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MIDNIGHT TALKS 
 
 Ht tbe Club 
 
 REPORTED 
 
 BY AMOS K>TISKE 
 
 The people's prayer, the glad diviner's theme, 
 The young men's vision and the old men's dream. 
 
 DRYDEN. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 FORDS, HOWARD, & HULBERT 
 1890 
 
COPYRIGHT IN 1890 
 
 BY AMOS K. FISKE 
 
PREFATORY NOTE. 
 
 MOST of the papers in this volume originally 
 appeared as a series in the Sunday issues of 
 the New York Times, where they excited suffi- 
 cient interest to elicit many enquiries as to 
 their possible appearance in book form. As 
 these enquiries continued for months after the 
 " Talks " had ceased to appear, it seemed as 
 though the papers must have touched matters 
 of living and enduring interest, upon which 
 many people are thinking and craving some- 
 thing fresh in the thoughts of others. Hence 
 the author feels justified in rescuing them 
 from the quick oblivion of the newspaper, and 
 putting them into a form which may give 
 them a place in those circles whether in the 
 club or the home or the study where talk 
 ranges upon themes of more than trivial or 
 ephemeral significance. The papers have 
 been gone over carefully for this volume and 
 expanded in some points, from the carefully 
 preserved notes of the " Listener " and con- 
 
IV PREFA TOR Y NO TE. 
 
 eluded with a final contribution from the 
 "Judge," sojourning in lands remote. 
 
 In addition to the offence of making public 
 the conversation of his friends in the privacy 
 of their club, the reporter of the " Midnight 
 Talks " wishes to confess to this further pec- 
 cadillo. In the interval between the publica- 
 tion of the "talks" in a serial way and the 
 collection of them in this volume, he took the 
 liberty of appropriating as his own many of 
 the ideas and sentiments of the "Judge" and 
 putting them forth as such in a magazine article 
 which appeared in The Forum, even going 
 so far as to " convey " bodily into that article 
 some of the extracts from the "Judge's" 
 Amalfi letter. As Jhe has made his peace 
 with those chiefly concerned, his readers will 
 doubtless care little for this ; but he wishes to 
 forestall detection by the keen critics, if any 
 should go so far as to look into his conduct in 
 this matter. 
 
 AMOS K. FISKE. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 I. 
 
 THE " OWL PARTY " AT THE ASPHODEL, . . I 
 
 II. 
 THE " OWLS " DISCOURSE ON TEMPERANCE, . l8 
 
 III. 
 THE JUDGE FINDS THE SHEPHERDS NEGLECTING 
 
 THE SHEEP, 35 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE " OWLS " TALK ABOUT SUNDAY OBSERVANCE, 48 
 
 V. 
 
 THE JUDGE DISCOURSES AT LARGE ON RELIGION, 65 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE JUDGE GETS DIVERTED TO AN EXPOSITION OF 
 
 POLITICAL IMMORALITY, . . . . 8 1 
 
 VII. 
 
 SOME FREE DISCUSSION OF SUPERSTITION AND 
 
 WORSHIP, 96 
 
 VIII. 
 THE JUDGE OBJECTS TO MAKING A FETICH OF 
 
 THE SCRIPTURES, . . . . .113 
 
 V 
 
vi CONTENTS. 
 
 IX. 
 
 SWITCHED OFF TO THE QUESTION OF IRISH- 
 AMERICANS, 130 
 
 X. 
 
 THE JUDGE GETS BACK TO MOSES AND THE 
 PROPHETS, ....... 149 
 
 XI. 
 
 MORE DISCOURSE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE, 169 
 
 XII. 
 
 A DISCUSSION OF THE VALUE OF HUMAN EVI- 
 DENCE, 185 
 
 XIII. 
 A DISCOURSE ON THE POWER OF PERSONALITY, 2OI 
 
 XIV. 
 TOM GETS LIGHT ON THE BEARING OF PREVIOUS 
 
 REMARKS, 215 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE COLONEL MAINTAINS THE USEFULNESS OF 
 
 DELUSION, 232 
 
 XVI. 
 
 TOM BENEDICT AS A DEFENDER OF THE FAITH, 248 
 
 XVII. 
 THE JUDGE PLEADS FOR UNIVERSAL TOLERATION 
 
 AND ENLIGHTENMENT, 262 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 SOME FINAL WORDS OF COMFORT FROM THE 
 JUDGE, 277 
 
MIDNIGHT TALKS 
 
 AT THE CLUB. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE " OWL PARTY " AT THE ASPHODEL. 
 
 WHEN I was induced by my old col- 
 lege friend, Tom Benedict, to join the 
 Asphodel Club it was not with the expec- 
 tation of taking part in midnight discus- 
 sions of any kind : not that I am at all 
 averse to the " wee sma' hours," for the 
 most irksome of all things human is the 
 conventional necessity of going to bed 
 every night ; but I presumed that if there 
 were such diversions within thosq myste- 
 rious precincts they were of a hilarious 
 kind, and my tastes in matters of conver- 
 sation are quiet. 
 
 I have a notion there is " no use talk- 
 
2 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 ing" where more than two or three are 
 gathered together, unless it is a family 
 party or a group of very intimate friends. 
 
 But I had not long enjoyed the luxuri- 
 ous ease of the Asphodel before I discov- 
 ered that almost every Saturday night 
 there was in a quiet inner room a little 
 knot of persons holding high converse at 
 about the time Sunday is supposed to 
 be " ushered in " everywhere but in 
 clubs. This knot of persons appeared to 
 be known as the " Owl Party " by those 
 casual members who observed the regu- 
 larity of their convocation on Saturday 
 nights and the lateness with which they 
 indulged in their periodical talks, perhaps 
 also with a delicate reference to the 
 profound wisdom occasionally overheard 
 by the light minded. 
 
 I was introduced into this party the 
 more promptly because, to my surprise, 
 I found that Tom Benedict was himself 
 a member of it. I was surprised at this 
 simply on account of Tom's character 
 and habits, as they were familiar to me. 
 I took him to be a man who reposed in 
 the bosom of his family long before mid- 
 
THE "OWL PARTY." 3 
 
 night any night in the week, and was a 
 little astonished even that he should be- 
 long at all to a club that had rather a 
 reputation for conviviality than other- 
 wise. For Tom is not only a family 
 man, but a rather staid person, as prop- 
 erly domesticated as any one you could 
 meet in a summer's day. Very strictly 
 brought up was Tom, and he was always 
 submissive to discipline, and became 
 rather a stickler for the proprieties, even 
 for the conventionalities. He married 
 the daughter of a clergyman, very charrn^ 
 ing in her way, a paragon of virtue and 
 propriety, but rather narrow in her views 
 of this life and broad in her conceptions 
 of the superior importance of some other 
 life. And like a dutiful husband he 
 joined the church, became a Vestryman 
 or some such thing, and took his part 
 in improving the wretched human race 
 through Sunday-schools and missions. 
 
 I like Tom right well when we are 
 together by ourselves or with congenial 
 friends, but on the rare occasions on 
 which I have visited him at his home I 
 have not found myself quite at ease. 
 
4 AIID.VfGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 There is too much propriety and virtuous 
 sensibility about, for my careless ways, 
 and I am in constant danger of hurting 
 somebody or something, and Tom seems 
 to be in constant fear that I will ; while 
 his wife has a kind of open-eyed, half- 
 startled wonder at my free-and-easy re- 
 marks about people and things. I can't 
 even smoke a cigar in their house. It is 
 one of those peculiarly refined nests of 
 domestic purity, in which tobacco smoke 
 is regarded as a sort of profanation and 
 in which it clings to curtains and hang- 
 ings with wicked tenacity. I believe the 
 delicate nostrils of Tom's wife would be 
 offended with the fumes of a single cigar 
 for a week afterward, even though it were 
 smoked in the attic or the basement. 
 
