by God in the capacity claimed 
 by his worshippers, why should religious teachers have 
 Jesus on their lips continually, instead of directing their 
 attention to the Fountain of all that is good and great, 
 who is entitled, above all others to man's most profound 
 devotion ? If, also as is unceasingly preached God did 
 so love the world as to send his only begotton Son to die 
 here for our sins, why is it that he who was sent is so 
 perseveringly pressed upon the attention in preference to 
 Him who sent? Is the messenger more worthy than the 
 Lord, through whose loving-kindness the messenger was 
 despatched ? 
 
 But the solution is easy. The -sensibilities of the 
 tender-hearted and unsuspecting are 'readily worked up to 
 a high tension, by over-wrought and over-drawn pictures 
 of the death-scene of Jesus. This is a powerful lever in 
 the hands of the clergy, wherewith to increase the num-
 
 336 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 ber of their disciples, and, incidentally, their own emolu- 
 ments. For the same reason, "the blessed Virgin," and 
 the infant Jesus are much dwelt upon, to touch the sym- 
 pathies of parents, and mothers, and women generally, 
 whose natural affections yearn toward children. God has 
 so constituted us, that our sympathetic organs and corres- 
 ponding kindliness are peculiarly alive in behalf of a 
 mother and her helpless offspring. And so, even this 
 precious trait in human nature is seized upon by design- 
 ing priests, and wrought into the means for the acquisi- 
 tion of wealth. If it be not so, why do they not direct, 
 in their church services, glorification and adoration to 
 Jehovah, the Father and instigator of all good emotions 
 and deeds ? The Scriptures tell us, that God, the Father, 
 is the giver of all good gifts, and that He is the fountain 
 from whence all our blessings flow. He, therefore, should 
 be the object of our constant praise and adoration ; nor is 
 there any lack of material, wherewith to portray God the 
 Father, in a most beautiful and attractive aspect, without 
 resorting to fictions. The most insignificant part of the 
 sober truth that pertains to God's excellence, rightly 
 arranged and brought to view, would present Him in a 
 light so glowing, that the spiritual eye could scarcely 
 withstand its brightness. And if this be so, why attempt 
 to divert the heart's devotion, and the soul's adoration, 
 from the source of all that is good and great, by resorting 
 to false pretences ? If the church has a single eye to the 
 glory of God, and the good of men's souls, why does it 
 not teach them to worship God rationally and consist- 
 ently ? If it should be said, however, that there certainly 
 is great benefit to be derived from leading persons to put 
 their faith in religious creeds, even at the expense of an 
 exaggeration or perversion of the truth, the further ques-
 
 CEREMONIES. 337 
 
 tion then presents itself, as to whether the theologies in 
 which the clergy solicit belief are of themselves true? 
 One denomination makes eternal life conditional on the 
 ceremony of baptism, and gives the authority of Jesus, if 
 not his command, for this requirement. Another declares 
 with equal confidence that he (Jesus) repudiates all cere- 
 monies, as not being of the essence, or an indispensable 
 part of religion. Baptism may be useful in its way 
 being performed before witnesses, it stimulates the weak 
 to perseverance in their resolves, and assists them to hold 
 on to their profession with more tenacity than they other- 
 wise might do. Any other act performed before men, 
 with equal solemnity, would answer the same purpose. 
 Water, it is true, is a fitting emblem of purity, but the 
 efficacy, if any there be in baptism, consists, not in the 
 virtue of water being connected with the outward acts ; 
 the charm or spell which accompanies it, is the fear 
 of men's remarks in case of backsliding. The effect is 
 analogous to that of the laying on of hands when a tem- 
 perance pledge is given. Baptism was coupled with belief 
 in Jesus; and was so perseveringly persisted in by the 
 first Apostles and their immediate followers, to prevent 
 the backsliding of any who should subscribe to the pre- 
 tensions of Jesus to the Messiahship. Incidentally, also, 
 it swelled the number of his followers, and thus might 
 Drove the way to his being publicly proclaimed " King of 
 the Jews," and to their enjoyment of the worldly honors, 
 power, and emoluments connected with his ascent of the 
 throne. And so with all church forms and ceremonials, 
 that have at different times been practiced. They are 
 not of the slighest utility, so far as the right appreciation 
 and practice of virtue is concerned though it may be 
 that ceremonies, enacted before men's eyes, make churches
 
 338 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 more attractive, and draw larger and more imposing con- 
 gregations, serving at once to increase the power and 
 influence of the church, and at the same time to fill its 
 coffers. 
 
 If the Church's theory is right with regard to God's 
 mode of salvation, no man can possibly comprehend God's 
 justice therein, otherwise than by His placing it within 
 the range of each and every man's free-will to believe or 
 not to believe, that Jesus, the son of Mary, is co-equal 
 with God and the only Saviour of mankind, which it is 
 absurd to say he has done. For if this church doctrine 
 be the proper view of the subject, God's manifest and 
 overwhelming goodness, demands such clear and unmis- 
 takable evidence on the side of truth, as to make it pal- 
 pable to all men, that each and all of them could believe, 
 if they would ; and that to neglect or omit to believe, 
 from any cause whatsoever, would entail upon them His 
 eternal displeasure and vengeance. It is evident to all 
 that such is not the case, but that the reverse of this is 
 the" fact; because the most overwhelming majority of 
 mankind never heard of Jesus at all. We are aware that 
 the objection or quibble which is put forward in reply to 
 this unanswerable argument is, that those who have not 
 heard of salvation through Jesus, will be judged according 
 to the light they have. But the light which all men 
 have, we insist again, is the religion here advocated ; and 
 this is all-sufficient without church theologies, forms, or 
 sacrifices. Nothing but love to God, and kind acts to 
 His creatures, is required of any man as a condition of 
 salvation. 
 
 Jesus says, that " from the days of John the Baptist 
 until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and 
 
 . O 
 
 the violent take it by force." Matthew, xi. 12 ; or as it
 
 JESUS' TEACHING NOT UNIFORM. 33Q 
 
 is in Luke, xvi. 16 "since that time the kingdom of 
 God is preached, and every man presseth into it." Then 
 in answer to the accusation of the Pharisees, that he 
 drives out devils by Beelzebub, he points out that he does 
 it, on the contrary, by the spirit of God, and therefore 
 that the kingdom of heaven is already among them. 
 Matthew, xii. 28. He says, also John, xii. 31, "Now 
 is the judgment of this world ;" and Luke, x. 9 " The 
 kingdom of God is come nigh unto you ;" and Mark says, 
 i. 14, 15, "Jesus came into Galilee preaching the gospel 
 of the kingdom of God, saying, the time is fulfilled and 
 the kingdom of God is at hand." To the question, again, 
 of the Pharisees, as to when the kingdom of God shall 
 come, he makes answer that it does not come in an exter- 
 nal perceptible manner, but it is within them, or already 
 among them. Luke, xvii. 20, 21. In these passages 
 the kingdom of God, or heaven, is represented as that 
 which is already here present, and has been founded and 
 opened by Jesus during his life on earth, being within 
 and about them to whom he was speaking. Now the 
 Churches say that no man can enter the kingdom of God, 
 until he shall have faith that Jesus voluntarily gave up 
 his life, and shed his blood, for the remission of original 
 sin. But, up to the time of Jesus' speaking, no such 
 occurrence as the shedding of his blood had taken place ; 
 no such faith or belief had been presented to any one for 
 acceptance. These wide discrepancies between the foun- 
 der and the Church that was built up must, with every 
 reasoning mind, overthrow any faith in Christian the- 
 ology. 
 
 But, it is not the Church alone, that differs with Jesus. 
 He differs with himself, and his disciples differ with him. 
 We have just seen how he represents those around him as
 
 340 ONE RELIGION: MANY CREEDS. 
 
 having the kingdom of God in and about them, in other 
 words, that God's perfect government was then in opera- 
 tion upon earth. That is, in all conscience, sufficiently 
 definite and explicit, and treats the kingdom, which he 
 looked for, as a fact accomplished. But how does it tally 
 with Jesus' subsequent postponing the kingdom with his 
 confession, as it were, that after all, it had not absolutely 
 made its appearance? It is in the 12th chapter of John, 
 that Jesus is made to say, " now is the judgment of this 
 world : now shall the prince of this world (Satan) be cast 
 out;" it is in the 14th that he says, "the prince of this 
 world cometh, and hath nothing in me ;" and in the 16th, 
 "yea, the time cometh, that whosoever killeth you will 
 think that he doeth God service." This swaying to and 
 fro, this uncertainty as to time and the sequence of events, 
 this attainment and this passing away, this vague advent 
 of good and of evil, the predictions at once minute in 
 some particulars and shadowy in others, this jumble of 
 the past, the present, and the future all tend to confuse 
 the enquiring mind, and to leave the diligent reader of 
 the New Testament floundering in a strange quagmire of 
 triumphs and tribulations. The Church, indeed, professes 
 to see its way clear, through all difficulties, interpreting 
 one obscure passage literally, and another metaphorically, 
 and another spiritually, and another locally, and another 
 historically. You can never find it at fault, for want of 
 explanation or excuse. But the light that it throws upon 
 the matter is little better than that of a dark lantern. 
 It can be turned on at will, or shut off at convenience. 
 There is another point. When Jesus apparently awoke 
 from the delusion that he had already established God's 
 kingdom on earth, he changed his ground, and connected 
 its coming with his own second advent. But herein the
 
 JESUS' SECOND ADVENT. 341 
 
 foundation for Christian theology is still weaker. Accord- 
 ing to the Evangelical accounts, Jesus considered his 
 second Advent so near, that he told his disciples, there 
 were some among those standing round him, who should 
 not taste of death until they had seen the Son of man 
 coming in his kingdom. Matthew, xvi. 28 ; that the 
 then living generation should not pass away until this had 
 taken place, i. e. until the second Advent of the Son of 
 Man, with all its preparatory and attendant circum- 
 stances. Matthew, xxiv. 34. In particular, he announced 
 that this last great event was to occur immediately after 
 the destruction of Jerusalem, prophesied by him just 
 before. Matthew, xxiv. 34. In any case, he was greatly 
 mistaken with reference to the date, for not only has that 
 generation passed away, but, for eighteen hundred years, 
 one generation after another has followed its destiny and 
 run out its allotted time, without his predicted second 
 Advent having taken place. Yet all this, from our point 
 of view, does not make the case at all worse. 
 
 For, in order to see that the prophecy of a man's 
 return in the clouds is something utterly groundless, we 
 do not require to know that it did not take place at the 
 time predicted. Jesus in prominent passages in Mat- 
 thew xxiv. and xxv. says that after certain lapses 
 and mishaps in the starry constellations, the sign of the 
 Son of Man will appear in the heavens ; then, amid the 
 lamentations of all the nations of the earth, the Son of 
 Man will be seen coming on the clouds with power and 
 glory ; he will .send out his angels with a loud sounding 
 trumpet, in order to gather his elect from all the four 
 winds; and then will he sit upon his throne to judge all 
 men, to doom some to everlasting fire, and welcome others 
 into everlasting life. Such a description resists every
 
 342 ONE RELIGION : MANY CREEDS. 
 
 attempt to give it a merely symbolical meaning ; and as 
 the Christian Church always understood it in the literal 
 meaning of the words, so it was certainly meant by Jesus. 
 
 It would appear from all this, that man's destiny, his 
 transcendent bliss, or excruciating torment, for eternity, 
 is irrevocably determined during his probation in the 
 flesh ; that this probation results either in extreme happi- 
 ness or in extreme misery for all time to come ; and that 
 there is no lot or state intermediate for man. If this be 
 so, if man's destiny is altogether worked out in this life, 
 it is difficult to see why an eternity should be added to it, 
 since few men live so good a life as to entitle them to an 
 eternity of bliss, and few so bad a life as to deserve an 
 eternity of torment. Moreover, what is to be meted out 
 as the relatively proper state beyond the grave of all the 
 various intermediate grades of merit or demerit, between 
 those who, according to the Church, merit eternal bliss on 
 the one hand, and eternal torment on the other. 
 
 If we inquire of the Churches what reliable indication 
 there is on this side of the grave, as to who will be among 
 the blest, and who among the accursed, beyond the grave, 
 we shall receive as many different answers as there are 
 different denominations or sects, all claiming Jesus for 
 their guide. The number of these sects is now so great 
 as to make it difficult to designate them ; and they are 
 every day increasing. This leaves us no rational course 
 but to rely, for instruction upon this subject, upon him 
 who, as all mankind acknowledge, cannot deceive or 
 engender delusive hopes the Creator and Governor of 
 the Universe. The teaching from this source is uniform, 
 and consistent with every day experience. It is that 
 there are none perfectly happy in this life, and none per- 
 fectly and irretrievably miserable ; that there is every
 
 SALVATION FOR ALL. 343 
 
 possible intermediate grade between the most happy and 
 the most unhappy ; and that the provisions of God to 
 lead all men to a more advanced state of happiness are 
 unceasingly operating, and cannot fail to accomplish the 
 object God designed. 
 
 Our experience, on this side of the grave is at total 
 variance with the doctrine that mankind is divided into 
 two classes only ; one, being perfectly happy, and the 
 other, perfectly miserable. We cannot believe that our 
 present training by God and its results, and our experience 
 here, should not in a degree foreshadow our state beyond 
 the grave. 
 
 With regard to the narratives in the Bible, of occur- 
 rences and sayings upon which the Christian Theology of 
 our day claims to be founded, there is little of which, we 
 can say for certain, that it took place ; and of all, to 
 which the faith of the Church, especially, attaches itself, 
 the miraculous and supernatural matter, in *the fate and 
 destinies of Jesus, it is far more certain that it did not 
 take place. But that the happiness of mankind is to 
 depend upon belief in such things as these is so absurd, 
 that the assertion of the principle does not, at the present 
 day, require refutation. 
 
 But, as certainly as men have a common destiny, 
 attainable by all, so a knowledge of the conditions, also, 
 of reaching that object must be given to every man, and 
 that knowledge cannot be an accidental acquaintance 
 with history coming from without, but must be a neces- 
 sary knowledge attainable by faculties such as every man 
 .can find in himself.
 
 WE now proceed to attempt a short account of some of the most 
 celebrated of those founders of theology, who were said to be 
 inspired ; and of the creeds held, and the moral teachings incul- 
 cated, by means of a priesthood or through enacted laws, among 
 the most prominent sects, into which men have been divided. We 
 shall add also a sketch of the views concerning religion, that were 
 entertained by some of the most intellectual persons in ancient 
 times. This account mainly consists of miscellaneous extracts and 
 mostly from the following books. " God in History," by Sunsen ; 
 " Essays on the Belief of the Parsees," by Haug ; " Life and 
 Teachings of Confucius," by Legge ; " Description of the Burmese 
 Empire," by Yandy ; the " Koran," translated from the Arabic, 
 by Sale ; " Selections from the Koran," by Lane ; " Ancient 
 Faiths," by Inman ; "Rig Veda, or Hindoo Scriptures," translated 
 from the Sanscrit by Wilson ; " History of the Intellectual Devel- 
 opment of Europe," by Draper ; " History of Civilization in Eng- 
 land," by Buckle ; " The Ten Tribes of Israel," by Mrs. Simon ; 
 " The Dervishes," by Brown ; " The Christian Bible ; " and " The 
 Talmud." Not only is the historical portion of the several 
 narratives taken from the above named books, but the views and 
 remarks with which they are interspersed are, with slight excep- 
 tions, those of the writers of the works in question. The imme- 
 diate object in compiling this historical account is to show that the 
 point of resemblance, that is common to every denomination or 
 sect and the only one common to them all is their teaching 
 love and duty to God and man, or, in other words, natural religion. 
 This suggests the important question, whether this does not com- 
 prise the whole of man's religious duty. 
 
 The present age is pre-eminently utilitarian. The Koran, the 
 Zend Avesta, the Vedas, the Talmud, are read by the learned and 
 the wise of our times not with a sole view of refuting them, any 
 A
 
 2 APPENDIX. 
 
 more than is the Bible so read. All literature in relation to the 
 doings of man, whether religious, moral or legal, whensoever and 
 wheresoever produced is a part and parcel of humanity. The 
 judicious student seeks to understand the phase of culture, which 
 begot these items of our inheritance the spirit that moves upon 
 their face and while that which is dead in them is buried, we 
 rejoice in that which lives in them. Our stores of knowledge are 
 enriched from theirs. We are stirred by their poetry ; we are 
 moved to high and holy thoughts when they touch the divine 
 chord in our hearts. The more extended the researches into the 
 history of man, the more reliable are the data, the clearer is the 
 light, upon which and by which to determine the true character 
 of mankind and their relations to God. 
 
 The theology and religious precepts promulgated by Zoroaster 
 from 1200 to 1500 years B. C., among the Parsees, have their 
 exponent in a book called Zend Avesta. The Zoroastrian idea of 
 the personality and attributes of the Devil, and of the infernal 
 Kingdom coincide with the Christian idea ; as does that of the 
 resurrection of the dead. Zoroaster is represented to have worked 
 miracles ; he was called the son of Ormasdes, or God. The Par- 
 sees claim that their so-called sacred books were all written by 
 God and given to Zoroaster, as his prophet, to forward them to 
 mankind'. 
 
 Zoroaster had convened the nobles of the land that he might 
 perform a great public, religious act. Arriving at the head of 
 his disciples, the seers and preachers, he summoned the princes to 
 draw nigh and to choose between faith and superstition. 
 
 " Make your choice !" he exclaims; "around man there is a bat- 
 tle waging in the spiritual universe*' Even while on earth, he is 
 surrounded by good and evil Spirits. He is endowed with all 
 manner of good gifts and blessings ; and his soul is in the hands 
 of the Lord of the Universe, the Creator and governor of the 
 world, the true God. Nevertheless, in this world, Evil has an 
 independent power from the beginning ; it must and will be ulti- 
 mately overcome ; but this can only be effected by a sincere break- 
 ing with the Evil Power a personal decision in favor of the Good 
 and True. Choose now'blessing or cursing! You cannot serve 
 two masters ; and you cannot 'hold fellowship with lies. One side 
 or the other must yield." The following ia-also a part of the 
 recorded speech of Zoroaster on this occasion :
 
 ZOROASTRIANISM. 3 
 
 "I will now tell you, who are assembled here, the wise sayings 
 of the most Wise, the praises of the living God. In the beginning 
 there was a pair of twins, two spirits, each of a peculiar activity ; 
 these are the good and the base in thought, and word, and deed. 
 Choose one of the two spirits, be good, not base ! 
 
 "And these two Spirits united, created the first (the material 
 tilings ;) one the reality, the other, non-reality. To the liars, (the 
 worshippers of the devas, i. e. base,) existence will become bad, 
 whilst the believer in the true God enjoys prosperity. Of these 
 two spirits you must choose one, either the evil, the originator of 
 the worst actions, or the true holy spirit. You cannot belong to 
 both of them (i. e. you cannot be worshippers of the one true God, 
 and of many gods at the same time.) Thus let us be such as help 
 the life of the future. The wise loving spirits are the greatest 
 supporters of it. The prudent man wishes only to be there where 
 wisdom is at home. He (Ahuramazda) first created through his 
 inborn lustre the multitude of celestial bodies, and through his 
 intellect the good creatures, governed by the inborn good mind. 
 
 " When my eyes beheld Thee, the essence of truth, the creator 
 of life, who manifests his life in his works, then I knew Thee to 
 be the primeval spirit, thou Wise, so high in mind as to create the 
 world, and the father of the good mind. " 
 
 Zoroaster claims to have received instructions from a supreme 
 Being about the highest matters of human speculation. He 
 appears as a prophet before a large assembly of his countrymen 
 to propound to them his new doctrines. 
 
 The Magi (or priests) of Persia were at one time split into 
 several sects, one of which was called the Mazda Kyahs, who 
 believed in the transmigration of souls, like the Brahmans, (a 
 doctrine which is altogether strange to the Zend Avesta, the sacred 
 book of the Parsees.) The other sect believed in a revelation 
 ma- 1 ' by God to the first man, called Gayomart by the Parsees, 
 corresponding to the Adam of the Bible. 
 
 " He therefore who, sacrificing his own selfish interests, devotes 
 himself to the divine will, to goodness, shall receive earthly power, 
 strength, possessions. This earth with her gifts, is the heritage of 
 the good, or is destined to become so. This view pervades all the 
 sayings of Zoroaster. 
 
 The Zoroastrian sacred Book furthermore exhibits the following 
 teachings, which will compare advantageously with those of the
 
 4 APPENDIX. 
 
 Bible. Lying is regarded as the most discreditable thing by 
 them ; next to it is the incurring of debt, chiefly for this reason, 
 that the debtor is often compelled to tell lies. Zoroaster acknow- 
 ledged only one God. "You cannot be worshippers of the one true 
 God, and of many gods at the same time." 
 
 " The prudent man wishes only to be there where wisdom is at 
 home. 
 
 " Wisdom is the shelter from lies, the annihilation of the 
 destroyer (the evil spirit.) All perfect things are garnered up in 
 the splendid residence of the good mind, the Wise, and the True, 
 who are known as the best beings. 
 
 " Therefore, perform ye the commandments which, pronounced 
 by the Wise (God) himself, have been given to mankind ; for they 
 are a nuisance and perdition to liars ; but prosperity to the 
 believer in the truth ; they are the fountain of happiness. 
 
 " He first created through his inborn lustre the multitude of 
 celestial bodies, and through his intellect the good creatures, 
 governed by the inborn good mind. Thou living spirit, who art 
 everlasting, makes them (the good creatures) grow. 
 
 " Do not listen to the sayings and precepts of the wicked. 
 
 " Who are opposed in their thoughts, words and actions to the 
 wicked, and think of the welfare of creation, their efforts will be 
 crowned by success. 
 
 " Blessed is he, blessed are all men, to whom the living wise 
 god of his own command should grant those two everlasting 
 powers (wholesomeness and immortality.) For this very good I 
 beseech Thee. (Ahuramazda.) Mayest thou give me happiness, 
 the good true things, and the possession of the good mind ! 
 
 " I believe Thee to be the best being of all, the source of light 
 for the world. Every body shall choose Thee (believe in thee) as 
 the source of light, Thee, Thee, holiest spirit Mazda! Thou 
 Greatest all good true things by means of the power of thy good 
 mind at any time, and promisest us (who believe in Thee) a long 
 life. 
 
 " I will believe Thee to be the powerful holy (god.) For thou 
 givest with thy hand, filled with helps, good to the pious man, as 
 well as to the impious by means of the warmth of the fire strength- 
 ening the good things. From this reason the vigor of the good 
 mind has fallen to my lot.
 
 ZOROASTRIANISM. 5 
 
 " Thus I believe in Thee, as the holy God, thou living Wise ! 
 Because I beheld Thee to be the primeval cause of life in the 
 creation. For thou hast made (instituted) holy customs, and 
 words, thou hast given a bad fortune (emptiness) to the base, and 
 a good to the good man. 
 
 " I believed in Thee, living Wise ! in that thou earnest with 
 wealth and with the good mind through the actions of which our 
 manners thrive. The everlasting laws, given by thy intellect, 
 nobody may abolish. 
 
 "I will be mindful of the truth (to t improve all good things) as 
 long as I shall be able. Mayest thou grant me the truth, tell me 
 the best to be done. 
 
 " That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God ! By 
 what means are the present things to be supported ? That spirit, 
 the holy one, is the guardian of the beings to ward off from them 
 every evil, he is the promoter of all life. 
 
 " That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God ! Who 
 was in the beginning the father and creator of truth ? Who made 
 the sun and stars the way ? Who causes the moon to increase and 
 wane, if not thou ? This I wish to know except what I already 
 know. 
 
 " That I will ask Thee, tell me it right, thou living God ! Who 
 made the lights of good effect and the darkness ? Who made the 
 sleep of good effect and the activity. Who made morning, noon 
 and night, reminding always the priest of his duties. 
 
 " To become acquainted with these things, I approach Thee, 
 wise, holy spirit ! Creator of all beings ! 
 
 " Tell me good things to perform, the duties which are enjoined 
 by thyself, thou Wise ! Which are communicated for the welfare 
 of all beings by the good mind. What good, intended for the 
 increase of life, is to be had : that may come to me. 
 
 " Instruct me right in the faith which, being the best of all, 
 may produce the good things, by means of words, and action.% 
 My heart wishes (it is my lively desire,) that I may know Thee, 
 thou Wise 1 
 
 " To those among you who do not live according to the sayings 
 (of God,) experience may be a help. 
 
 " God is endowed with good actions. Not is the being, who 
 creates all, to be deceived.
 
 6 APPENDIX. 
 
 " God delivered the word, the best to be heard by men. Whole- 
 someness and immortality are by means of the good mind's actions 
 in the possession of the living Wise. 
 
 " By means of his power and his rule the generations gone by 
 subsisted, and also those to come will subsist on him. The sincere 
 man's mind is aspiring to the everlasting immortality. 
 
 " Him,, whom I desire to worship, him, who knows the truth, 
 him, the living Wise, as the source of the good mind, the good 
 action, and the good word. 
 
 " Him will I adore with our good mind, him, who is always pro- 
 pitious to us at day and night ; he, the living Wise, who through 
 the sublimity of the good mind protects the truth. 
 
 " Thou living God ! Tell me the power necessary for holding 
 up the religion. 
 
 "What man or what woman performs the best actions, known 
 to Thee, for the benefit of this life, promoting thus the truth and 
 spreading thy rule through the good mind. 
 
 " To you I will speak ; because you distinguish right from 
 wrong, the fruth, contained in the ancient commandments of the 
 living God. I beseech you to assist me. 
 
 " Those who, by their base minds, cause mischief and ruin, those 
 who are devoid of all good works and find delight in evil doings 
 only such men are punished. 
 
 " Every one who is truly noble by means of the good inborn 
 mind will be rewarded. 
 
 " We praise all good thoughts, all good words, all good deeds, 
 which are and will be (which are being done and which have been 
 done) and we likewise keep clean and pure all that is good. 
 
 " We strive to think, to speak, and to do only what of all actions 
 might be best fitted to promote the two lives (that of the body and 
 of the soul.) 
 
 " We worship the promotion of all good, all that is very beau- 
 tiful, shining, immortal, bright, every thing that is good. 
 
 " There shall not be overbearance nor low-spiritedness, nor 
 violence, nor deceit. Nor shall there be one of the other signs 
 through which men used to become defiled by the evil spirit." 
 
 Zarathustra called into existence a new religious community to 
 be founded on the principle of inviolable faith and truth.
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 7 
 
 Ahuramazda, as the only Lord, grants blessings to those who 
 worship him with a sincere heart, by speaking always truth, and 
 performing good actions. 
 
 A living faith in a moral order of the world can alone explain 
 the influence, which the Zoroastrian religion has now exercised for 
 three thousand years on the populations of Western Asia. 
 
 The Zoroastrian system recognizes one God, omnipotent, invisi- 
 ble, without form, the creator, ruler and preserver of the universe, 
 and the last judge. The worship of idols, and indeed of any being 
 except Ormuzd, is held in abomination ; but a reverence for fire 
 and the sun is inculcated, as they are emblems of the glory of the 
 Supreme Deity. It is probably true, however, that the multitude 
 in the course of time have forgotten that discrimination between 
 the symbol and the object of their adoration, which was undoubt- 
 edly taught by Zoroaster. To Ormuzd as the source of all good, is 
 opposed Ahriman, the cause of evil. To worship the good spirit 
 and hate the bad, are the two fundamental articles of the Guebre, 
 and Parsee creed. Prayer, obedience, industry, honesty, hos- 
 pitality, alms-deeds, chastity and truthfulness, are enjoined; and 
 envy, hatred, quarrelling, anger, revenge and polygamy are 
 strictly forbidden. Fasting and celibacy are considered dis- 
 pleasing to Ormuzd. 
 
 The Koran of Mohammed is a code of ritual, moral and criminal 
 laws, as well as a rule of faith or theology, and religious duty for 
 a large portion of mankind. 
 
 The general religion of the Arabs, before Mohammed, was the 
 Sabian ; though there was also great numbers of Christians, Jews, 
 and Magians among the number. 
 
 The Sabians believe in one God, and produce many strong 
 arguments for his unity ; but they also pay an adoration to the 
 stars, or to the angels, and intelligences which they suppose reside 
 in them, and govern the world under the Supreme Deity. They 
 endeavor to perfect themselves in the four intellectual virtues, and 
 believe that the souls of wicked men will be punished for ages, 
 but will afterwards be received to mercy. Mohammed is said to 
 have been born fifty-three years before the Flight, which happened 
 in the year 622 of the Christian era. His father Abd- Allah was 
 a younger son of Abd-el-Muttalib, the chief of his tribe, and, 
 dying very young and in his father's life-time, left his widow and 
 infant son in very mean circumstances, his whole substance con-
 
 8 APPENDIX. 
 
 sisting but of, five camels and an Abyssinian female slave. 
 Mohammed was instructed in the business of a merchant, which 
 business his uncle followed ; and to that end he took him into 
 Syria, when he was but thirteen years of age, and afterwards 
 recommended him to Khadeejeh, a noble and rich widow, for her 
 factor, in whose service he behaved himself so well, that by 
 making him her husband she soon raised him to an equality with 
 the richest in Mekkeh. His age was then five and twenty years, 
 and hers was forty. After fifteen years from the period of his 
 marriage, his age being now forty, he announced for the first time, 
 that he was sent by God to restore the only true and ancient reli- 
 gion which had been professed by Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, 
 Jesus, and all the prophets ; or, in other words, to destroy the 
 gross idolatry into which the generality of his countrymen had 
 fallen, and by weeding out the corruptions and superstitions 
 which the later Christians and Jews had introduced into religion, 
 to restore it to its original purity, which consisted chiefly in the 
 worship of one God only. Christianity, wherever it was professed, 
 in the time of Mohammed was most grossly corrupted, both in 
 doctrine and in practice. The notion of the divinity of the Virgin 
 Mary appears, from what is said by commentators on the Koran, 
 to have prevailed widely among the Christians of Arabia. Some, 
 also at the Council of Nice, asserted that there were two gods 
 beside the Father ; namely, Christ, and the Virgin Mary ; and 
 were thence called Mariamites. Others imagined her to b^ exempt 
 from humanity, and deified. This opinion is justly condemned 
 in the Koran. Other sects there were, of many denominations, 
 within the borders of Arabia, which took refuge there from the 
 proscriptions of the imperial edicts ; and several of their tenets 
 the Koran confirmed. 
 
 With regard to the Jews, though they were an inconsiderable 
 and despised people in other parts of the world, yet in Arabia, 
 whither many of them fled after the destruction of Jerusalem, 
 they grew very powerful, several tribes and princes embracing 
 their religion. Mohammed at first showed great regard to them, 
 and many of their opinions, doctrines and customs, were sanc- 
 tioned by the Koran, but that people, agreeably to their wonted 
 obstinacy, were so far from being his proselytes, that they were 
 some of the bitterest enemies he had, waging continual war with 
 him, so that their reduction cost him infinite trouble and danger,
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 9 
 
 and at last his life a remarkable coincidence as between Moham- 
 med and Christ. 
 
 The eloquence of the Koran ; the nature of its principal dogmas 
 (which required no one to whom it was preached to renounce 
 altogether his former faith) ; the general adaptation of its civil 
 and criminal laws to the existing constitution of Arabian society ; 
 the political liberty which it conferred upon the mass of its 
 disciples (by making them equal in the eye of the law,) while it 
 limited the power of those in authority (by religious obligations) ; 
 the smallness of the taxes which it imposed; the simplicity, com- 
 pleteness, and consistency, of its whole code (which was to be 
 observed always according to its spirit rather than its letter) ; this 
 had an effect to make his teachings acceptable. 
 
 Mohammed had certainly the personal qualifications which were 
 necessary for the accomplishment of ms undertaking. The Moslem 
 authors are excessive in their commendations of him, and speak 
 much of his religious and moral virtues ; as his piety, veracity, 
 justice, liberality, clemency, humility and abstinence. His charity 
 in particular, they say,was so conspicuous, that he had seldom 
 any money in his house, keeping no more for his own use than was 
 just sufficient to maintain his family ; and he frequently spared 
 even some part of his own provisions to supply the necessities of 
 the poor ; so that before the year's end he had generally little or 
 nothing left. God, says El-Bukharee, offered him the keys of the 
 treasures of the earth, but he would not accept them. The eastern 
 historians also describe him as a man of an excellent judgment, 
 and a happy memory ; and these natural parts were improved by 
 a great experience and knowledge of men, and the observations 
 he had made in his travels. They say he was a person of few 
 words, of an equal and cheerful temper, pleasant and familiar 
 in conversation, of inoffensive behaviour towards his friends, 
 and of great condescension towards his inferiors ; to all which 
 were joined a comely, agreeable person, and a polite address, 
 which were of no small service in prepossessing those in his 
 favor whom he attempted to persuade. 
 
 As to acquired learning (in the common acceptation of the term) 
 it is confessed that he had none at all, having no other education 
 than what was customary in his tribe. This defect was so far from 
 being prejudicial, or putting a stop to his design, that he made 
 the greatest use of it, insisting that the writings which he pro-
 
 10 APPENDIX. 
 
 duced as revelations from God, could not possibly be a forgery of 
 his own ; because it was not conceivable that a person who could 
 neither write nor read should be able to compose a book of such 
 excellent doctrine, and in so elegant a style ; and thereby obvi- 
 ating an objection that might have carried a great deal of weight. 
 And for this reason his followers, instead of being ashamed of 
 their master's ignorance, glory in it, as an evident proof of his 
 divine mission, and scruple not to call him (as he is indeed called 
 in the Koran itself) the Illiterate Prophet. 
 
 Before Mohammed made any attempt abroad, he rightly judged 
 that it was necessary for him to begin by the conversion of his 
 own household. Having therefore conducted his family to a cave 
 in Mount Hera, near Mekkeh, whither he had been accustomed 
 to retire for a month in every year, for the purposes of religious 
 contemplation and worship* he there opened the secret of his 
 mission to his wife Khadeejeh. He acquainted her that the angel 
 Gabriel had just before appeared to him, and informed him that 
 he was appointed the apostle of God ; telling her that the angel 
 had previously addressed him, saying, "Recite," whereupon he 
 said, "And what shall I recite?" to which Gabriel answered, 
 "Recite, [commencing thus,] In the name of thy Lord, who hath 
 created [all creatures] : he hath created man of a little clot of 
 blood. Recite, and thy Lord is the most Bountiful, who hath 
 taught [the art of writing] by the pen : He hath taught man 
 that which he knew not." Khadeejeh received this news with 
 great joy, swearing by Him in whose hand (that is, at whose dis- 
 posal) was her soul, that she trusted he would be the prophet of 
 his nation ? and immediately communicated what she had heard to 
 her cousin Warikah Ibn-Nowfal, who, being a Christian, could 
 write in the Hebrew character, and was tolerably well versed in 
 the Scriptures ; and he as readily came into her opinion, assuring 
 her that the same angel who had formerly appeared unto Moses 
 was now sent to Mohammed. This first overture the Prophet 
 made in the month of Ramadan, in the fortieth year of his age, 
 which he therefore usually called the first of his mission. The next 
 person to whom Mohammed applied was 'Abd- Allah Ibn-Abee- 
 Kohafeh, surnamed Aboo-Bekr, a man of great authority among 
 the tribe of Kureysh, and one whose interest he well knew would 
 be of great service to him, as it soon appeared, for Aboo-Bekr, 
 being gained over, prevailed also on 'Othman Ibn-'AffAn, 'Abd-
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. H 
 
 Er-Rahman, Ibn-'Owf, Saad Ibn-Abee-Wakkas, Ez-Zubeyr Ibn- 
 El-'Owwam, and Talhah Ibn-'Obeyd Allah, all principal men in 
 Mekkeh, to follow his example. 
 