 Imagine my surprise, then, that Tom 
 should not only be a member of the 
 Asphodel Club, but should even belong 
 to an "Owl Party" that sat discoursing 
 at a little round table garnished with 
 glasses into the small hours of Sunday 
 morning. His individual glass contained 
 generally nothing worse than ginger ale 
 or Apollinaris water, though he is not 
 
THE " OWL PARTY." 5 
 
 averse to a glass of good wine on occa- 
 sion, and I have more than once in- 
 veigled him into drinking beer at a Ger- 
 man music garden. He took no part at 
 all in the smoking, though I believe he 
 half wished that he could. But how 
 could he reconcile his wife to such late 
 hours, and what must she say of the odor 
 of tobacco which he can hardly help car- 
 rying home in his clothes ? 
 
 The mystery was solved by Tom's 
 relations with another member of 
 the party, whom everybody calls " the 
 Judge." Why everybody calls him " the 
 Judge " can only be explained by his 
 appearance and character, for I do not 
 believe he ever occupied a judicial posi- 
 tion in his life, though by nature ex- 
 actly fitted for it. Nature is sometimes 
 thwarted in her intentions by circum- 
 stances and experience in life or some 
 peculiar perversity implanted in her fa- 
 vorite children. I have lately learned a 
 good deal about the Judge's private 
 history, having made my way rather 
 deeply into his good graces by my quite 
 unusual ability as a listener. There is 
 
6 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 nothing a good talker appreciates like a 
 good listener. 
 
 The Judge's father was one of the 
 comparatively early New England man- 
 ufacturers, one of those patriarchal old 
 fellows who antedated stock corpora- 
 tions and owned the whole neighborhood 
 about their mills, and were looked up 
 to as beneficent autocrats. With good 
 opportunities for " schooling," the Judge 
 was " brought up to the business " by his 
 father, and though he learned all about 
 wool and dye-stuffs and the art of com- 
 bining them in fair grades of material for 
 wearing apparel, he was not satisfied to 
 devote his life to " the business." He 
 was an omnivorous reader of books, and 
 had made occasional trips to Providence 
 and Boston, and even New York, on 
 business errands, and got an ambition for 
 a wider world of knowledge and activ- 
 ity than a factory-village afforded, even 
 though he were some time to own the 
 village. 
 
 At the age of twenty-one he could en- 
 dure it no longer. He wanted a college 
 education, but it seemed rather late to 
 
THE " OWL PARTY." 7 
 
 begin : so he took a course in a scientific 
 school, mingling much language and lit- 
 erature with his science ; then he spent a 
 year at a medical school, but concluded 
 that it did not open the way he was seek- 
 ing in life and betook himself to a law- 
 school. He. completed this course and 
 began to practice, but was smitten with 
 a desire to travel ; and having ample 
 means, passed three years in foreign parts, 
 studying men and things, all the while 
 feeding his appetite for books. So it was 
 that, although favored with wealth and 
 early opportunities, he had been so 
 swerved from his proper course by that 
 " mill business " in his youth, that he 
 found himself at thirty years of age with- 
 out settled occupation, but with much 
 experience and observation and the broad 
 views which they give to a vigorous intel- 
 lect and an honest mind. 
 
 That must have been quite thirty years 
 ago, and now the Judge is a widower, 
 having one married daughter, with whom 
 he lives, and two sons one a rising 
 young college professor, and the other a 
 man of practical affairs out West, making 
 
8 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 his fortune in railroads. The Judge is 
 neither a lawyer by profession, nor a sci- 
 entific or literary person, nor yet what 
 is generally meant by a " business man." 
 He seems to read everything worth read- 
 ing, and talks wonderfully about books, 
 but I doubt if he ever wrote a line for 
 publication or ever cared to. He is fa- 
 miliar with all manner of scientific facts, 
 theories, and conclusions, and is never at 
 a loss in dealing with them in conversa- 
 tion, but he never lectured or taught or 
 wrote about science in his life. As to 
 business, he has long been occupied with 
 investments of his own, the care of es- 
 tates and properties for other people, 
 and the oversight of financial interests 
 in this country for certain foreign cli- 
 ents who have found him out from time 
 to time, either here or on his frequent 
 trips abroad. In short, the Judge is a 
 busy, multifarious sort of person, with a 
 goodly income, and shows no sign of 
 wearing out. His great delight seems to 
 be conversing with a few congenial spir- 
 its. His eyes are dark and glowing, his 
 thick, close-cut hair quite gray, his face 
 
THE "OWL PARTY." g 
 
 fresh, benignant and bare of beard, save 
 for a silver clasp that comes down from 
 his hair in front of each ear. His man- 
 ner is calm and serene but indicative al- 
 ways of deep sincerity. 
 
 It so happened that Tom Benedict's 
 father was a great friend of the Judge, 
 and when he died during Tom's col- 
 lege days and before the latter had 
 reached his majority, Tom found himself 
 and his property under the charge of 
 the Judge, as executor of his father's 
 will and guardian of himself. He was 
 treated in such a very fatherly way that 
 he conceived a most affectionate rever- 
 ence for his guardian. The Judge had 
 even been his confidant in his love affair 
 with the daughter of another old friend 
 of his father, the Rev. Mr. Willis, and his 
 paternal offices in vouching for the good 
 character and associations of the young 
 man had had much to do with the 
 happy issue of the suit. Tom had also 
 consulted his guardian in regard to his 
 profession, and had been materially as- 
 sisted by him in getting a start in the 
 practice of the law. 
 
10 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 And moreover Tom's wife, natur- 
 ally enough, had full confidence in the 
 Judge, for he had been intimate with 
 her father, also, and then he has that infi- 
 nite tact which enables a man to adapt 
 himself to all sorts and conditions of peo- 
 ple, to understand their points of view, 
 and sympathize with their sensibilities, 
 even though they are somewhat narrow, 
 provided always that they are sincere 
 and earnest people. So when the Judge 
 proposed that Tom be brought out a lit- 
 tle more among the people of this world 
 by joining the Asphodel Club, the wife 
 made no objection. The late Saturday 
 nights must have cost her a pang or 
 two, and nothing but the assurance that 
 the Judge was always there, and her en- 
 tire confidence in the safety of his moral 
 and social guardianship, could, I am sure, 
 have reconciled her to the late hours on 
 the eve of the Sabbath. This was Tom's 
 only opportunity of close association at 
 frequent intervals with his old friend, and 
 that association was very dear to him ; so 
 the arrangement was acquiesced in, ap- 
 parently without any domestic strain. 
 
THE " OWL PARTY." 1 1 
 
 Those Saturday nights were the Judge's 
 only diversion outside of his daughter's 
 home, to which he was much attached, 
 and his extreme fondness for talking to 
 a group of appreciative listeners made it 
 a sort of self-indulgence which he would 
 have found it about as hard to give up as 
 the victim of a vicious habit finds it diffi- 
 cult to avoid his periodical " spree." The 
 Judge had been originally brought into 
 the club by his old boyhood and school- 
 day friend, Colonel Bloodgood, the other 
 member of the " Owl Party," and by him 
 he had been first inveigled into the reg- 
 ular Saturday night visits and the conse- 
 quent discussions. It was a queer case of 
 friendship, that of the Judge and the 
 Colonel, and if it had not begun in boy- 
 hood I am sure it could not have begun 
 at all. It could have been based only on 
 a very intimate interior mutual knowl- 
 edge. The grounds of sympathy must 
 have been deep, for in all external char- 
 acteristics in their mature years the two 
 friends would have seemed anything but 
 congenial spirits. 
 
 The Colonel has been a real colo- 
 
12 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 nel in the regular army and has seen 
 much and varied service ; he has also 
 had vast experience of the world in his 
 own and other countries. He rather 
 prides himself on being a "man of the 
 world," and taking very " little stock" in 
 things that do not pertain to this mun- 
 dane life. He has " views " and does not 
 hesitate to express them with great vigor 
 and candor. 
 
 The Colonel is tall and square-shoul- 
 dered, and carries the burden of his sixty 
 years and his varied experience without 
 bending. The fierce floridity of his face 
 is rather intensified by the whiteness of 
 his big mustache, the baldness of his cra- 
 nial dome, and the curiously persistent 
 blackness of his heavy eyebrows. From 
 these contrasted surroundings the deep 
 blue of his eyes shines out like a piece of 
 art-work, or a vivid Chinese painting on 
 porcelain. His talk has a fierce emphasis, 
 in keeping with his looks, and is a little too 
 much garnished with those profane par- 
 ticles which unrestrained natures are apt 
 to find so convenient for purposes of in- 
 tense expression. The Colonel rather 
 
THE "OWL PARTY." 13 
 
 cheapens his expletives as a means of 
 emphasizing statements and opinions by 
 too lavish use of them, an illustration of 
 how habit overcomes discretion in the 
 use of language. The Colonel is a man 
 of leisure, nowadays, and fond of good 
 living, and especially of life at clubs, 
 which is always good living for those 
 who can afford to make it so. Unlike 
 the Judge, he is not reserved in his 
 acquaintances, but knows everybody and 
 talks freely with all whom he knows, 
 lie goes to dinners and theatres, and 
 the only thing he seems to be averse to 
 is fashionable society. He submits to a 
 good deal of it and always has the ap- 
 pearance of enjoying himself on social 
 occasions, yet he protests that it bores 
 him and makes him feel like rushing off 
 to play dominoes in a beer saloon. 
 
 But of all men else the Colonel ad- 
 mires the Judge, and never misses an 
 opportunity of being with him and get- 
 ting him to talking in the presence of 
 others. It is the presence of others that 
 gives zest to the Colonel's enjoyment 
 of the Judge's conversation, for he pro- 
 
14 MIDNIGHT TALK'S AT THE CLUB. 
 
 fesses to know him through and through 
 and takes special pride in astonishing 
 others with him, not being himself in the 
 least astonished with his calm wisdom 
 and penetrating judgment. The Colonel 
 is convivial in his tastes, and while Tom 
 Benedict sips his Apollinaris and the 
 Judge spends the whole session in dispos- 
 ing of a glass of light Rhine wine, he 
 orders frequent brandy-and-sodas, and 
 good-naturedly chaffs the others for drink- 
 ing their " wishy-washy stuff." Moreover, 
 he smokes incessantly, while the most the 
 Judge does in that line is to relight his 
 cigar in the lulls of conversation and let 
 it go out again. Tom smokes not at all; 
 while I, moderate at other times, keep 
 pretty well up with the Colonel on these 
 special occasions, being no talker, but 
 only a meditative listener. 
 
 When I first joined in with the " Owl 
 Party " on Tom's introduction, I expected 
 to be bored with it for a while and then 
 to drop out, for I had a feeling that while 
 social chat in a club was all very well, 
 anything like the sober discussions which 
 Tom said they always had, was sure to 
 
THE " OWL PARTY." I 5 
 
 be uninteresting and unprofitable. Peo- 
 ple are everlastingly exchanging opinions 
 upon things they know nothing about, 
 and have really thought nothing about, 
 and they weary me with their common- 
 places and platitudes, or their fragmen- 
 tary and superficial " views " of all sorts 
 of things. But I soon found myself a 
 fascinated listener, especially to the 
 Judge's mild and mellifluous discourses. 
 He seemed to see all sides of a thing, to 
 look around it and through it and to 
 be swayed by no prejudices about it. 
 " What a book he could make ! " said 
 Tom one night, or rather one morning 
 about two o'clock, as we sauntered out 
 from the club-house, each intent on the 
 nearest conveyance homeward. 
 
 "Well, I don't know about that," I re- 
 plied, " I doubt if he could make any- 
 thing out of writing a book. He would 
 be cramped, with a pen in his fingers, 
 and his inspiration might be wanting if 
 he had nobody to talk with. But if a 
 fellow were to hitch on to him in the ca- 
 pacity of a Boswell and write down what 
 he says, something might be made of him." 
 
1 6 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 Tom said nothing in reply, but I had 
 put the idea into my own head that I 
 might quietly store up all I could carry 
 of the " Owl Party " talk and make as 
 full notes as I could when I got home, 
 and perhaps "work them up" afterward. 
 Anyhow, I determined to see what I 
 could do, and if it did not " pan out " in 
 a literary way no harm would be done. 
 I should have the benefit, anyway, and 
 the rest of the world could worry along 
 without knowing what it had lost. 
 
 I find it is no easy matter to report 
 a conversation on the plan of remember- 
 ing until you get home and then jotting 
 down. The best part of it has evap- 
 orated and gone. The manner, the tones 
 and inflections are unreportable, and the 
 treacherous memory loses much of the 
 best that is intrusted to it ; so that when 
 the substance of the talk is put into new 
 sentences it doesn't seem the same, some- 
 how. But, still, much of the real sub- 
 stance may be saved, the ideas may be 
 pinned down and preserved, though they 
 compare with the original expression 
 much as fluffy and dusty butterflies 
 
THE " OWL PARTY." \J 
 
 transfixed in a case compare with gay 
 flights of them on the wing in the sun- 
 light. 
 
 It is then, on the principle of saving 
 some of the substance, though failing to 
 reproduce the manner of expression, that 
 this experiment is made of reporting the 
 midnight talks of the " Owl Party " at 
 the Asphodel Club. 
 
II. 
 
 THE " OWLS " DISCOURSE ON TEMPER- 
 ANCE. 
 
 I CAME in a little late one night and 
 found the Colonel had been inveighing 
 against " fanatical " temperance people 
 and denouncing with especial vehemence 
 those impracticable " cranks " who would 
 prohibit all making and selling of drinks 
 that intoxicate. 
 
 " Their fundamental principle is wrong/' 
 he exclaimed, just as I joined the party. 
 " The total abstinence which they seek to 
 enforce upon everybody is not sound 
 in theory or in practice. A moderate 
 amount of stimulant is good for many 
 people and necessary for some." And he 
 took a pull at his brandy-and-soda with 
 unusual gusto. 
 