 These men were the six chief companions, who, with a few more, 
 were converted in the space of three years ; at the end of which, 
 Mohammed, having, as he hoped, a sufficient interest to support 
 him, made his mission no longer a secret. He made the following 
 speech : "I know not a man among the Arabs who hath brought 
 unto his people a more excellent thing than that which I have 
 brought unto you. I have brought unto you happiness in this life 
 and in that which is to come ; for God (whose name be exalted !) 
 hath commanded me to call you unto Him." 
 
 Mohammed began to preach in public to the people, who heard 
 him with some patience, till he came to upbraid them with the 
 idolatry, obstinacy, and perverseness of themselves and their 
 fathers ; which so highly provoked them, that they declared them- 
 selves his enemies, and would soon have procured his ruin, had he 
 not been protected by Aboo-Tulib. 
 
 Mohammed was not to be intimidated, telling his uncle plainly, 
 that if they set the sun against him on his right hand, and the 
 moon on his left, he would not leave his enterprise: and Aboo- 
 Talib, seeing him so firmly resolved to proceed, used no further 
 arguments, but promised to stand by him against all his enemies. 
 
 The tribe of Kureysh, finding that they could prevail neither by 
 fair words nor menaces, tried what they could do by force and 
 ill-treatment ; using Mohammed's followers so very injuriously, 
 that it was not safe for them to continue at Mekkeh any longer. 
 In the sixth year of his mission Mohammed had the pleasure of 
 seeing his party strengthened by the conversion of his uncle 
 Hamzeh, a man of great valor and merit, and of 'Omar Ibin-El- 
 Khattab, a person highly esteemed, and once a violent opposer of 
 the prophet. As persecution generally advances rather than 
 obstructs the spreading of a religion, El-Islam made great progress 
 among the Arab tribes. 
 
 Mohammed was not wanting to himself. He boldly continued 
 to preach to the public assemblies at the pilgrimage ; and while 
 doing so at the 'Akabeh (or Mountain road, in the route of the 
 pilgrims from Mekkeh to Mount 'Arafit,) gained six proselytes, 
 inhabitants of Yethrib (afterwards called El-Medeeneh,) of the 
 Jewish tribe of El Khazraj, who, on their return home, failed not
 
 12 APPENDIX. 
 
 to ppeak much in commendation of their new religion, and 
 exhorted their fellow citizens to embrace the same. 
 
 In the same year, which was the next year after the conversion 
 of the six men of Yethrib, twelve men of that city, of whom ten 
 were of the tribe of El-Khazraj, and the other two of that of Ows, 
 came on a pilgrimage, and made a vow of obedience to Moham- 
 med, and which was to this effect, viz : That they should 
 renounce all idolatory : That they should not steal, nor commit 
 fornication, nor kill their children (as the Pagan Arabs used to do 
 when they apprehended that they should not be able to maintain 
 them,) nor forge lies; and that they should obey the prophet in all 
 things that were right. The next year, being the thirteenth of 
 Mohammed's mission, he chose twelve out of their number, who 
 were to have the same authority among them as the twelve apostles 
 of Christ had among his disciple.?. 
 
 Hitherto Mohammed had employed persuasion only to effect his 
 enterprise. So far was he from allowing his followers to use force, 
 that he exhorted them to bear patiently those injuries which were 
 offered them on account of their faith ; and when persecuted him- 
 self, he chose rather to quit the place of his birth, and retire to 
 El-Medeeneh, than to make any resistance. 
 
 But when the opposition of his enemies had become so great as 
 to threaten the lives of himself and his followers, and the latter 
 were sufficiently numerous to take up arms in self-defence, with a 
 fair prospect of success, he proclaimed that God had allowed him 
 and his followers, to defend themselves against the unbelievers. 
 
 When Mohammed's party had become sufficiently numerous and 
 powerful to put those laws in execution, by achieving repeated 
 victories over enemies who might easily have overwhelmed them 
 but for want of union, the number of the nominal Muslims was 
 thereby rapidly increased, and the faith of El- Islam indirectly pro- 
 pagated. 
 
 Thus was El-Islam established, and idolatry rooted out, in 
 Mohammed's life-time (for he died the next year,) throughout all 
 Arabia, except only El-Yemameh : where Museylimeh, who set 
 up also for a prophet, as Mohammed's competitor, had a great 
 party, and was not reduced until the the time of the Khaleefeh 
 Aboo Bekr. The Arabs being them united in one faith and under 
 one prince, found themselves in a condition to make those con-
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 13 
 
 quests which extended the dominion of the Muslims, and con- 
 sequently their faith, over so great a part of the world. 
 
 The Koran is universally allowed to be written with the utmost 
 elegance and purity of language, in the dialect of the tribe of 
 Kureysh, the most noble and polite of all the Arabs, but with 
 some mixture, though very rarely, of other dialects. It is con- 
 fessedly the standard of the Arabic tongue, and, as the more 
 orthodox believe, and are taught by the book itself, inimitable by 
 any human pen, and therefore it is insisted on as a permanent 
 miracle, greater than that of raising the dead, and alone sufficient 
 to convince the world of its divine orgin. 
 
 To this miracle did Mohammed himself chiefly appeal for the 
 confirmation of his mission, publicly challenging the most eloquent 
 men in Arabia, which was at that time stocked with thousands 
 whose sole study and ambition it was to excel in elegance of style 
 and composition, to produce even a single chapter that might be 
 compared with it. 
 
 The style of the Koran is generally beautiful and fluent, but 
 concise, and often obscure ; adorned with bold figures after the 
 eastern taste, enlivened with florid and sententious expressions, 
 and in many places, especially where the majesty and attributes 
 of God are described, sublime and magnificent. 
 
 The burthen of the teaching of the Koran is the unity of God, 
 and the duty of man to man ; it being laid down therein as a 
 fundamental truth, that there never was, and never can be, more 
 than one true religion ; for though the particular laws or ceremo- 
 nies are only temporary, and subject to alteration, yet the sub- 
 stance of it, being eternal truth, is not liable to change, but con- 
 tinues immutably the same. 
 
 Other parts of the Koran are taken up in giving necessary laws 
 and directions, in frequent admonitions to moral and divine 
 virtues, and above all, to the worshipping and reverencing of the 
 only true God, and resignation to His will. The following are 
 among its teachings. 
 
 The pious is he who believeth in God, and who giveth money to 
 the needy, those who perform their covenant with men in adver- 
 sity, (or excessive poverty,) and affliction, (or disease,) and done 
 that which is right (according to God's law) they shall have their 
 reward. 
 
 Those who do an evil thing shall be punished, but they who 
 have believed, and done good works, these shall be rewarded.
 
 14 APPENDIX. 
 
 These are they who have purchased error in exchange for right 
 direction, and their traffic hath not been profitable : on the con- 
 trary, they have incurred loss. And God encompasseth the 
 unbelievers by his knowledge and his powers, so that they cannot 
 escape him. 
 
 Those who have believed in God and done righteous works shall 
 be rewarded, the hypocrites shall be punished. 
 
 The service of God is as the similitude of a grain that hath pro- 
 duced seven ears, in each ear a hundred grains. 
 
 A kind speech, and forgiveness, are better than alms which 
 harm, or reproach, followeth. 
 
 Turn away evil by that which is better (as anger by patience, 
 and ignorance by mildness, and evil conduct by forgiveness ;) and 
 lo, he between whom and thyself (was) enmity (shall become) as 
 though he were a warm friend : but none is endowed with this 
 disposition except those who have been patient ; and none is 
 endowed with it except him who hath great good fortune. 
 
 Verily God commandeth justice, and the doing of good, and the 
 giving unto the relation ; and He forbiddeth wickedness and 
 iniquity and oppression : He admonisheth you that ye may reflect. 
 
 Give the orphans when they come to age their substance, and 
 render them not in exchange bad for good, and devour not their 
 substance, by adding it to your own substance ; for this is a great 
 sin. 
 
 Those who do evil ignorantly, and then repent speedily ; unto 
 them will God be turned : for God is knowing and wise. 
 
 Covet not that which God hath bestowed on some of you pre- 
 ferably to others. 
 
 The honest women are obedient, careful in the absence of their 
 husbands, for that God preserveth them by committing them to 
 the care and protection of the men, seek not an occasion of 
 quarrel against them, show kindness unto parents, and relations, 
 and orphans, and the poor, and your neighbor. Verily God will 
 not wrong any one, and if it be a good action he will recompense 
 it with a great reward. 
 
 God is a sufficient patron ; and God is a sufficient helper. 
 
 Those who believe and do that which is right, we will bring 
 into gardens watered by rivers, therein shall they remain for ever. 
 
 And ye are also allowed to marry free women living chastely 
 with them neither committing fornication, nor taking them for
 
 MOHAMMEDANISM. 15 
 
 concubines, observe justice when ye appear as w itnesses, and let 
 not hatred towards any induce you to do wrong; but act justly 
 the Lords renders the reward of their works. 
 
 Show kindness unto your parents, whether the one of them, or 
 both of them attain to old age with thee, speak respectfully unto 
 them ; and submit to behave humbly towards them, out of tender 
 affection. 
 
 Give unto him who is of kin to you his due, and also unto the 
 poor and the traveller. And waste not thy substance profusely; 
 let not thy hand be tied up to thy neck ; neither open it with an 
 unbounded expansion, lest thou become worthy of reprehension 
 and be reduced to poverty. 
 
 Draw not near unto fornication ; for it is wickedness, and an 
 evil way. 
 
 Meddle not with the substance of the orphan, unless it be to 
 improve it. Perform your covenant. And give full measure, 
 when you measure aught ; and weigh with a just balance. 
 
 Walk not proudly in the land. 
 
 Whosoever resigneth himself unto God, being a worker of 
 righteousness, taketh hold on a strong handle ; and unto God 
 belongeth the issue of all things. 
 
 Whosoever desireth excellence ; unto God doth all excellence 
 belong ; unto him ascendeth the good speech ; and the righteous 
 work will he exalt. 
 
 Those who believe, and put their trust in their Lord ; and who 
 avoid heinous and filthy crimes, and when they are angry forgive 
 and who give alms. 
 
 He who forgiveth, and is reconciled unto his enemy, shall receive 
 his reward. 
 
 Let not men laugh other men to scorn ; who peradventure may 
 be better than themselves ; neither let women laugh other women 
 to scorn ; who may possibly be better than themselves. Neither 
 defame one another ; nor call one another by opprobrious appella- 
 tions. 
 
 Verily the hypocrites are those who act wickedly. 
 
 Consume not your wealth among yourselves in vain ; nor present 
 it unto judges, that ye may devour part of men's substance 
 unjustly, against your own consciences.
 
 16 APPENDIX. 
 
 BUDDHISM. 
 
 The foresight of the great founder of this system was justified 
 by its prodigious, its unparallelled, its enduring success a success 
 that rested on the assertion of the dogma of the absolute equality 
 of all men, and this in a country that for ages had been oppressed 
 by castes. 
 
 Buddhism arose about the tenth century before Christ, its 
 founder being Arddha Chiddi, a native of Capila, near Nepaul, 
 1000 B. C. The Sanscrit words occuring in Buddhism attest its 
 Hindu orgin. Buddha, itself being Sanscrit for intelligence. 
 After the system had spread widely in India, it was carried by 
 Missionaries into Ceylon, Tartary, Thibet, China, Japan, Burmah, 
 and is now professed by a greater portion of the human race than 
 any other system of theology. Until quite recently, the history 
 of Arddha Chiddi, and the system he taught have, notwithstand- 
 ing their singular interest, been very imperfectly known in 
 Europe. He was born in affluence, and of a royal family. In his 
 twenty-ninth year he retired from the world, the pleasures of 
 which he had tasted, and of which he had become weary. Leav- 
 ing his numerous wives, he became a religious mendicant. Pro- 
 foundly impressed with the vanity of human affairs, he devoted 
 himself to philosophical meditation, by severe self-denial, emanci- 
 pating himself from all worldly hopes and cares. For the name by 
 which his parents had called him, he substituted that of Gotama, 
 or " he who kills the senses." It is claimed that Gotama was born 
 under the shade of a tree, and that he overcame the love of the 
 world, and the fear of death ; under the shade of a tree he 
 preached his first sermon in the shroud, and under the shade of a 
 tree he died. 
 
 In four months after he commenced his ministry, he had five 
 disciples ; at the close of the year they had increased to twelve 
 hundred. In the twenty-nine centuries that have passed, and 
 since that time they have given rise to sects counting millions of 
 souls, outnumbering the followers of all other religious teachers. 
 The system still seems to retain much of its pristine vigor ; yet 
 so much of all the systems of worship as consist of creeds and 
 theologies, gotten up by particular men, are perishable. The reli- 
 gion given by God to all men alone endureth. Gotama died at 
 the advanced age of eighty years ; his corpse was burnt eight days 
 subsequently.
 
 BUDDHISM. 17 
 
 But several years before this event, his system must be con- 
 sidered as thoroughly established. It shows how little depends 
 upon the nature of a doctrine, and how much upon effective 
 organization, that Buddhism, the principles of which are far above 
 the reach of popular thought, should have been propagated with 
 so much rapidity, for it made converts by preaching and not, like 
 Mohammedanism, by the sword. 
 
 Shortly after Gotama's death, a council of five-hundred ecclesi- 
 astics assembled for the purpose of settling the doctrine. A cen- 
 tury later, a second council met to regulate the monastic institu- 
 tion. In proclaiming the equality of all men in this life, the 
 Buddhists, as we have seen, came into direct collision with the 
 orthodox creed of India, long carried out into practice in the 
 institution of castes a collision that was embittered by the abhor- 
 rence the Buddhists displayed for ajiy distinction between the 
 clergy and laity. 
 
 The fundamental principle of Buddhism is that there is a 
 supreme impelling Power in the universe, a self-existent principle, 
 it rejects inquiry into first causes as being unphilosophical, and con- 
 siders that phenomena alone can be dealt with by our finite minds. 
 
 The Buddhist denies the immediate interposition of any such 
 agency as Providence, maintaining that the system of nature, once 
 arising, must proceed irresistibly according to the laws which 
 brought it into being. To the Brahman priesthood such ideas 
 were particularly obnoxious ; they were hostile to any philoso- 
 phical system founded on the principle that the world is governed 
 by law, for they suspected that its tendency would be to leave 
 them without any mediatory functions, and therefore without any 
 claims on the faithful. Equally does Gotama deny the existence 
 of chance, saying that that which we call chance, is nothing but 
 the effect of an unknown, unvoidable cause. 
 
 He will not, however, recognize any vicarious action. Each one 
 must work out for himself his own salvation. 
 
 The philosophical ability displayed in the Buddhism creeds is 
 very great ; indeed, it may be doubted whether Europe has pro- 
 duced its metaphysical equivalent. 
 
 In its early ages, Buddhism had its fables, legends, and miracles 
 Its humble devotees implicitly believed that Mohamaia ; the 
 mother of Gotama, an immaculate Virgin, conceived him through a 
 divine influence, and that thus he was of the nature of God and 
 B
 
 18 APPENDIX. 
 
 man conjoined ; that he stood upon his feet and spoke at the 
 moment of his birth ; that at five months of age he sat unsupported 
 in the air : that at the moment of his conversion he was attacked 
 by a legion of demons, and that in his penance-fasting he reduced 
 himself to the allowance of one pepper-pod a day ; that he had 
 been incarnate many times before, and that on his ascension 
 through the air to heaven he left his footprints on a mountain in 
 Ceylon which is to be worshipped ; that there is a paradise of gems, 
 and flowers, and feasts, and music for the good, and a hell of 
 sulphur, and flames, and torment for the wicked ; that it is lawful 
 to resort to the worship of images, that there are spirits, and 
 goblins, and other superhuman forms, that there is a queen of 
 heaven ; that the reading of the scriptures is in itself an actual 
 merit ; whether its precepts are followed or not ; that prayer may 
 be offered by saying a formula by rote, or even by turning the 
 handle of a mill from which invocations written on paper issue 
 forth, that the revealer of Buddhism is to be regarded as the 
 religious head of the world. 
 
 He alone who flees to Buddha, who clings to doctrine and the 
 "Church he will understand right purely and clearly the fourfold 
 lofty truth. 
 
 The reader cannot fail to mark the resemblance of these ideas to 
 some of those of the Roman Church. 
 
 Decorated with these extraneous but popular recommendations, 
 Buddhism has been embraced by four-tenths of the human race. 
 It has a prodigious literature, great temples, and many monuments. 
 Its Monasteries are scattered from the north of Tartary almost to 
 the equinoctial line. In these an education is imparted not unlike 
 that of the European monasteries of the middle ages. It has been 
 estimated that in Tartary one-third of the population are Lamas. 
 There are single convents containing more than two thousand 
 individuals ; the wealth the country voluntarily pours into them. 
 Elementary education is more widely diffused than in Europe. It 
 is rare to meet with a person who cannot read. Among the priests 
 there are many who are devout, and as might be expected, many 
 who are impostors. The result is that under the extensive educa- 
 tion and information that prevails throughout these countries, the 
 creeds and theologies based upon their early fables, legends, and 
 miracles, are verging into indifference with the masses, as is the 
 case among the educated in Christian countries.
 
 BUDDHISM. 19 
 
 The formula under which they live is, " That creeds and theolo- 
 gies are many. The Religion of Brotherhood is one ; v/e are 
 Brothers." 
 
 They smile at the credulity of the good-natured Tartars, who 
 believe in the wonders of miracle-workers, for they have miracle- 
 workers, who can perform the most supernatural cures, who can 
 lick red-hot iron, who can cut open their bowels, and, by passing 
 their hand over the wound make themselves whole again, who can 
 raise the dead. In China, these miracles, with all their authenti- 
 cations, have descended to the conjuror, and are performed for the 
 amusement of children. 
 
 According to the most credible of the accounts that have come 
 down to us we find in the Founder of the theology of India a 
 character so noble, self-sacrificing, and overflowing with brotherly 
 love, combined at the same time with such sobriety in his mode of 
 action that any idea of either imposture or insanity in his case is 
 utterly inadmissible. 
 
 Of the Buddhistic writings that have appeared since the time of 
 Burnouf, either in the original text or in translations, the most 
 important is the text of the oldest Pali book, which is also regarded 
 by all parties among the Buddhists, as the highest authority, the 
 " Dhamapadam," or " Footsprints of the Law," which is a collec- 
 tion of Aphorisms. These, as well as "Westergard's labors, we owe 
 to the praiseworthy encouragement of the Danish Government. 
 
 We give the following, selected from THE THREE THOUSAND 
 BUDDHA PROVERBS : 
 
 Though a thousand words should range themselves in the empty 
 swell of thy speech. 
 
 Far better is one speech full of meaning that shall give one man 
 rest. 
 
 Though a thousand words the hymn should number in the 
 empty swell of thy words. 
 
 Far better is a single word that shall bring rest to one man. 
 
 He who should conquer in battle ten times a hundred thousand 
 were indeed a hero. 
 
 But truly a greater hero is he who has but once conquered 
 himself. 
 
 To conquer one's self is a greater victory than to gain a battle :
 
 20 APPENDIX. 
 
 The victory of him who tames himself, who at all times knows 
 how to rule himself. 
 
 Neither God nor Gandava, neither Mara nor yet Brahma, can 
 frustrate such a victory, obtained by such a man. 
 
 Though one should offer a thousand sacrifices every month, and 
 offer them for a hundred years. 
 
 He who for only one moment contemplates himself in utter 
 repose, that is repose of conscience, he has performed a better 
 act of devotion than by a hundred years' sacrifices. 
 
 And though one should keep the sacred flame alight for a hun- 
 dred years in a forest. 
 
 He who for only one moment contemplates himself in utter 
 ' repose. 
 
 His one act of devotion is better than a hundred years' sacrifices. 
 
 Whatever sacrifices the whole world might offer in a year. 
 
 Whatever sacrifice any might offer in the hope of reward. 
 
 That all is not worth one-quarter so much, as he who cherishes 
 reverence for the virtuous. 
 
 He who cherishes reverence in his heart, and ever honors his 
 superiors, to him shall be ever added these four gifts : 
 
 Long Life, Beauty, Joy, Power. 
 
 He who lives in lust for a hundred years, ever unquiet in his 
 heart. 
 
 Much better is a single day of a temperate thoughtful life. 
 
 He who lives in folly for a hundred years, ever restless. 
 
 Much better is a single day of meditation upon wisdom. 
 
 He who lives a hundred years, faint-heartedly, without energy 
 of mind. 
 
 Much better is a single day used with firm will and energy. 
 
 He who lives a hundred years, not reflecting on the origin and 
 end of life. 
 
 Much better is a single day of him who marks its origin and 
 end. 
 
 He who lives a hundred years, and does not behold the path to 
 immortality. 
 
 Much better is a single day of him who descries that path. 
 
 He who lives a hundred years and never discerns the loftiness 
 of the Law. 
 
 Much better is a single day of him who beholds the heights of 
 that same.
 
 BUDDHISM. 21 
 
 He who is invincible, whom no one in this world has power to 
 restrain. 
 
 Buddha, whose glance explores the Infinite. 
 
 Buddha, the Trackless, what track shall lead you to behold 
 him? 
 
 He whom no lust can ensnare, whom none can allure to his 
 soul's poison. 
 
 The gods themselves envy those who never grow faint and 
 weary of heart. 
 
 But rejoice in continual repose, full of remembrance the enlight- 
 ened one's. 
 
 Man's birth is full of trouble, and full of toil is his life also. 
 
 Toilsome it is to hearken to true teaching, very toilsome is the 
 beginning of true enlightenment. 
 
 Not to do evil, to leave nothing good undone, to keep the 
 course of our thought ever pure. 
 
 This is commanded to Buddhas. 
 
 The best prayer is patience, ever gentle. 
 
 To Buddhas Nirvana is the name of that which is alone good. 
 
 No tamer of his senses will he become who smites another. 
 
 No penitent he who does harm to his neighbor. 
 
 To refrain at all times from angry words, and never to do 
 another injury. 
 
 To observe temperance in eating and in sleeping on a lonely 
 couch. 
 
 To live in profoundest meditation, lo ! this is enjoined on the 
 Buddhas. 
 
 A shower of wealth will not suffice to our desires ; little joy 
 will covetous desires bring thee, but many sorrows, and wise is 
 he who understands this. 
 
 Not even revelling with the gods will give joy to a truly wise 
 man. 
 
 He who is truly wise, rejoices only in this, that desire is dead 
 within him. 
 
 Men who are still enslaved to fear seek many ways of refuge. 
 
 They flee to mountain and forest, and resort for shelter to 
 sacred trees. 
 
 But that is no sure sanctuary, the highest refuge it never is. 
 
 Never will that man be freed from pain who chooses such for 
 his refuge.
 
 22 APPENDIX. 
 
 He who dutifully honors the men that are of quiet spirit and 
 without fear. 
 
 That is verily a good work, that can never be too highly 
 esteemed. 
 
 He who has put off sin is called good. 
 
 He who leads a silent life. 
 
 He who is free from self-love is called a tamer of the senses. 
 
 He whose body, words and heart, are altogether without sin ; 
 he who holds these three in rein, yea, him do I call good. 
 
 He who has discerned the true meaning of the law of piety. 
 
 Let him reverence it evermore. 
 
 What will jewelled hair profit thee, fool, or garments set with 
 costly fur ? 
 
 Unclean hast thou left thy heart, while decking thy outside. 
 
 He who hast burst all fetters and trembles before nothing, the 
 unshackled, the truly free, him do I call wise. 
 
 The sage whose clear vision beholds high things, discerning the 
 true path and the false path. 
 
 Who has climbled to the heights of all things, him do I call a 
 Brahmaiia. 
 
 He who will not punish a beast that is weak, who will not strike 
 or suffer others to strike one that is strong, him do I call a Brah- 
 mana. 
 
 He who when assailed does not resist, but speaks mildly to his 
 tormentors. 
 
 He who grudges nothing to those who grudge him all, him alone 
 I call a Brahmana. 
 
 He who has put from him desire and hatred, pride and 
 hypocrisy. 
 
 As a grain that flies from the point of an arrow, him do I call 
 a Brahmana. 
 
 He whose speech is gentle, truthful, and ever instructive. 
 
 He who never utters a harsh word, him only do I call a 
 Brahmana. 
 
 He who strives not to obtain aught for himself, who never 
 doubts after he has once perceived the truth, he who has come to 
 know immortality, him alone do I call a Brahmana. 
 
 He who is pure as the moon, whose even spirit naught can 
 ruffle, who has quenched all lusts, him do I call a Brahmana.
 
 BUDDHISM. 23 
 
 He who has cast behind him all lusts, and wanders harmless 
 abroad. 
 
 He who has quenched his lusts, him only do I call a Brahmana. 
 
 The Noble one, standing like a stately bull, the Hero, the Seer, 
 free from all lust, the Pure, the Wise, him only do I call a Brah- 
 mana. 
 
 The whole life and labors of this wonderful man are in perfect 
 harmony He did not enter into open hostility with the estab- 
 lished religion, as regards the ancient rites connected with the 
 worship of fire. 
 
 Buddha prescribes to every disciple and follower, certain initial 
 commands, of which four are purely ethical, and the fifth a per- 
 fectly general injunction to temperance. Here is the text: 
 
 I. Not to kill that which has life. 
 II. Not to steal. 
 
 III. Not to commit any unchaste act. 
 
 IV. Not to lie. 
 
 V. To drink no intoxicating liquor. 
 
 Only in later times were these expanded into ten, and then into 
 fifteen commandments, by the addition of precepts about externals. 
 That he did not wish to have the third commandment obeyed after 
 the fashion of Origen, is shown by a fine saying forming the 
 twenty-ninth of his forty-two Theses. 
 
 "If the spirit, which is the Master, be kept under control, it 
 follows of itself that his servants will also be restrained. What 
 does it avail if the power, but not the wish, to do wrong, be van- 
 quished ? " 
 
 How strongly he was opposed to bodily austerities is proved by 
 this sentence in his first sermon : 
 
 "He who desires to become an object of respect (Arya) must 
 beware of two things, of sinful lusts, and of the bodily austerities 
 of the Brahmans." 
 
 Unregenerated, isolated, is every one who remains subject to his 
 desires, whether he be a laymen or an Arya. The oldest compre- 
 hensive formula of the Buddhist faith which has been found under 
 an ancient Buddha pyramid in India, on innumerable inscriptions, 
 and which regularly forms the conclusion of the sacred books, and 
 in Ceylon, as well as in Burmah and Thibet, all, even women and 
 children, know by heart, is this :
 
 24 APPENDIX. 
 
 "The states of all beings which proceed from a cause, the cause 
 thereof has the Blessed One declared ; what can heal these states 
 has the Hermit also declared." 
 
 What \\c have translated States or Conditions is called in San- 
 scrit, Dharma, in Pali, Dhamma; and signifies originally Law> 
 Duty ; and in a secondary sense, that which exists as a legitimate, 
 necessary consequence of a cause; hence, a condition of being. If 
 we ponder this simple aphorism we see that it involves the "four 
 venerable Truths," which form the substratum, laid by Buddha's 
 own hand, of the later metaphysical erections : 
 
 Existence is suffering (pain.) 
 
 Suffering is seen to be the necessary consequence of causes. 
 
 To this suffering an end ought to be put. 
 
 To this end there is a means, and this also has Buddha taught. 
 
 THE SUTRA OF THE FORTY-TWO SAYINGS OF BUDDHA. 
 
 
 There are ten modes in which men may practice virtue, or 
 contrariwise, vice. Of these ten vices, three have reference to the 
 body, four to the speech, three to the mind. The three vices of 
 the body are ; murder, theft, and unchastity. Those of speech are ; 
 lying, talking nonsense, harsh words, false witness; of the mind; 
 avarice, malice, stupid unbelief in the three precious truths, 
 together with the cherishing of false opinions. 
 
 When men have done many wrong things without feeling 
 repentance, the fruit of the evil that they have gradually heaped 
 together in themselves will come to ripeness ; just as rivers which 
 are about to discharge themselves into the mighty ocean, and are 
 already deep, spread themselves out wide so that they can with 
 difficulty be crossed. In men who perceive when they have done 
 wrong and then reform, the laws of virtue gather strength, and 
 evil subsides more and more, so that they are able to come to the 
 way of perfectness. 
 
 When wicked men would fain do injury to good ones, it is as 
 though they cast forth their spittle against heaven. Heaven can- 
 not be defiled by their spittle, but only themselves. In like 
 manner, when one tries to throw ashes upon another against the 
 wind, and the dust cannot reach the other, but falls back on him 
 who throws it ; so is he who shows no honor to the good himself, 
 degraded by the fact that he wished to injure a good man.
 
 BUDDHISM. 25 
 
 In the world there are twenty things which are difficult, viz : it 
 is difficult to confer a gift when one is poor ; difficult to learn the 
 way (the true religion of Buddha) when one is rich : difficult to 
 renounce life through the power of the Spirit ; difficult to descry 
 the law of the excellent doctrine ; difficult to be born again in the 
 region where true Buddhas come into being ; difficult to have no 
 desire when one has looked on something pleasant; difficult it is 
 for the powerful not to make use of his power ; difficult not to be 
 angry with those who revile us ; difficult to set about a work when 
 one has no clear idea of it ; difficult to arrive at perfection, even 
 when one has learned much about it ; difficult not to despise those 
 who have learnt nothing; difficult to conquer self-seeking pride; 
 difficult to meet with a friend of virtue ; difficult to learn the way, 
 when one knows the self-will of one's own heart ; difficult to sus- 
 tain a collision unmoved ; difficult to put in practice the means 
 conformable to wisdom ; difficult to act in consonance with nature ; 
 difficult to attain to equanimity ; difficult not to speak of that 
 which has to be done and to be avoided. 
 
 What is the highest virtue ! To keep one's feet in the way is 
 the highest virtue. What is the chief greatness? To act in 
 accordance with the laws of wisdom is the chief greatness. Who 
 is the chief of the powerful ? He who, while he himself is full of 
 toleration, commits no sinful act, men will assuredly honor. Who 
 is pre-eminently enlightened ? He who is without spot and pure, 
 has no unrighteous courses, is wholly clean, and who knows in 
 every age, from the beginning of the world till now all that is to 
 be found in all the ten regions, though it be unknown, invisible, 
 quite unnoticed and unheard, without desiring the least thing for 
 himself; such an one is to be called enlightened. 
 
 A being whose soul is affected by passion, cannot perceive the 
 way for his blinded eyes. If you throw five different colors into 
 turbid waters, and then stir them up together, the persons who look 
 therein will be unable to discern the reflection of their bodies. 
 Just so, those whose souls are agitated and obscured by passion, are 
 unable to discern the Way. Those, on the contrary, who, full of 
 faith, confess the whole string of their faults, improve their ways 
 and show kindness to the friends of virtue, will discern the Way, 
 just as a reflection becomes visible in water, so soon as it is cleansed 
 from impurities. When the spots of the soul are wholly cleansed 
 away, apprehension discovers whence she has come, and how she
 
 26 APPENDIX. 
 
 has arisen, and toward what fields of Buddha she will travel after 
 death, and at the same time she comes to perceive the virtues of 
 the Way. 
 
 When we gaze on the sky and the earth, we ought to reflect that 
 they are not eternal. When we behold the hills and valleys, we 
 ought to remember that they are not eternal. When we see th e 
 form and figure of objects increase and expand, we ought to reflect 
 that they are not eternal. If we think thus, we shall soon reach 
 the Way. 
 
 Although we attribute being to the elementary components of 
 the body, yet have they nevertheless no real subsistence. For 
 since their being ceases after a short time, and does not endure 
 forever, they are like illusory semblances. 
 
 It is with those beings who, impelled by passion, strive after 
 glory, even as it is with the vapor of a smoker. When the 
 vapor of the tobacco is perceived and diffused itself abroad, it 
 cannot continue to subsist after the tobacco is consumed. So will 
 those foolish persons who strive after the vain glory of the world, 
 and do not labor to win the true glory, when they have obtained 
 that which they seek for, be poor and a prey to regrets. 
 
 Beauty and wealth are like honey on the edge of a knife. When 
 little boys taste it, they wound their tongue and feel pain. 
 
 He who yields himself to passion, is like a fool who takes a 
 candle and walks against the wind. Unless he throw the candle 
 away he will assuredly suffer smart by his hand being burnt. He 
 who suffers himself to be carried away by lust, by anger, or by 
 illusion, is forasmuch as he has not been beforehand enlightened 
 by the Way, like unto those fools who, refusing to throw away 
 theircandle, burn their hands and suffer severe pain. 
 
 As a tree that has fallen into a river, if when swept by the 
 current it does not touch either shore, if it be not caught up by 
 men, or stopped in its course by good, or evil spirits, if moreover 
 it do not lie in a stagnant pool, and do not decay, may actually 
 come to reach the ocean ; even so I tell you, that men who, if 
 they learn the Way, are not befooled by passion, nor seized by 
 perverseness, who do not become unstable, but strive with earnest- 
 ness, of a truth may attain the Way. 
 
 Shramana ! trust not in your own hearts. We must in no 
 wise trust to our own hearts. Exercise watchfulness ; do not be 
 ensnared by beauty, else it will bring you sorrow. You must
 
 BUDDHISM. 27 
 
 regard an old woman as a mother, those only a little older than 
 yourself as elder sisters, those younger, as younger sisters. 
 
 As one must run away with all speed if flame be kindled among 
 dry grass, so must men who would learn the Way, cast far away 
 from them all objects calculated to excite passion. 
 
 If a man surrender himself to passion, it brings pain, and pain 
 brings fear. If passion remain far from him, no pain springs up ; 
 and if no pain, no fear. 
 
 As iron when it has been smelted and purified, gradually 
 wrought and refined by hammering, may be converted into all 
 sorts of vessels, so also will those who are learning the Way, if 
 their mind is gradually freed from all impurity, and if they sedu- 
 lously exert themselves, no doubt attain to perfect insight. In the 
 contrary case, they earn to themselves vexation ; from vexation 
 springs tribulation, and under sharp tribulation they turn back 
 from the Way, thus do they heap sinful actions one upon another. 
 
 Both the men who walk in the way, and those who do not so, 
 alike experience sorrow. It is indeed hard to measure how much 
 suffering a being has to undergo from birth to old age, and then in 
 old age from sickness till his death. But if the mind be bewildered 
 through trouble, and have heaped sinful acts upon itself, then the 
 sufferings that will befall him on account of all that he has done 
 from his birth to his death, cannot be put in words. 
 
 Shramanas ! as a laden ox that has fallen into a slough, in 
 spite of all weariness, struggles out to one or the other side with- 
 out ever thinking of rest, so must a right-minded man labor for 
 nothing but the Way seeing that the danger arising from the 
 slough of passion is much more urgent and avert from himself 
 the pain of the cycle, [thus the "cycle " must be in this life.] 
 
 Originally Buddhism was simple, ethical, and rational : and 
 hence hostile to mythology, scholasticism, ceremonies, and priest- 
 craft. It was benevolent and humane in the highest degree. It 
 called all men, without any distinction of quality or position, to 
 its fold, opening to all the way of salvation, which it teaches to 
 be attainable by purity of conduct. " There is but one law for 
 all : severe punishment for crime, and great reward for virtue." 
 " My law is one of grace for all ; like heaven affording room for 
 men and women, for boys and girls, for rich and poor." " It is 
 difficult to be rich and learn the way." The total number of 
 Buddhists is about 290,000,000.
 