 " To that extent I am inclined to 
 agree with you," said the Judge, in his 
 undogmatic way. " Yet we must all ad- 
 
TEMPERANCE. 19 
 
 mit the evils and abuses to which the 
 drinking habit is apt to lead and the ter- 
 rible consequences which do in fact flow 
 from it, and I don't see how we can deny 
 the right of society to protect itself 
 against these by every reasonable means. 
 Total abstinence from stimulants, like ab- 
 solute prudence in eating and invariable 
 wisdom in the care of health, would 
 doubtless prevail with a perfected human 
 race surrounded by millennial conditions ; 
 but this generation has inherited imper- 
 fections and defects, tainted with the 
 weakness and vices of human nature for 
 thousands of years. We cannot expect 
 to get rid of these all at once. There are 
 feeble stomachs, sluggish livers, inade- 
 quate lungs, and abnormal nervous sys- 
 tems, all craving to be set right and 
 struggling with their disadvantages to 
 get their owners through life somehow; 
 and the tempers, sentiments, and opin- 
 ions even, of the latter are influenced by 
 these defects. Their characters are to a 
 great extent subject to their infirmities, 
 which are the cause of beliefs and unbe- 
 liefs, of domestic infelicity and social 
 
20 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 irregularities, of wickedness and crime. 
 Just how to deal with them we do not 
 know ; least of all do those who are 
 most subject to them. But I have no 
 doubt that stimulants have their use, 
 that they were made for something else 
 than to exercise the quality of self-de- 
 aial ; and I suppose a craving implanted 
 in human nature, though it may become 
 abnormal and destructive, is grounded in 
 a real need. Did it ever strike you how 
 apt total abstainers are to become the 
 victims of physical ailments, for which 
 they resort to ' bitters ' and patent nos- 
 trums, the chief virtue of which is the 
 alcohol disguised in their composition? 
 Yes, I am convinced that total abstinence 
 is not a sound doctrine in the present 
 state of human development, and I be- 
 lieve, on the whole, the virtue of self-de- 
 nial or what is better, self-control 
 would be more fully and firmly developed 
 by teaching temperance than by teaching 
 abstinence. 
 
 " But the conditions of life make a 
 great difference, and people do not yet 
 sufficiently appreciate the wide difference 
 
TEMPERA NCE. 2 1 
 
 between life in cities and life in the coun- 
 try." 
 
 " I appreciate it," broke in the Colo- 
 nel. " Why, in this very matter of drink- 
 ing, country people are so narrow and in- 
 tolerant that they think if a man has a 
 bottle of wine at dinner or takes a drink 
 even once a day he is a drunkard, or 
 well on the way to become one. They 
 look upon him as a kind of outcast. I 
 knew a young fellow, as worthy and 
 right-meaning a chap as you would wish 
 to see, who made a visit to his native 
 place, down in Maine. Everybody was 
 quite struck with admiration for him 
 until, coming across a city acquaintance 
 on a fishing excursion, he was discovered 
 drinking with him at a tavern in a neigh- 
 boring town. I'll be blanked * if it didn't 
 make so much talk and gossip, and turn 
 feeling so much against the fellow that 
 he felt as if he were looked upon as a 
 gone case. He cut his visit short, and 
 swore he would never go to the be- 
 nighted neighborhood again." 
 
 * We really must find some euphemism for the Colo- 
 nel's points of emphasis. 
 
22 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 " Well, now, there is a reason for that 
 state of feeling in a country place," 
 mildly responded the Judge. "If you 
 are very familiar with life in such places, 
 you know that it is so barren of variety, 
 of diversion for the mind, of occupation 
 for the attention at leisure times, that 
 habits are easily fixed. If a young man 
 begins to drink at all there, and to visit 
 bar-rooms, ten to one it will grow to a 
 constant practice and ruin him. The 
 people go one way or the other almost 
 inevitably. Hence they think their only 
 safety is in total abstinence, and look 
 with horror upon any departure from it. 
 They have no comprehension of the dif- 
 ferent conditions under which life passes 
 in a city, and cannot acquire it by an 
 occasional bewildering visit. That is 
 why a general system of laws relating 
 to this matter, applying alike to a whole 
 State, seems to me an absurdity. It is 
 like extending a city police system, into 
 the rural districts, or attempting to run a 
 town-meeting in New York. For coun- 
 try legislators to make excise laws foi 
 cities is like having a set of farmers draw 
 
TEMPERANCE. 2$ 
 
 up the regulations for conducting a dis- 
 tant manufacturing establishment ; the 
 only way the business could be run 
 would be by ignoring the regulations : 
 and so we are continually violating our 
 country-made excise laws ; which is a 
 bad thing, but unavoidable. Nothing 
 weakens respect for all law like having 
 laws thrust upon a people which they will 
 not obey ; but the fault is in the making 
 of the laws." 
 
 " You believe in local option, then, and 
 not in prohibition at all," suggested Tom 
 Benedict. 
 
 44 The phrase * local option ' as it is 
 generally used, implies prohibition where 
 the people choose to have it. I cannot 
 say that I believe in that, unless I am 
 allowed to define the prohibition. A 
 man who does not believe in total absti- 
 nence as a universal principle, like truth- 
 telling and common honesty, cannot 
 reasonably defend the policy of absolutely 
 prohibiting the making and selling of in- 
 toxicating liquors. Even if it were ad- 
 mitted that all drinking is bad, it would 
 not follow that the majority would be 
 
24 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 justified in so far disregarding personal 
 liberty as to prevent it by law. But if we 
 claim that drinking stimulants in modera- 
 tion and reason is not wrong, not even in- 
 jurious, we must respect the right of people 
 to buy drink. Still, I do not think the ex- 
 istence of bar-rooms and drinking-saloons 
 necessary to that right. A man's right 
 to buy bread and milk is not interfered 
 with, even if there is not a place on every 
 block or on any block where he can drop 
 in and indulge in these luxuries stand- 
 ing at a counter or sitting at a table. It 
 would do no harm if there were, perhaps ; 
 but excessive drinking is admitted to be 
 bad, so bad for the general interests of 
 society that society is bound to protect 
 itself against the consequences. Now, 
 these numerous bar-rooms and saloons 
 where people go to drink and for no 
 other purpose are undoubtedly nurseries 
 of intemperance and disorder and all 
 sorts of misery and crime. I would not 
 interfere with the right to buy beer or 
 even whiskey yet I would be glad if it 
 were possible to suppress these drinking- 
 places." 
 
TEMPERANCE. 2$ 
 
 " But you don't think it is possible, of 
 course?" queried the Colonel. 
 
 "Not here, and now," the Judge re- 
 plied. " We can only take such meas- 
 ures as may be practicable to limit their 
 number and lessen the evil they do, and 
 make such gains in restriction from time 
 to time as the people will uphold. But 
 just here comes in my ' local option ' idea. 
 In country places not only is drinking 
 more apt to lead to ruinous intemperance 
 than in the city when once it is started 
 upon, but a drinking-saloon is much less 
 a mere place of business, and much more 
 a centre of evil and a nuisance. In town, 
 boys and young men pass saloons by the 
 score and never think of going in. They 
 know none of the people there and no- 
 body tries to entice them to enter. In the 
 country, everybody knows everybody else, 
 including the saloon-keeper and the loaf- 
 ers about his place, and the association is 
 so close and the resources for spending 
 leisure time so few that young fellows 
 are apt to be drawn in. They do not go 
 to take a drink and come out, but to sit 
 and exchange coarse talk and keep on 
 
26 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 drinking. Country people are justified in 
 regarding bar-rooms and drinking-saloons 
 as nuisances and in wishing to suppress 
 them. In many cases they can do it, and 
 I would give them the ojption of doing it. 
 This is quite different from denying a 
 man the right to drink what he pleases 
 so long as he does not abuse it, or de- 
 priving him of the chance of buying what 
 he wants for consumption at his own 
 home. His habits there cannot properly 
 be a matter of legislation, but must be 
 the subject of moral and religious teach- 
 ing. 
 