 28 APPENDIX. 
 
 Right view, right sense, right speech, right action, right position 
 right energy, right memory, and right meditation. " Such is the 
 formula of faith," found upon many monuments, as well as in 
 many books. The essence of Buddhistic morality, is "to eschew 
 every thing bad, to perform every thing good, to tame one's 
 thoughts" this is the doctrine of Buddha. 
 
 All the mythology, sacrifices, penances, hierarchy, scholasticism, 
 mysticism, which we find connected with it, have been super- 
 added in progress of time, in different countries, and under 
 manifold circumstances. A general love of all beings is its 
 nucleus ; each animal being our neighbor or possibly relative. To 
 love even our enemies, to offer our lives for animals, to abstain 
 even from defensive warfare, to gain the greatest of victories by 
 conquering oneself, to avoid all vices, to practise of humility and 
 mildness, to be obedient to superiors, to cherish and respect 
 parents, old age, learning, virtuous and holy men, to provide food, 
 shelter, and comfort for men, and animals, to plant trees on the 
 roads, dig wells, &c. such are the moral duties of Buddhists. No 
 religion is despised by them, religious wars waged against dis- 
 senters have never been heard of among them. " Honor your own 
 faith, and do not slander that of others," is a Buddhistic maxim. 
 The persecutions of Christians in Japan, China, Siam, &c., are 
 occasioned by other than religious causes, being commonly reprisals 
 against their intermeddling habits. How different from the 
 history of Christianity. 
 
 THE BURMESE. 
 
 The following contains the main features of the Theology and 
 religious precepts which have been taught among the Burmese 
 for the last twenty-five hundred years. 
 
 The Burmese Empire comprises the tract of territory bounded 
 on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the east by the kingdom of 
 Siam, on the west by Bengal, and on the north by the kingdom of 
 Azen, and the Chinese Empire. It includes not only the kingdom 
 of Ava, but likewise those of Pegu, and Aracan, together with the 
 pretty states of Martaban, Sarvai, Merghi. 
 
 According to the sacred books and traditions of the Burmese, 
 four Gods have at different periods appeared in the present world, 
 and have obtained the state of Neban ; Chaucasen, Gonagon,
 
 THE BURMESE. 29 
 
 Gaspar and Godama. It is claimed by the Burmese Theology 
 that the law of the last mentioned, (to wit, Godama,) is at present 
 obligatory among men. He obtained the privilege of divinity at 
 the age of thirty-five, when he began to promulgate his laws, in 
 which employment he spent forty-five years. Having thus lived 
 to the age of eighty in the practice of every good work, and 
 having conferred salvation on every living creature, he was 
 assumed into the state of Niban. From that time to the year 
 1763, there have passed two thousand three hundred and six 
 years. 
 
 Godama spoke and taught as follows: " I, a God, after having 
 departed out of this world, will preserve my laws and my disciples 
 in it for the space of five thousand years." Having likewise 
 commanded that his statue and relics should be carefully kept, 
 and adored during this period, he thereby gave rise to the custom 
 of adoring them. 
 
 The books, which contain the history of Godama, represent 
 him as a king, who having laid aside the ensigns of royalty, 
 withdrew himself into a solitary place, put on the habit of a 
 Talapoin, and gave himself up to the study and practice of virtue. 
 
 His merits, united to his present generous abdication, procured 
 for him at the age of thirty, the gift of divine wisdom. This 
 consists in seeing into the thoughts of all living beings, in the 
 foreknowledge of all future events, however distant they may be, 
 in the knowledge of the merits and demerits of all men ; in the 
 power of working miracles particularly by causing fire and water 
 to issue from his eyes at the same time, or fire from one eye and 
 water from the other; and finally in a tender love toward all 
 things living. Among other prodigies related of him, we may 
 notice the one said to have happened at his birth ; for he was no 
 sooner born than he walked seven paces towards the north, 
 exclaiming ; " I am the noblest and greatest among men. This is 
 the last time that I shall be born ; never again shall I be conceived 
 in the womb." . 
 
 During the forty-five years that he spent on earth after becoming 
 a God, he was continually employed in the promulgation of his 
 laws, and it is said that through his preaching, 2,400,000,000 
 persons obtained the Niban. 
 
 Previous to his death, he recommended that his statue and relics 
 should be preserved and adored.
 
 30 APPENDIX. 
 
 These have hence become objects of veneration to all the 
 Burmese, wherever they are met with ; but they are more par- 
 ticularly worshipped, with greater pomp and by greater numbers 
 in the Pagodas. These are pyramidal or conical buildings, made of 
 brick, painted and gilded on the outside. 
 
 In these temples there is generally a niche in which is placed 
 the statue of Godama, though in some, both the niche and the 
 statue are wanting. These are the public places of adoration for 
 the Burmese, and are generally set apart from all other buildings, 
 and surrounded by a wall of the same materials as the Pagoda 
 itself. 
 
 But the laws of Godama will be observed upon earth for the 
 space of five thousand years, reckoning from the day of his death, 
 five hundred and twenty years before Christ ; from which year 
 therefore the Burmese begin their era. Of this period two 
 thousand three hundred and ninety years have already elapsed. 
 As soon as it is at an end, the laws of Godama will cease to be 
 binding, and another God must appear to promulgate a new code 
 for the government of mankind. 
 
 The principal, duties of the Talapoins, or priests, is the Tera, or 
 preaching to the people ; and that in the performance of this 
 duty, they ought to propose as their model the sermons of Godama. 
 The book which contains them is called Sottan, or the rule of life, 
 and is one of the principal works which the Burmese possess. 
 
 The following is the best of the, so-claimed, true faith. 
 
 Is Godama the only true God in the world ? 
 
 Yes, Godama is the only true and real God, who knows the laws 
 of the four Sizza, and in whose power it is to raise to the state of 
 Niban. 
 
 For a thousand years beforehand, the approaching appearance 
 of a new God was reported ; but previous to his coming, six 
 different pretenders, each with five hundred disciples, started up, 
 and gave themselves out for Gods. 
 
 .Did these false Gods preach and teach any laws? 
 
 Yes, but what they taught is false and full of errors. 
 
 But when the true God, Godama, appeared, did these false Gods 
 renounce their doctrines ? 
 
 Some renounced and some did not ; and many have remained 
 obstinate to the present day. When Godama saw that many 
 persisted in their errors, he gave a challenge to them all, who
 
 THE BURMESE. 31 
 
 could work the greatest miracle under a mango tree. It was 
 accepted, but Godama gained the victory, at which the chief of 
 the Deitti was so vexed, that he threw himself into a river with 
 an earthenware vessel tied about his neck. After the death of 
 their leader many of his disciples abandoned his false doctrines, 
 but others remained obstinate : for it is easy to draw a thorn out 
 of the hand or foot by means of the nails or the megnac, but it is 
 very difficult to eradicate false doctrine from the hearts of the 
 Deitti. 
 
 But are there no means of doing it? 
 
 Yes, it may be done by the doctrine of Godama, and by the 
 lessons of good men ; which are like a megnac, of great excellence. 
 
 And what are these lessons and doctrines ? 
 
 First, that all who kill animals or do any thing contrary to the 
 ten commandments, are subject to the punishments allotted to evil 
 deeds. Then that those who give alms and practise the ten good 
 deeds, adore God, the law, and the Talapoins, will enjoy the 
 blessings attached to the performance of good works. Secondly, 
 that these two kinds of works, the good and the bad, and these 
 alone accompany a man through his transmigration in future 
 worlds, in the same way as a shadow follows the body to which it 
 belongs ; and that these are the efficient causes of all the good and 
 evil that happen to living beings, in this life or in the next ; of 
 high and low birth; of riches and poverty; of transportation to 
 the seats of the Nat, and of condemnation to the state of animals 
 or to hell. These, together with the following, are the revelations 
 made, and the precepts taught by Godama. According to the 
 species of their bad works, the wicked are condemned to punish- 
 ment. These species are four, according to the Burmese sacred 
 books. One is called grievous, the other ihree are venial. 
 
 To kill one's own mother or father, to kill a priest or Talapoin, 
 to strike or wound any God, as Beodat did who threw a stone 
 against the Godama, and to sow discord among Talapoins, are the 
 five sins that constitute the grievous class ; for which the wicked 
 will have to suffer fire and other dreadful torments, in one of the 
 greater hells, the whole duration of a world. 
 
 This species of sins is called the first, because it is the first to 
 produce its effect : for although the individual, who has committed 
 one of these five sins, may have done many good deeds, yet he
 
 32 APPENDIX. 
 
 cannot receive the reward, till after this first species is expiated, 
 by his having paid the penalty of that great sin. 
 
 After this class come all sins of habit ; which although in them- 
 selves light, are nevertheless, on account of the evil habit, con- 
 sidered as punishable in the greater hells. The fourth and last 
 species comprises all evil desires, and these are expiated, not in 
 the greater hells but in the minor ones that surround them. 
 
 All passionate, quarrelsome, fraudulent and cruel men, all who 
 in their deeds, words or desires, are either dishonest or lascivious, 
 will be cut to pieces after death, in one of the greater hells with 
 instruments of burning iron, and afterwards exposed to the most 
 severe cold; and the parts cut off returning again to their former 
 state, will be a second time cut off, and exposed to the same cold, 
 and in these alternate torments, they will pass five hundred infer- 
 nal years. 
 
 All those who by signs or words insult their relatives or masters, 
 priests, old men, or observers of the law, and all who with nets or 
 snares kill animals, will be condemned to one of the greater hells, 
 there to be tormented upon a fiery bed, by continual lacerations 
 with red-hot wire, and by being sawn with fiery scythes into eight 
 or sixteen pieces, for the course of one thousand infernal years. 
 
 Whoever does not assist his fellow creatures, those who, in a 
 state of intoxication commit unlawful and indecent actions, they 
 who dishonor or ill-treat others, will have their bowels burnt up, 
 by a flame entering through their mouths ; and this punishment 
 will last four thousand infernal years. 
 
 Whoever takes away furtively or by deception, fraud, or open 
 force the property of others, such ministers and judges as receive 
 bribes for deciding suits unjustly, mandarins and generals that 
 desolate the enemy's lands, all who cheat by false scales, weights, 
 or measures, or who in any way appropriate to themselves the 
 goods of others, as well as all who steal or damage things belong- 
 ing to priests and to Pagodas, etc. all such will be tormented in 
 one of the greater hells, by fire and smoke ; which penetrating 
 through the eyes and mouth and all the other inlets of the body, 
 will burn them alive for the course of eight thousand infernal 
 years. 
 
 Those who sell wines or poisons, or set fire to villages, cities or 
 woods, in order to destroy animals, those who with poison or arms, 
 or enchantments cause men to perish ; all these after death, being
 
 \HE BURMESE. 33 
 
 hurled headlong from a very high mountain, will be received on 
 the point of a red hot spit, and cut in pieces by the infernal 
 ministers with swords and spears : and this punishment will last 
 sixteen thousand infernal years. 
 
 All who honor not their parents, masters and old men ; all who 
 drink wine or other inebriating liquors ; all who corrupt the 
 waters of lakes or wells, or break up the roads ; all dishonest 
 dealers; they who speak bitterly and impatiently, or beat with their 
 hands or with sticks ; those who despise the counsel of honest men, 
 and afflict their neighbor ; evil-speakers, detractors, the passionate 
 and envious; such as injure others, or torment them by putting them 
 in chains; all who in word, deed, or desire are guilty of evil; 
 lastly, those who afflict the sick with harsh words will be con- 
 demned to these minor places of punishment, to be there tortured, 
 in proportion to the heinousness of their offences and evil habits. 
 Besides these hells, there is another, consisting of an immense caul- 
 dron, full of melted copper, to ascend and descend which from one 
 surface to the other, requires three thousand years. To this task 
 are condemned the lascivious, that is to say, those who violate the 
 wives, daughters or sons of others ; and those who through life 
 despising acts of charity and the observance of holidays, give them- 
 selves up to drunkenness and excess. Those equilateral spaces full 
 of very cold water, are also, according to the Burmese books so 
 many hells; to which are condemned all who offend or insult their 
 parents or the observers of the law. 
 
 Every one may gain merit or demerit, according to his works, 
 and so pass to a superior or inferior situation. 
 
 Rape, highway robbery, murder, and arson, are considered the 
 principal capital offences. 
 
 False witnesses, who assert anything from passion, and not from 
 love of truth ; (and those who affirm what they have neither seen 
 nor heard), are severely punished with death. 
 
 Every species of good works, such as alms-deeds, chastity, 
 charity, kindness, diligenco, patience, justice, magnanimity, love 
 and moderation, is enjoined, all who adore God and the law, will 
 enjoy the blessings attached to the performance of good works. 
 
 Good and bad works accompany a man through future worlds, 
 and are the efficient causes of all the good and evil that happen 
 to living beings in this life, or in the next.
 
 34 APPENDIX. 
 
 We are forbidden to kill any living thing, to steal; to violate tho 
 wives or concubines of another; to tell lies or to deceive; and to use 
 wine, opium, or any intoxicating liquor also, to covet our neigh- 
 bor's goods, to envy, and to wish misfortune or death to others. 
 
 Whosoever abstains from all these evil deeds will increase in 
 virtue, till, at length, he will obtain the perfect happiness of Niban. 
 
 Admit of no unlawful act, even though it be sought to be com- 
 mitted in secret; by the observance of which, a man is preserved 
 from evil-doing. 
 
 Searching after the means, by which the hearts of creatures may 
 put off all evil inclinations. 
 
 Thee, therefore, do we supplicate, who alone knowest all these 
 things to reveal them to us. 
 
 To whom the God replied, know, that to keep far from the com- 
 pany of the ignorant ; to be always in the society of the learned ; 
 and to give respect and honor to whom they are due ; overcoming 
 any inordinate affection ; by the choice of a place of abode proper 
 to one's station, and adapted for satisfying all the common wants 
 of life ; by having always in store, some merit acquired in a for- 
 mer life ; and by ever maintaining in one's own person a prudent 
 carriage ; the comprehension of all things that are not evil ; the 
 knowledge of the duties of one's state of life ; and the observance 
 of piety and modesty in words ; these are most excellent means by 
 which we may renounce all wicked actions. 
 
 By ministering to one's father and mother proper sustenance, 
 by providing for one's wife and children, by the purity and 
 honesty of every action ; by alms-deeds, by the observance of divine 
 precepts; by succoring in their necessities those who are united to 
 us by the ties of kindred ; by everything else in which there is no 
 sin ; by all these means may we be preserved from evil deeds. 
 
 By such a freedom from all faults, that not even the inferior 
 part of the soul manifest any affection for them, by the abstinence 
 from all intoxicating drinks ; by the never-failing practice of works 
 of piety ; by showing respect to all ; by being humble before all; by 
 sobriety ; by gratitude to our benefactors ; and finally by listening 
 from time to time to the preaching of the word of God ; by these 
 means may we overcome our inclinations, and keep ourselves from 
 sin. 
 
 The virtue of patience ; docility in receiving the admonitions of 
 good men ; frequent visits to priests ; spiritual conferences on the
 
 THE BURMESE. 35 
 
 divine laws; frugality and modesty in our exterior; the observance 
 of the letter of the law ; having ever before our eyes the state into 
 which living creatures will pass after death; and finally, the media- 
 tion of the happy reposes of the Niban, these are all distinguished 
 precepts for preserving man from wickedness. 
 
 That intrepidity and serenity of mind, which good men preserve 
 amid the calamities of life, in abundance and want, in censure and 
 praise, in joy and distress, in popularity and abandonment ; the 
 absence of all fear or inquietude of heart ; the freedom from the 
 dark mist of concupiscence : these are rare gifts that remove a man 
 far away from all affection to evil. 
 
 Imprint well upon your heart the precepts I have just delivered; 
 let them be deeply rooted there, and see to put them in executiou, 
 also hospitality to our guests, and to travellers, ministering to the 
 wants of the sick, and in times of scarcity to those of all persons. 
 
 But all these are surpassed in merit by the adoration of God and 
 the law. 
 
 Godama confirmed all these his precepts, and added that the 
 real adoration of God does not consist in offering him rice, flowers 
 or sandal wood, but in the observance of his laws. 
 
 All who aspire to perfection must be careful to avoid the works 
 which do hurt to living creatures ; by thus flying away from evil, 
 and ever seeking to acquire merit in this life, as well as in future 
 ones, they will at length attain to the Niban. 
 
 The words that do hurt to living creatures, are murder, theft, 
 deceit and adultery. 
 
 All those committed by judges, when on accpunt of presents, 
 consanguinity or friendship, they decide unjustly, when through 
 hatred to the party who has reason on his side ; they pronounce 
 against him, and finally when through fear or respect of persons, 
 as of mandarins, or rich, or powerful men, they commit injustice. 
 Those offenders also, are here comprised, who do not divide pro- 
 perty equally as they ought, through love, fear or hatred. 
 
 Besides this, a man must refrain from the things that are called 
 ruinous; which are, the love of intoxicating liquors, the custom 
 of wandering about the streets at unseasonable hours, too great a 
 passion for dancing, games and spectacles, gaming, frequenting 
 vicious company, lastly, slothfulness and negligence in the per- 
 formance of one's duty. 
 
 For from these spring six great evils.
 
 36 APPENDIX. 
 
 Drunkenness is the cause of loss of goods and reputation, of 
 quarrels, diseases, immodesty of dress, disregard of honor ; unsea- 
 sonable wanderings expose a man to great dangers, and by keeping 
 him from his family, oblige him to leave the chastity of his wife 
 and daughter unprotected ; and moreover, his possessions are thus 
 liable to depredations. 
 
 A passion for shows draws a man from his occupation, and hin- 
 ders him from gaining his livelihood. 
 
 In gaming, success is followed by intrigues and quarrels; loss, by 
 bitterness and sorrow of heart ; as well as dilapidation of fortune; 
 the gamester is incapacitated by law to give testimony. 
 
 Finally, frequenting the company of the vicious will lead a man 
 into the houses of women of ill-fame, into drunkenness and glut- 
 tony, into deceit and robbery, and all kinds of disorders. 
 
 Godama denounced the following : making show of friendship 
 without having its reality, professing a love which they do not feel, 
 giving little, that they may receive much, and being friends to a 
 man only because he is rich, or because they have need of his favor. 
 
 Real friends, are those who are such both in adversity and pros- 
 perity ; those who give good advice on proper occasions, even at 
 the peril of their lives ; those who take care of things that belong 
 to him whom they love ; those who teach a man what is good, who 
 are delighted in his prosperity, and sorrowful in his misfortunes. 
 
 Children are in particular obliged to respect their parents, and 
 to listen to their words and advice. 
 
 Parents on the other hand with respect to their children, must 
 keep them far from all wickedness, procure that they always have 
 good companions, they must instruct them, and teach them to give 
 alms, and do other pious works, and when they have arrived at 
 the proper age, be careful to marry them. 
 
 The husband should speak to his wife respect fully, should not 
 ill-treat her, should not desert her to live with another woman. 
 
 A master should adapt the labors of his slaves to their strength 
 and capacities, should give them their maintenance, should treat 
 them well, but particularly be attentive to them when sick. 
 
 Slaves should look to tjie interests of their masters in their 
 labors, and take nothing but what is allowed them. 
 
 We should divide our goods and share them with the poor ; for 
 the poor are our companions in the journey to a future life. Alms 
 done by a poor man is of greater merit than of a rich one.
 
 THE BURMESE. 37 
 
 The only faithful companions who will not desert us in the life 
 to come, are our good deeds ; and the only good that will continue 
 with us unaltered even to old age, is the observance of the law, for 
 this no thief can take away. 
 
 Godama exhorts to lay aside every sentiment of pride ; not to 
 let the affections be occupied by this world , not to give ourselves 
 up to the pleasures of sense, but to aspire to Niban alone. Having 
 what is sufficient to satisfy our hunger to-day, we should not think 
 of to-morrow ; and that having one coat, we should not wish for 
 another. 
 
 He admonishes not to look upon indecent objects, not to listen to 
 lascivious song, not to give way to murmuring, not to exceed in 
 the pleasures of the palate and to restrain the hands from unlawful 
 touches, and to observe modesty in our exterior. 
 
 Those who pride themselves in their birth, or in their possessions 
 can never reach to the Niban. All must observe modesty in their 
 five bodily senses; they must not run after feasts and such vanities; 
 they must not make use of any species of vain and idle words; they 
 must not take delight in thinking of anything unlawful; they must 
 extinguish in themselves all evil inclinations; they must not be 
 scrupulous and irresolute in acting ; they must, above all things be 
 assiduous in prayer and meditation : they must not seek after mag- 
 nificence and superfluity ; they must fly from sloth, lying, immod- 
 erate laughter, vain joy, and play ; they must abhor sorcery, and 
 not give credit to dreams ; when abused or derided, they must not 
 give way to anger, and when praised, must not be puffed up ; they 
 must not envy others their dress ; they must not flatter benefactors 
 to draw alms from them, nor preach sermons in which they display 
 their desire of them ; they must not admit of any bitterness or acri- 
 mony in talking, nor deride, nor despise, nor injure others; they 
 ought to accommodate themselves to the opinions of others not to 
 give occasion for dissension ; ought never to consent to any bad 
 thoughts ; and he who does consent to them, and take pleasure in 
 them, shows that he has no fear of sinning, and is therefore in a 
 etate of sinful cowardice. 
 
 But he who does not consent to such thoughts, truly eseks after 
 sanctity. 
 
 All are once more recommended to shun vanity, to observe mod- 
 esty, and to consider that good works are our only hopes and oar 
 only true friends, and thus the heart will be fixed in doing all that 
 is good.
 
 33 APPENDIX. 
 
 He who speaks sweetly and with affability will have many 
 friends ; but he whose words are bitter will have few or none. 
 
 In judging causes, the testimony of persons respectable by their 
 state in life, and their wisdom, disinterested, and who believe in 
 the merit of good works ; ought to be received. 
 
 If a husband surprise a man in adultery with his wife, he may 
 lawfully kill him. 
 
 THE HINDOOS. 
 
 In the following, will be found the main features of Hindu the- 
 ology and religious teachings. 
 
 The Vedas, which are the Hindu Scriptures, and of which there 
 are four, the Rig, Yagust, Saman, and Atharvan, are asserted to 
 have been revealed by Brahma. 
 
 They are based upon an acknowledgment of a universal Spirit 
 pervading all things. Of this God they therefore necessarily 
 acknowledge the unity : " There is in truth but one Deity, the 
 Supreme Spirit, the Lord of the universe, whose work is the uni- 
 verse. The God above all gods, who created the earth, the hea- 
 vens, the waters." 
 
 These scriptures convey the idea that there is a pervading spirit 
 existing every where of the same nature as the soul of man, though 
 differing from it infinitely in degree. 
 
 As to the relation between the Supreme Being and man, the soul 
 is a portion or particle of that all-pervading principle, the Univer- 
 sal Intellect or Soul of the World. 
 
 The three Vedic divinities, Agni, Indra, and Surga are not to be 
 looked upon as existing independently, for all spirits are compre- 
 hended in the Universal Soul. They do not authorize the wor- 
 ship of deified men, nor of images, nor of any visible forms. They 
 admit the adoration of subordinate spirits, as those of the planets. 
 They inculcate universal charity charity even to an enemy : 
 " The tree doth not withdraw its shade from the wood-cutter." 
 In the Institutes of Menu, a code of civil and religious law, written 
 about the ninth century before Christ, though like Vedas, betray- 
 ing a gradual origin, the doctrine of the Divine unity becomes more 
 distinctly mixed up with Pantheistic ideas. They present a descrip- 
 tion of creation, of the nature of God and the soul, and contain 
 prescribed rules for the duty of man in every station of life, from
 
 THE HINDOOS. 30 
 
 the moment of birth to death. Their imperious regulations in all 
 these minute details are a sufficient proof of the great development 
 and paramount power to which the priesthood had now attained ; 
 but their morality is discreditable. Their abitrary and all-reach- 
 ing spirit reminds one of the Papal system; their recommendations 
 to sovereigns, their authorization of immoralities, recall the state of 
 Italian society as reflected in the works of Machiavelli. They hold 
 learning in the most signal esteem, but concede to the prejudices of 
 the illiterate in a worship of the Gods with burnt offerings of clari- 
 fied butter and libations of the juices of plants. They make a 
 Brahman the chief of all created things. 
 
 In their essential principles the Institutes follow the Vedas, 
 though, as must be the case in every system intended for men in 
 the various stages of intellectual progress from the least advanced 
 to the highest, they show a leaning toward popular delusions. 
 
 A new ritual, instead of the Vedas, has come into use, these 
 scriptures being the eighteen Puranas, composed between the 
 eighth and sixteenth centuries. They contain theogonies, accounts 
 of the creation, philosophical speculations, fragmentary history, 
 and may be brought to support any sectarian view, having never 
 been intended as one general body, but they are received as incon- 
 trovertible authority. In the " Baghavat Gita," the text book of 
 the modern school, the sole essential for salvation is dependence 
 on some particular teacher, which makes up for everything else. 
 The efficacy which is thus ascribed to faith, and the facility with 
 which sin may be expiated by penance, has led to great mental 
 perversion and superstition, which finds its analogy in the Roman 
 Church, and somewhat in all the churches where faith in the 
 Divinity of Christ is held as indispensable to salvation. 
 
 Christna or Chrisna, also Vishnu, is one of the most popular of 
 all the Hindoo deities. An immense number of legends are told 
 respecting him, which are not worth recording here, but the follow- 
 ing, condensed from the Anacalypsis of Godfrey Higgins, will well 
 repay perusal. He is represented as the son of Brahma and Maia, 
 and is usually called "the Saviour," or "the Preserver." He, 
 being a god, became incarnate in the flesh. As soon as he was 
 born, he was saluted by a chorus of devatars or angels. His birth 
 place was Mathurea. He was cradled amongst Shepherds. Soon 
 after his birth he was carried away by night to a remote place for 
 fear of a tyrant, whose destroyer it was foretold he would become,
 
 40 APPENDIX. 
 
 and who ordered all male children to be slain (an episode marked 
 in the sculptures at Elephanta). By the male line he was of Royal 
 descent, though born in a dungeon, which on his arrival he illumi- 
 nated, whilst the face of his parents shone. Christna spoke as soon 
 as he was born, and comforted his mother. He was preceded by his 
 brother Ram, who helped him to purify the world of monsters and 
 demons. Christna -descended into Hades, and returned to Vaicon- 
 tha. One of his names is " the good shepherd." An Indian pro- 
 phet, Nared Saphos, or wisdom, visited him, consulted the stars 
 and pronounced him a celestial being. Christna cured a leper ; a 
 woman poured on his head a box of ointment, and he cured her of 
 disease. He was chosen king amongst his fellow cowherds. He 
 washed the feet of Brahmins, and when Brahma stole the sheep 
 and cowboys of his father's farm (Nanda's) Christna made a new 
 set. Christna had a dreadful fight with the serpent Caluga. He 
 was sent to a tutor, whom he astonished with his learning. 
 Cbristna was crucified, went into hell, and afterwards into heaven. 
 
 Christina and his mother are almost always represented as 
 black. Christna's statue in the temple at Mathura is black, and 
 the temple is built in the form of a cross (Ptolemy calls the place 
 Matura Deorum.) As Vishnu he is painted with a Parthian 
 coronet round his head when crucified. As Wittoba he is painted 
 sometimes with stigmata in his hands, sometimes in his feet, and 
 one of the pictures representing him has a round hole in the side ; 
 to his collar hangs a heart, and on his head is a Linga yoni ! In 
 another picture he is called Ballaji, and is contending with a 
 seven-headed cobra. His most celebrated temple is at Terputty. 
 The date of Christna's first mystic birth is about six hundred B. C. 
 
 Of the deities of the Veda, Agni and Indra, the former com- 
 prises the element of Fire under three aspects. 1st. As it exists 
 on earth, not only as culinary or religious fire, but in the heat of 
 digestion and of life and the vivifying principle of vegetation ; 
 2d. As it exists in the atmosphere, or mid-heaven, in the form of 
 lightning ; and 3d. As it is manifested in the heavens, as light, 
 the sun, the dawn, and the planetary bodies. 
 
 The deification of INDRA is more consistent, as he has no 
 incongruous functions to discharge. He is a personification of 
 the phenomena of tha firmament, particularly in the capacity of 
 sending down rain. This property is metaphorically described as 
 a conflict with the clouds which are reluctant to part with their
 
 THE HINDOOS. 41 
 
 watery stores, until assailed and penetrated by the thunderbolt 
 of Indra. 
 
 The SUN, Surya or Savita, occupies a much less conspicuous 
 place in Hindu worship, than we should have anticipated from 
 the visible magnificence of that luminary, and his adoration by 
 neighboring nations. 
 
 The sun, like AGNI and INDRA, is the giver of temporal blessing 
 to his worshippers ; he is the source of light. 
 
 The share of AGNI and INDRA in the production of rain, and 
 their fierce and impetuous nature, are figurative representations of 
 physical phenomena. 
 
 The following is contained in the Hindu Sacred Writings. 
 
 In the beginning there arose the source of golden light. He 
 was the one born Lord of all that is. He 'stablished the earth 
 and this sky. 
 
 He who gives life, He who gives strength ; whose command all 
 the bright gods revere ; whose shadow is immortality. 
 
 He who through his power is the one King of the breathing and 
 awaking world; He who governs all, man and beast; Who is the 
 God to whom we shall offer our worship-? 
 
 He who by His might looked even over the water-clouds, the 
 clouds which gave strength and lit the sacrifice, He who alone is 
 God above all gods; Who is the God to whom we shall offer our 
 worship ? 
 
 May He not destroy us He the creator of the earth ; or He 
 the Righteous, who created the heaven ; He who also created the 
 bright and mighty waters; Who is the God to whom we shall 
 offer our worship ? 
 
 All who are wise of heart adore God the Begetter, bringing him 
 offerings of a devout heart with hymn of praise. 
 
 The air all around is full of the whispering of the wind, thy 
 breath. Those who are wise, the truthful seers, the ministers of 
 sacrifice, who raise on high the hymn of praise to thee. Even to 
 evil-doers is he merciful ; may we all live before thee without sin, 
 faithfully observant of thy eternal laws. 
 
 However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we are, 
 OGod. 
 
 Do not deliver us unto death, nor to the blow of the furious ; nor 
 to the anger of the spiteful ! 
 
 May he, the wise, make our paths straight all our days ; may 
 he prolong our lives I
 
 42 APPENDIX. 
 
 The god, whom the scoffers do not provoke, nor the tormentors 
 of men, nor the plotters of mischief. 
 
 Yearning for him, the far seeing, my thoughts move onwards, as 
 kine move to their pastures. 
 
 Be pure and pious all, that your way may not go down to the 
 house of death, but that you may enjoy length of days, and 
 abundance of treasures. 
 
 As days succeed days, changing seasons, with seasons, lo, give, 
 Creator, these here to live, that the younger may not leave their 
 parent desolate. 
 
 God's coursers bear on high the divine Sun that he may be seen 
 by all (the worlds.) 
 
 (At the approach) of the all-illuminating Sun, the constella- 
 tions depart, with the night. 
 
 With that light with which thou, the purifier and defender frqm 
 evil, lookest upon this creature-bearing world. 
 
 Indra abides, humbling the neglecters of holy acts in favor of 
 those who observe them, and punishing those who turn away from 
 his worship, in favor of those who are present (with their praise.) 
 
 This adoration is offered to the shedder of rain, the self- 
 resplendent, the possessor of true vigor, the mighty. 
 
 Verily, with thy bulk, thou fillest ail the firmament : of a truth 
 there is none other such as thou. 
 
 May the gods, turning not away, be ever with us for our 
 advancement. 
 
 May the benevolent favor of the gods (be ours :) may the 
 bounty of the gods, ever approving of the upright, light upon 
 us ; may we obtain the friendship of the gods. 
 
 Let us hear gods, with our ears, what is good objects of worship, 
 let us see, with our eyes what is good : let us engage in your 
 praises. 
 
 These divinities of the morning have spread light (over the 
 world.) 
 
 The deities of the dawn have restored, as of yore, the conscious- 
 ness of (sentient creatures,) and bright-rayed, have attended upon 
 the glorious sun, bringing every kind of food to the performer of 
 good works. 
 
 Ushas cuts off the accumulated (glooms.) The daughter of the 
 sky awaits the glorious sun.
 
 THE HINDOOS. 43 
 
 \Ve have crossed over the boundary of darkness. Ushas restores 
 the consciousness (of living beings.) Bright-shining, she smiles, 
 like a flatterer to obtain favor, and lovely in all her radiance, she 
 has swallowed for our delight the darkness. 
 
 May he, of whom the excellent measure (of all things,) through 
 strength, eternally and every where cherishes heaven and earth, 
 propitiated by our acts, convey us beyond evil. 
 
 Ushas, endowed with truth, let the worker of iniquity depart, 
 for we shall overcome him with our chariot, through thy assistance. 
 
 Let words of truth be spoken : let works of wisdom (be per- 
 formed.) 
 
 At thy dawning, (Ushas,) the various birds rise up from their 
 nests, and men who have to earn their bread quit their homes, be 
 glorified by this (my) hymn ; graciously disposed towards us, 
 augment (our prosperity ;) and may we obtain goddesses, through 
 your favor, a hundred and a thousand fold. 
 
 These wonderful (rewards) verily are for those who give (pious) 
 donations : for the donors of (pious) gifts the suns shine in 
 heaven : the givers of (pious) donations attain immortality : the 
 givers of (pious) gifts prolong their (worldly) existence. 
 
 May those who propitiate (the gods,) never commit degrading 
 sin : may those who praise the gods and observe holy vows, never 
 experience decay. 
 
 Agni, who gives pleasure (to his worshippers,) being pleased 
 (himself,) in like manner as men follow a path that leads to 
 happiness, who is the guardian of all these treasures, has power 
 (to distribute them.) 
 
 Agni grants blessings to every (pious) worshipper and opens for 
 him the gates (of heaven.) 
 
 Agni is a most amiable friend in human infirmity ; the beloved 
 protector of all, he preserves us from the malignity of sin. 
 
 Inasmuch as the hero, Indra, rightly judges men by their deeds, 
 therefore do the (pious ;) (men) worship him, that by their own 
 strength they may overcome (their foes.) 
 
 The timid and anxious (worshipper) praises thee, who art 
 auspicious, for driving (away) thieves ; for thou defendest (us) 
 from all beings, (as the reward) of our righteousness ; thou 
 protectest us from the fear of evil spirits, (as the reward) of our 
 righteousness.
 
 44 APPENDIX. 
 
 Whatever individual offers adoration preserve him entirely 
 unharmed from sin ; (preserve, from sin the mortal who is sincere 
 in his devotion, who offers worship with praises. 
 
 Desirous of happiness, I adore him, whose protection is ever 
 nigh ; who is the source of felicity ; who, when devoutly wor- 
 shipped, blends with the thoughts of all (his worshippers :) 
 (though) a deity. 
 
 Free from anger, and entitled to ample praise, be ever accessible 
 to us ; be our leader in every encounter. 
 
 Agni, listen attentively when thou art praised, by us, and repeat 
 (those praises) to the gods who are entitled to worship ; to the 
 royal (deities) entitled to worship. 
 