 " There is another thing we have to 
 recognize in our cities, and that is the for- 
 eign elements. The idea of suppressing 
 all drinking because there is such a thing 
 as drunkenness, which does an infinite 
 deal of harm, seems to have its origin in 
 the English part of our brains if not in 
 the Puritan compartments of them only. 
 A Frenchman gives his boy of ten or 
 twelve a glass of light wine at dinner 
 without the slightest notion of harm or 
 danger to his future habits. We see 
 whole families of quiet and orderly Ger- 
 
TEMPERANCE. 2] 
 
 mans in their beer-saloons, all sipping 
 beer, even to children in arms. They see 
 no more harm in it than in sipping but- 
 termilk, and are utterly unable to com- 
 prehend the feelings of those who regard 
 their customs with a sort of horror. The 
 Frenchman knows that drinking wine at 
 table is not of itself likely to lead to ex- 
 cesses, and the German has no sort of 
 notion that family beer-drinking is the 
 precursor of drunkenness and misery. 
 You might as well tell him that tea- 
 drinking will lead to the horrors of the 
 madhouse. 
 
 " I am inclined to think that famil- 
 iarity with these mild forms of drink- 
 ing is a safeguard rather than a danger. 
 The worst cases of drunkenness I ever 
 knew in persons of respectable origin 
 were those of men brought up under the 
 most rigid restrictions. Some natures 
 are in a constant state of insurrection 
 under such restrictions, and when once 
 they break away from them they go be- 
 yond all reasonable limits. Fellows who 
 become wild or fast at twenty or twenty- 
 one and get bad habits fixed upon them 
 
28 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 are pretty apt to be those who were 
 kept under the closest restraint before. 
 Now, with these foreign elements in our 
 population, with their freer notions and 
 their inherited customs, what is the use 
 of adopting the English Puritan spirit in 
 trying to suppress intemperance?" 
 
 "The English Puritans were not par- 
 ticularly temperate in the matter of drink- 
 ing," interjected the Colonel. 
 
 " Perhaps not, but they were some- 
 what addicted to enforcing upon others 
 such restrictions as they deemed to be 
 good for the purification of mankind, 
 without regard to what those others 
 might deem to be good for themselves. 
 The idea that the majority or the ruling 
 party may prescribe the habits and prac- 
 tices of the community derives much 
 sanction from those godly Puritans. I 
 believe that the infusion of the more gen- 
 ial spirit of the French and Germans is a 
 mighty good thing for this country and 
 for the cause of individual liberty. 
 
 "But after all, it is little that legisla- 
 tion can do for the cause of temperance. 
 It can suppress nuisances, and by putting 
 
TEMPERANCE. 2$ 
 
 dram-selling under close regulation make 
 the business as actually conducted more 
 respectable and less mischievous. It 
 may diminish somewhat the facility of 
 the Avernian descent. Where regulation 
 in this as in other matters of human con- 
 duct needs most to be applied is to the 
 individual, and he has to be induced to 
 apply it for himself from some motive or 
 other. The good old scheme of temper- 
 ance reform by moral suasion seems to 
 have gone out of vogue since political 
 prohibition came in ; but appeals to rea- 
 son and conscience and to the moral 
 sense and domestic sentiments are much 
 more effective in this matter than the 
 resort to legislation. If we could really 
 make the people temperate in their hab- 
 its, questions of prohibition and restric- 
 tion would easily settle themselves. It 
 is better to convince than to coerce, to 
 reform the people than to reform the 
 laws. There is a good deal in the claims 
 of these personal-liberty fellows. Per- 
 sonal liberty is at the bottom of our in- 
 stitutions, and when you attack it you 
 excite a revolt. Our task should be, not 
 
30 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 to suppress liberty, but to make it safe. 
 As we need to educate our electors rather 
 than take the suffrage away from them, 
 so we need to lead the people to be tem- 
 perate rather than prevent them from 
 getting anything to drink. 
 
 " But what has become of all the tem- 
 perance societies, with their impassioned 
 exhortations, their pledges, their bands of 
 hope, their cold-water brigades, and the 
 rest of it? They have been mostly killed 
 or paralyzed by the Prohibition move- 
 ment, which has made temperance a 
 political instead of a moral question. 
 Nobody is reformed by politics ; and 
 legislation can only aid and support, it 
 cannot produce, moral and social reform. 
 There are Francis Murphy, Mabie and 
 English, still going about the country 
 preaching the gospel of abstinence from 
 rum and refusing to be suppressed by 
 political Prohibition ; but what are so few 
 in such a field ? They accomplish some 
 good, and those they save are worth the 
 saving ; but their method is going under, 
 overwhelmed by the flood of Prohibition- 
 ism in politics. 
 
TEMPERANCE. 3 1 
 
 " All decent people believe in temper- 
 ance, very many believe in total absti- 
 nence, but few believe in prohibition, or 
 ever will. It is really opposed to the 
 principles and methods of free institu- 
 tions. Why are there not societies and 
 brotherhoods, lecturers and exhorters in 
 the field nowadays to promote temper- 
 ance, and especially to save the young 
 from drifting into intemperance? I sus- 
 pect that the Prohibition Party is mainly 
 responsible for the paralysis of real tem- 
 perance reform by diverting effort from 
 the good that might be done to an end 
 that cannot be attained and, indeed, is 
 not desirable. 
 
 " But there is one great organization 
 in existence whose object is supposed to 
 be the doing of good to mankind which 
 seems to me very negligent of this par- 
 ticular field of effort, and that is the 
 Christian church." 
 
 "Oh no!" exclaimed Colonel Blood- 
 good, with a hoarse, cynical laugh. " Oh 
 no ! Judge, there you are wrong. The 
 object of the church is not supposed to 
 be the doing of good to mankind, but 
 
32 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the making of people believe things that 
 most of them won't believe, and the 
 bringing together of those who profess to 
 believe them to congratulate each other 
 that they are better than other men are 
 and to sustain each other in their delu- 
 sion. Oh no! if mankind will not be 
 saved according to certain dogmas of 
 belief it can go its way to the everlasting 
 bonfire, for all the churches." 
 
 "Ah, well, now," mildly resumed the 
 Judge, " I expected you to break out 
 against the churches. But I tell you, 
 with all their short-comings, they are a 
 saving element. They are mostly made 
 up of really good people, who want to 
 do good to mankind. What I complain 
 of is that they have become too exclu- 
 sive and are too much given over to re- 
 iterating week after week a lot of sen- 
 timents more or less wholesome to people 
 who like to be reminded of what they 
 think and feel, or what they ought to 
 think and feel, or what they think they 
 ought to think and feel, but who do not 
 greatly need the reminder. Yet here is 
 the great mass of the poor, of the unbe- 
 
TEMPERANCE. 33 
 
 lieving, of the ignorant and vicious in 
 short, the part of mankind that needs 
 regenerating and reforming and saving 
 and it seems to me the Church is doing 
 mighty little to help them, compared to 
 what it might do. It is engaged in sav- 
 ing those who are safe, in healing those 
 who are well, in finding those who are 
 not lost. The main trouble is undoubt- 
 edly that they insist too much upon 
 beliefs and doctrines, and are not suffi- 
 ciently devoted to doing good for its 
 own sake. If they would leave all their 
 creeds and doctrines in the background 
 and go into reform-work for its pres- 
 ent results, much more would be accom- 
 plished. 
 
 " Now, here is this matter of temper- 
 ance. To preach temperance to the 
 average congregation is nothing. To 
 teach it in mission schools and chapels 
 is little. Why doesn't every Christian 
 church make itself a real agency for. 
 temperance reform and go to work re- 
 claiming the lost and saving those that 
 are in danger, not from the pains and 
 penalties of a vague hereafter, but from 
 
34 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the degradation that besets them here 
 and now ? Never mind what they will 
 believe or won't believe in theology. 
 They may be convinced that it is better 
 for them and their families in this life to 
 be sober, industrious, and self-respecting 
 than to be drunken and worthless ; they 
 may be induced and helped to exercise 
 self-restraint for their own earthly well- 
 being, and that is the great need. I 
 don't think the Christian church is doing 
 its proper work, by any means." 
 