 Bestow, Agni, upon our excellent patron a boat ever fitted with 
 oars, (one that may render) our posterity prosperous, and may 
 bear mankind across (the ocean of life) to felicity. 
 
 He, the searcher, the accessible, has declared to mortals (the 
 knowledge of) their religious duties. 
 
 He who is visible to all, is the parent of that (pious) progeny. 
 He, who is, as it were, the generator of men as well as of heaven 
 and earth, of whom creation has imbibed life, abides with his 
 glories. 
 
 (I ask thee to withhold thy favor) from those who, acknowledging 
 thee not as his lord, is chary of gifts, and from him who rarely 
 praises (the gods.) 
 
 He amongst those (who are your followers,) who observes truth, 
 who is considerate, who is commended by the wise. 
 
 The purpose of worshipping you, is not the performance, but 
 (even by so much) I may attain to your glory, and there is 
 acquittance (of my duty.) 
 
 May I attain his favorite path, in which God-seeking men 
 delight ; (the path) in whose exalted station there is a (perpetual) 
 flow of felicity. 
 
 I glorify the mighty Heaven and Earth, those two, who, cherish- 
 ing their worshippers as children 
 
 Verily I propitiate, by my invocations, the mind of the 
 benevolent father, and the great and spontaneous (affection) of 
 the mother (of all beings :) The parents, with kindness, have 
 secured, by their excellent protections, the vast and manifold 
 immortality of their progeny.
 
 THE HINDOOS. 45 
 
 These, your children, the performers of good works, and of 
 goodly appearance, recognize you as their great parents, through 
 experience of former (kindness) preserve uninterrupted stability 
 in the functions of your progeny, whether stationary or moving, 
 (depending for existence) on none other than you. 
 
 Heaven and Earth, are the diffusers of happiness on all, encour- 
 agers of truth. 
 
 I have beheld the Lord of Men with seven sons ; of which 
 delightful and benevolent (deity) who is the object of our invoca- 
 tion. 
 
 Who has seen the primeval (being) at the time of his being born? 
 
 Ignorant, I enquire of the sages who know (the truth ;) not as 
 one knowing (do I enquire,) for the sake of (gaining) knowledge ' 
 what is that One alone, who has upheld these six spheres in the 
 form of the unborn. 
 
 Let him who knows this (truth) quickly declare it; the 
 mysterious condition of the beautiful ever-moving (sun :) the 
 rays shed (their) milk from his exalted head, investing his form 
 with radiance : they have drunk up the water by the paths (by 
 which they were poured forth.) 
 
 The mother (earth,) worships the father, (sun) with holy rites, for 
 the sake of water ; but he has anticipated (her wants) in his mind: 
 
 Miiller says : the idea of revelation, and we mean more particu- 
 larly book-revelation, is not a modern idea, nor is it an idea 
 peculiar to Christianity. 
 
 Though we look for it in vain in the literature of Greece and 
 Rome, we find the literature of India saturated with this idea from 
 beginning to end. In no country we believe, has the theory of 
 revelation been so minutely elaborated as in India. 
 
 According to the orthodox views of Indian theologians not a sin- 
 gle line of Veda was the work of human authors. The whole 
 Veda is in some way or other the work of the Deity ; and even 
 those who received the revelation, or, as they express it, those who 
 saw it, were not supposed to be ordinary mortals, but beings raised 
 above the level of common humanity, and less liable, therefore, to 
 error in the reception of revealed truth. The views entertained of 
 revelation by the orthodox theologians of India are far more 
 minute and elaborate than those of the most extreme advocates of 
 verbal inspiration in Europe. The human element, called " pau- 
 rusheyatva, " in Sanscrit, is driven out of every corner or hiding
 
 46 APPENDIX. 
 
 place ; and as the Veda is held to have existed in the mind of the 
 Deity before the beginning of time, every allusion to historical 
 events, of which there are not a few, is explained away with a zeal 
 and ingenuity worthy of a better cause. 
 
 The poets of the Veda speak of their hymns as " god-given." 
 One poet says: "0 god (Indra) have mercy ! Sharpen my mind, 
 like the edge of iron. Whatever I now may utter, longing for 
 thee, do thou accept it; make me possessed of God!" Another 
 utters for the first time the famous hymn, the " Gdyatri," which 
 now for more than three thousand years has been the daily prayer 
 of every Brahman, and is still repeated every morning by millions 
 of pious worshippers : " Let us meditate on the adorable light of 
 the divine Creator: may he rouse our minds." This consciousness 
 of higher influences in those who uttered praise, and thanksgiving 
 to Him who made us, is the key-note of all religion, whether 
 ancient or modern. 
 
 The real history of man is the history of religion the wonderful 
 ways by which the different families of the human race advanced 
 toward a truer knowledge, and a deeper love of God. This is the 
 foundation that underlies all history : it is the light, the soul, and 
 life of history. Man has but one history, the religious and profane 
 so-called are but one, a man's religion has its best exponent in his 
 every day conduct, good works and love to God being the first and 
 only religion, theologies and creeds being but as chaff. 
 
 The whole population of the world, has the same religion of the 
 various theologies and creeds held in the several countries. 31.2 
 per cent, are Buddhists, 13.4 per cent, are Brahmanists, which 
 together gives 44 per cent, for what may be called living Aryan 
 religions. Of the remaining 56 per cent., 15.7 are Mohammedans, 
 8.7 per cent, nondescript heathens, 30.7 per cent. Christians, and 
 only 0.3 per cent. Jews. 
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 
 
 The following contains some of the superstitions, worship, and 
 theology mingled by the priests of China, with the moral teachings 
 of Confucius; together with a short account of his early life and 
 teachings. 
 
 Confucius, a great sage, moralist, and teacher, an active advo- 
 cate of the good, the right, the true, and the practice of love and
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 47 
 
 kind offices between man and man, has been the object of adora- 
 tion and worship in chapels, specially erected for, and dedicated to 
 the purpose throughout the Chinese Empire, for the last twenty- 
 three centuries. He was born five hundred and fifty-one years 
 before Christ. He was the first born of his mother, who was mar- 
 ried when she was quite young to a man much older than herself. 
 Among the legends current connected with his birth, &c., are the 
 following : During the pregnancy of his mother, she dreamed that 
 she was to have a son, and that a four footed beast knelt before 
 her, and cast forth from his mouth a slip or gem, on which was the 
 inscription " The son of the essence of water shall succeed to the 
 withering Chow and be a throneless King." On the night when 
 the child was born, two dragons came and kept watch on the left 
 and right of the hill, and two spirit ladies appeared in the air, 
 pouring out fragrant odors. As soon as the birth took place, a 
 spring of clear warm water bubbled up from the floor of the cave, 
 which dried up again when the child had been washed in it. The 
 child was born in a designated cave, in obedience to a previous 
 dream. The records which we have of Confucius' early years are 
 very scant. When he was in his third year his father died. It is 
 related of him that as a boy he used to play at the arrangement of 
 sacrificial vessels, and postures of ceremony. Of his schooling, we 
 have no reliable account. He tells us himself at fifteen he bent his 
 mind to learning, but the condition of his family was one of pov- 
 erty. At the age of twenty he was employed as keeper of the 
 stores of grain. In his twenty-second year he commenced his 
 labors as a public teacher, and at thirty had made great progress 
 in learning and wisdom, gained great >and wide-spread fame and 
 was surrounded by disciples. The benefit of his wisdom and coun- 
 sel was sought after by the high and low, by Princes, Rulers, Stu- 
 dents, and enquirers after truth of all classes. So high was the 
 moral tone of all his axioms, and so perfectly in accordance with 
 man's innate perceptions of the right and good were all his teach- 
 ings, that the many drank them in with the same avidity as they 
 did the early teachings of Christ, before they were adulterated 
 with the theology of the priests. 
 
 The number of temples erected to his memory is sixteen hundred 
 tnd sixty. One of them occupies ten acres of land. The most 
 famous temple in the Empire now rises over the place of the grave 
 on which is inscribed : " The Perfect Sage." On the two festivals
 
 48 APPENDIX. 
 
 in the year sacred to his memory, there are sacrificed some seventy 
 thousand animals of different kinds, and twenty-seven thousand 
 pieces of silk are burned on his altars. Yet his religion is without 
 priests, liturgy, or public worship, except on these two occasions. 
 Kang-he, the second and greatest of the rulers of the present 
 dynasty, in the twenty-third year of his reign, set the example of 
 kneeling thrice, and each time laying his forehead thrice in the 
 dust, before the image of the sage. At first, the worship of Confu- 
 cius was confined to the country of Loo, but in A. D. 57 it was 
 enacted that sacrifices should be offered to him in the imperial col- 
 lege, and in all the colleges of the principal territorial division 
 throughout the empire. 
 
 About A. D. 628 began the custom, which continues to the pre- 
 sent day, of erecting temples to him, separate structures, in con- 
 nection with all the colleges, or examination-halls, of the country. 
 The sage is not alone in those temples. In a hall behind the prin- 
 cipal one occupied by himself, are the tablets in some cases the 
 images of several of his ancestors. On the first day of every 
 month, offerings of fruits and vegetables are set forth, and on the 
 fifteenth there is a solemn burning of incense. But twice a year, 
 in the middle months of spring and autumn, when the first " ting" 
 day of the month comes round, the worship of Confucius is per- 
 formed with peculiar solemnity. At the imperial college the 
 Emperor himself is required to attend in state, and is in fact the 
 principal performer. After all the preliminary arrangements have 
 been made, and the Emperor has twice knelt and six times bowed 
 his head to the earth, the presence of Confucius' spirit is invoked 
 in these words, " Great art thou, perfect sage ! Tfiy virtue is 
 full ; thy doctrine is complete. Among mortal men there has not 
 been thine equal. All kings honor thee. Thy statutes and laws 
 have come gloriously down. Thou art the pattern in this imperial 
 school. Reverently have the sacrificial vessels been set out. Full 
 of awe we sound our drums and bells." 
 
 The spirit is supposed now to be present, and the service pro- 
 ceeds through various offerings, when the first of which has been 
 set forth, an officer reads the following, which is the prayer on the 
 occasion : " On this .... month of this .... year, I, A. B., 
 the Emperor, offer a sacrifice to the philosopher K'ung, the ancient 
 Teacher, the perfect Sage, and say, Teacher, in virtue equal to 
 Heaven and Earth, whose doctrines embrace the past time and tha
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 49 
 
 present, thou didst digest and transmit the six classics, and didst 
 hand down lessors for all generations ! Now in this second month 
 of spring (or autumn), in reverent observance of the old statutes, 
 with victims, silks, spirits, and fruits, I carefully offer sacrifice 
 to thee. With thee are associated the philosopher Yen, continua- 
 tor of thee ; the philosopher Ysang, exhibitor of thy fundamental 
 principles ; the philosopher Ysze-sze, transmitter of thee ; and the 
 philosopher Mang, second to thee. May'st thou enjoy the offer- 
 ings !" 
 
 I need not go on to enlarge on the homage which the Emperors 
 of China render to Confucius. It could not be more complete. It 
 is worship and not mere homage. He was unreasonably neglected 
 when alive. He is now unreasonably venerated when dead. 
 
 At the present day, education is widely diffused throughout 
 China. In no other country is the school-master more abroad, and 
 in all schools it is Confucius who is taught. In many school-rooms, 
 there is a tablet or inscription on the wall, sacred to the sage ; and 
 every pupil is required on coming to school on the morning of the 
 first and fifteenth day of every month, to bow before it, the first 
 thing, as an act of worship. Thus, all in China who receive the 
 slightest tincture of learning, do so at the fountain of Confucius. 
 They learn of him, and do homage to him at once. 
 
 During his life-time he had three thousand disciples. Hundreds 
 of millions are his disciples now. For two thousand years he has 
 reigned supreme, the undisputed teacher of this most populous 
 land. Confucius is thus, in the empire of China, the one man by 
 whom all possible lessons of social virtue and political wisdom are 
 taught. 
 
 Confucius did not trouble himself to account for the origin of 
 man, nor did he pretend to know about his hereafter. 
 
 As to creation, and the final destiny of man, we suggest that, the 
 innate consciousness of the totality of the human race is that the 
 soul is immortal, and destined to an eternity of more or less hap- 
 piness, in proportion as man discharges, under his free-agency, the 
 laws of his maker which have relation to his being, as they are 
 revealed to him. 
 
 This is all that God has ever revealed to man on the subject, 
 and it is most unquestionably all that it is well for him to know. 
 If man could know with certainty all that would take place in rela-
 
 50 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion to his future life on earth, it would entirely unfit him for hap- 
 piness. 
 
 Among the things which Confucius taught were " truthfulness, 
 and sincerity," which were celebrated as highly, and demanded as 
 stringently by him, as ever it has been by any Christian moralist. 
 One of Confucius' disciples asked if there was one word which 
 would serve as a rule of practice for all one's life, and was 
 answered, "Is not reciprocity such a word?" What you do not 
 want done to yourself, do not unto others. 
 
 The people in China, as elsewhere, believe, what is the beginning 
 and end of all wisdom, that the laws of the moral Order of the 
 world correspond to the universal conscience. 
 
 The following declarations of Confucius and others among the 
 Chinese were made five hundred years before Christ. 
 
 The last years of the life of Confucius were devoted to editing 
 the Sacred Books, or Kings. As we now have them, they come 
 from him. Authentic records of Chinese history extend back to 
 two thousand three hundred and fifty-seven, B. C. while the 
 Chinese philosophy originated with Fuh-he, who lived about three 
 thousand three hundred and twenty-seven B. C. He it was who 
 substituted writing for the knotted strings which before formed 
 the only means of record. Confucius edited the Yih-King, the Shoo 
 King, the She-King, and the Leke, which constitute the whole of 
 the ancient literature of China which has come down to posterity. 
 
 In Shoo-King a personal God is addressed. The oldest books 
 recognize a Divine person: They teach that there is one Supreme 
 Being, who is omnipresent, who sees all things, and has an 
 intelligence which nothing can escape, that he wishes men to 
 live together in peace and brotherhood. He commands not only 
 right actions, but pure desires and thoughts ; that we should watch 
 all our behavior, and maintain a grave and majestic demeanor, 
 " which is like a palace in which virtue resides," but especially 
 that we should guard the tongue. " For a blemish may be taken out 
 of a diamond by carefully polishing it ; but, if your words have the 
 least felemish there is no way to efface that." " Humility is the 
 solid foundation of all the virtues." " To acknowledge one's incapa- 
 city is the way to be soon prepared to teach others, for from the 
 moment that a man is no longer full of himself, nor puffed up 
 with empty pride, -whatever good he learns in the morning he 
 practises before night," " Heaven penetrates to the bottom of
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 51 
 
 our hearts, like light into a dark chamber. We must conform 
 ourselves to it, till we are like two instruments of music tuned to 
 the same pitch. We must join ourselves with it, like two tablets 
 which appear but one. We must receive its gifts the very moment 
 its hand is open to bestow. Our irregular passions shut up the 
 door of our souls against God." 
 
 " Man has received his nature from Heaven. Conduct in 
 accordance with that nature, constitutes what is right and true, 
 is a pursuing of the proper path. The cultivation or regulation 
 of that path is what is called instruction. 
 
 "Man has received from Heaven a moral nature by which he is 
 constituted a law to himself, over this nature man requires to 
 exercise a jealous watchfulness ; and as he possesses it, absolutely 
 and relatively, in perfection, or attains to such possession of it, he 
 becomes invested with highest dignity and power. 
 
 "The way of the superior man reaches far and wide, and yet is 
 secret, the path of duty is to be pursued everywhere and at all 
 times while yet the secret spring and rule of it is near at hand, 
 in the Heaven-conferred nature, the individual consciousness, with 
 which no stranger can intermeddle. 
 
 " When one cultivates to the utmost the moral principles of his 
 nature, and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he is not 
 far from the path. What you do not like when done to yourself, 
 do not do to others : serve my father as I would require my son to 
 serve me : serve my elder brother as I would require my younger 
 brother to serve me : set the example in behaving to a friend as I 
 would require him to behave to me. 
 
 " Be earnest in practising the ordinary virtues, and careful in 
 speaking about them ; if in his practice he has anything defective, 
 the superior man dares not but exert himself, and if in his words 
 he has any excess, he dares not allow himself such license; have 
 respect to his actions, and his actions have respect to his words ; is 
 it not just an entire sincerity which marks the superior man ? 
 
 " The duties of universal application," those between husband 
 and wife, father and son, elder and younger brother, and friends. 
 
 The sincere or perfect man, is he who satisfies completely all the 
 requirements of duty in the various relations of society, and in the 
 exercise of government. " There is government when the prince 
 is prince, and the minister is minister, when the father is father, 
 and the son is son."
 
 52 APPENDIX. 
 
 There is a sufficient foundation in nature for government in the 
 several relations of society, and if those be maintained and 
 developed according to their relative significancy, it is sure to 
 obtain. This was a first principle in the political ethics of Con- 
 fucius. 
 
 The moment the ruler ceases to be a minister of God for good 
 and does not administer a government that is beneficial to the 
 people, he forfeits the title by which he holds the throne, and 
 perseverance in oppression will surely lead to his overthrow. 
 
 "Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with 
 kindness. He who recompenses injury with kindness is a man 
 who is careful of his person. Filial piety and fraternal submis- 
 sion ! are they not the root of all benevolent actions?" "Fine 
 words and an insinuating appearance are seldom associated with 
 true virtue." 
 
 The philosopher said, " I daily examine myself on three points: 
 whether, in transacting business for others, I may not have been 
 faithful ; whether, in intercourse with friends, I may not have 
 been sincere." 
 
 " A youth, when at home, should be filial, and abroad, respectful 
 to his elders. He should overflow in love to all, and cultivate the 
 friendship of the good." 
 
 " Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. 
 
 " When you have faults, do not fear to abandon them." 
 
 Tsze-kung said, " what do you pronounce concerning the poor 
 man who yet does not flatter, and the rich man who is not proud ?" 
 The Master replied, " they will do ; but they are not equal to him, 
 who, though poor, is yet cheerful, and to him, who, though rich, 
 loves the rules of propriety." 
 
 " He who exercises government by means of his virtue, may be 
 compared to the north polar star, which keeps its place and all the 
 stars turn towards it." In the Book of Poetry are three hundred 
 pieces, but the design of them all may be embraced in that one 
 sentence ' Have no depraved thoughts.' 
 
 The duties of filial piety must be performed with a cheerful 
 countenance. 
 
 The Duke Gae asked, saying, "What should be done in order to 
 secure the submission of the people." Confucius replied, "advance 
 the upright and set aside the crooked, then the people will sub-
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 53 
 
 mit. Advance the crooked and set aside the upright, then the 
 people will not submit.", 
 
 Ke K'ang asked how to cause the people to reverence their ruler, 
 to be faithful to him, and to urge themselves to virtue. The 
 Master said, " Let him preside over them with gravity ; then they 
 will reverence him. Let him be filial and kind to all ; then they 
 will be faithful to him. Let him advance the good and teach the 
 incompetent ; then they will eagerly seek to be virtuous." 
 
 The Master said, " I do not know how a man without truthful- 
 ness is to get on. How can a large carriage be made to go with- 
 out the cross-bar for yoking the oxen to, or a small carriage with- 
 out the arrangement for yoking the horses ?" 
 
 The Master said, " For a man to sacrifice to a spirit which does 
 not belong to him is flattery. 
 
 " To see what is right and not to do it, is want of courage. 
 
 " He who offends against Heaven has none to whom he can pray. 
 
 " If the will be set on virtue, there will be no practice of wicked- 
 ness. 
 
 " Riches and honors are what men desire. If it cannot be 
 obtained in the proper way, they should not be held. Poverty 
 and meanness are what men dislike. If it cannot be avoided in 
 the proper way, they should be endured. 
 
 " The superior man does not, even for the space of a single meal 
 act contrary to virtue. In moments of haste, he cleaves to it. In 
 seasons of danger he cleaves to it. 
 
 " If a man in the morning hear the right way, he may die in the 
 evening without regret. 
 
 " A man should say, I am not concerned that I have no place 
 I am concerned how I may fit myself for one. I am not concerned 
 that I am not known, I seek to be worthy to be known." " My 
 doctrine is that of an all-pervading unity." 
 
 " Be true to the principles of our nature and the benevolent 
 exercise of them to others. 
 
 " When we see men of worth, we should think of equalling 
 them ; when we see men of a contrary character, we should turn 
 inwards and examine ourselves. 
 
 " The cautious seldom err. 
 
 " The superior man wishes to be slow in his words and earnest 
 in his conduct.
 
 54 APPENDIX. 
 
 " Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practises it will 
 have neighbors." 
 
 The Master said, " I have not seen a firm and unbending man.' 
 Some one replied, "There is Shin Ch'ang." " Ch'ang," said the 
 Master, " is under the influence of his lusts, how can he be firm 
 and unbending?" 
 
 The Master said of Tsze-ch'an that he had four of the character- 
 istics of a superior man : in his conduct of himself, he was humble; 
 in serving his superiors, he was respectful ; in nourishing the 
 people, he was kind ; in ordering the people, he was just. 
 
 " In regard to the aged, give them rest ; in regard to friends, show 
 them sincerity ; in regard to the young, treat them tenderly." 
 
 The Duke Gae asked which of the disciples love to learn. Con- 
 fucius replied to him, there was Yen Hwuy ; He loved to learn. 
 He did not transfer his anger ; he did not repeat a fault. Unfor- 
 nately, his appointed time was short and he died ; and now there 
 is not such another. I have not yet heard of any one who loves to 
 learn as he did. 
 
 "They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, 
 and they who love it are not equal to those who find delight in it." 
 
 Fan Ch'e asked what constituted wisdom. The Master said, "To 
 give one's-self earnestly to the duties due to men. The man of 
 virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and 
 success only a subsequent consideration." 
 
 " The wise are active ; the virtuous are tranquil. The wise are 
 joyful ; the virtuous are long-lived. 
 
 <; The superior man, extensively studying all learning, and keep- 
 ing himself under the restraint of the rules of propriety, may thus 
 likewise not overstep what is right. 
 
 " Perfect is the virtue which is according to the Constant Mean! 
 
 " The man of perfect virtue, wishing to be established himself, 
 seeks also to establish others ; wishing to be enlarged himself, he 
 seeks also to enlarge others. 
 
 " To be able to judge of others by what is nigh in ourselves ; 
 this may be called the art of virtue." 
 
 The Master said, " The leaving virtue without proper cultiva- 
 tion ; the not thoroughly discussing what is learned ; not being 
 able to move towards righteousness of which a knowledge is 
 gained ; and not being able to change what is not good : these 
 are the things which occasion me solicitude.
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 55 
 
 " Let the will be set on the path of duty. 
 
 " Let every attainment in what is good be firmly grasped. 
 
 " Let perfect virtue be accorded with. 
 
 'Let relaxation and enjoyment be found in the polite arts. 
 
 The Master said, " With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, 
 and my bended arm for a pillow ; I have still joy in the midst 
 of these things. Riches and honors acquired by unrighteousness 
 are to me as a floating cloud. 
 
 "Do you think, my disciples, that I have any concealments? 
 I conceal nothing from you. Could I see a man possessed of con- 
 stancy, that would satisfy me. 
 
 " Having not and yet affecting to have, empty and yet affecting 
 to be full, straitened and yet affecting to be at ease: it is difficult 
 with such characteristics to have constancy. 
 
 " Hearing much and selecting what is good and following it, 
 seeing much and keeping it in memory : this is the second style 
 of knowledge. 
 
 " Is virtue a thing remote ? I wish to be virtuous, and lo ! 
 virtue is at hand." 
 
 The Master said, " The sage und the man of perfect virtue : 
 how dare I rank myself with them ? It may simply be said of me, 
 that I strive to become such without satiety, and teach others 
 without weariness. 
 
 ' When those who are in high stations perform well all their 
 duties to their relations, the people are aroused to virtue. 
 
 "There are three principles of conduct which the man of high 
 rank should consider specially important : that in his deportment 
 and manner he keep from violence and heedlessness ; that in regu- 
 lating his countenance he keep near to sincerity ; and that in his 
 words and tones he keep far from lowness and impropriety. 
 
 " It is by the Odes that the mind is aroused. 
 
 ' It is by the Rules of propriety that the character is established. 
 
 " It is from Music that the finish is received." 
 
 The Master said, " It is not easy to find a man who has learned 
 for three years without coming to the good. 
 
 ' With sincere faith he unites the love of learning; holding firm 
 to death, he is perfecting the excellence of his course. 
 
 " Learn as if you could not reach your object, and were always 
 fearing also lest you should lose it."
 
 56 APPENDIX. 
 
 There were four things from which the Master was entirely free. 
 He had no foregone conclusions, no arbitrary predeterminations, 
 no obstinacy, and no egotism. 
 
 " The prosecution of learning may be compared to what may 
 happen in raising a mound. It may be compared to throwing 
 down the earth on the level ground. Though but one basketful 
 is thrown at a time, the advancing with it is my own going 
 forward. 
 
 " Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles. 
 
 ' The commander of the forces of a large State may be carried 
 off, but the will of even a common man cannot be taken from 
 him. 
 
 "The wise are free from perplexities; the virtuous from anxiety; 
 and the bold from fear. 
 
 " A great minister, is one who serves his prince according to 
 what is right, and when he finds he cannot do so, retires. 
 
 " Look not at what is contrary to propriety ; listen not to what 
 - is contrary to propriety ; speak not what is contrary to propriety ; 
 make no movement which is contrary to propriety." 
 
 Chung-kung asked about perfect virtue. The Master said, " It 
 is when you go abroad, to behave to every one as if you were 
 receiving a great guest ; not to do to others as you would not wish 
 done to yourself; to have no murmuring against you in the coun- 
 try, and none in the family. 
 
 " Be cautious and slow in speech. 
 
 " When a mans feelu the difficulty of doing, can he be other than 
 cautious and slow in speaking ? 
 
 " When internal examination discovers nothing wrong, what is 
 there to be anxious about, what is there to fear ? 
 
 " He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the 
 mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh, are 
 successful, may be called intelligent, indeed, may be called far- 
 seeing. 
 
 " Hold faithfulness and sincerity as first principles, and be 
 moving continually to what is right ; this is the way to exalt 
 one's virtue. 
 
 " The art of governing is to keep its affairs before the mind 
 without weariness, and to practise them with undeviating consis- 
 tency.
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 57 
 
 " The superior man seeks to perfect the admirable qualities of 
 men. 
 
 " To govern, means to rectify. If you lead on the people with 
 correctness, who will not dare to be correct ? 
 
 " The man of distinction is solid and straightforward, and loves 
 righteousness. 
 
 " To assail one's own wickedness and not assail that of others ; 
 this is the way to correct cherished evil. For a morning's anger to 
 disregard one's own life, and involve that of one's parents; is not 
 this a case of delusion ?" 
 
 Fan Ch'e asked about benevolence. The Master said, "It is to 
 love all men. 
 
 " Employ the upright and put aside all the crooked ; in this 
 way, the crooked can be made to be upright. 
 
 " Faithfully admonish your friend, and kindly try to lead him. 
 
 " When punishments are not properly awarded, the people do 
 not know how to move hand or foot. 
 
 " If he cannot rectify himself, what has he to do with rectifying 
 others ? 
 
 " In the management of business, to be reverently attentive ; in 
 intercourse with others, to be strictly sincere. 
 
 " The ardent will advance and lay hold of truth ; the cau- 
 tiously-decided, will keep themselves from what is wrong. 
 
 "The superior man is affable, but not adulatory; the mean 
 is adulatory, but not affable. 
 
 " The superior man has a dignified ease without pride. The 
 mean man has pride without a dignified ease. 
 
 " The firm, the enduring, the simple, and the modest, are near 
 to virtue. 
 
 " He who speaks without modesty will find it difficult to make 
 his words good. 
 
 " The way of the superior man is three-fold. Virtuous, he is free 
 from anxieties ; wise, he is free from perplexities ; bold, he is free 
 from fear. 
 
 " What do you say concerning the principle that injury should 
 be recompensed with kindness?" 
 
 The Master said, " With what then will you recompense kind- 
 ness? 
 
 " Recompense injury with justice, and recompense kindness with 
 kindness.
 
 58 APPENDIX. 
 
 " If a man take no thought about what is distant, he will find 
 sorrow near at hand. 
 
 "The superior man in everything considers righteousness to be 
 essential. He performs it according to the rules of propriety. He 
 brings it forth in humility. He completes it with sincerity. 
 
 " What the superior man seeks, is in himself. What the mean 
 man seeks, is in others. 
 
 " Is there one word which may serve as a rule of practice for all 
 one's life?" The Master said, "Is not Reciprocity such a word? 
 What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others. 
 
 " Specious words confound virtue. Want of forbearance in small 
 matters confounds great plans. 
 
 " To have faults and not to reform them, this indeed, should 
 be pronounced having faults. 
 
 "By nature, men are nearly alike; by practice, they get to be 
 wide apart. 
 
 " If you are grave, you will not be treated with disrespect. If 
 you are generous, you will win all. If you are sincere, people will 
 repose trust in you. If you are earnest, you will accomplish much. 
 If you are kind, this will enable you to employ the services of 
 others. 
 
 " Without recognizing the ordinances of Heaven, it is impossible 
 to be a superior man. 
 
 " The illustrious virtue is the virtuous nature which man derives 
 from Heaven. 
 
 " The cultivation of the person is the prime, radical thing 
 required from all. 
 
 " Let there be daily renovation. What truly is within will be 
 manifested without. 
 
 " Riches adorn a house, and virtue adorns the person. The cul- 
 tivation of the person depends on the rectifying of the mind. The 
 regulation of one's family depends on the cultivation of his person. 
 
 " There are few men in the world who love, and at the same 
 time know the bad qualities of the object of their love, or who hate, 
 and yet know the excellences of the object of their hatred. 
 
 " Act as if you were watching over an infant. If a mother is 
 really anxious about it, though she may not hit exactly the wants 
 of her infant, she will not be far from doing so." 
 
 "From the loving example of one family, a whole State becomes 
 loving, and from its courtesies, the whole State becomes courteous.
 
 CONFUCIANISM. 59 
 
 " The ruler must himself be possessed of the good qualities, and 
 then he may require them in the people. When the ruler as a 
 father, a son, and a brother, is a model, then the people imitate 
 him. 
 
 " When the sovereign behaves to his aged, as the aged should be 
 behaved to, the people becomes filial ; when the sovereign behaves 
 to his elders, as elders should be behaved to, the people learn bro- 
 therly submission ; when the sovereign treats compassionately the 
 young and helpless, the people do the same. Thus the ruler has a 
 principle with which, as a measuring square, he may regulate his 
 conduct. The ruler's words going forth contrary to right, will 
 come back to him in the same way, and wealth, gotten by improper 
 ways, will take its departure by the same. 
 
 " To love those whom men hate, and to hate those whom men 
 love ; this is to outrage the natural feeling of man. 
 
 " Let there be activity in the production, and economy in the 
 expenditure. Then the wealth will always be sufficient. 
 
 " What Heaven has conferred is called THE NATURE ; an accord- 
 ance with this nature is called THE PATH of duty ; the regulation of 
 path is called INSTRUCTION. 
 
 " While there are no stirrings of pleasure, anger, sorrow, or joy, 
 the mind may be said to be in the state of Equilibrium. When those 
 feelings have been stirred and they act in their due degree, there 
 ensues what may be called the state of Harmony. This Equilib- 
 rium is the great root from which grow all the human actings in 
 the world, and this Harmony is the universal path which they all 
 should pursue. 
 
 " Let the states of equilibrium and harmony exist in perfection, 
 and a happy order will prevail throughout heaven and earth, and 
 all things will be nourished and flourish. 
 
 " To show forbearance and gentleness in teaching others, and not 
 to revenge unreasonable conduct. 
 
 " When men try to pursue a course, which is far from the indica- 
 tions of consciousness, this course cannot be considered THE PATH. 
 
 " In hewing an axe-handle, the pattern is not far off. We grasp 
 one axe-handle to hew the other, and yet, if we look askance from 
 the one to the other, we may consider them as apart. 
 
 " When one cultivates to the utmost the principles of his nature, 
 and exercises them on the principle of reciprocity, he ,is not far 
 from the path.
 
 60 APPENDIX. 
 
 " The superior man can find himself in no situation in which he 
 is n ot himself. 
 
 " Happy union with wife and children is like the music of lutes 
 and harps. When there is concord among brethren, the harmony 
 is delightful and enduring. 
 
 " How abundantly do spiritual beings display the powers that 
 belong to them. 
 
 " We look for them, but do not see them ; we listen to, but do not 
 hear them ; yet they enter into all things, and there is nothing 
 without them, like overflowing water, they seem to be over the 
 heads, and on the right and left of their worshippers." 
 
 It is said in the Book of Poetry. " The approaches of the spirits 
 you cannot surmise ; and can you treat them with indifference ? 
 
 " Such is the manifestness of what is minute! Such is the impos- 
 sibility of repressing the outgoings of sincerity. 
 
 " He who is greatly virtuous will be sure to receive the appoint- 
 ment of Heaven. 
 
 " The -administration of government lies in getting proper men. 
 Such men are to be got by means of the ruler's own character. 
 That character is to be cultivated by his treading in the ways of 
 duty. And the treading those ways of duty is to be cultivated by 
 the cherishing of benevolence. 
 
 " Benevolence is the characteristic element of humanity. Right- 
 eousness is the accordance of actions with what is right. 
 
 " If principles of conduct have been previously determined, the 
 practice of them will be inexhaustible. 
 
 " Sincerity is the way of Heaven. The attainment of sincerity is 
 the way of men. To this attainment there are requisite the exten- 
 sive study of what is good, accurate inquiry about it, careful reflec- 
 tion on it, the clear discrimination of it, and the earnest practice 
 of it. 
 
 "Let a man proceed in this way, and, though dull, he will surely 
 become intelligent ; though weak, he will surely become strong. It 
 is only he who is possessed of the most complete sincerity that can 
 give full development to his nature. 
 
 " He who cultivates to the utmost the shoots of goodness in him. 
 From those he can attain to the possession of sincerity. This sin- 
 cerity becomes apparent. From being apparent it becomes mani- 
 fest. From being manifest it becomes brilliant. Brilliant it affects 
 others. Affecting others they are changed by it. Changed by it 
 they are transformed.
 
 MEXICO AND PERU. 61 
 
 " Heaven and Earth are without any doubleness, and so they 
 produce things in a manner that is unfathomable. 
 
 " What needs no display is virtue. 
 
 " Learn the past and you will know the future. 
 
 " Grieve not that men know not you, grieve that you know not 
 men. 
 
 " The essence of knowledge is, having it, to apply it ; not having 
 it, to confess your ignorance. 
 
 " Worship as though the Deity were present. 
 
 " If my mind is not engaged in my worship, it is as though I 
 worshipped not." 
 
 MEXICO AND PERU. 
 
 The social condition of Mexico and Peru, at the time of the dis- 
 covery of America, demonstrates what is claimed in the introduc- 
 tion of this work, that similar usages make their appearance spon- 
 taneously in the progress of civilization of different countries, 
 showing how little they depend on accident, how closely they are 
 connected with the nature and organization, and therefore with the 
 necessities of man. From important ideas and great institutions 
 down to the most trifling incidents of domestic life, so striking is 
 the parallel between the American aborigines and Europeans that 
 with difficulty do we divest ourselves of the impression that there 
 must have been some intercommunication. Each was, however, 
 pursuing an isolated and spontaneous progress ; and yet how 
 closely does the picture of life in the New World answer to that 
 in the Old ! The monarch of Mexico lived in pomp ; wore a golden 
 crown resplendent with gems ; was aided in his duties by a privy 
 council ; the great lords held their lands of him by the obligation 
 of military service. In him resided the legislative power, yet he 
 was subject to the laws of the realm. The judges held their office 
 independently of him, and were not liable to removal by him. The 
 laws were reduced to writing, which though only a system of hiero- 
 glyphics, served its purpose so well that the Spaniards, were obliged 
 to admit its validity in their courts, and to found a professorship 
 for perpetuating a knowledge of it. Marriage was regarded as an 
 important social engagement. Divorces were granted with diffi- 
 culty.
 
 62 APPENDIX. 
 
 In the human hives of Europe, Asia, and America, the bees were 
 marshalled in the same way and were instinctively building their 
 combs alike. 
 
 The religious state, that is true religion, is a reflection of that of 
 Europe, and Asia ! as also their theology. Their worship was 
 mixed up with imposing ceremonial. The common people had a 
 mythology of many gods, but the higher classes were strictly Unita- 
 rian, acknowledging one Almighty, invisible Creator. Of the popu- 
 lar deities, the god of war was the chief. With sedulous zeal, the 
 clergy engrossed the duty of public education, thereby keeping 
 society in their grasp. 
 
 The condition of astronomy in Mexico is illustrated, as it is in 
 Egypt, by the calendar. At the conquest, the Mexican calendar 
 was in a better condition than the Spanish. They had sun-dials 
 for determining the hour, and also instruments for the solstices and 
 the equinoxes. They had ascertained the globular form of the 
 earth and the obliquity of the ecliptic. Their agriculture was 
 superior to that of Europe ; there was nothing in the Old World 
 to compare with the menageries and botanical gardens. 
 
 They employed a currency of gold dust, pieces of tin, and bags 
 of cacao. In their domestic economy though polygamy was per- 
 mitted, it was in practice, confined to the wealthy. The women 
 did not work abroad, but occupied themselves in spinning, em- 
 broidering, feather-work, music. Ablution was resorted to both 
 before and after meals ; perfumes were used at the toilet. The 
 Mexicans gave to Europe tobacco, snuff, the turkey, chocolate, 
 cochineal. Like us, they had in their entertainments solid dishes, 
 with suitable condiments, gravies, sauces and desserts of pastries, 
 confections, fruits, both fresh and preserved. They had chafing- 
 dishes of silver or gold. Like us, they knew the use of intoxi- 
 cating drinks ; like us, they not unfrequently took them to excess ; 
 like us, they heightened their festivities with dancing and music. 
 They had theatrical and pantomimic shows. At Tezcuco there 
 was a council of music, which, moreover, exercised a censorship on 
 philosophical works, as those of astronomy and history. In that 
 city, North American civilization reached its height. The king's 
 palace was a wonderful work of art. It was said that two hundred 
 thousand men were employed in its construction. 
 
 The prevailing religious feeling is expressed by the sentiments of 
 one of the kings, many of whom had prided themselves in their
 
 MEXICO AND PERU. 63 
 
 poetical skill : " Let us," lie says, " aspire to that heaven where all 
 is eternal, and where corruption never comes." He taught his 
 children not to confide in idols, but only to conform to the outward 
 worship of them in deference t6 public opinion. 
 
 To the preceding description of the social condition of Mexico 
 we shall add a similar brief account of that of Peru, for the conclu- 
 sions to be drawn from a comparison of the spontaneous process of 
 civilization in these two countries with the process in Europe, is of 
 importance to the attainment of a just idea of the development of 
 mankind. The most competent authorities declare that the Mexi- 
 cans and Peruvians were ignorant of each other's existence. 
 
 The state of Peruvian civilization is at once demonstrated when 
 it is said that these mountain slopes had become a garden, immense 
 terraces having been constructed wherever required, and irriga- 
 tion on a grander scale than that of Egypt carried on by gigantic 
 canals and aqueducts. Advantage was taken of the different 
 mean annual temperatures at different altitudes to pursue the cul- 
 tivation of various products, for difference in height topographically 
 answers to difference in latitude geographically ; and thus, in a 
 narrow space, the Peruvians had every variety of temperature, 
 from that corresponding to the hottest portions of Southern Europe 
 to that of Lapland. In the mountains of Peru, as has been graph- 
 ically said, man sees " all the stars of the heavens and all the fami- 
 lies of plants." On plateaus at a great elevation above the sea 
 there were villages and even cities. Thus the plain upon which 
 Quito stands, under the equator, is nearly ten thousand feet high. 
 So great was their industry that the Peruvians had gardens and 
 orchards above the clouds ; and on ranges still higher flocks of 
 lamas, in regions bordering on the limit of perpetual snow. 
 
 Through the entire length of the empire two great military 
 roads were built ; one on the plateau, the other on the shore. 
 The former, for nearly two thousand miles, crossed sierras covered 
 with snow, was thrown over ravines, or went through tunnels in 
 the rocks. 
 
 The public couriers, as in Mexico, could make, if necessary, two 
 hundred miles a day. Of these roads, Humboldt says that they 
 were among the most useful and most stupendous ever executed 
 by the hand of man. 
 
 In Cuzco, the metropolis, was the imperial residence of the Inca 
 and the Temple of the Sun. It contained edifices which excited 
 the amazement of the Spanish.
 
 64 APPENDIX. 
 
 The Peruvian religion ostensibly consisted of a worship of the 
 Sun, but the higher classes, had already become emancipated from 
 such a material association, and recognized the existence of one 
 almighty, invisible God. They expected the resurrection of the 
 body and the continuance of the soul in a future life. 
 
 To the Supreme Being but one temple was dedicated. It was 
 in a sacred valley, to which pilgrimages were made. 
 
 Besides the sun, the visible god, other celestial bodies were 
 worshipped in a subordinate way. 
 
 As to the people, nowhere else in the whole world was such an 
 extraordinary policy of supervision practised. 
 
 They were divided into groups of ten, fifty, one hundred, five 
 hundred, one thousand, ten thousand, and over the last an Inca 
 noble was placed. Through this system a rigid centralization was 
 ensured, the Inca being the pivot upon which all the national 
 affairs turned. It was an absolutism worthy of the admiration of 
 many existing European nations. 
 
 The Inca, at once emperor and pope, was enabled, in that 
 double capacity, to exert a rigorous partriarchal rule over his 
 people, who were treated like children, not suffered to be 
 oppressed. Industry was encouraged ; for, with a worldly wisdom 
 which no other nation presents, labor was here acknowledged not 
 as a means, but also as an end. It was the boast of the system 
 that every one lived exempt from social suffering, that all enjoyed 
 competence. 
 
 In their extraordinary provisions for agriculture, the national 
 pursuit, the skill of the Peruvians is well seen. 
 
 A rapid elevation from the sea-level to the heights of the 
 mountains gave them, in a small compass, every variety of climate, 
 and they availed themselves of it. They terraced the mountain- 
 sides, filling the terraces with rich earth. They excavated pits in 
 the sand, surrounded them with adobe walls, and filled them with 
 manured soil. On the low level they cultivated bananas and 
 cassava ; on the terraces above, maize and quinoa ; still higher, 
 tobacco; and above that, the potato. From a comparatively 
 limited surface, they raised great crops by judiciously using 
 manures, employing for that purpose fish, and especially guano. 
 Their example has led to the use of the latter substance for a like 
 purpose in oar own times in Europe. The whole civilized world 
 has followed them in the cultivation of the potato.
 
 MEXICO AND PERU. 65 
 
 We have dwelt at some length on the domestic history of Mexico 
 and Peru because it is intimately connected with one of the 
 philosophical principles which it is the object of this book to teach, 
 viz : that human progress takes place under an unvarying law, 
 and therefore in a definite way. The trivial incidents mentioned 
 in the preceding paragraphs may perhaps have seemed insig- 
 nificant and wearisome, but it is their very commonness, their very 
 familiarity, that gives them, when rightly considered a surprising 
 interest. There is nothing in these minute details but what we 
 find to be perfectly natural from the European point of view. 
 They might be, for that matter, instead of reminiscences of the 
 spontaneous evolution of a people shut out from the rest of the 
 world by impassable oceans, a relation of the progress of some 
 European or Asiatic nation. The man of America proceeded 
 forward in his course of civilization as did the man of the Old 
 World, devising the same institutions, guided by the same inten- 
 tions, constrained by the same desires. From the great features of 
 his social system down to the little details of his domestic life, there 
 is a sameness with what was done in Asia, Africa, Europe. But 
 similar results imply a similar cause. What, then is there possessed 
 in common by the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Egyptian, the European, 
 the Americans ? Simply nothing but the sameness of the endow- 
 ments which constitute human nature God working through Man 
 to produce his will and pleasure. The same instincts, intuitions, 
 incentives, and common sense guides men all over the world. Man 
 in his social progress, the free-will of which he so prides himself, in 
 his individual capacily gives way, or is so modified by the action 
 and influence of others and the domination of general laws, as that 
 God's exact purpose in creating man shall be attained ; notwith- 
 standing, that individual man (short-sighted as he is) has partial 
 control over his destiny. 
 
 The free agency of the individual is so restrained by instincts, 
 intuitions, and other influences, that none can hopelessly stray 
 from the path assigned to him. To each individual bee, the career 
 is open ; he may taste of this flower and avoid that ; he may ba 
 industrious in the garden, or idle away his time in the air ; but the 
 history of one hive is the history of another hive ; there will be a 
 predestined organization the queen, the drones, the workers. 
 In the midst of a thousand unforeseen, uncalculated, variable acts, 
 a definite result, with unerring certainty, emerges ; the combs are
 
 66 APPENDIX. 
 
 built in a pre-ordained way, and filled with honey at last. At the 
 time of the conquest the moral man in Peru was fully equal to the 
 Europeans, and we will add, the intellectual man also. Nor in 
 Spain, or even in all Europe, was there to be found a political 
 system carried out into the practical details of actual life, and 
 expressed in great public works as its outward, visible, and endur- 
 ing sign, which could at all compare with that of Peru. 
 
 Manco Capac is generally spoken of by historians as having 
 introduced the worship of the sun ; this mistake seems to have 
 arisen from the title of the GREAT LIGHT, by which many branches 
 of the Indian people characterized the Creator, and this is perfectly 
 scriptural, as we are taught to consider the sun as a symbol or repre- 
 sentation of that Great moral Light and Life, which is emphati- 
 cally called the " Sun of Righteousness." The sun is illustrative 
 of the Divine power and Godhead, as well as are all the other 
 works of ihe Creator ; the term Great Light, and its symbol the 
 sun, seem to have been considered by historians a synonyme ; and 
 therefore they have erroneously charged the Incas with the worship 
 of the sun, instead of the great moral Light by whom as men, and 
 as a community, they were greatly enlightened. 
 
 The following were among the regulations for governing the 
 people ; there were judges in small controversies. Idleness was 
 punished with stripes. Each colony had a supreme judge. Theft, 
 murders, and adultery were punished chiefly by death, in order not 
 to leave a bad man more incensed or necessitated to commit new 
 crimes. 
 
 These laws had so good an effect, that sometimes a year passed 
 without one execution. * * * " After a long and revered reign, at 
 the approach of the last period of life, Mango Capac called 
 together all his children and grand-children ; he told them he was 
 going to repose himself with his Father. To his eldest son he left 
 his empire, and advised and charged them all to continue in the 
 paths of reason and virtue, which he had taught them, until they 
 followed him on the same journey, and that this was the only 
 course by which they could prove themselves the children of the 
 GREAT LIGHT, and as such be honored and respected. He com- 
 mknded his successor, whose name was Sinchi Roca, to govern his 
 people with justice, mercy, piety, clemency, and care of the poor ; 
 and that when he should go to rest, &c., he should give the same 
 instructions and exhortations to his successor."
 
 MEXICO AND PERU. 67 
 
 Inca Roca erected schools for the education of the princes; it was 
 a eaying of this Inca, that, " If there be anything in this lower 
 world which we might adore, it is a wise and virtuous man, who 
 surpasses all other objects in dignity : but how can we pay Divine 
 honors to one who is born in tears, who is in a daily state of change, 
 who arrived but as yesterday, and who is not exempt from death 
 perhaps to-morrow." Ibid. ch. 2. p.75. 
 
 Pacha Cutec (the reformer) made many new laws and regula- 
 tions ; he was severely just, and was esteemed a wise monarch. 
 The following were some of his apophthegms : 
 
 " He who envies the wise and good, is like the wasp which sucks 
 poison from the finest flowers." 
 
 "Drunkenness and anger admit of reformation, but folly is 
 incurable." 
 
 " He who kills another unlawfully condemns himself to death." 
 
 "A noble and generous heart is known by the patience with 
 which it supports adversity." 
 
 " How ridiculous is he who is not able to count by quipos, and 
 yet pretends to number the stars." 
 
 The Inca Yupanqui was, by universal consent, surnamed the 
 charitable ! His son Tupac Yupanqui preserved the conquests of 
 his virtuous predecessors ; he " governed his empire with wisdom 
 and mildness." The emperor at length, feeling the approach of 
 death, gave orders that his children " should come into his presence 
 to hear his last injunctions." He recommended them by living in 
 peace and justice, to prove themselves the true children of the 
 Supreme Light. 
 
 Among other maxims of this Inca, he said, "Avarice and ambi- 
 tion like other Passions have no bounds of moderation : the first 
 unfits a man for the government of his own family, or for any pub- 
 lic employment; the second renders the understanding not suscep- 
 tible of the counsels of the wise and virtuous." 
 
 "In the kingdom of Acolhuan, the judicial power wis divided 
 amongst seven principal cities. The judges remained in their tri- 
 bunals from sun-rise until sun-set. Their meals were brought to 
 them, that they might not be taken off from their employment by 
 the concerns of their families, nor have any excuse for being cor- 
 rupted. They were assigned possessions, and also laborers to cul- 
 tivate their fields. Those possessions belonged to their office, and 
 could not be inherited by their sons. Every Mexican month
 
 68 APPENDIX. 
 
 (twenty days) an assembly of Judges was held before the king, in 
 order to determine all cases then undecided. If very intricate and 
 perplexed, they were, if not then decided; reserved for the grand 
 solemn general assembly, which was held every eighty days, and 
 was called the conference of the eighty ; at which all cases were 
 finally disposed of, and punishment pronounced on the guilty. 
 
 He who at market altered the measures established by law, was 
 guilty of felony, and was severely punished. 
 
 A murderer forfeited his own life for his crime, even although 
 the person murdered was a slave. 
 
 "In the legislature of Acolhuan, if a nobleman was intoxicated 
 to the losing of his senses, he was thrown into a river or lake ; if a 
 plebian, for the first offence, he lost his liberty, for the second, his 
 life. And when the legislator was asked why the law was more 
 severe upon nobles than others, he answered that the crime of 
 drunkenness was less pardonable in them, as they were bound in 
 duty to set a good example. 
 
 Hardwick says : There is reason to believe that some of these 
 advances towards civilization in Mexico should be dated from a 
 very high antiquity, especially in Yucatan. That Mexicans had 
 borrowed largely from the Mayan builders, who already, in the 
 dawn of history, erected towns and palaces and pyramid temples f 
 rivalling those of Egypt in area and magnificence; her creed, her 
 laws, her ritual, and administrative principles, had all assumed a 
 very definite and distinctive character. 
 
 The wild man of America expresses a belief in some Great Spirit, 
 (Mr. Schoolcraft says this doctrine is at the base of their religion. 
 Mr. Prescott says " that the rude tribes inhabiting the vast Ameri- 
 can continent had attained to the sublime conception of one Great 
 Spirit, the Creator of the universe,") manifesting itself, not only, 
 as the root and basis of ajl being, but in the light of a beneficent 
 Creator. 
 
 The Mexican name for God is teo-tl. The Mexicans beheld in 
 him the being " by whom we live," " omnipresent, that knoweth all 
 thoughts and giveth all gifts," "without whom man is as nothing," 
 " invisible, incorporeal, one God of perfect perfection and purity," 
 " under whose wings we find repose and a sure defence." This 
 Being also had been worshipped by some elevated spirits, without 
 image, sacrifice or temple. He was called the " Cause of causes," 
 and the " Father of all things."
 
 THE TALMUD. 69 
 
 In the address of the Mexican high-priest, the language runs as 
 follows : " We entreat that those who die in war may be graciously 
 received by thee, our Father." 
 
 The Mexicans conceive the proper home of the divine Being to 
 be in the heavens: he is declared to be impalpable as " night and 
 air." 
 
 THE TALMUD. 
 
 Among the ancient literature of the Hebrews was the Talmud, 
 containing the laws and compilations of expositions of duties 
 imposed upon the people by scripture, by traditions, by authority 
 of their doctors, or by custom. The history of the time over which 
 the composition of the Talmud ranges is about one thousand years, 
 and its origin is co-eval with the return from the Babylonish cap- 
 tivity. 
 
 " Six hundred and thirteen injunctions" (says the Talmud) " wa^s 
 Moses instructed to give the people. David reduced them all to 
 eleven in the fifteenth Psalm: " Lord who shall abide in thy taberna- 
 cle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill ? He that walketh uprightly, 
 and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart. 
 He that backbiteh not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neigh- 
 bor, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbor. In whose eyes 
 a vile person is contemned ; but he honoreth them that fear the 
 Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not. He 
 that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh a reward 
 against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be 
 moved." 
 
 The prophet Isaiah reduced them to six xxxiii 15. " He that 
 walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly, he that despiseth the 
 gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from holding of 
 bribes, that stoppeth his ears from the hearing of blood, and shut- 
 teth his eyes from seeing evil ; He shall dwell on high : his place of 
 defence shall be the munitions of rocks : bread shall be given him ; 
 his waters shall be sure." 
 
 The prophet Micah reduced them to three, vi. 8. " What doth 
 the Lord require of thee but to do justly, love mercy and walk 
 humbly with thy God?" 
 
 Isaiah once more reduced them to two, Ivi. 1. "'Keep ye judg- 
 ment and do justice."
 
 70 APPENDIX. 
 
 Amos reduced them all to one, v. 4. " Seek me and ye shall 
 live." 
 
 But lest it might be supposed from this that God could be found 
 in the fulfilment of his whole law only, Habakkuk said, ii. 4. 
 " The just shall live by faith." 
 
 As God is pure, so the soul is pure. This purity is specially 
 dwelt upon in contradistinction to the theory of hereditary sin, 
 which is denied. 
 
 There is no everlasting damnation according to the Talmud. 
 There is only a temporary punishment even for the worst sinners. 
 No human being is excluded from the world to come. The punish- 
 ment of the wicked is not specified, as indeed all the descriptions 
 of the next world are left vague, yet with regard to Paradise, the 
 idea of something inconceivably glorious is conveyed at every step. 
 
 The "philosophy of religion" will be best comprehended by 
 some of those " small coins," the popular and pithy sayings, 
 gnomes, proverbs, and the rest, which, even better than street 
 songs, characterize a time. We have thought it preferable to give 
 them at random as we found them, instead of building up from 
 them a system 'of " Ethics" or "Duties of the Heart." We have 
 naturally preferred the better and more characteristic ones that 
 came in our way. 
 
 " Be thou the cursed, not he who curses. Be of them that are 
 persecuted, not of them that persecute. Look at Scripture: there is 
 not a single bird more persecuted than the dove ; yet God has cho- 
 sen her to be offered up on His altar. The bull is hunted by the 
 lion, the sheep by the wolf, the goat by the tiger. And God said^ 
 " Bring me a sacrifice, not from them that persecute, but from 
 them that are persecuted." " Has God pleasure in the meat and 
 blood of sacrifices?" asks the prophet. No; He has not so much 
 ordained as permitted them. It is for yourselves, he says, not for 
 me that you offer. Even when the gates of prayer are shut in 
 heaven, those of tears are open. When the righteous dies it is the 
 earth that loses. The aim and end of all wisdom is good works. 
 The dying benediction of a sage to his disciples was : I pray for 
 you that the fear of heaven may be as strong upon you as the fear 
 of man. You avoid sin before the face of the latter: avoid it 
 before the face of the All-seeing. " If your God hates idolatry, why 
 does He not destroy it ?" a heathen asked. And they answered 
 him : Behold, they worship the sun, the moon, the stars ; would
 
 THE TALMUD. 71 
 
 you have Him destroy this beautiful world for the sake of the fool- 
 jsh ? If your God is a " friend of the poor, " asked another, " why 
 does He not support them?" Their case, a sage answered, is left 
 in our hands, that we may thereby acquire merits. But what a 
 merit it is ! the other replied ; suppose I am angry with one of my 
 slaves, and forbid him food and drink, and some one goes and gives 
 it him furtively, shall I be much pleased ? Not so, the other replied. 
 Suppose you are wroth with your only son and imprison him with- 
 out food, and some good man has pity on the child, and saves him 
 from the pangs of hunger, would you be so very angry with the 
 man? And we, if we are called servants of God are also called 
 His children. He who has more learning than good works, is like a 
 tree with many branches but few roots, which the first wind throws 
 on its face ; whilst he whose works are greater than his knowledge 
 is like a tree with many roots and fewer branches, but which all 
 the winds of heaven cannot uproot. 
 
 Love your wife like yourself, honor her more than yourself. 
 Whosoever lives unmarried, lives without joy, without comfort, 
 without blessing. Descend a step in choosing a wife. If thy wife 
 is small, bend down to her and whisper into her ear. He who 
 forsakes the love of his youth, God's altar weeps for him. He who 
 sees his wife die before him, has, as it were, been present at the 
 destruction of the sanctuary itself around him the world grows 
 dark. It is woman alone through whom God's blessings are vouch- 
 safed to a house. She teaches the children, speeds the husband to 
 the place of worship, and instruction, welcomes him when he 
 returns, keeps the house godly and -pure, and God's blessings rest 
 upon all these things. The birds in the air even despise the miser. 
 He who gives charity in secret is greater than Moses himself. 
 Honor the sons of the poor, it is they who bring science into splen- 
 dor. Let the honor of thy neighbor be to thee like thine own. 
 Hospitality is an important part of Divine worship. There are 
 three crowns : of the law, the priesthood, the kingship ; but the 
 crown of a good name is greater than them all. 
 
 How can you escape sin ? Think of three things : whence thou 
 comest, whither thou goest, and to whom thou wilt have to account 
 for all thy deeds ; even to the King of Kings, the All-Holy, 
 praised be He. Four shall not enter Paradise ; the scoffer, the 
 liar, the hypocrite, and the slanderer There is a great difference 
 between him who is ashamed before his own self, and him who is
 
 72 APPENDIX. 
 
 only ashamed before others. It is a good sign in man to be capable 
 of being ashamed. One contrition in man's heart is better than 
 many flagellations. He who walks daily over his estates finds a 
 little coin each time. He who humiliates himself will be lifted 
 up ; he who raises himself up will be humiliated. Whosoever 
 runs after greatness, greatness runs away from him, he who 
 runs from greatness, greatness follows him. He who curbs his 
 wrath, his sins will be forgiven. Whosoever does not persecute 
 them that persecute him, whosoever takes an offence in silence, he 
 who does good because of love, he who is cheerful under his suffer- 
 ings they are the friends of God, and of them the Scripture says, 
 " And they shall shine forth as does the sun at noonday." Pride 
 is like idolatry. Commit a sin twice and you will think it 
 perfectly allowable. When the end of a man is come, everybody 
 lords it over him. The day is short, and the work is great ; but the 
 laborers are idle, though the reward be great and the master of 
 the work presses. It is not incumbent upon thee to complete the 
 work ; but thou must not therefore cease from it. If thou hast 
 worked much, great shall be thy reward ; for the master who 
 employed thee is faithful in his payment. But know that the true 
 reward is not of this world. " Have a care in legal decisions, 
 send forth many disciples, and make a fence around the law.' 
 " On three things stands the world ; on law, on worship, and on 
 charity." 
 
 " Of all things, the most hated were idleness and asceticism, piety 
 and learning themselves only received their proper estimation 
 when joined to healthy bodily -work. It is well to add a trade to 
 your studies ; you will then be free from sin." 
 
 Before leaving this period of Mishnic development, we have yet 
 to speak of one or two things. This period is the one in which 
 Christianity arose ; and it may be as well to touch here upon the 
 relation between Christianity and the Talmud. The New Testa- 
 ment, written as Lightfoot has it, " among Jews, by Jews, for Jews," 
 cannot but speak the language of the time, both as to form and 
 broadly spi'aking, as to contents. There are many more vital points 
 of contact between the New Testament and the Talmud than 
 divine seem fully to realize, for such terms as " Redemption," 
 "Baptism," "Grace," "Faith," "Salvation," "Regeneration," 
 "Son of Man," " Son of God," " Kingdom of Heaven," were not, as 
 we are apt to think, invented by Christianity, but were household
 
 EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 73 
 
 words of Talmudical Judaism. No less loud and bitter in the 
 Talmud are the protests against " lip-serving," against " making the 
 law a burden to the people," against " laws that hang on hairs," 
 against " Priests and Pharisees." The fundamental mysteries of the 
 new Faith are matters totally apart ; but the Ethics in both are, iu 
 their broad outlines, identical. That grand dictum, " Do unto 
 others as thou wouldst be done by," is quoted by Hillel, the Presi- 
 dent, at whose death, Jesus was ten years of age, not as anything 
 new, but as an old and well-known dictum " that comprised the 
 whole Law." " Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," is a 
 precept of the Old Testament, as Christ himself taught his disciples. 
 The " Law " as we have seen and shall further see, was developed, 
 to a marvellously, and 'perhaps, oppressively minute pitch. " The 
 faith of the heart" was a thing that stood much higher with the 
 "Pharisees than this outward law. It was a thing, they said, not 
 to be commanded by any ordinance ; yet was greater than all. 
 
 About thirty years (B. C.) Hillel became President. Of his meek- 
 ness, his piety, his benevolence, the Talmudical records are full. 
 A few of his sayings will characterize him better than any sketch 
 of ours could do. " Be a disciple of Aaron, a friend of peace, a 
 promoter of peace, a friend of all men, and draw them near unto 
 the law." " Do not believe in thyself till the day of thy death." 
 
 " Do not judge thy neighbor until thou hast stood in his place." 
 " Whosoever does not increase in knowledge decreases." One day 
 a heathen went to Shammai the head of the rival academy, and 
 asked him mockingly to convert him to the law while he stood on 
 one leg. The irate master turned him from the door. He then 
 went to Hillel, who received him kindly, and gave him that reply 
 since so widely propagated. "Do not unto another what thou 
 wouldst not have another do unto thee. This is the whole Law, 
 the rest is mere commentary." 
 
 EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 
 
 It is ascertained to a certainty by the reading of hieroglyphics 
 on the monuments of Egypt, that as long as five thousand years 
 ago, Egypt was an old country, and the wild barbarian state 
 " when wild in woods the noble savage ran," appears as remote 
 from that period as from the present. 
 
 Art, luxury, even the vices of wealth and power are apparent, 
 but of the so-called state of nature nothing is to be seen. The ear-
 
 74 APPENDIX. 
 
 liest king of all Egypt must have ascended the throne about B. C. 
 3643, and the paintings in the tombs at Ben Hassan must date at 
 least B. C. 2800 ; giving them at his time an actual antiquity very 
 little short of five thousand years : for they bear the names of that 
 far-famed king of the twelfth dynasty, whose extraordinary stature, 
 extensive conquests, and long reign are recorded by Manethon and 
 Herodotus. His name is variously written by the different tran- 
 scribers: in some it is Sesostris, in others Sesonchosis, and in the 
 monuments, Sesortesen. 
 
 It was at one of the most brilliant periods of the Egyptian mon- 
 archy, therefore, that we have the elaborate representation of social 
 life which these tombs afford : and this brilliant period was appar- 
 ently anterior by many centuries to the birth even of Abraham. 
 
 At this epoch, five thousand years ago, the Egyptians were skilled 
 in the art of glass-blowing ; the smelting and working of metals, 
 weaving, pottery, brick making, boat building, rope making, pre- 
 paring leather, making wine from the grape, writing, painting, 
 sculpture ; they had saws for the carpenter, sickles for the reaper, 
 scythes for the cutter of stubble, chisels for the sculptor: their 
 buildings were supported by columns ; they had gardens elabo- 
 rately laid out, boats covered like a gondola to protect the passen- 
 gers from the rays of the sun ; the rich enjoyed field sports in their 
 preserves, which were stocked with wild animals by the labor of 
 slaves ; ladies had their social meetings, where they were enter- 
 tained by flute players and admired or criticised each other's dress; 
 guests came to feasts in chariots drawn by caparisoned horses, and 
 were entertained by tumblers and .dancing girls, dressed in trans- 
 parent robes, for the manufacture of which Egypt was always 
 famous. 
 
 From the above enumeration of what we are wont to term the 
 arts of civilization, we might fancy ourselves introduced to the 
 dominions of a Hindoo prince of our own times. No ! It is the 
 picture of an age of the world when primeval barbarism has been 
 supposed to have prevailed. 
 
 Trace back the Egyptians from the age of the great Sesortesen 
 toward that of the founder of the sole monarchy, and what do we 
 find ? Pyramids, obelisks, gigantic statues, temples ; all the evi- 
 dences of wealth and power. Writing materials are depicted on 
 the monuments of the fourth dynasty. The age of barbarism like 
 the rainbow, recedes at the attempt to follow it.
 
 EGYPTIAN HISTORY. 75 
 
 The priests, here, as in all other countries, were a favored class 
 segregated from the rest by their learning and their riches, no less 
 than by their privilege of caste ; despising this ignorance of the 
 lower orders, devised ceremonies to amuse, rather than to enlighten 
 them ; and thus perpetuated and even increased this ignorance. 
 All that we are told of the mysteries, the secret doctrines &c., which 
 the Greeks affirm to have been introduced from Egyyt, comfirms 
 this ; the religion of the heart, which ought to have expressed 
 itself in the simple prayer or thanksgiving which formed the first 
 worship of man, was exchanged for a set of ceremonies so compli- 
 cated, that the complete knowledge of them became an art requir- 
 ing long instruction ; the truth was hid under a vein which common 
 eyes were unable to see through ; and the sacerdotal caste arro- 
 gated consequence to itself for knowing what it had itself origi- 
 nally concealed. 
 
 There is a tendency in mankind to keep that a secret which is 
 profitable ; and it is seldom that any priesthood, existing as a cor- 
 porate body, has entirely escaped the dangerous influence of the 
 spirit of caste. NOTE. It is to this probably, that most of the cor- 
 ruptions of Christ's teaching have been owing. Man is discouraged 
 by the priests from believing that the approach to his Maker is 
 easy, or his laws simple as nature itself; they are taught to despise 
 the plain short order " Wash and be clean." Hence the gorgeous- 
 ness of ceremonial worship. 
 
 In the paintings of Beni-Hassan, though the act of prayer, and 
 the offering of incense are often represented, no figure of the deity 
 to whom this service was dedicated, is given. At a later period 
 both paintings and sculpture abound with representations of 
 strangely misformed deities, which are receiving the homage of their 
 worshippers. Yet in the midst of all this, the books of tho priest- 
 hood (for such we must imagine the ceremonial ritual of which so 
 many fragments are still existing) tell of a judgment after death, 
 according to the actions performed during life ; of the immortality 
 of the soul ; and of its re-union with the body. 
 
 We have no positive knowledge of the state of man in other 
 countries at the early period to which the monuments of Egypt 
 carry us back ; but India, China, and Persia, claim for themselves a 
 civilization as ancient, and there is no reason why a state of things 
 which we find certainly proved in one country, should not have 
 extemied to others. Indeed, if we may be allowed to reason from
 
 76 APPENDIX. 
 
 analogy, it is much more probable that other nations should have 
 reached to something near the same point, than that Egypt should 
 have stood alone. China has been so much a sealed book, hitherto, 
 that we can say little as to its antiquities, or even as to its present 
 habits ; but there is much in modern Hindostan which reminds us 
 of the state of manners depicted in the tombs of the ancient 
 Egyptians. 
 
 Within a short time the opinions here advanced, have received 
 a farther corroboration from the disinterment of sculptures from the 
 palaces, or temples of the ancient Assyrian empire; which mark a 
 state of civilization very similar to that of Egypt. We find there a 
 monarch sumptuously apparelled and attended ; horses harnessed 
 to chariots; swords elaborately ornamented on the hilt; dresses 
 embroidered and fringed ; and a style of sculpture greatly resem- 
 bling that of ancient Egypt. 
 
 " The centre of the consciousness which the Egyptains possessed 
 of God's agency in our history is the Osiris worship, the oldest, 
 and most sacred portion of their religion Osiris is the Lord, the 
 God and father of each individual soul, the judge of men, who 
 passes sentence strictly according to the right and wrong, reward- 
 ing goodness and punishing crime. The judgment held upon the 
 souls of the dead is nothing else than the reflection of that general 
 theory of the universe according to which the good prevails, on 
 earth in the midst of conflict, while evil annihilates itself, pro- 
 moting the good against its own will It involves the recognition 
 that there is a solution of the enigma of existence which is not to 
 be found in the term of a single life on earth, and yet which we 
 are compelled to seek after, in order to explain this life All guilt 
 must be expiated but the final issue, although reached only after 
 the lapse of unnumbered ages, will be the triumph of the good, 
 the general reconciliation, and a life in God will be the eternal 
 heritage of the soul This thought pervades all the records we 
 possess respecting the trial held upon the deceased in Egypt This 
 special mystery of the Egyptian religion implies a faith in the two 
 great fundamental laws of all religious consciousness the unity 
 of the human reason in the conscience, and the indestructibility 
 of personal identity All mankind are judged by Osiris according 
 to one standard" The foregoing are among the religious views held 
 by the Egyptians three thousand years B. C.
 
 STOICISM. 77 
 
 STOICISM. 
 
 Dugal Stewart says, " The Stoics were a large sect, and of its 
 members so many have been celebrated, that a separate work would 
 be needed to chronicle them all. From Zeno, the founder, down to 
 Brutus and Marcus Antonius, the sect embraces many Greek and 
 Roman worthies, and not a few solemn pretenders. Soms of these 
 we would willingly introduce ; but we are forced to confine our- 
 selves to one type ; and the one we select is Zeno." 
 
 He was born at Citium, a small city in the island of Cyprus, of 
 Phoenician origin, but inhabited by Greeks. The date of his birth 
 is uncertain, probably about three hundred and fifty years B. C. 
 His father was a merchant, in which trade he himself engaged, until 
 his father, after a voyage to Athens, brought home some works of 
 Socratic philosophers; these Zeno studied with eagerness and 
 rapture, and determined his vocation. 
 
 When about thirty, he undertook a voyage, both of interest and 
 pleasure, to Athens, the great mart both for trade and philosophy. 
 Shipwrecked on the coast, he lost the whole of his valuable cargo of 
 Phoenician purple : and thus, reduced to poverty, he willingly 
 embraced the doctrine of the Cynics, whose ostentatious display of 
 poverty had captivated many minds. 
 
 The gross manners of the Cynics, so far removed from true sim- 
 plicity, and their speculative incapacity, soon caused him to seek a 
 master elsewhere. 
 
 As a man, Zeno appears deserving of the highest respect. So 
 honored and respected was he by the Athenians, that they 
 entrusted to him the keys of the citadel ; and when he died they 
 erected to his memory a statue of brass. 
 
 Zeno the stoic had a Roman spirit; and this is the reason why 
 BO many noble Romans became his disciples : he had deciphered 
 the wants of their spiritual nature. 
 