 " No, and it never will until it revises 
 and amends its constitution and stands 
 upon a broad basis on the ground instead 
 of being perched on a tower constructed 
 in the dark ages," growled the Colonel. 
 " However, the tower is crumbling; that's 
 one comfort." 
 
III. 
 
 THE JUDGE FINDS THE SHEPHERDS 
 NEGLECTING THE SHEEP. 
 
 " You were speaking the last time we 
 were here," remarked Benedict deferen- 
 tially to the Judge, "of the neglect of 
 the churches to do the work of temper- 
 ance reform. Don't you think they incul- 
 cate temperance as well as other virtues 
 in their teachings?" 
 
 " O yes, of course, to those who 
 come regularly under their teaching, and 
 who, for the most part, do not need it. 
 Members of churches and people who 
 regularly ' attend Divine service ' are not 
 drunkards, or in much danger of becom- 
 ing so ; and this, not so much on account 
 of the preaching, but as a matter of sur- 
 roundings and influences, of association 
 and the consequent habits. It is a con- 
 genitally bad nature that would grow up 
 vicious in the midst of a virtuous family, 
 
36 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 good society, sound influences, and all 
 the educational advantages. It seems to 
 me that the object of the Gospel, if we 
 may judge by the action of its great 
 Proclaimer, was to redeem the bad, not 
 to save the good ; and the real work of 
 the churches should be to regenerate 
 those elements of society whose condi- 
 tion we are deploring so much and doing 
 so little for. The Fifth Avenue congre- 
 gations would do well enough if they 
 claimed only to be moral, religious, and 
 social clubs ; and I am afraid that is 
 about what they are.*' 
 
 "Yes," answered Tom, resolutely, " but 
 the churches are not all on Fifth Avenue 
 and Murray Hill. They are among the 
 poor and degraded, too ; and are they 
 not trying to reclaim and bring in all 
 they can reach ? " 
 
 " All they can reach how and with 
 what?" exclaimed the Judge, with a bit of 
 warmth in his manner. " Where are 
 the largest funds expended, and for what 
 purpose ? To what are the real intellect 
 and resources of the churches devoted 
 but maintaining services in costly build- 
 
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP. 37 
 
 ings for the satisfaction of well-dressed 
 and comfortable people? The poorest 
 talents and the scantiest funds go to 
 attempts to * reclaim/ as you call it, here 
 and there. Reclaim from what and to 
 what ? Not so much from poverty and 
 ignorance and vice to decency and com- 
 fort as from what is technically known 
 as ' sin,' and to what is technically 
 known as ' faith in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ.' These things have become so 
 far technicalities of the Church that they 
 absolutely stand in the way of the work 
 of real salvation. It seems to me that 
 allowing for the differences in the prog- 
 ress of the human race, the Church is 
 getting to be very much what the syn- 
 agogue was when Jesus appeared as a 
 teacher and reformer in Judaea. It is 
 bound by traditions and observances, and 
 belongs to the ' respectable classes,' while 
 the sheep are wandering again without 
 any shepherds. 
 
 " This applies particularly to populous 
 cities and towns and to what we call 
 the working-classes. I hate the cant of 
 that expression. Do we not all belong 
 
38 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 to working-classes, except the loafers and 
 tramps, whether rich or poor? But take 
 those who, on account of humble capac- 
 ity or narrow circumstances, work with 
 their hands for a bare subsistence, the 
 mass of the poor and the ignorant, if you 
 will, they make up the majority, both 
 socially and politically, and the fate of 
 society rests with them. What is the 
 wealth and intellect of society doing for 
 them ? What is the Church doing for 
 them? It is in their ranks that intern- 
 perance and other excesses and vices are 
 most destructive. They are the people 
 whom the organized forces of religion 
 and morality ought to reach." 
 
 "But," insisted Tom, "they are all the 
 time trying to reach them, and if they 
 will not come into the fold are the shep- 
 herds to blame for letting them wan- 
 der?" 
 
 " Yes," replied the Judge almost impa- 
 tiently. " For what is the fold that they 
 provide, and what is the call they ad- 
 dress to the sheep ? Is it a fold of sober 
 habits and decent living, of better views 
 of human life and worldly duty, or is it a 
 
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP. 39 
 
 fold of faith, of belief, in which the vague 
 and incomprehensible are to be accepted 
 as a condition of shelter? Is the call a 
 call to comfort and a better condition 
 here below, or a call to an intangible 
 reward hereafter, coupled with a threat 
 of punishment that nobody heeds any 
 longer? " 
 
 " Good ! " exclaimed the Colonel, " you 
 are coming around to my position, 
 Judge." 
 
 " Don't be sure of that until you know 
 what my position is. I am not talking 
 about matters of belief just now, but of 
 the way of reaching and reforming peo- 
 ple, and I tell you it can no longer be 
 done by preaching doctrines at them. 
 They don't believe your doctrines, and 
 most of them are determined not to be- 
 lieve them ; but their rejection of theo- 
 logical teachings does not relieve the 
 church of the duty of trying to regener- 
 ate the lives and habits of those who 
 need it. Teaching dogmas first and mor- 
 als afterward is the wrong way to go to 
 work. It may be that the doctrines are 
 outworn and outgrown by the human 
 
4O MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 race, but the fundamental fault is in 
 making them the condition of material 
 salvation. 
 
 " The Christian Church has very largely 
 lost its hold upon the people who need 
 to be guided and controlled in this life. 
 You can no longer make people content 
 with a hard lot in this life by promising 
 them a reward in the life to come. They 
 are confined to this ' bank and shoal of 
 time/ and want a little comfort here. 
 They are dubious about the life to come. 
 You can't reconcile them any longer to 
 what they believe to be injustice and 
 wrong by telling them what is to become 
 of the oppressor after death, and that the 
 oppressed will then go free and the hum- 
 ble be exalted. They are apt to be 
 contemptuous of this sort of promise. 
 They want wrongs righted now, and they 
 are bound to exert their power to get it 
 done, and that power once exerted with 
 anything like union would be terrible. 
 Lack of union alone deprives it of dan- 
 ger to the social fabric. 
 
 "What these people need is sym- 
 pathy and help and guidance, and they 
 
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP. 41 
 
 are not getting it of a kind that does 
 them much good. They are distrustful 
 of the ' respectable classes/ who take 
 such good care of themselves and who 
 control the churches and religious organi- 
 zations. They look upon those who gain 
 wealth and control property as using 
 their abilities and their advantages self- 
 ishly and greedily, to get possession of 
 more than their fair share of the good 
 things of this life and as drawing to them- 
 selves more of the products of the toil of 
 the millions than justly belongs to them, 
 and trying to keep those who do the bulk 
 of the work in independence and subjec- 
 tion. And I tell you they have too much 
 reason for feeling that way. They also 
 feel that the Church as an organization 
 and a power in society is on the side of 
 the rich and * respectable/ and out of 
 sympathy with the poor in their strug- 
 gles." 
 
 "And they have too much reason for 
 feeling that way, too," interjected the 
 Colonel. 
 