 Alarmed at the scepticism which seemed inevitably following 
 speculations of a metaphysical kind, Zano, like Epicurus, fixed his 
 thoughts principally upon morals. His philosophy boasted of 
 being eminently practical, and connected with the daily practices 
 of life. But, for this purpose, the philosopher must not regard 
 pleasure so much as virtue : nor does virtue consist in a life of con- 
 templation, but in a life of activity. 
 
 Zeno taught as follows : Not to regard pleasure so much as vir- 
 tue : nor does virtue consist in a life of contemplation and specula-
 
 78 APPENDIX. 
 
 tion, but in a life of activity ; for what is virtue? Virtue is man- 
 hood. And what are the attributes of man? Are they not 
 obviously the attributes of an active, as well as of a speculative 
 being? and can that be virtue which excludes or neglects man's 
 activity ? Man was not made for speculation only ; wisdom is not 
 his only pursuit. Man was not made for enjoyment only ; he was 
 made also to do somewhat, and to be somewhat. 
 
 If the universe be subject to a general law, every part of that 
 universe must also be duly subordinate to it. The consequence is 
 clear ; there is but one formula for morals, and that is, " Live har- 
 moniously with nature," both individual and universal nature. 
 
 The Stoics placed the supreme good in rectitude of conduct, with- 
 out any regard to the event. They taught that nature pointed out 
 to us certain objects of choice and of rejection, and amongst these 
 some to be more chosen and avoided than others : and that virtue 
 consisted in choosing and rejecting objects according to their 
 intrinsic value. 
 
 "The Stoics, in the character of their virtuous man, included 
 rational desire, aversion, and exultation, included love and paren- 
 tal affection, friendship, and a general benevolence to all man- 
 kind." 
 
 Nor did they exclude wealth from among the objects of choice. 
 The Stoic Hecato, in his Treatise of Offices quoted by Cicero, tells 
 us, " That a wise man, while he abstains from doing anything con- 
 trary to the customs, laws, and institutions of his country, ought to 
 attend to his own fortune. For we do not desire to be rich for 
 ourselves only, but for our children, relations, and friends, and 
 especially for the commonwealth, inasmuch as the riches of indi- 
 viduals are the wealth of a State." 
 
 By the Stoics, virtue was supposed to consist in the affectionate 
 performance of every good office towards their fellow-creatures, 
 and in full resignation to Providence for everything independent 
 of their own choice. 
 
 " The Stoic enlisted himself as a willing instrument in the hands 
 of God for the good of his fellow-creatures. For himself, the cares 
 and attentions which this object required were his pleasures, arid 
 the continued exertion of a beneficent affection, his welfare and his 
 prosperity." 
 
 Uppn the whole, it cannot be disputed, that its leading doctrines 
 are agreeable to the purest principles of morality and religion.
 
 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY. 79 
 
 Indeed, they all terminate in one maxim: That we should not 
 make the attainment of things external an ultimate object, but 
 place the business of life in doing our duty, and leave the care of 
 our happiness to him who made us. 
 
 It was the precepts of this school which rendered the supreme 
 power in the hands of Marcus Aurelius a blessing to the human 
 race ; and which secured the private happiness, and elevated the 
 minds of Helvidius and Thrasea under a tyranny by which their 
 country was oppressed. 
 
 CLASSICAL ANTIQUITY. 
 
 In ancient Rome the political institutions, and therefore, civil 
 liberty, were the organs of religious consciousness. 
 
 Now, if we take both these series of development as a whole, we 
 shall readily convince ourselves, that in some particular branches 
 history shows nothing elsewhere equal in splendor to the phe- 
 nomena presented by the religious consciousness of classical anti- 
 quity. This holds good, more especially, of its manifestations in 
 public life. In this field, freedom forms a constant unit. And 
 where else do we find so high a level attained by the community 
 at large, combined with that public spirit and readiness to make 
 sacrifices for the common wealth of a beloved and free fatherland, 
 which ever betokens a high grade of culture; as among Greeks 
 and Romans? Where so organic au unfolding, elaboration, and 
 permanent fruitage of ax-t and poetry ? Where so finished a form 
 of historical and philosophical composition ? 
 
 And the social, no less than the public life of this ancient world, 
 is much more thoroughly inter-penetrated with the sense of divine 
 sanction than is that of our modern world. 
 
 The comparison of the parallel phenomena presented by Aryan 
 Christendom and classical antiquity, must leave a depressing 
 impression on the impartial observer. 
 
 The Romans had no hereditary sacred code, relating to spiritual 
 and moral things, similar to those of the Hebrews, or even such as 
 the Greeks possessed in that early period we have in view. Nor, 
 again, had the Romans any prophets, either in the same sense as 
 the Hebrews, or such as the Greeks were familiar with. 
 
 The Romans were not mere warriors and conquerors. They had 
 their wise law-givers, who made efficient regulations, and adhered 
 to them, from Servius Tullius onwards ; courageous Statesmen, and 
 upright Judges.
 
 80 APPENDIX. 
 
 CICERO. 
 
 Cicero, who lived B. C , 106, says : that, "Law properly under- 
 stood, is no other than right reason, agreeing with nature, spread 
 abroad among men, ever consistent with itself, eternal, whose office 
 is to summon to duty by its commands, to deter from vice by its 
 prohibitions, which, however, to the good never commands or for- 
 bids in vain, never influences the wicked, either by commanding 
 or forbidding. In contradiction to this law, nothing can be laid 
 down, nor does it admit of partial or entire repeal. Nor can we be 
 released from this law either by vote of the Senate, or decree of 
 the people. Nor does it require any commentator, or interpreter 
 besides itself. Nor will there be one law at Athens, and another 
 at Rome, one now, and another hereafter : but one eternal, immu- 
 table law will both embrace all nations and at all times. And there 
 will be one common Master, as it were, and Ruler of all, namely, 
 God, the great Originator, Expositor, Enactor of this Law ; which 
 law, whoever will not obey, will be flying from himself, and 
 having treated with contempt his nature, will, in that very fact, 
 pay the greatest penalty, even if he shall have escaped other pun- 
 ishments, as they are commonly considered. 
 
 All men acknowledge that which we are led by nature to sup- 
 pose, namely, that there are Gods. 
 
 Surely the mighty power of the Infinite Being is most worthy of 
 our great and earnest contemplation. 
 
 Ignorance is inconsistent with the nature of the Gods, and imbe- 
 cility with their majesty. 
 
 Is he worthy to be called man, who attributes to chance, not to 
 an intelligent cause, the constant motions of the heavens, the regu- 
 lar courses of the stars, the agreeable proportion and connection of 
 all things, conducted with so much reason, that our intellect itself 
 is unable to estimate it rightly. When we see machines move arti- 
 ficially, as a sphere, a clock, or the like, do we doubt whether they 
 are the production of reason ? And when we behold the heavens 
 moving with a prodigious celerity, and causing an annual succes- 
 sion of the different seasons of the year, which vivify and preserve 
 all things, can we doubt that the world is directed by a reason 
 most excellent and divine? 
 
 Among men there is no nation so savage and ferocious as not to 
 admit the necessity of believing in a God. From whence we con- 
 clude that every man must recognize a Deity.
 
 PINDAR. 81 
 
 The law of virtue is the same in God and man. 
 
 What nation is there, which has not a regard for kindness, 
 benignity, and gratitude? What nation is there, in which arro- 
 gance, cruelty, and unthajikfulness are not reprobated and de- 
 tested ? 
 
 There is no expiation for the crimes and impieties of men. The 
 guilty, therefore, must pay the penalty, and bear the punishment ; 
 not so much those punishments inflicted by courts of justice, which 
 were not always in being, do not exist at present in many places, 
 and even where established, are frequently biased and partial, 
 but those of conscience ; while the furies pursue them, not with 
 burning torches as the poets feign, but with remorse of conscience, 
 and the tortures arising from guilt. 
 
 PINDAR. 
 
 Pindar, the Theban, a Greek Poet, born about B. C. 520, had 
 extraordinary honors paid to him during his life, and after his 
 decease. His odes and religious hymns were chanted in the 
 temples of Greece before the most crowded assemblies, and on the 
 most solemn occasions. The priestess of Apollo at Delphi declared 
 that it was the will of that divinity that Pindar should receive 
 half of the first fruits offered at his shrine. The Athenians erected 
 a statue of brass in honor of him. 
 
 Pindar speaks of the divine load-stars of this earthly life, virtue, 
 piety, and reason, which ponder on the seriousness of life, and 
 pious reverence for moderation. In no case does he refer man to 
 omens and dreams and auguries. 
 
 The Hellenes possessed no sacred historical records, and there- 
 fore, escaped, the dangers of deducing intellectual dogmas of belief 
 from historical traditions or symbolical legends and fables. 
 
 Pindar proclaimed, that in human destinies a divine law rules, 
 and this is the same law which the wise and pious man discovers 
 in his own bosom. 
 
 There exists an Order of the World : it is a Moral Order. It 
 subsists not only for the brief earthly existence of the soul, for it is 
 of a divine nature ; but already here below it regulates human 
 destinies with a divine authority. 
 
 Again, he declares that, human things have their origin and 
 subsistence by virtue of the divine element which resides in them. 
 
 The self-seeking principle in individuals or states. 
 F
 
 82 APPENDIX. 
 
 Pindar preached this doctrine, not after the fashion of an Orphic 
 theologian : he set it before all men's eyes in the events and 
 experiences of actual life. If any one expects to escape the notice 
 of the Deity in doing aught, he errs. . 
 
 As many as have steadfastness, to keep their soul altogether 
 from unjust actions, accomplish their way on the path of Zeus. 
 
 Hateful is deceitful speech, meditating guile, ill report that 
 maketh mischief. May I never have this character, Father Zeus, 
 but may I hold to the guileless paths of life. 
 
 As to what shall befall us, no sure presage attends men, whereby 
 they may foreknow the decrees of Providence. 
 
 Hope binds the frame of man with strong enchantment. 
 
 The bitterest end awaits the pleasure that is contrary to right. 
 
 PLATO. 
 
 Plato first established himself at Athens as a lecturer about 
 386 B. C. 
 
 Plato says that, in order to be happy, a man must be at once 
 wise, brave, temperate, just. 
 
 He does not indeed lay his main stress on the retribution and 
 punishments which follow injustice, because he represents injustice 
 as being in itself a state of misery, to the unjust agent: nor upon 
 the rewards attached to justice, because he represents justice itself 
 as a state of intrinsic happiness to the just agent. 
 
 The just man will be well-esteemed and well-treated by men; 
 he will also be favored and protected by the Gods, both in this life 
 and after this life. The unjust man, on the contrary, will be ill- 
 esteemed and ill-treated by men ; he will be disapproved and 
 punished by the Gods, both while he lives, and after his death. 
 Perhaps for a time the just man may seem to be hardly dealt with 
 and miserable the unjust man to be prosperous and popular but 
 in the end, all this will be reversed. 
 
 Man is happy or miserable, in and through himself, or essentially; 
 whether he be known to Gods and men or not whatever may be 
 the sentiment entertained of him by others. 
 
 Plato declares that it is impracticable and impious to attempt 
 to appease the displeasure, or to conciliate the favor of the Gods 
 by means of prayer and sacrifice. 
 
 He accounts it a greater crime to believe in indulgent and per- 
 suadeable Gods, than noi to believe in any Gods at all.
 
 EPICURUS. 83 
 
 Every one loves, desires, or aspires to happiness : this is the 
 fundamental or primordial law of human nature, beyond which w 
 cannot push enquiry. Good, or good things, are nothing else but 
 the means to happiness : accordingly every man, loving happiness, 
 loves good also, and desires not only full acquisition, but perpetual 
 possession of good. 
 
 EPICURUS. 
 
 Epicurus, a Greek Philosopher, 280 B. C., in his letter to 
 Mencecus gives his Code of Morals, and mode of life, at some 
 length, which are as follows: "No one," he says, "ought to think 
 himself too young or too old for philosophic contemplation : since 
 it is the great business of man to consider what is requisite to the 
 living well : happily as regards himself, and worthily as regards his 
 relations to society. And in the first place as a needful constituent 
 of this knowledge, we must take care that, believing God to be an 
 immortal and perfectly happy Being, we attribute nothing to Him 
 that is inconsistent with these attributes." Seneca reproached 
 Epicurus with reverencing God only as a parent, to be honored and 
 worshipped for His excellence, without thinking of any gain to be 
 obtained by so doing. 
 
 " The wise man," continues Epicurus, " will not consider the 
 loss of life an evil, but as food is chosen for its quality, rather than 
 its quantity, so he will endeavor to make his life pleasant rather 
 than long. It is needful to satisfy oar physical wants in a certain 
 degree, both for the sake of living in comfort, and in order to keep 
 the body tranquil, so as to leave the mind free from disturbance . 
 for our endeavor should be to avoid suffering and perturbation j 
 since pleasure is the great object of life. But it is not every kind 
 of pleasure that will be sought by a wise man ; for luxurious feasts 
 are not needful to him who by temperance and exercise has made 
 his bread and water sweet to his taste ; therefore when I speak of 
 pleasure as the summum bonum ; I do not mean licentious pleasures- 
 for he only enjoys a truly happy life, who examines his desires by 
 the light of sober reason, and determines which ought to be qualified, 
 which repressed. In short, no man can live happily who does not 
 live wisely and justly, and no man can live wisely and justly with, 
 out being happy, for virtue and happiness cannot be separated. Nay> 
 were it possible, it would be better to live wisely and to be 
 unhappy, than to be irrational and fortunate. One who acts on
 
 84 APPENDIX. 
 
 these principles lives among men as if he were already a god ; he 
 has nothing about him that resembles the brute animal, but though 
 a man, he lives among the immortals." 
 
 SOCRATES. 
 
 Socrates, who taught 430 years B. C., remarks, that honorable 
 things are good things, and that every one without exception 
 desires good. On this point all men are alike ; the distinctive 
 features of virtue must then consist in the power of acquiring good 
 things, such as health, wealth, money, power, dignities, &c. But 
 the acquisition of these things is not virtuous, unless it be made 
 consistently with justice and moderation. 
 
 Socrates recommends virtue on the ground of its remunerative 
 consequences to the agent, in the shape of wealth and other good 
 things. He, as well as Xenophon, agree in the same doctrine: 
 presenting virtue as laborious an! troublesome in itself, but as being 
 fully requited by its remunerative consequences in the form of 
 esteem and honor, to the attainment of which it is indispensable. 
 
 When I have learnt, says SDcrate".?, which are my worst and 
 which are my best points, I shall evidently be in a condition to 
 cultivate and pursue the latter, and resolutely to avoid the former. 
 
 My mission from the Gods, says Socrates, is to dispel the false 
 persuasion of knowledge, to cross-examine men into a painful con- 
 viction of their own ignorance, and to create in them a lively 
 impulse towards knowledge and virtue. 
 
 Justice, which is good both in itself, and by reason of its con- 
 sequences, I rank among the noblest qualities. 
 
 The just man should act with' a view to good. 
 
 The just man is happy, and the unjust miserable. 
 
 Socrates maintains, that justice is good, per se, ensuring the 
 happiness of the agent by its direct and intrinsic effects on the 
 mind : whatever its ulterior consequences may be. He maintains 
 indeed that these ulterior consequences are also good : but that 
 they do not constitute the paramount benefit ; or the main recom- 
 mendation of justice : that the good of Justice, per se, is much 
 greater. 
 
 The fundamental principle (Socrates affirms) to which cities 
 or communities owe their origin, is, existence or wants and neces- 
 sities in ail men. No single man is sufficient for himself : every 
 one is in want of many things, and is therefore compelled to seek 
 communion or partnership with neighbors and auxiliaries. Reci-
 
 SOCRATES. 35 
 
 procal dealings begin : each gives to others, and receives from others, 
 under the persuasion that it is better for him to do so. 
 
 In regard to religion, the raising of temples, arrangement of 
 sacrifices, &c., we know nothing about these matters. We must 
 examine it, and see where we can find Justice and Injustice. 
 
 Justice is in the mind what health is in the body, when the parts 
 are so arranged as to control, and be controlled pursuant to the 
 dictates of nature. Injustice is in the mind what disease is in the 
 body, when the parts are so arranged as to control, and be con- 
 trolled contrary to the dictates of nature ; virtue is thus health, 
 beauty, good condition of the mind : vice is the disease, ugliness, 
 weakness of the mind. 
 
 It is profitable to a man to be just, and to do justice, per se, even 
 though he be not known as just either by Gods or men, and may 
 thus be debarred from the consequences which would ensue if he 
 were known. It is unprofitable to him to bo unjust, even though 
 he can continue to escape detection and punishment. As health 
 is the greatest good, and sickness the greatest evil of the body : 
 so Justice is the greatest good, and Injustice the greatest evil of 
 the mind. 
 
 Socrates says, that the Gods are good, and therefore cannot be 
 the cause of anything except good. The Gods must be announced 
 as causes of all the good which exists. No poetical tale can be 
 tolerated which represents the Gods as assuming the forms of 
 different persons, and going about to deceive men into false beliefs. 
 
 A perfectly reasonable man will account death no great evil. 
 
 If a man passes his life pleasurable until its close, it may be said 
 that he has lived well : at least, provided he lives taking pleasure 
 in fine or honorable things. 
 
 To do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, as well as more 
 disgraceful. 
 
 If a man be punished for wrong doing, he suffers what is just, 
 and the punisher does what is just. 
 
 We ought to do continues Socrates what is pleasing for the 
 sake of what is good : not vice versa. But every thing becomes 
 good by possessing its appropriate virtue or regulation. The regu- 
 lation appropriate to the mind is, to be temperate. The temperate 
 man will do what is just his duty towards men : and what is 
 I 10 l y _his duty towards the Gods. He will be just and holy. He 
 will therefore also be courageous : for he will seek only such plea-
 
 86 APPENDIX. 
 
 sures as duty permits, and he will endure all such pains as duty 
 requires. Being thus temperate, just, brave, holy, he will be a per- 
 fectly good man, doing well and honorably throughout. The man 
 who does well, will be happy : the man who does ill, and is wicked, 
 will be miserable. 
 
 Every thing has its own fixed and determinate essence, not 
 relative to us nor varying according to our will and pleasure, but 
 existing, per se, as nature has arranged. All agencies, either by one 
 thing upon other things, or by other things upon it, are in like man- 
 ner determined by nature, independent of our will and choice. 
 
 XENOPHANES. 
 
 Xenophanes maintained that there was but one God, identical 
 with, or a personification of the whole Uranus. " The whole 
 Kosmos, or the whole God, sees, hears, and thinks." The divine 
 nature, he said, did not admit of the conception of separate persons, 
 one governing the other, or of want and imperfection in any way. 
 
 HERAKLEITUS. 
 
 Herakleitus says, " Every man, individually considered, was 
 irrational : reason belonged only to the universal or to the whole, 
 with which the mind of each living man was in conjunction, renew- 
 ing itself by perpetual absorption, inspiration or inhalation, 
 transition, and impressions through the senses." 
 
 PROTAGORAS. 
 
 Protagoras asserts that no good citizen can be without a sense of 
 justice, and of shame. 
 
 GRECIAN HISTORY. 
 
 Orpheus, a Thracian, visited Egypt and brought from thence 
 the doctrines with which he afterwards corrupted the simple reli- 
 gion of Greece, The doctrine he taught was that of One, Self-exis- 
 tent God, the Maker of all things, who is present to us in all His 
 works ; but this great truth was disguised under a mass of fables. 
 
 Orpheus taught that the One Supreme Deity was the source of 
 all. and that tutelary gods of air, fire, earth, &c., were in fact only 
 emanations of his power made manifest to men by visible and tan- 
 gible objects. But when the Most High was no longer to be 
 approached by the vulgar, the especial manifestations was soon
 
 SACRED BOOK OF THE MEXICANS. 87 
 
 individualized, and a polytheism, which probably the first intro- 
 ducers of this mysterious doctrine, never contemplated, was built 
 upon it. 
 
 The mysterious doctrine of Orpheus, which gave tangibility and 
 distinctness to the notions of the Deity, soon struck the imagina- 
 tions of the poet. Homer and Hesiod took it up and finished the 
 individualizing process by giving "names and forms to the various 
 sub-deities of the different powers of nature. Yet these were for a 
 long time, only the poetical version of the old belief: the one Su- 
 preme God still held the reins, and Destiny was looked up to as 
 the ruler of these sub-gods no less than of men. 
 
 SACRED BOOK OF THE MEXICANS. 
 
 We gather the following from Mailer : A book called " Popol 
 Vuh," and pretending to be the original text of the sacred writings 
 of the Indians of Central America. The " Popol Vuh" is a literary 
 composition in the true sense of the word. It contains the mythol- 
 ogy and history of the civilized races of Central America, and 
 comes before us with credentials that will bear the test of critical 
 inquiry. 
 
 " Popol Vuh " means the book of the people, and referred to the 
 traditional literature in which all that was known about the early 
 history of the nation, their religion and ceremonies, was handed 
 down from age to age. We find material for studying their char- 
 acter, for analyzing their religion and mythology, for comparing 
 their principles of morality, their views of virtue, beauty, and 
 heroism, to those of other races of mankind. This is the charm, the 
 roal and lasting charm, of such works as that presented to us for 
 the first time in a trustworthy translation by the Abbe Brasseur de 
 Bourbourg. There are some coincidences between the Old Testa- 
 ment and the Quiche MS. which are certainly startling. Yet even 
 if a Christian influence has to be admitted, much remains in these 
 American traditions which is so different from anything else in the 
 national literatures of other countries, that we may safely treat it 
 as the genuine growth of the intellectual soil of America. 
 
 EXTRACTS FROM " POPOL Vuu." 
 
 The Quiche MS. begins with an account of the creation, the 
 Quiches believed that there was a time when all that exists in hea- 
 yea and earth was made. All was then in suspense, all was calm
 
 88 APPENDIX. 
 
 and silent ; all was immovable, all peaceful, and the vast space of 
 the heavens was empty. There was no man, no animal, no shore, 
 no trees ; heaven alone existed. The face of the earth was not to 
 be seen ; there was only the still expanse of the sea and the heaven 
 above. Divine beings were on the waters like a growing light* 
 Their voice was heard as they meditated and consulted, and when 
 the dawn arose, man appeared. Then the waters were commanded 
 to retire ; the earth was established, that she might bear fruit, and 
 that the light of day might shine on heaven and earth. 
 
 " For, they said, we shall receive neither glory nor honor from all 
 we have created until there is a human being a being endowed 
 with reason. ' Earth ' they said, and in a moment the earth was 
 formed. Like a vapor it rose into being, mountains appeared from 
 the waters like lobsters, and the great mountains were made. 
 Thus was the creation of the earth, when it was fashioned by those 
 who are the Heart of heaven, the Heart of the earth ; for thus were 
 they called who first gave fertility to them, heaven and earth being 
 still inert and suspended in the midst of the waters." 
 
 Then follows the creation of the brute world, and the disappoint- 
 ment of the gods when they commanded the animals to tell their 
 names, and to honor those who had created them. Then the gods 
 said to the animals : 
 
 " You will be changed, because you cannot speak. We have 
 changed your speech. You shall have your food and your dens in 
 the woods and crags ; for our glory is not perfect, and you do not 
 invoke us. There will be beings still that can salute us ; we .^hall 
 make them capable of obeying. Do your task ; as to your flesh, it 
 will be broken by the tooth." 
 
 Then follows the creation of man. His flesh was made of earth 
 terre glaise. But man was without cohesion or power, inert and 
 aqueous ; he could not turn his head, his sight was dim, and though 
 he had the gift of speech, he had no intellect. He was soon con- 
 sumed again in the water. 
 
 And the gods consulted a second time how to create beings that 
 should adore them, and after some magic ceremonies, men were 
 made of wood, and they multiplied. But they had no heart, no 
 intellect, no recollection of their Creator ; they did not lift up their 
 heads to their Maker, and they withered away and were swallowed 
 up by the waters.
 
 SACRED BOOK OF THE MEXICANS. 89 
 
 Then follows a third creation, man being made of a tree called 
 " tzite," woman of the marrow of a reed called "sibac." They, 
 too, did neither think or speak before him who had made them, 
 and they were likewise swept away by the waters and destroyed. 
 The whole nature animals, trees, and stones turned against men 
 to revenge the wrongs they had suffered at their hands, and the 
 only remnant of that early race is to found in small monkeys which 
 still live in the forests. 
 
 Three attempts, as we saw, had been made and had-failed. We 
 now hear again that before the beginning of dawn, and before the 
 sun and moon had risen, man had been made, and that nourish- 
 ment was provided for him which was to supply his blood, namely, 
 yellow and white maize. Four men are mentioned as the real 
 ancestors of the human race, or rather of the race of the Quiches. 
 They were neither begotten by the gods, nor born of woman, but 
 their creation was a wonder wrought by the Creator. They could 
 reason and speak, their sight was unlimited, and they knew all 
 things at once. When they had rendered thanks to their Creator 
 for their existence, the gods were frightened, and they breathed a 
 cloud over the eyes of men that they might see a certain distance 
 only, and not be like the gods themselves. Then while the four 
 men were asleep, the gods gave them beautiful wives, and these 
 became the mothers of all tribes, great and small. These tribes, 
 both white and black, lived and spread in the East. They did not 
 yet worship the gods, but only turned their faces up to heaven, 
 hardly knowing what they were meant to do here below. Their 
 features were sweet, so was their language, and their intellect was 
 strong. 
 
 A legend which is current among the Thlinkithians, who are one 
 of the four principal races inhabiting Russian America, is as fol- 
 lows : They believe in a general flood or deluge, and that men 
 saved themselves in a large floating building. When the waters 
 fell, the building was wrecked on a rock, and by its own weight 
 burst into two pieces. Hence arose the difference of languages. 
 The Thlinkithians with their language remained on one side; on 
 the other side were all the other races of the earth. 
 
 Neither the Esthonian nor the Thlinkithian legend, however, 
 offers any striking points of coincidence with the Mosaic accounts. 
 The analogies, therefore, as well as the discrepancies, between the
 
 90 APPENDIX. 
 
 ninth chapter of Genesis and the chapter here tranlated from the 
 Quiche MS. require special attention. 
 
 BELIEFS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS. 
 
 Muller says, "the Greenlander believes that when a man die? 
 his soul travels to Torngarsuk, the land where reigns perpetual 
 summer, all sunshine and no night ; where there is good water, 
 and birds, and fish, seals, and roindeer without end, that are to be 
 caught without trouble, or are found cooking alive in a huge kettle. 
 But the journey to this land is difficult; the souls have to slide 
 five days or more down a precipice, all stained with the blood of 
 those who have gone down before. And it is especially grievous 
 for the poor souls, when the journey must be made in winter or in 
 tempest, for then a soul may come to harm, or suffer the other 
 death, as they call it. 
 
 The native tribes of the lower end of South America believe in 
 two great powers of good and evil, but likewise in a number of 
 inferior deities. These are supposed to have been the creators and 
 ancestors of different families, and hence when an Indian dies his 
 soul goes to live with the deity who presides over his particular 
 family. These deities have each their separate habitations in vast 
 caverns under the earth, and thither the departed repair to enjoy 
 the happiness of being eternally drunk. 
 
 Messrs. Lewis and Clarke give the following account of the belief 
 in a future state entertained by another American tribe, the Man- 
 dans : 
 
 " Their belief in a future state is connected with this tradition of 
 their origin : The whole nation resided in one large village under 
 ground near a subterraneous lake. A grape-vine extended its roots 
 down to their habitation and gave them a view of the light. Some 
 of the most adventurous climbed up the vine, and were delighted 
 with the sight of the earth, which they found covered with buffalo, 
 and rich with every kind of fruit. Returning with the grapes they 
 had gathered, their countrymen were so pleased with the taste of 
 them that the whole nation resolved to leave their dull residence 
 for the charms of the upper region. Men, women, and children 
 ascended by means of the vine, but when about half the nation had 
 reached the surface of the earth, a corpulent woman who was clam- 
 bering up the vine, broke it with her weight, and closed upon her- 
 self and the rest of the nation the light of the sun. Those who
 
 BELIEF OF NEW HOLLANDERS ICELANDERS. Ql 
 
 were left on earth made a village below where we saw the vine 
 villages ; and when the Mandans die they expect to return to the 
 original seats of their forefathers, the good reaching the ancient 
 village by means of the lake, which the burden of the sins of the 
 wicked will not enable them to cross." 
 
 Catlin's account of the Choctaw belief in a future state is 
 equally curious. They hold that the spirit lives after death, and 
 that it has a great distance to travel towards the west ; that it has 
 to cross a dreadful, deep, and rapid stream, over which, from hill 
 to hill, there lies a loilg, slippery pine log, with the bark peeled off. 
 Over this the dead have to pass before they reach the delightful 
 hunting-grounds. The good walk on safely, though six people 
 from the other side throw stones at them ; but the wicked, trying 
 to dodge the stones, slip off the log and fall thousands of feet into 
 the water which is dashing over the rocks. 
 
 BELIEF OF THE NEW HOLLANDERS. 
 
 The New Hollanders, according to Mr. Oldfield, believe that all 
 who are good men and have been properly buried, enter heaven 
 after death. Heaven, which is the abode of the two good divinities, 
 is represented as a delightful place, where there is abundance of 
 game and food, never any excess of heat or cold, rain or drought, 
 no malign spirits, no sickness or death ; but plenty of rioting, sing- 
 ing, and dancing for evermore. They also believe in an evil spirit 
 who dwells in the nethermost regions, and, strange to say, they 
 represent him with horns and a tail. 
 
 OF THE ICELANDERS. 
 
 The following traditions in relation to creation are contained in 
 the book Edda, the sacred book of the Icelanders. 
 
 '"Twaslhe morning of time, 
 When yet naught was, 
 Nor sand nor sea were there, 
 Nor cooling streams; 
 Earth was not formed, 
 Nor heaven above ; 
 A yawning gap there was, 
 And grass nowhere." 
 
 In the " Edda," man is said to have been created out of an nsh- 
 tree, and God is portrayed as follows : " Who is first and eldest of
 
 92 APPENDIX. 
 
 all gods?" He is called " Allfadir," the Father of All, the Great 
 Father in our tongue. He lives from all ages, and rules over his 
 realm and sways all things, great and small. He made heaven and 
 earth, and the sky, and all that belongs to them ; and he made 
 man, and gave him a soul that shall live and never perish, though 
 the body rot to mould, or burn to ashes. All men that are right- 
 minded shall live, and be with him in a place called " Vingolf:" 
 but wicked ones fare to Hell and thence into Niflhell, that is, 
 beneath in the ninth world. 
 
 CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY NO RESTRAINT. 
 
 We have heretofore remarked that all motives to virtue have 
 their only foundation in, and all good works proceed from, the moral 
 faculties that is the conscience, and the instincts originally given 
 to man ; and that the evil-doings of man find their only check or 
 restraint in this reflex of God in man. There is no restraint found 
 in the Christian theology, or elsewhere, not found in every man's 
 conscience : while on the other hand, history shows us that Chris- 
 tianity has been the most powerful of all agents in stifling the voice 
 of conscience, and in bringing horrors and calamities upon man- 
 kind. The assertion may seem a startling one, but its truth can 
 scarcely be denied by the reader, who follows us through the dismal 
 record of great crimes committed by people supposed to be specially 
 chosen of God and enjoying his immediate supervision, by others 
 taking the Old Testament as their guide, and by others still, whose 
 iniquities and atrocities were perpetrated in the name of Jesus. 
 We propose to glance successively, at the bloody contentions of the 
 early Church; at the crimes and corruptions of the Church during 
 the Middle Ages ; at the Crusades ; at the persecutions of the Jews 
 by the Christians; at the sacrifice of human life in the so-called 
 holy wars waged by Christians for theological opinions alone ; at 
 the persecution of the Protestants by the Catholics; at the massacre 
 of St. Bartholomew, under a king, one of whose titles was, the 
 " Most Christian ;" at the cruel course of Spain in overrunning and 
 despoiling Mexico and Peru. 
 
 Let us commence with the 
 
 CONTENTIONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 
 
 From the Trinitarian controversy which began in the reign of 
 Constantino about A. D. 323 we may date the introduction of
 
 CONTENTIONS OF THE EARLY CHURCH. 93 
 
 rigorous articles of belief, which required the submissive assent of 
 the mind to every word and letter of an established creed, and 
 which raised the slightest heresy of opinions into a more fatal 
 offence against God, and a more odious crime in the estimation of 
 man, than the worst moral delinquency or the most flagrant devia- 
 tion from the spirit of Christianity. 
 
 Such was the question which led to all the evils of human 
 strife, hatred, persecution, bloodshed. 
 
 The distribution of the superior dignities of the Church became 
 an object of fatal ambition and strife. The streets of Alexandria 
 and of Constantinople were deluged with blood by the partisans 
 of rival bishops. 
 
 In the latter, an officer of high distinction, sent by the Emperor 
 to quell the tumult, was slain, and his body treated with the utmost 
 indignity by the infuriated populace. 
 
 The triumph of the Catholics in Egypt was accompanied by 
 every variety of plunder, murder, sacrilege and outrage, and Arius 
 himself was probably poisoned by Catholic hands. The followers 
 of St. Cyril of Alexandria, who were chiefly monks, filled their 
 city with riot and bloodshed, wounded the prefect Orestes, dragged 
 the pure and gifted Hypatia into one of their churches, murdered 
 her, tore the flesh from her bones with sharp shells, and having 
 stripped her body naked, flung the mangled remains into the flames. 
 In Ephesus, during the contest between St. Cyril and the Nesto- 
 rians, the cathedral itself was the theatre of a fierce and bloody 
 conflict. Constantinople, on the occasion of the deposition of St. 
 Chrysostom, was for several days in a condition of absolute anarchy. 
 After the Council of Chalcedon, Jerusalem and Alexandria were 
 again convulsed, and the Bishop of the latter city was murdered 
 in his baptistry. Athanasius stand out as the prominent char- 
 acter of the period in the history of Christianity. That history is 
 one long controversy, the life of Athanasius, one unwearied and 
 incessant strife. It is neither the serene course of a being elevated 
 by his religion above the cares and tumults of ordinary life, nor 
 the restless activity of one perpetually employed in a conflict with 
 the ignorance, vice, and misery of an unconverted people. Yet 
 even now (so completely has this polemic spirit become incor- 
 porated with Christianity) the memory of Athanasius is regarded 
 by many wise and good men with reverence, which in Catholic 
 countries, is actual adoration, in Protestant approaches towards it.
 
 94 APPENDIX. 
 
 A council was held at Tyre, in which Athanasius was deposed 
 and Gregory appointed in his stead. Scenes of savage conflict 
 ensued, the churches were taken as it were by storm ; the priests 
 of the Athanasian party were treated with the utmost indignity ; 
 virgins scourged ; every atrocity perpetuated by unbridled multi- 
 tudes, embittered by every shade of religious faction. Athanasius 
 returned for a time to Alexandria, but was again deposed. 
 
 The Arians exacted ample vengeance for their long period of 
 depression, houses were plundered, monasteries burned ; tombs 
 broken open, to search for concealed Athanasians, or for the 
 prelate himself, who still eluded their pursuit, bishops were 
 insulted ; virgins scourged : the soldiery encouraged to break up 
 every meeting of the Catholics by violence, and even by inhuman 
 tortures. The duke Sebastian, at the head of three thousand 
 troops, charged a meeting of the Athanasian Christians. No 
 barbarity was too revolting; they are said to have employed 
 instruments of torture to compel them to Christian unity with the 
 Arians ; females were scourged with the prickly branches of the 
 palm tree. 
 