 " Certainly they have, altogether too 
 much. How much do the high-priced 
 
42 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 ministers up town condemn the grasping 
 selfishness of capital and inculcate upon 
 their wealthy hearers the duty of doing 
 full justice to the humble workingmen? 
 Does the Christianity of to-day either lit- 
 erally or figuratively require any man to 
 sell what he has and give to the poor, or 
 even to forego any of the advantages of 
 his position to benefit the condition of 
 others ? Do the preachers venture to 
 condemn the most iniquitous practices in 
 business and politics where the power of 
 money is used to increase and perpetuate 
 the advantage of capital over labor? 
 Even the poorer churches situated in the 
 midst of those who most need restraint 
 and guidance, are largely sustained and 
 almost wholly controlled as to policy and 
 methods by the richer element in ' the 
 Church.' They accomplish little in their 
 way and would never be allowed to adopt 
 the means by which more might be ac- 
 complished." 
 
 "What means are those?" queried 
 Benedict, as if rather afraid of the answer. 
 
 " Throwing aside the everlasting effort 
 to ' convict of sin ' and ' convert to faith/ " 
 
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP. 43 
 
 and endeavoring to reclaim to virtue and 
 better living ! There is where the whole 
 power and resources of the Church ought 
 to be brought to bear ; and they are not. 
 Hence it is losing its conservative power. 
 Trie people are looking to Communism 
 and Socialism and visionary methods of 
 reform in their condition, and going 
 astray in many of their efforts to right 
 what they believe to be wrongs, and 
 what to some extent at least are so, and 
 neither religion nor morality stands much 
 in their way. Labor unions are a good 
 thing, a necessary thing ; but what could 
 be worse than their keeping a man out of 
 employment and trying to drive him to 
 starvation because he refuses to join one ? 
 What could be more unjust than their 
 stopping a man's business because he will 
 not discharge workmen for no reason ex- 
 cept that they do not choose to belong 
 to a union and submit their rights to 
 a committee? What could be meaner 
 than their forcing one man's workmen to 
 leave him because some other man has 
 not treated his workmen fairly ? Mis- 
 guided men are doing such things and 
 
44 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 many others which the moral code and 
 religion alike forbid. 
 
 " The moral nature of mankind is ap- 
 parently lapsing from discipline and be- 
 ing governed by expediency. In busi- 
 ness, in politics, in ' labor circles,' people 
 do not seem to inquire with much anx- 
 iety whether a thing is right, whether it 
 is just, whether it is in accordance with 
 the laws of God ; but whether it will pay, 
 whether it will succeed, whether it will 
 accomplish the end. When those who 
 stand highest in the Church and contrib- 
 ute most liberally to convert the hea- 
 then follow this principle, without re- 
 proval from their pastors and without 
 losing any of the odor of sanctity, what 
 is to be expected of those who are in the 
 darkness of ignorance and sin? 
 
 " The old motives and sanctions of re- 
 ligion seem to have lost their force, as 
 presented in our day. You cannot reach 
 the ' unregenerate ' with them. They 
 are based upon certain views of this life 
 and the life to come and their relations 
 to each other that have lost their hold. 
 You can no longer arouse the mass of the 
 
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP. 45 
 
 people with ideas that seem to be irrel- 
 evant to their condition and their needs. 
 Anyhow they will not accept them, and 
 are beginning to ask awkward questions. 
 Nay, those in the churches who subscribe 
 to a formal acceptance of these views 
 show in their daily walk and conversation 
 that they have no real faith in them. 
 Their beliefs afford no vital force to their 
 lives and conduct. Even the ministers 
 who still preach these views of man's re- 
 lations to this life and another life are 
 full of doubts about their creeds and doc- 
 trines. They hang on to them in a 
 formal way because they have been sanc- 
 tioned and sanctified by traditions and 
 decrees which they are reluctant to admit 
 were not for all time." 
 
 " Well, what would you do ? " asked 
 Benedict in perplexity, " give up faith 
 and religion, the Bible, the Gospel, every- 
 thing that has been held sacred and 
 divine, and turn the church into a moral 
 and material improvement society ? " 
 
 " O, there need not be so much giving 
 up as all that, though I think concep- 
 tions of what is sacred and divine need to 
 
46 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 be changed to correspond to the knowl- 
 edge and thought of the present age ; but 
 a great moral and material improvement 
 society we do greatly need, and if the 
 Christian Church does not serve that pur- 
 pose, pray, what is it to do for mankind 
 in the future, and how is this need to be 
 supplied ? I think it is the proper busi- 
 ness of Christianity and the Church to 
 regenerate mankind in this world and for 
 this world, if they are to justify their ex- 
 istence to this generation and the next. 
 I take it as a fundamental principle that 
 whatever makes people better here will 
 improve their chances in any possible 
 hereafter, and until you find means of 
 making their earthly life better, it is use- 
 less to concern yourself about some other 
 on their account. The lives should be 
 taken in their natural order, this one 
 first. 
 
 " But I had no notion of wandering 
 into theological discussion. My point is 
 that the Christian Church is not doing 
 the work which belongs to it to-day ; that 
 it is not adapting its organization and 
 agencies to that work ; that it is as an 
 
SHEPHERDLESS SHEEP. 47 
 
 institution in the position to do this, and 
 society is suffering because it is not done. 
 The sheep are wandering in the wilder- 
 ness for lack of shepherds whose voice 
 they will heed. The folds are not wide 
 enough, they are not easy of access, and 
 the voices that call are forbidding and 
 threatening rather than inviting and win- 
 ning. It is time for a new reformation of 
 some kind." 
 
 Nobody felt prepared to dispute these 
 statements at the moment or to discuss 
 such deep problems as were suggested, 
 and the party broke up. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE "OWLS" TALK ABOUT SUNDAY OB- 
 SERVANCE. 
 
 THE next time I was present at the 
 midnight session of the " Owls," there 
 had been a desultory talk for an unusual 
 length of time on various trivial things, 
 and it looked as though there was to be 
 no serious discourse, when Tom Bene- 
 dict remarked uneasily that it was al- 
 ready Sunday morning. 
 
 " Well, what of it ?" retorted the Colo- 
 nel. " What better use can we make of 
 Sunday morning than to exchange hon- 
 est thought about things that concern 
 mankind ? We have been rather frivo- 
 lous while it was Saturday night, now 
 let's be serious. By the way, Judge, 
 what do you think of Sunday observance, 
 anyway ? " 
 
 " I believe thoroughly in observing 
 Sunday as different from other days," 
 
SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. 
 
 49 
 
 replied the Judge gravely, " but I think 
 that as a rule, a very poor use is made 
 of it ; the strict religious observance in- 
 sisted upon by so many good people does 
 more harm than good. I do not mean, 
 of course, that anything they or others 
 do in the way of religious observance 
 does harm to them or anybody else, but 
 the general strictness insisted on does 
 harm by preventing many profitable uses 
 of the day from which a great general 
 benefit might come." 
 
 " But you would not have it simply a 
 day of rest and amusement ? " queried 
 Benedict. 
 
 " Not simply that. I would have it a 
 day of rest from ordinary labor, so far as 
 practicable, and would resist any en- 
 croachment upon it as such, and I see 
 no objection to its being a day of amuse- 
 ment, so far as amusement is innocent 
 and harmless. In fact, I consider that 
 one of the most legitimate uses to put it 
 to. The people need re-creation, in the 
 strict sense of the word, after their week 
 of toil and business. Rest is essential ; 
 worship and religious exercises are good, 
 
50 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 but a fair share of amusement is good, too. 
 The people will get their amusement in 
 some form in spite of the Sabbatarians ; 
 and where the harm, comes in is in trying 
 so to restrict it as to make the indul- 
 gence less orderly and innocent than it 
 might be ; and, still more, in so barbar- 
 ously narrowing the opportunities for in- 
 struction and mental and moral benefit. 
 Sunday ought to be a great day for in- 
 struction and improvement for all classes 
 of people. 
 