 Persecution was universal persecution by every means of 
 violence and cruelty ; the only question was, in whose hands was 
 the power to persecute. Bloodshed, murder, treachery, assassina- 
 tion, even during the public worship of God these were the 
 frightful means by which each party strove to maintain its opinions, 
 and to defeat, its adversary. The most unaggressive and unobtru- 
 sive forms of Paganism were persecuted with the same ferocity. 
 
 To offer a sacrifice was to commit a capital offence, and yet the 
 offering of Jesus as a sacrifice for man's sin, is claimed as the 
 foundation of Christian Theology. To hang up a simple chaplet 
 was to incur the forfeiture of an estate. 
 
 Contrast with this, the policy of the Pagan emperor, Julian, 
 thus described by his favorite orator: 
 
 " He thought that neither fire, nor sword, could change the faith 
 of mankind : the heart disowns the hand which is compelled by 
 terror to sacrifice. Persecutions only make hypocrites who are 
 unbelievers throughout life, or martyrs honored after death." He 
 strictly prohibited the putting to death the Galileans his favorite 
 appellation of the Christians, as worthy rather of compassion than 
 of hatred. Julian revoked the sentence of banishment pronounced 
 against Arians, Apollinarians, and Donatists. He determined, it
 
 LATER CRIMES OF THE CHURCH. 95 
 
 is said, to expose them to a sort of public exhibition of intellectual 
 gladiatorship. He summoned the advocates of the several sects 
 to dispute in his presence, and presided with mock solemnity over 
 their debates. His own voice was drowned in the clamor, till at 
 length, as though to contrast them, to their disadvantage, with the 
 wild barbarian warriors with whom he had been engaged. " Hear 
 me," exclaimed the emperor : " The Franks and the Alemanni 
 have heard me." " No wild beasts," he said, "Are so savage and 
 intractable as Christian sectaries." 
 
 During the reign of Anastasius, two hundred Eastern monks, 
 headed by Severus, were permitted to land in Constantinople ; 
 they here found an honorable reception. Other monks of the 
 opposite faction swarmed from Palestine. The two black cowled 
 armies watched each other for some months, working in secret on 
 their respective partisans. 
 
 At last there was a wild, fierce fray, the presence ot the 
 Emperor lost its awe ; he could not maintain the peace. The 
 Bishop Macedonius took the lead. Men, women, children, poured 
 out from all quarters ; the monks, at the head of the raging 
 multitude, echoed their religious war cries. 
 
 Throughout Asiatic Christendom it was the same wild struggle. 
 Bishops were deposed quietly ; or where resistance was made, the 
 two factions fighting in the streets, in the churches : cities, even the 
 holiest places ran with Christian blood. Milmaris History of 
 Christianity. 
 
 LATER CRIMES OF THE CHURCH. 
 
 In A. D. 498, the feuds of the Roman clergy, broke out on the 
 customary occasion of the election of a new Pope. Each party 
 elected their Pope. The two factions encountered with the fiercest 
 hostility ; the clergy, the senate, and the populace were divided ; 
 the streets of the Christian city ran with blood. The contest was 
 decided by Theodoric, the Gothic king of Italy. But not long 
 after, the sanguinary tumults between the two factions broke out 
 with greater fury : priests were slain, monasteries fired, and even 
 cacred virgins treated with the utmost indignity. 
 
 \Vith the power of the clergy increased both those other sources 
 }f influence, pomp and wealth. 
 
 Distinctions in station and in authority naturally lead to distinc- 
 tions in manners, and those adventitious circumstances of dress and
 
 96 APPENDIX. 
 
 habits, which designate different ranks. The ministering function- 
 aries multiplied, with the rapidly increasing variety and pomp. 
 
 At the festival of a martyr, the day closed with an open ban- 
 quet, in which all the worshippers were invited to partake. As 
 the evening drew on, the solemn and religious thoughts gave way 
 to other emotions, the wine flowed freely, and the healths of the 
 martyrs were pledged, not unfrequently to complete inebriety. 
 Dances were admitted, pantomimic spectacles were exhibited, the 
 festivals were prolonged till late in the evening, or to midnight, so 
 that other criminal irregularities profaned, if not the sacred edifice, 
 its immediate neighborhood. 
 
 A demoniac accused the Bishop Fortunatus of refusing him the 
 rights of hospitality ; a poor peasant receives the possessed into his 
 house, and is punished for this inferential disrespect to the Bishop, 
 by seeing his child cast into the fire and burnt before his eyes. 
 A poor fellow with a monkey and cymbals is struck dead for unin- 
 tentionally interrupting a Bishop Boniface in prayer. 
 
 In A. D. 726, the emperor Leo issued an edict, commanding the 
 total destruction of all images, and the white-washing the walls of 
 the churches. The thronging multitude, saw with horror, the officer 
 mount the ladder. The women seized the ladder, threw down the 
 officer, and beat him to death with clubs. The emperor sent an 
 armed guard to suppress the tumult; a frightful massacre took 
 place. The pious were punished with mutilations, scourgings, 
 exile, confiscation : the schools of learning were closed, a magnifi- 
 cent library burned to the ground. 
 
 At the accession of Constantino Copronymus, two religious par- 
 ties divided the empire. A battle took place near Ancira, fought 
 with all the ferocity of civil and religious war. The historian 
 expresses his horror that, among Christians, fathers should thus be 
 engaged in the slaughter of their children, brothers of brothers. 
 
 Charlemagne was prodigal of grants of land to churches and 
 monasteries. But these estates were not always obtained from the 
 pious generosity of the king or the nobles. The stewards of the 
 poor were the spoilers of the poor. They compelled the poor free 
 man, to sell his property, or forced him to serve in the army, and 
 that on permanent or continual duty, and so to leave his land 
 either without owner, with all the chances that he might not return, 
 or to commit it to the custody of those who remained at home in 
 
 
 j
 
 LATER CRIMES OF THE CHURCH. 97 
 
 quiet and seized every opportunity of entering into possession. 
 Ko Naboth's vineyard escaped their watchful avarice. 
 
 The payment of tithe originated in the following manner: Pepin 
 had commanded the payment of tithe for the celebration of pecu- 
 liar litanies during a period of famine. Charlemagne made it a 
 law of the empire : he enacted it in its most strict and comprehen- 
 sive form, as investing the clergy in a right to the tenth of the sub- 
 stance, and of the labor alike of freeman and the serf. The collec- 
 tion of tithe was regulated by compulsory statutes; the clergy 
 took note of all who paid or refused to pay; the contumacious were 
 three times summoned, if still obstinate, excluded from the church; 
 if they still refused to pay, they were fined over and above the 
 whole tithe, six solidi ; if further contumacious, the recusant's house 
 was shut up ; if he attempted to enter it, he was cast into prison. 
 This tithe was by no means a spontaneous votive offering of the 
 whole Christian people it was a tax imposed by Imperial author- 
 ity, enforced by Imperial power. It had caused one, if not more 
 than one sanguinary insurrection among the Saxons. It was sub- 
 mitted to in. other parts of the empire, not without strong reluc- 
 tance. 
 
 In A. D. 974, during the pontificate of Benedict VI., Bonifazio, a 
 Cardinal Deacon, seized the unsuspecting Pope, and cast him into a 
 dungeon, where shortly after he was strangled. Bonifazio assumed 
 the papacy ; but he had miscalculated the strength of his faction, 
 in one month he was forced to fly from the city. Yet he fled 
 not with so much haste, but that he carried off all the treasures, 
 even the sacred vessels from the church of St. Peter. 
 
 Suddenly the fugitive Bonifazio, re-appeared in Rome, seized 
 the Pope, imprisoned him in the Castle of St. Angelo, of which 
 important fortress he had become master, and there put him to 
 death by starvation or by poison. He exposed the body to the 
 view of the people, who dared not murmur, he seated himself, as 
 it seems, unresisted, in the papal chair, but soon after died. The 
 people revenged themselves for their own base acquiescence in his 
 usurpation, by cowardly insults on his dead body ; by dragging it 
 through the streets. 
 
 For twelve years Benedict IX. ruled in Rome, in the words of 
 
 one of his successors, Victor III, leading a life so shameful, so foul 
 
 and execrable, that he shuddered to describe it. He ruled like a 
 
 captain of banditti, rather than a prelate. Adulteries, homicides, 
 
 o
 
 98 APPENDIX. 
 
 perpetrated by his own hand, passed unnoticed, unrevenged. He 
 became deeply enamored of his cousin. The father refused his 
 daughter, unless the Pope would surrender the papacy. 
 
 He actually sold the papacy to an arch-Presbyter, named John. 
 
 There were at one time three Popes, by themselves, or by their 
 factions, engaged in deadly feud. They laid aside, or taught each 
 other to despise, their spiritual arms ; they encountered with the 
 carnal weapons of ordinary warfare. Milmaris History of Latin 
 Christianity. 
 
 For ten dreary years. A. D. 1198, with but short intervals of 
 truce, Germany was abandoned to all the horrors of civil war. 
 The repeated protestations of Innocent, that he was not the cause 
 of these fatal discords, betray the fact that he was accused of the 
 guilt; and that he had to wrestle with his own conscience to 
 acquit himself of the charge. It was a war, not of decisive battles, 
 but of marauding, desolation, havoc, plunder, wasting of harvests, 
 ravaging open and defenceless countries ; war waged by Prelate 
 against Prelate, by Prince against Prince ; wild Bohemians and 
 bandit soldiers of every race were roving through every province. 
 Throughout the land there was no law : the high roads were 
 impassable on account of robbers ; traffic cut off, except on the 
 great rivers from Cologne down the Rhine, from Ratisbon down the 
 Danube; nothing Was spared, nothing sacred, church or cloister. 
 Some monasteries were utterly impoverished, some destroyed. 
 The ferocities of war grew into brutalities ; the clergy and sacred 
 persons, were the victims and perpetrators. The wretched nun, 
 who, it is said, was stripped naked, anointed with honey, rolled in 
 feathers, and then set on a horse with her face to the tail, and 
 paraded through the streets, was no doubt only recorded because 
 her fate was somewhat more horrible then that of many of her 
 sisters. The Abbot of St. Gall seized six of the principal burghers 
 cf Arbon, and cut off their feet, in revenge for one of his servants 
 who had suffered the like mutilation for lopping wood in their 
 forests. 
 
 In these times A. D. 1200 began the persecutions of the so- 
 called Heretics ; for men were beginning to weary of the narrow 
 and complicated theology of the Church, and to believe only that 
 which they found in their own hearts. Fires were kindled and 
 heretics burned, in Oxford, in Rheims, in Arras, in Eesanc,on, in 
 Cologne, in Treves, in Vezelay. In this latter stately monastery,
 
 LATER CRIMES OF THE CHURCH. 99 
 
 the Archbishops of Lyons and Narbonne, the Bishops of Nevers and 
 Laon, and many abbots and great theologians, sat in solemn judg- 
 ment on some, it should seem poor ignorant men, called Publicans. 
 They denied all but God, they absolutely rejected all the Sacra- 
 ments, infant baptism, the Eucharist, the sign of the cross, holy- 
 water, the efficacy of tithes, and oblations, marriages, monkhood, the 
 power and functions of the priesthood. Appeal was made to the 
 whole assembly : " What shall be done with them ? ' " Let them 
 be burned ! Let them be burned ! " And burned they were, to the 
 number of seven, in the valley of Ecouan. 
 
 In the market place of Milan were raised, here a cross, there 
 blazing pyre. The Heretics were brought forth, commanded to 
 throw themselves before the cross, confess their sins, accept the 
 Catholic faith, or to plunge into the flames, a few knelt before the 
 cross ; the greater number covered their faces, rushed into the fire 
 .and were consumed. In Cologne also, heretics were thrown into 
 the flames. 
 
 But in the twelfth century, Heresy became rampant, bold, 
 undisguised. The desperate Church was compelled to resort to 
 the irrefragable argument of the sword and the stake. Woe to 
 the prince or to the magistrate, who refused to be the executioner 
 of the stern raw. 
 
 In many places, the people were delighted at seeing a priest 
 keep a mistress, that the married women might be safe from his 
 seductions. What humiliating scenes did the house of a priest in 
 those days present ! The wretched man supported the women and 
 the children she had borne him, with the tithes and offerings. His 
 conscience was troubled : he blushed in the presence of the people, 
 before his domestics, and before God. The mother fearing to come 
 to want if the priest should die, made provision against it before- 
 hand, and robbed her own house. Her honor was lost. Her 
 children were ever a living accusation against her. Despised by 
 all, they plunged into quarrels and debauchery. Such was the 
 family of the priest ! 
 
 If we go higher in the hierarchical order, we find the corruption 
 not less great. The dignitaries of the Church preferred the tumult 
 of camps to the hymns of the altar. To be able, lance in hand, 
 to reduce his neighbors to obedience was one of the chief qualifica- 
 tions of a bishop. Everywhere, the bishops were continually at 
 war with their towns. The citizens demanded liberty, the bishopa
 
 100 APPENDIX. 
 
 required implicit obedience. If the latter gained the victory, they 
 punished the revolters by sacrificing numerous victims to their 
 vengeance. 
 
 And what a spectacle was presented by the pontifical throne 
 in the times immediately preceding the reformation ! Rome, it 
 must be acknowledged, had seldom witnessed so much infamy. 
 Rodrigo Borgia, after having lived with a Roman lady, had con- 
 tinued the same illicit connection with one of her daughters, named 
 Rosa Vanozza, by whom he had five children. He was a cardinal 
 and archbishop, living at Rome with Vanozza and other women, 
 visiting the churches and the hospitals, when the death of Innocent 
 VII. created a vacancy in the pontifical chair. He succeeded in 
 obtaining it by bribing each cardinal at a stipulated price. 
 
 On the day of his coronation, his son Cassar, a youth of ferocious 
 and dissolute manners, was created archbishop of Valencia and 
 bishop of Pampeluna. He next celebrated in the Vatican, themar- 
 raige of his daughter Lucretia, by festivities, at which his mistress, 
 Julia Bella, was present ; and which were enlivened by licentious 
 plays and songs. " All the clergy," says an historian, "kept mis- 
 tresses, and all the convents of the capital were houses of ill-fame." 
 
 Thus had the clergy brought not only themselves, but their faith 
 into disrepute. Well might Luther exclaim : The ecclesiastical 
 order is opposed to God and to his glory. The people know it 
 well ; and this is but too plainly shown by the many songs, by 
 proverbs and jokes against the priests, that are current among the 
 commonalty, and all those caricatures of monks and priests on 
 every wall, and even on the playing cards. Every one feels a 
 loathing on seeing or hearing a priest in the distance. The evil 
 had spread through all ranks : the corruption of manners corres- 
 ponded with the corruption of faith. / 
 
 "We Italians" says Machiavelli, "are indebted principally to 
 the Church and the priests for having become impious and im- 
 moral." 
 
 A great agitation prevailed at that time, A. D. 1517, anong the 
 German people. The Church had opened a vast market upon 
 earth. From the crowds of purchasers, and the sLouts and jokes 
 of the sellers, it might have been called a fair, but a fair con- 
 ducted by monks. The merchandise that they were extolling, and 
 which they offered at a reduced price, was, said they, " the salva- 
 tion of souls." Tetzel a monk, who played the chief part at these
 
 LATER CRIMES OF THE CHURCH. 101 
 
 palo=, delivered the following sermon: "Indulgences" said he, 
 "are the most precious and the most noble of God's gifts. 
 
 "Come, and I will give you letters, all properly sealed, by which 
 even the sins that you intend to commit may be pardoned." 
 " There is no sin so great, that an indulgence cannot remit." 
 
 "But more than this," said he, "indulgences avail not only for 
 the living, but the dead. For that repentance is not even neces- 
 sary." 
 
 " Priest ! noble ! merchant ! wife ! youth ! maiden ! do you not 
 hear your parents and your other friends who are dead, and who 
 cry from the bottom of the abyss : We are suffering horrible tor- 
 ments ! a trifling alms would deliver us ; you can give it, and you 
 will not!" 
 
 "At the very instant," continued Tetzel, "that the money 
 rattles at the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purga- 
 tory and flies, liberated, to heaven." 
 
 For particular sins, there was a particular tax. For polygamy, it 
 was six ducats; for sacrilege and perjury, nine ducats; for murder, 
 eight ducats ; for witchcraft, two ducats. 
 
 In a letter given at Rome, under the seal of the Fisherman, in 
 November, 1517, Leo requires of his commissary of indulgences 147 
 gold ducats, to purchase a manuscript of the thirty-third book of 
 Livy. Of all the uses to which he applied the money of the Ger- 
 mans, this was undoubtedly the best. Yet it was a strange thing 
 to deliver souls from purgatory to procure the means of purchasing 
 a manuscript of the history of the Roman wars. 
 
 A married schoolmaster, desiring to enter holy orders, obtained 
 his wile's consent with this view, and they separated. The new 
 priest, finding it impossible to observe his vow of celibacy, and 
 unwilling to wound his wife's feelings, quitted the place where she 
 lived, and went into the see of Constance, where he formed a crimi- 
 nal connection. His wife heard of this and followed him. The 
 poor priest had compassion on her, and dismissing the woman who 
 had usurped her rights, took his lawful spouse into his house. 
 The procurator-fiscal immediately drew up a complaint; the vicar- 
 general was in a ferment ; the councillors of the consistory delibe- 
 rated and ordered the curate either to forsake his wife or 
 
 his benefice. The poor wife left her husband's house in tears, and 
 her rival re-entered it in triumph. The Church declared itself sat- 
 isfied, and from that time the adulterous priest was left undis- 
 turbed. Milmaris Latin Christianity,
 
 102 APPENDIX. 
 
 THE CRUSADES. 
 
 In the spring of 1096, a large body of the lower orders, under 
 the lead of Peter the Hermit, and under the guidance of a goose 
 and a goat, began to inarch across Germany. They were compelled 
 to divide, and the smaller party, led by a Burgundian knight, 
 Walter the Penniless, going in advance, was annihilated in Bulga- 
 ria. The larger party suffered severely, and was guilty of great 
 atrocities; but Peter brought the bulk of it to Constantinople, 
 where he was joined by Walter. They were landed in Asia, where 
 they were nearly all destroyed by the Turks, Peter having left 
 them. 
 
 A third division, consisting of Germans, was led by a monk 
 named Godeschal, and was massacred in Hungary. A fourth, 
 estimated at two hundred thousand, and composed of various peo- 
 ples, was led by some nobles, from Germany, but it was destroyed 
 by the Hungarians, after having perpetrated terrible outrages. 
 
 The siege of Jerusalem during the first crusade was closed with 
 an assault, and a massacre of almost unequalled atrocity. No bar- 
 barian, no infidel, no Saracen, ever perpetrated such wanton and 
 cold-blooded atrocities of cruelty, as the wearers of the Cross of 
 Christ who, it is said, had fallen on their knees and burst into a 
 pious hymn at the first sight of the Holy City on the capture of 
 that city. Murder was mercy, rape tenderness, simple plunder the 
 mere assertion of the conqueror's right. Children were seized by 
 the legs, some of them plucked from their mother's breasts and 
 dashed against the walls, or whirled from the battlements. Others 
 were obliged to leap from the walls; some tortured, roasted by slow 
 fires. They ripped up prisoners, to see if they had swallowed gold. 
 Of seventy thousand Saracens there was not left enough to bury 
 the dead; poor Christians were hired to perform the office. Every 
 one surprised in the temple was slaughtered, till the reek from the 
 dead bodies drove away the slayers. The Jews were burned alive 
 in their synagogue. Even the day after, all who had taken rei'uge 
 on the roofs were hewn to pieces. 
 
 At the surrender of Acre, during the third Crusade, the crusa- 
 ders, in violation of their word, butchered five thousand Mussel- 
 men who had been left in their hands as hostages. 
 
 Bootless carnage, distinguished the crusades from almost all 
 other wars ; the unseemly spectacle of crimes, cruelties, unbridled
 
 THE CRUSADES. 103 
 
 licentiousness, strife, jealousies, and treacheries too often prevailed 
 in the Christian camp. 
 
 To all who embarked in the crusades, the Pope promised, on 
 their sincere repentance, the remission of all their sins, and eternal 
 life in the great day of retribution. Those who were unable to 
 proceed in person, might obtain the same remission in proportion 
 to the bounty of their offerings. 
 
 The Crusaders advanced to the siege of Constantinople, a Chris- 
 tian city, in the name of Christ. 
 
 Nicetas, himself an eye-witness and sufferer in these scenes, con- 
 trasts the discipline and and self-denial of the Mohammedans, who 
 under Saladin, stormed Jerusalem, with the rapacity, the lust, the 
 cruelty of the Christian conquerors of Constantinople. They 
 spared neither religion, nor age, nor sex; they practiced fornica- 
 tions, incests, adulteries, in the sight of men ; abandoned matrons 
 and virgins dedicated to God, to the lewdness of grooms. Many 
 rushed at once to the churches and monasteries. In the church of 
 Santa Sophia, the silver was rent cff from the magnificent pulpit: 
 the table of oblation, admired for its precious material and exqui- 
 site workmanship, broken to pieces. Mules and horses were led 
 into the churches to carry off the ponderous vessels ; if they slipped 
 down on the smooth floor, they were forced to rise up by lash 
 and spur, so that their blood flowed on the pavement. 
 
 A prostitute mounted the Patriach's throne, and .screamed out a 
 disgusting song, accompanied with the most offensive gestures. 
 
 Instead of the chants, the aisles rung with wild shouts of revelry 
 or indecent oaths and imprecations. 
 
 But, according to tho theory of the Church, the erring believer 
 was as declared an enemy to God, as the Pagan or the Islamite : in 
 one respect more inexcusable and odious, as obstinately resisting or 
 repudiating the truth. The heretic appeared to the severely ortho- 
 dox Christian, as worse than the unbeliever, he was a revolted sub- 
 ject ; not a foreign enemy. Civil wars are always the most fero- 
 cious. Excommunication from the Christian Church implied out- 
 lawry from Christian society ; the heretic forfeited not only all 
 dignities, rights, privileges, immunities, even all property, all pro- 
 tection by law; he was to be pursued, taken, despoiled, put to 
 death, either by the ordinary course of justice the temporal 
 authority was bound to execute, even to blood, the sentence of the 
 ecclesiastical court, or if he dared to resist by any means what-
 
 104 APPENDIX. 
 
 ever, however peaceful, he was an insurgent, against whom the 
 whole of Christendom might, or rather was bound at the summons 
 of the spiritual power to declare war; his estates, even his domin- 
 ions, if a sovereign, were not merely liable to forfeiture, but the 
 Church assumed the power of awarding the forfeiture, as it might 
 seem best to her wisdom. 
 
 The army which should execute the mandate of the Church was 
 the army of the Church, and the banner of that army was the Cross 
 of Christ. So began Crusades, not on the contested borders of 
 Christendom, not in Mohammedan or heathen lands, in Palestine, 
 on the shores of the Nile, among the Livonian forests or the sands 
 of the Baltic, but in the very bosom of Christendom ; not among 
 the implacable partisans of an antagonistic creed, but among those 
 who still called themselves by the name of Christians. Mtlmaris 
 History of Latin Christianity. 
 
 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 
 
 When the horde of fanatics unHer the command of Peter the 
 Hermit, was assembled near the city of Treves, a murmur rapidly 
 spread through the camp, that while they were advancing to 
 recover the sepulchre of their Redeemer from the Infidels, they 
 were leaving behind worse unbelievers, the murderers of the Lord. 
 In the words of Jewish tradition, no doubt generally faithful in its 
 record of their calamities, " the abominable Germans and French 
 rose up against them, people of a fierce countenance, that had no 
 respect to the persons of the old, neither have they mtrcy upon the 
 young ; and they said, ' Let us be revenged for our Messiah upon 
 the Jews that are among us, and let us destroy them from, being a 
 nation, that the name of Israel may be had no more in remem- 
 brance ; then will we go to the East.' ' With one impulse the 
 Crusaders rushed to the city, and bagan a relentless pillage, viola- 
 tion, and massacre of every Jew they could find. In this horrible 
 day men were seen to slay their own children, to save them from 
 the worse usage of these savages. Women, having deliberately tied 
 stones round themselves that they might sink, plunged from the 
 bridge, to save their honor and escape baptism. Their husbands had 
 rather send them to the bosom of Abraham than leave them to the 
 mercy, or rather the lustful cruelties of the Christians. The rest 
 fled to the bishop's palace as a place of refuge. They were received 
 by the bishop, Engelbert, with these words : " Wretches, your
 
 THE PERSECUTION OF THE JEWS. 105 
 
 sins have come upon you ; ye who have blasphemed the Sen of God 
 and calumniated his Mother. This is the cause of your present 
 miseries , this, if ye persist in your obduracy, will destroy your 
 body and soul forever." The same bloody scenes were repeated in 
 Metz, in Spiers, in Worms, in Mayence, in Cologne. The locust 
 band passed on ; everywhere the tracks of the Crusaders were 
 deeply marked with Jewish blood. A troop under Count Emico, 
 offered the same horrid sacrifices to the God of Mercy, in the cities 
 on the Maine and the Danube, even as far as Hungary. 
 
 There was at Seville a fierce popular preacher, Ferdinand 
 Martinez, Archdeacon of Ecija. During the reign of John I., his 
 inflammatory harangues against the obstinacy and the usury and 
 the wealth of the Jews, had excited the populace. The Jewries 
 were attacked ; and a general pillage, violation, and massacre 
 took place of men and women, old and young. Fire and sword 
 raged unresisted through these quarters of the city. The streets 
 of noble Seville ran with blood, and the wild voice of the Arch- 
 deacon in the pulpit rose over all, and kept up the madness. Four 
 thousand Jews perished in the massacre. 
 
 The terrible example of their impunity the fame of the blood 
 which they had shed without rebuke, the wealth which they had 
 acquired without restitution, spread throughout the kingdom. 
 Hardly more than a year had passed, when in one day August 
 8 the populace rose in Cordova, in Valencia, in Toledo, in Burgos. 
 Each of these cities, says a Spanish author, was another Troy; 
 All the horrors of a town taken by storm were suffered by the 
 Jewries : plunder, rape, massacre, conflagration. 
 
 In 1492 appeared the fatal edict commanding all unbaptized 
 Jews to quit the realm of Spain in four months. 
 
 For three centuries their fathers had dwelt in this delightful 
 country, which they had fertilized with their industry, enriched 
 with their commerce, adorned with their learning. Yet there 
 were few examples of weakness or apostasy ; the whole race, 
 variously calculated at 166,000, 300,000, 650,000, or 800,000, in a 
 lofty spirit of self-devotion we envy not that mind which cannot 
 appreciate its real greatness, determined to abandon all r.ither 
 than desert the religion of their fathers. They left the homes of 
 their youth, the scenes of their early associations, the sacred graves 
 of their ancestors, the more recent tombs of their own friends and 
 relatives. They left the synagogues in which they had so long
 
 106 APPENDIX. 
 
 worshipped their God ; the schools where those wise men had taught 
 who had thrown a lustre which shone, even through the darkness 
 of the age, upon the Hebrew name. They were allowed four 
 months to prepare for this everlasting exile. The unbaptized Jew 
 found in the kingdom after that period was condemned to death. 
 The persecutor could not even trust the hostile feeling of his 
 bigoted subjects to execute his purpose, a statute was thought 
 necessary, prohibiting any Christian from harboring a Jew after 
 that period. Many were sold for slaves ; Christendom swarmed 
 with them. The wealthier were permitted to carry away their 
 movables, excepting gold and silver, for which they were to accept 
 letters of change or any merchandise not prohibited. Their 
 property they might sell ; but the market was soon glutted, and 
 the cold-hearted purchasers waited till the last instant, to wring 
 from their distress the hardest terms. A contemporary author 
 states that he saw Jews give a house for an ass, and a vineyard 
 for a small quantity of cloth or linen. Yet many of them con- 
 cealed their gold and jewels in their clothes and saddles ; some 
 swallowed them, in hopes thus at least to elude the scrutiny of the 
 officers. The Jews consider this calamity almost as dreadful as 
 the taking and ruin of Jerusalem. For whither to fly ? And 
 where to find a more hospitable shore? Incidents, which make 
 the blood run cold, are related of the miseries which they suffered. 
 Some of those from Aragon found their way into Navarre ; others 
 to the sea-shore, where they set sail for Italy, or the coast of 
 Morocco ; others crossed the frontier into Portugal. " Many of 
 the former were cast away, or sunk," says a Jewish writer, " like 
 lead, into the ocean." On board the ship which was conveying a 
 great number to Africa, the plague broke out. The captain 
 ascribed the infection to his circumcised passengers, and set them 
 all on shore, on a desert coast, without provisions. They dispersed: 
 one, a father, saw his beautiful wife perish before his eyes fainted 
 himself with exhaustion and, waking, beheld his two children 
 dead by his side. 
 
 In Portugal the king named a day for all Jews to quit the king- 
 dom, and appointed certain ports for their embarkation. Before 
 that time he issued another secret order to seize all children under 
 fourteen years of age, to tear them from the arms, the bosoms of 
 their parents, and dispersed them through the kingdom, to be 
 baptized and brought up as Christians. The secret transpired, and
 
 ALBIGENSIAN WAR. 107 
 
 lost they should conceal their children, it was instantly put in 
 execution. Great God of Mercy, this was in the name of Chris- 
 tianity! Frantic mothers threw their children into the wells and 
 rivers, they destroyed them with their own hands. One mother 
 threw herself at the feet of the king as he was riding to church. 
 She had already lost six children ; she implored that her youngest 
 might be spared to her. The courtiers repelled her with scorn and 
 ill-usage. The king told them to let her go, " the poor bitch 
 deprived of her whelps ! " Milmans History of Christianity. 
 
 ALBIGENSIAN WAR. 
 
 Never in the history of man were the great eternal principles 
 of justice, the faith of treaties, common humanity, so trampled 
 under foot as in the Albigensian war. Never was war waged in 
 which ambition, the consciousness of strength, rapacity, implaca- 
 ble hatred, and pitiless cruelty, played a greater part. And 
 throughout the war it cannot be disguised that it was not merely 
 the army of the Church, but the Church itself in arms. Papal 
 legates and the greatest prelates headed the host, and mingled in 
 all the horrors of the battle and the siege. In no instance did 
 they interfere to arrest the massacre, in some cases they urged it 
 on. " Slay all, God will know his own," was the boasted saying of 
 Abbot Arnold, Legate of the Pope, before Beziers. Arnold was 
 the Captain-General of the army. * Hardly one of the great pre- 
 lates of France stood aloof. 
 
 In A. D., 1207, the army appeared before Beziers, which, in the 
 strength of its walls and the courage of its inhabitants, ventured 
 on bqld defiance. The Bishop Reginald of Montpellier demanded 
 the surrender of all whom he might designate as heretics. On 
 their refusal of these terms, the city was stormed. A general mas- 
 sacre followed ; neither age nor sex were spared ; even priests fell 
 in the remorseless carnage. In the Church of St. Mary Magda- 
 lene were killed seven thousand by the defenders of the sanctity 
 of the Church. The account of the slain is variously estimated 
 from twenty thousand even up to fifty thousand. The city was 
 set on fire, even the Cathedral perished in the flames. The law of 
 conquest was put in force. The lands of a heretic were as the 
 lands of a Saracen. 
 
 The barbarity at Lavour passed all precedent, even in this fear- 
 ful war. A general massacre was permitted ; men, women, chil-
 
 108 APPENDIX. 
 
 dren were cut to pieces, till there remained nothing to kill except 
 some of the garrison, and others reserved for a more cruel fate. 
 Four hundred were burned in one great pile, which made a won- 
 derful blaze, and caused universal rejoicing in the camp. Aymeric 
 of Montreal, the commander, was brought, with eighty nobles 
 Lavour seems to have been thought a safe place of refuge before 
 De Montfort. He ordered them all to be hanged ; the overloaded 
 gibbets broke down; they were hewn in pieces. Giralda, the Lady 
 of Lavour, was thrown into a well, and huge stones rolled down 
 upon her. The Bishops preached in vain to five hundred heretics, 
 but converted not one; sixty, however, they burned with great joy. 
 
 In 1487, Innocent VIII., the father of the Romans, issued a bull 
 against the Waldenses. "To arms" said the pontiff, "and tram- 
 ple these heretics under foot as venomous serpents." 
 
 At the approach of the Legate, followed by an army of eighteen 
 thousand men, and a number of volunteers who wished to share 
 the spoils of the Waldenses, the latter abandoned their houses and 
 took refuge in the mountains, caverns, and clefts of the rocks, as 
 the birds flee for shelter when the storm begins to lower. Not a 
 valley, nor a wood, nor a rock escaped their persecutors; every- 
 where in this part of the Alps, and particularly on the Italian side, 
 these poor disciples of Christ were hunted down like beasts of prey. 
 At last the Pope's satellites were worn out ; their strength was ex- 
 hausted, their feet could no longer scale the steep retreats of the 
 " heretics," and their arms refused to strike. 
 
 The Reformation had made considerable progress among the peo- 
 ple of the Netherlands during the reign of Charles V., and Philip, 
 soon after his accession, undertook to root out entirely the new doc- 
 trines, and to restore the exclusive supremacy of the Roman Catho- 
 lic Church. 
 
 An insurrection of the Protestants, breaking out in Flanders, 
 August 14, 1566, Philip determined to resort to the most severe 
 measures to suppress Protestantism, and accordingly the cruel 
 duke of Alva, a soldier of great reputation, was sent to the Nether- 
 lands in 1567, with a powerful army of Spanish veterans ; and for 
 six years the country suffered under a tyranny which, for extent 
 and ferocity, has few parallels in history. 
 
 After the execution of Huss A. D. 1415 the Hussite war broke 
 out in all its fury. Of all wars, none was so horribly remorseless, 
 ostentatiously cruel as this a war of races, of languages, and of
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE HERETICS. 109 
 
 religion. It was a strife of revenge, of reprisal, of extermination, 
 considered to be the holiest of duties. On one side no faith was to 
 be kept, no mercy shown to heretics: to cut off the spreading plague 
 by any means was paramount to all principles of law or gospel. On 
 the other, vengeance was to be wreaked on the enemies of God's 
 people, and therefore the enemies of God ; to root out idolatry was 
 the mission of the Bohemians; mortal sin was to be cut off with the 
 righteous sword ; and the whole priesthood, all monks, friars, nuns, 
 were so utterly depraved, according to their sweeping condemna- 
 tion, that it was only to fulfill the Divine commandment to extir- 
 pate the irreclaimable Order. These terrible theories were relent- 
 lessly carried into more terrible practice. Kuttenburg, the second 
 city in the realm, the rival of Prague, Catholic and German as 
 Prague was, Hussite and Bohemian, burned, beheaded, hanged all 
 who would not retract their opinions. They bought the prisoners 
 taken in war for a few groschens a head five times as much for a 
 preacher as for a common man and executed them without trial, 
 without mercy. They are charged with havirtg put to death six- 
 teen hundred men. The Hussites, wherever they could, perpe- 
 trated horrible reprisals ; for so many of their brethren as were 
 burned, they hanged as many monks or friars. Mdmiris History 
 of Latin Christianity. 
 
 THE PEKSECUTION OF THE HERETICS. 
 
 After the Albigensian Crusade, when the open war was at an 
 end, the Church still pursued her exterminating warfare against 
 her still rebellious subjects. The inquisition continued its silent, 
 but not less inhuman, hardly less destructive crusade. 
 
 That tribunal, with all its peculiar statutes, its jurisdiction, its 
 tremendous agency, was founded during this period. Its statutes 
 framed after the successful termination of the war, in order abso- 
 lutely to extirpate every lingering vestige of heresy, form the code 
 of persecution, which not merely aimed at suppressing all public 
 teaching, but the more secret freedom of thought. It was a sys- 
 tem which penetrated into the innermost sanctuary of domestic 
 life ; and made delation not only a merit and a duty, but an obli- 
 gation also, enforced by tremendous penalties. 
 
 The court sat in profound secresy ; no advocate might appear 
 before the tribunal, no witness was confronted with the accused: 
 who were the informers, what the charges, except the vague charge
 
 110 APPENDIX. 
 
 of heresy, no one knew. The suspected heretic was first summoned 
 to declare, on oath, that he would speak the truth, the whole truth, 
 of all persons whatsoever, living or dead, like himself, under the 
 suspicion of heresy. If he refused, he was cast into a dungeon a 
 dungeon the darkest in those dreary ages the most dismal, the 
 most profound, the most noisome. No falsehood was too false, no 
 craft too crafty, no trick too base for this calm, systematic moral 
 torture, which was to wring further confession against himself, 
 denunciation against others. It was the deliberate object to break 
 the spirit. The prisoner was told that there were witnesses, unde- 
 niable witnesses against him ; if convicted by such witnesses, his 
 death was inevitable. In the meantime his food was to be slowly 
 diminished till body and soul were prostrate. He was then to be 
 left in darkness, solitude and silence. Then were to come one or 
 two of the faithful, dexterous men, who were to speak in gentle 
 words of interest and sympathy: "Fear not to confess that you 
 have had dealings with those men, the teachers of heresy, because 
 they seemed to you men of holiness and virtue; wiser than you have 
 been deceived." These dexterous men were to speak of the Bible, 
 of the Gospels, of the Epistles of St. Paul, to talk the very lan- 
 guage, the scriptural language of the heretic. "These foxes," it 
 was said, " can only be unearthed by fox-like cunning." But if all 
 this art failed, then came terror, and the goading to despair. " Dio 
 you must bethink you of your soul." Upon which, if the despe- 
 rate man said, " If I must die, I will die in the true faith of the 
 Gospel, ' he had made his confession : justice claimed her victim. 
 
 The Inquisition had three penalties : for those who recanted, 
 penance in the severest forms which the Church might enact ; for 
 those not absolutely convicted, perpetual imprisonment : for the 
 obstinate or relapsed, death, death at the stake. Such was the 
 procedure, of which the instructions may now be read in their very 
 words. Two inquisitors were appointed in every city, but the 
 Bishops needed no excitement to their eager zeal, no remonstrance 
 against mistimed mercy to the heretics. At the Council of Nar- 
 bonne, was issued a decree, that there were not prisons vast enough 
 to contain those who deserved imprisonment for life. 
 
 A division of the Franciscans, calling themselves spirituals, were 
 loud in their denunciations of the corruptions of the Church. 
 John XXII. was too sagacious not to foresee the peril ; too arro- 
 gantly convinced, and too jealous, of his supreme spiritual author-
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE HERETICS. HI 
 
 ity not to resent ; too merciless not to extirpate by the most cruel 
 means these slowly-working enemies. Soon after his accession, 
 Bull followed Bull equally damnatory. The Inquisition was com- 
 mitted to Michael di Cesena, still the faithful subject of the Pope, 
 and to seven others. Twenty-five monks were convicted, and 
 sentenced first to degradation, then to perpetual imprisonment. 
 They were brought to the stake and burned at Marseilles. They 
 were condemned for the heresy of denying the Papal authority. 
 
 The prisons of Narbonne and of Carcassonne were crowded with 
 those who were spared the last penalty. Among these was the 
 friar Deliciosus of Montpellier, a Franciscan, who had boldly with- 
 stood the Inquisition, and was immured for life in a dungeon. He 
 it was who declared that if St. Peter and St. Paul should return to 
 earth, the Inquisition would lay hands on them, as damnable 
 heretics. At Toulouse the public sermons of the Inquisition took 
 place at intervals, and these sermons were rarely unaccompanied 
 by proofs of their inefficacy. Men who would not be argued into 
 belief must be burned. The corollary of a Christian sermon was a 
 holocaust at the stake. 
 
 In England a Statute was necessary to legalize the burning of 
 heretics. The judgment was passed in the Ecclesiastical court or 
 that of the Inquisition. The Statute bears the ill-omened appella- 
 tion, " for the burning of heretics." The preamble was directed 
 in the most comprehensive terms against the new preachers. These 
 preachings, schools, books, were strictly inhibited. The Bishop of 
 the diocese was empowered to arrest all persons accused or 
 suspected of these acts, to imprison them, to bring them to trial in 
 his court. " If he shall refuse to abjure such doctrines, or having 
 abjured, relapse, sentence is to be recorded : a writ issued to the 
 sheriff of the county, the mayor or bailiff of the nearest borough, 
 who is to take order that on a high place in public, before the face 
 of the people he be burned." 
 
 Nor was this Statute an idle menace ; the Primate and the 
 Bishops hastened to make examples under its terrible provisions. 
 
 And, when later than this, Luther struck at the root of Roman 
 Catholicism, though the power of the church was on the wane, 
 persecution was again resorted to. Milman'a History of Latin 
 Christianity. 
 
 Fanaticism grew fiercer every day ; evangelical ministers were 
 expelled from their churches ; magistrates were banished ; and at
 
 112 APPENDIX. 
 
 times the most horrible punishments were inflicted. In Wurtera- 
 burg, an inquisitor named Reichler caused the Lutherans, and 
 above all the preachers, to be hanged upon trees. Barbarous 
 ruffians were found, who unfeelingly nailed the pastors by their 
 tongues to a post ; so that these unhappy victims, tearing them- 
 selves violently from the wood to which they were fastened, were 
 horribly mutilated in attempting to recover their liberty, and thus 
 deprived of that gift which they had long used to proclaim the 
 Gospel. 
 
 At Landsburg nine persons were consigned to the flames, and at 
 Munich twenty-nine were thrown into the water. 
 
 Leclerc, one of the French reformers, was sentenced to- be burnt 
 alive, and taken out to the place of execution. Here a fearful 
 scene awaited him. The cruelty of his persecutors had been con- 
 triving all that could render his punishment more horrible. Near 
 the scaffold men were heating pincers that were to serve as the 
 instruments of their rage. Leclerc, firm and calm, heard unmoved 
 the wild yells of the monks and people. They began by cutting 
 off his right hand ; then taking up the burning pincers, they tore off 
 his nose ; after this, they lacerated his arms, and when they had 
 thus mangled them in several places, they concluded by burning his 
 breasts. After these tortures Leclerc was burnt by a slow fire, in 
 conformity with his sentence. 
 
 It has been estimated that the number of persons burned alive 
 under Torquemada, the first grand inquisitor, amounted to 8,800, 
 those under Deza, to 1,664, and those under Cardinal Ximenez 
 to 2,536. 
 
 THE MASSACRE OF ST. BARTHOLOMEW. 
 
 The massacre of St. Bartholomew, was planned by the infamous 
 Catharine de Medici, to take place at the celebration of the mar- 
 riage of Henry of Navarre and Marguerite de Valois, with the 
 object of exterminating the nobles and gentry of the Huguenot 
 party, while plunged in the festivities of that joyous occasion. The 
 city gates were shut and guarded, and all the Catholic inhabitants 
 were ordered to illuminate their houses, both as a distinguishing 
 mark, and as a means of giving sufficient light, by which to carry 
 on the work of destruction. Orders were also dispatched to the 
 royal governors of the principal cities of all the provinces to com- 
 mence the same massacre at the same hour, and, although, in some
 
 THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO. 113 
 
 instances, the humanity of the officers led them to disohey their 
 orders, the instructions were too generally followed. Coligni was 
 run through the body, in spite of the resistance of some of his 
 household, and thrown out of the window at the feet of the duke 
 of Guise, who sat on horseback, coolly awaiting the performance 
 of the dreadful deed, and when the bloody corpse was flung before 
 his charger's hoofs on the pavement, dismounted and wiped the 
 clotted gore from the victim's features, with his handkerchief, in 
 order to assure himself that there had been no mistake ; when the 
 fatal tocsin rang from the church of St. Germain, the horrid slaugh- 
 ter began on the instant, and was deliberately prosecuted during 
 several days, both in the capital and the large provincial towns. 
 Neither sex nor age was spared ! 
 
 THE SPANIARDS IN MEXICO. 
 
 The Spaniards entered Mexico with the sole 'intention of con- 
 quest. Setting aside the question of right, in this intention, we 
 will speak only of their manner of conducting this conquest. 
 
 While occupying the city of Cholula, Cortes, fearing some 
 treachery on the part of the Indians, determined to make an 
 example of them that would strike the whole nation with terror. 
 Large numbers of the Indians being gathered 'in a square of the 
 city, the fatal signal, the discharge of an arquebuse, was given. 
 In an instant every musket and cross-bow was levelled at the 
 unfortunate Cholulans in the court-yard, and a frightful volley 
 poured into them as they stood crowded together, like a herd of 
 deer in the centre. They were taken by surprise, and made 
 scarcely any resistance to the Spaniards, who followed up the dis- 
 charge of their pieces by rushing on them with their swords ; and, 
 as the half-naked bodies of the natives afforded no protection, they 
 hewed them down with as much ease as the reaper mows down the 
 ripe corn in harvest time. Some endeavored to scale the walls, 
 but only afforded a surer mark to the arquebusiers and archers. 
 Others threw themselves into the gateways, but were received on 
 the long pikes of the soldiers who guarded them. Some few had 
 better luck in hiding themselves under the heaps of slain with 
 which the ground was soon loaded. 
 
 While this work of death was going on, the countrymen of the 
 slaughtered Indians, drawn together by the noise of the massacre, 
 had commenced a furious assault on the Spaniards from without.
 
 114 APPENDIX. 
 
 But Cortes had placed his battery of heavy guns in a position that 
 commanded the avenues, and swept off the files of the assailants 
 as they rushed on. In the intervals between the discharges, which, 
 in the imperfect state of the science in that day, were much longer 
 than in ours, he forced back the press by charging with the horse 
 into the midst. The steeds, the guns, the weapons of the Spaniards 
 were all new to the Cholulans. Notwithstanding the novelty of 
 the terrific spectacle, the flash of fire-arms mingling with the deaf- 
 ening roar of the artillery, as its thunders reverberated among the 
 buildings, the despairing Indians pushed on to take the places of 
 their fallen comrades. At last, forced to give way, they flung 
 themselves into the wooden turrets that crowned the temple, and 
 poured down stones, javelins and burning arrows on the Spaniards, 
 as they climbed the great staircase, which, by a flight of one hun- 
 dred and twenty steps, scaled the face of the pyramid. But the 
 fiery shower fell harmless on the steel bonnets of the Christ.ians, 
 Awhile they availed themselves of the burning shafts to set fire to 
 the wooden citadel, which was speedily wrapt in flames. 
 
 All was now confusion and uproar fn the fair city, which had so 
 lately reposed in security and peace. The groans of the dying, 
 the frantic supplications of the vanquished for mercy, were mingled 
 with the loud battle-cries of the Spaniards as they rode down their 
 enemy. The tumult was still further swelled by the incessant 
 rattle of musketry, and the crash of falling timbers, which sent 
 up a volume of flame that outshone the ruddy light of morning, 
 making altogether a hideous confusion of sights and sounds, that 
 converted the Holy City into a Pandemonium. As resistance 
 slackened, the victors broke into the houses and sacred places, 
 plundering them of whatever valuables they contained, plate, 
 jewels, which were found in some quantity, wearing apparel, and 
 provisions. Cortes, in his letter to Charles the Fifth, admits three 
 thousand slain, most accounts say six, and some swell the amount 
 yet higher. 
 
 It was common for the Aztecs to celebrate an annual festival in 
 May, in honor of their patron war-god. The Spaniards gave their 
 consent to this feast, on condition that they should come without 
 weapons. They assembled accordingly on the day appointed, to 
 the number of six hundred, at the smallest computation. 
 
 Alvarado and his soldiers attended as spectators, some of them 
 taking their station at the gates, as if by chance, and others ming-
 
 THE SPANIARDS IN PERU. Ho 
 
 ling in the crowd. They were all armed, a circumstance, which, 
 as it was usual, excited no attention. The Aztecs were soon 
 engrossed by the exciting movement of the dance, accompanied by 
 their religious chant, and wild, discordant minstrelsy. While thus 
 occupied, Alvarado and his men, at a concerted signal, rushed 
 with drawn swords on their victims. Unprotected by armor or 
 weapons of any kind, they were hewn down without resistance by 
 their assailants, who, in their bloody work, says a contemporary, 
 showed no touch of pity or compunction. Some fled to the gates, 
 but were caught on the long pikes of the soldiers. Others, who 
 attempted to scale the Coatepantli, or Wall of Serpents, as it was 
 called, which surrounded the area, shared the like fate, or were cut 
 to pieces, or shot by the ruthless soldiery. The pavement, says a 
 writer of the age, ran with streams of blood, like water in a heavy 
 shower. Not an Aztec, of all that gay company, was left alive ! 
 It was repeating the dreadful scene of Cholula, with the disgraceful 
 addition, that the Spaniards, not content with slaughtering their 
 victims, rifled them of the precious ornaments on their persons ! On 
 this sad day fell the flower of the Aztec nobility. Not a family of 
 note, but had mourning and desolation brought within its walls. 
 And now, with all allowance for the ferocity of the age and the 
 laxity of its principles, it must be admitted that these are passages 
 which every Spaniard, who cherishes the fame of his countrymen, 
 would be glad to see expunged from history ; passages not to be 
 vindicated on the score of self-defence, or of necessity of any kind, 
 and which must forever leave a dark spot on the annals of the 
 Conquest. And yet, taken as a whole, the invasion was conducted 
 on principles less revolting to humanity, than most, perhaps than 
 any, of the other conquests of the Castilian crown in the New 
 World. Prescott. 
 
 THE SPANIARDS IN PERU. 
 
 Soon after the Spaniards entered Peru, the Inca consented to 
 visit them, and to come unarmed. He entered Caxamalca at the 
 head of a large number of his people, and was received in one of 
 the squares of the city by Pizarro's chaplain, who, after explaining 
 the Christian belief, and dwelling particularly on the Pope's 
 authority over all nations, concluded with beseeching the Peruvian 
 monarch to abjure the errors of his own faith, and embrace that 
 of the Christians now proffered to him, the only one by which he
 
 116 APPENDIX. 
 
 could hope for salvation ; and, furthermore, to acknowledge him- 
 self a tributary of the Emperor Charles the Fifth, who, in that 
 event, would aid and protect him as his loyal vassal. 
 
 The eyes of the Indian monarch flashed fire, and his dark brow 
 grew darker as he replied, "I will be no man's tributary. I am 
 greater than any prince upon earth. Your emperor may be a 
 great prince ; I do not doubt it when I see that he has sent his 
 subjects so far across the waters ; and I am willing to hold him as 
 a brother. As for the Pope, of whom you speak, he must be 
 crazy to talk of giving away countries which do not belong to him. 
 For my faith," he continued, "I will not change it. Your own 
 God, as you say, was put to death -by the very men whom he 
 created. But mine," he concluded, pointing to his Deity, then, 
 sinking in glory behind the mountains, " my God still lives in the 
 heavens, and looks down on his children." 
 
 Pizarro saw that the hour had come. He waved a white scarf 
 in the air, the appointed signal. The fatal gun was fired from 
 the fortress. Then, springing into the square, the Spanish captain 
 and his followers shouted the old war-cry of " St. Jago and at 
 them." It was answered by the battle-cry of every Spaniard in 
 the city, as, rushing from the avenues of the great halls in which 
 they were concealed, they poured into the plaza, horse and foot, 
 each in his own dark column, and threw themselves into the midst 
 of the Indian crowd. The latter, taken by surprise, stunned by 
 the report of artillery and muskets, the echoes of which rever- 
 berated like thunder from the surrounding buildings, and blinded 
 by the smoke which rolled in sulphureous volumes along the square, 
 were seized with a panic. They knew not whither to fly for refuge 
 from the coming ruin. Nobles and commoners, all were trampled 
 down under the fierce charge of the cavalry, who dealt their blows, 
 right and left, without sparing, while their swords, flashing through 
 the thick gloom, carried dismay into the hearts of the wretched 
 natives, who now, for the first time, saw the horse and his rider in 
 all their terrors. They made no resistance, as, indeed, they had 
 no weapons with which to make it. Every avenue to escape was 
 closed, for the entrance to the square was choked up with the dead 
 bodies of men who had perished in vain efforts to fly ; and, such 
 was the agony of the survivors under the terrible pressure of their 
 assailants, that a large body of Indians, by their convulsive strug- 
 gles, burst through, the wall of stone and dried clay which formed
 
 THE SPANIARDS IN PERU. H7 
 
 part of the boundary of the plaza ! It fell, leaving an opening of 
 more than a hundred paces, through which multitudes now found 
 their way into the country, still hotly pursued by the cavalry, 
 who, leaping the fallen rubbish, hung on the rear of the fugitives, 
 striking them down in all directions. 
 
 Meanwhile the fight, or rather the massacre, continued hot round 
 the Inca, whose person was the great object of the assault. His 
 faithful nobles, rallying about him, threw themselves in the way of 
 the assailants, and strove by tearing them from their saddles, or, at 
 least, by offering their own bosoms as a mark for their vengeance, 
 to shield their beloved master. Thus they continued to force back 
 the cavaliers, clinging to their horses with dying grasp, and, as one 
 was cut down, another taking the place of his fallen comrade with 
 a loyalty truly affecting. 
 
 The Indian monarch, stunned and bewildered, saw his faithful 
 subjects falling round him without fully comprehending his situa- 
 tion. The litter on which he rode heaved to and fro, as the mighty 
 press swayed backwards and forwards ; and he gazed on the over- 
 whelming ruin, like some forlorn mariner, who, tossed about in his 
 bark by the furious elements, sees the lightning's flash and hears 
 the thunder bursting around him with the consciousness that he 
 can do nothing to avert his fate. At length, weary with the 
 work of destruction, the Spaniards, as the shades of evening grew 
 deeper, felt afraid that the royal prize might, after all, elude them; 
 and some of the cavaliers made a desperate attempt to end the 
 affray at once by taking Atahuallpa's life. But Pizarro, who was 
 nearest his person, called out with stentorian voice, " Let no one, 
 who values his life, strike at the Inca;" and, stretching out his 
 arm to shield him, received a wound on the hand from one of his 
 own men, the only wound received by a Spaniard in the action. 
 
 The number of slain is reported, as usual, with great discrep- 
 ancy. Pizarro's Secretary says two thousand natives fell. A de- 
 scendant of the Incas swells the number to ten thousand. 
 
 It was not long before Atahuallpa discovered, amidst all the 
 show of religious zeal in his conquerors, a lurking appetite more 
 potent, in most of their bosoms, than either religion or ambition. 
 This was the love of gold. He determined to avail himself of it to 
 procure his own freedom. 
 
 In the hope, therefore, to effect his purpose, by appealing to the 
 avarice of his keepers, he one day told Pizarro, that if he would set
 
 118 APPENDIX. 
 
 him free, he would engage to cover the floor of the apartment on 
 which they stood with gold. Those present listened with an incred- 
 ulous smile; and as the Inca received no apswer, he said with some 
 emphasis, that " he would not merely cover the floor, but would fill 
 the room with gold as high as he could reach ;" and, standing on 
 tiptoe, he stretched out his hand against the wall. Although this 
 ransom was paid, the Spaniards on some frivolous accusation, sen- 
 tenced him to death. When the sentence was communicated to 
 the Inca, he exclaimed, " What have I done, or my children, that 
 I should meet such a fate ? And from your hands, too," said he, 
 addressing Pizarro, " you, who have met with friendship and kind- 
 ness from my people, with whom I have shared my treasures, who 
 have received nothing but benefits from my hands!" In the most 
 piteous tones, he then implored that his life might be spared, prom- 
 ising any guaranty that might be required for the safety of every 
 Spaniard in the army, promising double the ransom he had already 
 paid, if time were only given him to obtain it. 
 
 Finding, however, that he had no power to turn his conqueror 
 from his purpose, he recovered his habitual self-possession, and 
 from that moment submitted himself to his fate with the courage of 
 an Indian warrior. 
 
 CIVILIZATION AND THEOLOGY. 
 
 Many of these cruelties were committed by those who prided 
 themselves on being in the head and front of the civilization, which 
 is claimed to have sprung from the teaching and influence of 
 Christian theology, but which, in fact, has sprung up in these our 
 times as it has, in other times, in Egyptian, Grecian, Roman and 
 South American communities, under the advantages afforded by 
 the accumulation of wealth which goes, hand in hand, with mental 
 culture and the development of the arts and sciences, each 
 fostering and forwarding the other. The discovery of the art of 
 printing has been of immense service in increasing and perpetua- 
 ting civilization in later days, by diffusing and retaining knowledge 
 for the benefit of each succeeding generation, and by bringing mind 
 into collision with mind. 
 
 PRINTING AND CIVILIZATION. 
 
 But the inventor ot the printing press was denounced by the 
 Christian theologians of his day, as being in league with the devil,
 
 PRINTING AND CIVILIZATION. 119 
 
 inasmuch as copies of the Bible could be produced by means of 
 printing, with a celerity, and in quantities, never before heard or 
 dreamed of thus leading the way to the discovery of the cheat 
 which the the.ologians were practising on the masses. Now, how- 
 ever, the Church authorities seize upon the evident and rapid 
 advance in intellectual culture and knowledge in Christian coun- 
 tries, as compared with others, and claim that this is due 
 entirely to the promulgation of Christianity ; where, as it is due 
 entirely to the circumstance that the printing press was invented 
 and put into operation in a Christian country, in despite of the 
 theologians who denounced it. That the dark side of human 
 nature here presented, is the exception and not the general rule, 
 even in Christian countries, we freely admit. It is one of the 
 objects of this work to maintain that the good, the true, and the 
 kind in the human nature largely predominate, notwithstanding 
 the habit of the clergy of representing unregenerate man that is, 
 all not within the pale of, and paying tithes to the church as 
 utterly corrupt and having no good in them. This habit of 
 dilating so continually on the darker side of human nature 
 amounts to a gross and palpable libel on the species. Theologians, 
 habitually measuring character by its aberrations, and estimating 
 strong and passionate natures by their failings, rather than by their 
 virtues which largely predominate, have fallen into a signal 
 injustice. And this is the more inexcusable, inasmuch as in their 
 own sacred volume, the Psalms of David are a conspicuous proof 
 how a noble, tender, and passionate nature could survive, even in 
 an adulterer and a murderer. 
 
 Now, from whatever cause this persistent course of the Christian 
 Theologians, in representing man in his natural state as altogether 
 under the empire of evil, proceeds whether from love of denomi- 
 nation, interest, or other causes nothing can be more certain than 
 that excellence and not vice is prominent and distinctive in human 
 nature in its most primitive state. 
 
 The more the intellectual faculties are cultivated and lend their 
 aid to the moral perceptions, and kindly promptings of the heart, 
 the more rapid is the advance in the pursuit of the good, the right, 
 and the virtuous. But good greatly preponderates over evil, even 
 in the incipient stages of human society. Benevolence is more 
 common than cruelty. The sight of suffering produces pity, rather 
 than joy. Gratitude, not ingratitude, is the normal result of a
 
 120 APPENDIX. 
 
 conferred benefit. The sympathies of man naturally follow 
 heroism and goodness. In fine, virtue and not vice love, and not 
 hate, predominate in human nature ; while vice itself is usually 
 but an exaggeration or distortion of tendencies that are in their 
 own nature perfectly innocent. 
 
 We have herein presented to notice some of the great crimes 
 known to history, that have been committed by the inhabitants of 
 Christian countries, who are understood to have had the benefit of 
 the teachings of the Church. And we would remind those who 
 attempt to build up Church interests, and prove its beneficial 
 effects upon man, by contrasting the moral conduct of Christian 
 nations with that of Heathen, that when fairly made Christians 
 lose rather than gain by the comparison. As to attributing the 
 advanced state of mental culture and civilization to the influence 
 of the Church, instead of the art of printing, the cause of truth 
 will be served by calling attention to certain doings of the Church 
 here given, before the printing press came into use.
 
 LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED, 
 
 AND FROM WHICH EXTRACTS HAVE BEEN MADE. 
 
 l: Essays on the Language, Writings and Religion of the Parsees,' 
 
 by Martin Haug. 
 11 Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names," by Thomas Inman, 
 
 M. D. 
 
 " Sangermano's Burmese Empire," by Tandy. 
 "The Rig- Veda Sanhita," Translated by Wilson and Cowell. 
 Legge's " Life and Teachings of Confucius." 
 Grote's " Plato." 
 " The Ten Tribes of Israel, and Mexican Antiquities," by Mrs. 
 
 Simon. 
 
 11 The Koran," by George Sale. 
 " A Voice from the Ganges." 
 " The Dervishes," by J. P. Brown. 
 " A Brief View of Greek Philosophy," by a Pariah. 
 "Philosophical Theories, and Philosophical Experience," by a 
 
 Pariah. 
 The Works of Thomas Hobbes; Dugald Stewart; John Stuart 
 
 Mill ; Lord Macaulay ; Dr. Channing ; Theodore Parker ; 
 
 Humboldt ; J. G. Fichte ; and George Combe. 
 "The Bridgewater Treatises," by Drs. Chalmers, Whewell and 
 
 others. 
 
 Bishop Colenso on the Pentateuch. 
 Bunsen's " God in History." 
 Buckle's " History of Civilization in England." 
 Lecky's " History of European Morals, from Augustus to Charle- 
 magne." 
 
 Renan's " Life of Jesus." 
 " New Life of Jesus," by Strauss. 
 " The Divine Government," by Southwood Smith. 
 " Fellowes' Religion of the Universe." 
 " The Universal Church." 
 " Maurice's " Religions of the World.'
 
 122 APPENDIX. 
 
 McCausland'a " Adam and the Adamites." 
 
 " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation." 
 
 Prescott'a " Conquest of Mexico ;" and " of Peru." 
 
 " Essays and Reviews." 
 
 Draper's " Intellectual Development of Europe." 
 
 Hansel's " Bampton Lectures." 
 
 Froude's " Short Studies on Great Subjects.' 
 
 " Ecce Homo." 
 
 " Force and Matter," by Louis Biichner. 
 
 Lewes' " History of Philosophy." 
 
 " The State of Man before Christianity." 
 
 S. W. Hall's " Law of Impersonation." 
 
 " Discussion of the Unity, Duality and Trinity of the Godhead." 
 
 Bernard's " Cambridge Free Thought s." 
 
 Quarterly Review on "The Talmud." 
 
 F. W. Newman's " Phases of Faith." 
 
 "What is Truth?" 
 
 Coupland's " Incentives to the Higher Life. 
 
 Leigh Hunt's " Religion of the Heart." 
 
 " The Creed of Christendom," by W. R. Greg. 
 
 " The Method of the Divine Government, by Dr. McCosh. 
 
 "Pindar," and "Cicero," in Bonn's Classical Library. 
 
 " Indigenous Races of the Earth." 
 
 Milman's "History of the Jews;" "of Christianity;" and "of 
 
 Latin Christianity." 
 
 " Chips from a German Workshop," by Max Muller. 
 D'Aubigne's " History of the Reformation." 
 "Christ, and other Masters," by Archdeacon Hardwick. 
 Appleton's Cyclopedia.
 
 INDEX. 
 
 FAOB. 
 
 PREFACE iii 
 
 INTRODUCTORY v 
 
 Some pretend to inspiration 1 
 
 Signs and Creeds at variance 3 
 
 Jews but little known 5 
 
 Jesus' protest only partial 7 
 
 Councils assume infallible power 9 
 
 Massacre of the Innocents 11 
 
 Ancient legends 13 
 
 Incredible statements of the Old Testament 15 
 
 Jesus tempted of the Devil 20 
 
 Divinity of Jesus not believed 21 
 
 Mythology of the Virgin Mary 23 
 
 Influence of the Printing Press 25 
 
 Progress of the Sciences 27 
 
 Infidelity no reproach 29 
 
 The Christian Heaven 81 
 
 Science undermining Theology 33 
 
 A Protest against Theologies 35 
 
 God all-powerful 37 
 
 The Teachings of the Book of Nature 39 
 
 Labor, Pain and Death, not evils 41 
 
 Man's wonderful organization 45 
 
 Instances of Instinct 47 
 
 Recuperative Powers of Nature 51 
 
 Church Method of Salvation 53 
 
 God's Method of Salvation 55 
 
 Prayer 57 
 
 Fasting injurious 59 
 
 God's Laws all-sufficient 61 
 
 None destined to endless misery 63
 
 124 INDEX. 
 
 FAOC 
 
 Moral Evil 65 
 
 Prayer the effect of ignorance 67 
 
 The God of Moses 71 
 
 Priestcraft 73 
 
 Influence of the True Religion 75 
 
 God's care for man 77 
 
 Man's intellect expanding 79 
 
 Eternal happiness 81 
 
 The Clergy shall accept truth 83 
 
 Moral Instincts 85 
 
 It guides us unperceived 87 
 
 Good Works 89 
 
 True Basis of Religion 91 
 
 Early History of Man 93 
 
 Study of other Theologies 95 
 
 Innate promptings of the heart 97 
 
 The Devil 99 
 
 Punishment not retrospective lOl 
 
 Happiness of this Life 103 
 
 Man's trust in God 105 
 
 Pain a blessing 107 
 
 Man's individuality hereafter 109 
 
 Limited free agency Ill 
 
 God's laws unchangeable 113 
 
 Supposed Saviours 115 
 
 Jesus' Second Coming 119 
 
 Man's craving for truth 121 
 
 Yearning of the human soul 123 
 
 The Trinity 125 
 
 God's Laws 127 
 
 Moral Laws 129 
 
 Conscience 131 
 
 Man's confidence in Nature 135 
 
 The Moral Law 137 
 
 Science the ally of Religion 143 
 
 Providential interference 145 
 
 Erroneous Ideas of Heaven 147 
 
 Attributes of God 149 
 
 God in Nature 151 
 
 The Divine Character 153
 
 INDEX. 125 
 
 PACK. 
 
 No remission of penalty 155 
 
 Introduction to Bible Criticism 157 
 
 Vagueness of Prophecies 159 
 
 Supernatural inspiration incredible 161 
 
 Failure of precise predictions 163 
 
 Different Parables 165 
 
 Erroneous deductions 167 
 
 Christianity not original 171 
 
 Simplicity of True Religion 173 
 
 Christ's real teachings 175 
 
 God's evil passions 177 
 
 God likened to man corporeally 181 
 
 Blind reliance on Scripture 183 
 
 Compounding for sin 185 
 
 Adam's doom not spiritual 187 
 
 The story of the Fall of Man 189 
 
 Its inconsistencies 191 
 
 Bible account of the Fall of Man 193 
 
 Man's original condition 197 
 
 Instant change in animal life 199 
 
 Death indispensable 201 
 
 The food of animals 203 
 
 Beautiful Laws of Nature 205 
 
 God's original laws unchanged 207 
 
 Origin of the Human Race 209 
 
 Eternal Life is to be earthly 211 
 
 Salvation not spiritual 213 
 
 The World Past, Present aud Future 217 
 
 Christ's pretended Miracles 219 
 
 Some Miracles explained 221 
 
 Different Miracles 225 
 
 Jewish Tests of the Messiahship 227 
 
 The Throne of David 231 
 
 Jesus' progressive ideas 233 
 
 He becomes imperious 235 
 
 Object of Christ and Apostles 237 
 
 Priesthood naturally incensed 241 
 
 Christian Sacrifice absurd 243 
 
 Jesus repudiates it 245 
 
 The Old Testament on Sacrifice 247
 
 126 INDEX. 
 
 *ior. 
 
 The. New Testament on Sacrifice 249 
 
 Christ denounces it .253 
 
 Obscurity of the Bible 257 
 
 Sectarian recrimination the result/ 259 
 
 Jesus did not claim Divinity 261 
 
 His opinion cf himself. 263 
 
 Miracles the means of Proof of his Divinity 265 
 
 Texts in favor of One God only 267 
 
 Further proofs 271 
 
 Jesus' idea of his Mission 275 
 
 No warrant for this idea 277 
 
 Texts disproving Jesus' Divinity 279 
 
 Jesus' teaching 281 
 
 Jesus never claimed Divinity 283 
 
 Ingenuity of the Priests 285 
 
 Character of Jesus' Precepts 287 
 
 Ananias and Sapphira 293 
 
 Rational explanations of their death 295 
 
 Threat of Eternal Punishment 297 
 
 Jesus not a Saviour 299 
 
 The Spirit of Man restless 301 
 
 Belief in Jesus 303 
 
 Jesus as a Teacher 305 
 
 No good results from the belief in the Divinity of Jesus 309 
 
 Working of Miracles 313 
 
 Jesus' teaching impracticable 315 
 
 Jesus' code visionary 319 
 
 The Arrest of Jesus 321 
 
 His Crucifixion 323 
 
 Jesus' character 325 
 
 The Prophecies in Revelations 327 
 
 The Kingdom of God in the Soul 329 
 
 The Apostles equal to Jesus 331 
 
 God the Only Saviour 333 
 
 Worship of Jesus 335 
 
 Ceremonies of the Churches 337 
 
 Jesus' teaching not uniform 339 
 
 Jesus' Second Advent 341 
 
 Salvation for all... ...343
 
 INDEX. 127 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PAOI. 
 
 Zoroastrianism ............................................................... 1 
 
 Mohammedanism ............................................................ 7 
 
 Buddhism ..................................................................... 16 
 
 The Burmese ............. . ................................................... 28 
 
 The Hindoos ................................................................. 38 
 
 Confucianism ................................................................. 46 
 
 Mexico and Peru ............................................................ 61 
 
 The Talmud .................................................................. 69 
 
 Egyptian History ........................................................... 73 
 
 Stoicism ....................................................................... 77 
 
 Classical Antiquity ......................................................... 79 
 
 Cicero .......................................................................... 80 
 
 Pindar ............................. v ......................................... 81 
 
 Plato ........................................................................... 82 
 
 Epicurus ...................................................................... 83 
 
 Socrates ........................................................................ 84 
 
 Xenophanes ............................................................... ... 86 
 
 Herakleitus ................................................................ 86 
 
 Protagorus ................................................................... 86 
 
 Grecian History ............................................................. 86 
 
 Sacred Book of the Mexicans ............................................ 87 
 
 Extracts from "Popol Vuh" ............................................. 87 
 
 Beliefs of the American Indians ........................................ 90 
 
 Belief of the New Hollanders ........................................... 91 
 
 Belief of the Icelanders ..................... .............................. 91 
 
 Christian Theology no restraint .......................................... 02 
 
 Contentions of the Early Church ....................................... 92 
 
 Later Crimes of the Church ............................................. 95 
 
 Tke Crusades ................................................................. 102 
 
 The Persecution of the Jews ............................................. 104 
 
 Albigensian War ............................................................ 107 
 
 Persecution of the Heretics .............................................. 109 
 
 The Massacre of St. Bartholomew ....................................... 112 
 
 The Spaniards in Mexico .................................................. 113 
 
 The Spaniards in Peru .................................................... 115 
 
 Civilization and Theology ................................................ 118 
 
 Printing and Civilization ................................................. 118 
 
 LIST OF BOOKS CONSULTED