 " I have an entire sympathy with any 
 kind of worship that suits the feelings 
 of those who take part in it ; but, under 
 present religious conditions, which you 
 know I do not think are what they ought 
 to be, the vast majority of the people 
 in a great city like this have little or no 
 share in regular Sunday worship, and if 
 they did generally take part in it they 
 could not be expected to devote the 
 whole day to it. Why should the good, 
 pious people wish to restrict the use of 
 the day to worship and either weariness 
 or religious dissipation ? The wealth, the 
 intellect, and the moral character of the 
 
SUNDA Y OBSEK VANCE. 5 I 
 
 community, and especially the religious 
 spirit, ought to be devoted on this weekly 
 day of leisure to the work of enlightening 
 and improving those who are in need 
 of it." 
 
 " You mean, I suppose, that libraries 
 and reading rooms and museums and 
 picture galleries should be open on Sun- 
 day," said Benedict. " I am a church- 
 man myself, but I am inclined to agree 
 with you there." 
 
 " I mean a good deal more than that," 
 replied the Judge. "That those institu- 
 tions should be closed just when they 
 might do the most good I consider to be 
 simply heathenish, un-Christian, almost in- 
 human. Of course they should be open, 
 and there should be more of them, with 
 all their facilities for rational enjoyment 
 and for mental and moral improvement 
 freely accessible to all. Our wealthy 
 men, if they had a proper sense of their 
 obligation to the community in which 
 their wealth is made, would see that 
 these places were multiplied and enriched 
 until the treasures of science and art and 
 literature were open to the study and 
 
52 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 use of all who could or would profit by 
 them. It would create an immense in- 
 fluence for good, which would contribute 
 to the comfort and safety of the com- 
 munity, and be indirectly as much a 
 benefit to the rich as to the poor. No 
 great benefit would come from having all 
 these things if they were locked up on 
 Sunday, which is the only time that the 
 great mass of the people could avail 
 themselves of them. 
 
 " Perhaps that is one reason why we 
 are so poor in them. The Sunday sup- 
 pression prevents the demand for them 
 from being felt, prevents their vast utility 
 from being demonstrated, and discour- 
 ages the munificence that might other- 
 wise be displayed. Why, to my mind 
 religious people and Christian churches 
 ought to demand the opening of such in- 
 stitutions on Sunday as a help to the 
 great work of regenerating and elevating 
 mankind, to which nominally they are 
 themselves devoted. They are now 
 blindly obstructing and hindering it by 
 their narrow views of the day which 
 Christ said was made for man. In fact 
 
S UNDA y OBSER VA NCE. 5 3 
 
 we have no Christian Sunday now, but 
 a kind of distorted copy of the Jewish 
 Sabbath of Moses, which had a purpose 
 in its time very different from that which 
 needs to be served to-day by consecrat- 
 ing one day in the week." 
 
 " But you said you meant more than 
 opening libraries and museums," sug- 
 gested Tom, as the Judge set out to 
 relight his cigar, which he had held be- 
 tween his fingers while he talked. 
 
 "Yes, I do ; a good deal more," and 
 he laid the cigar, unllghted, on the edge 
 of the table, as if something of more 
 weight than smoking was on his mind 
 just then. "Some time ago, last week, 
 wasn't it ? I spoke about the short-com- 
 ings of the churches in the matter of 
 reclaiming the people from the sordid 
 conditions of life, from ignorant views 
 of their own needs and the methods of 
 meeting them, from intemperance and 
 vice, and all the evils that beset the race 
 when unenlightened. I spoke of their 
 insistence upon doctrines and beliefs 
 which the people will not accept, as 
 standing in the way of their real work, 
 
54 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 and of the close corporation of wealth 
 and respectability in the churches as 
 being inconsistent with real Christianity 
 and its purposes. 
 
 ''Well, now, I think Sunday should 
 be eminently a day for this work of re- 
 generating mankind. ('Regenerating* is 
 a good word when it is not abused.) It 
 should be a day not simply for preach- 
 ing what somebody regards as the gospel 
 of salvation in the life to come, but for 
 teaching whatever pertains to men's well- 
 being in the life that now is. We have 
 our educated and talented people, our 
 men of experience and ideas, and I think 
 we might have a good deal of philan- 
 thropic zeal aroused for diffusing the 
 benefit of what they know and think 
 among those who have little opportunity 
 for reaching right opinions on matters 
 that most nearly concern themselves. 
 It seems to me this philanthropic dis- 
 position might be developed and di- 
 rected by opening the channels for it 
 and by making an organized effort. It 
 would not be easy for any one to build 
 up a new organization for the purpose. 
 
SUNDA Y OBSER VANCE. 5 5 
 
 or to secure the opening of new channels ; 
 but there stands the Church, ready or- 
 ganized, with great possibilities of power 
 and influence. There it stands, a tre- 
 mendous obstruction, instead of leading 
 the way and setting the work on foot. 
 
 " Why, this city of New York ought to 
 be full of gathering-places for the people, 
 scattered through all its quarters, ample 
 enough to accommodate all comers, and 
 on every Sunday they ought to be cen- 
 tres of instruction and elevating influ- 
 ence, varied with relaxation and harmless 
 amusement. They should be plain and 
 inexpensive buildings, but rich in appli- 
 ances for mental and moral stimulus. 
 They should have appropriate stores of 
 literature, attractive features for ease and 
 comfort, but, above all, they should pro- 
 vide means of instruction, classes for 
 those who need them, but mainly lec- 
 tures and talks and discussions relating 
 to the problems of this human life. All 
 that is involved in the labor question, 
 the temperance question, the interests 
 and duties of citizens and their relations 
 to society and the State ; in short, every- 
 
56 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 thing in which the people need enlighten- 
 ment, direction, sympathy, and encour- 
 agement should be made the subject of 
 this Sunday work, and the talent and 
 good-will of the people capable of con- 
 tributing to it, should be enlisted and 
 turned into it so far as possible. Sunday 
 would become a great day, with all the 
 appliances that wealth, leisure, education, 
 talent, and philanthropic effort could 
 supply directed to making it a Sabbath, 
 for it would be a Christian Sabbath, or 
 rest-day, in the highest sense. 
 
 " The good church people seem to be 
 grieved at the way in which a large por- 
 tion of the people do actually spend their 
 Sundays. These not only seek such 
 diversions as are open to them, and in 
 summer time indulge in excursions and 
 picnics, but they are apt to fall into un- 
 seemly revelry and disorder. Some of 
 them are too ready for the mischief 
 which Satan finds for idle hands to do, 
 and more of them spend their time in 
 mere loafing and drinking. Shutting 
 them out from a rational and improving 
 employment of their time does not drive 
 
SUNDA Y OBSER VANCE. 5 / 
 
 them to church and Sunday-school. The 
 driving-process for making people do 
 better is never successful. But they 
 are driven back upon their own re- 
 sources, which are not very good. Sa- 
 loon-keepers are ready enough with their 
 hospitable side doors to help them pass 
 the time and spend their earnings. It is 
 the intolerant spirit of the Sabbatarians 
 that is largely responsible for the worst 
 uses to which Sunday is put, because 
 they object to better uses, and stand in 
 the way of their adoption, except those 
 whicn they themselves prescribe, and 
 those a great part of the people will not 
 have. The best way to keep people out 
 of saloons and evil resorts and induce 
 them to abstain from deviltry on the 
 Lord's day, is to give them better places 
 to go to and better things to do, to 
 which they will be attracted. It would 
 not change human nature and regenerate 
 society all at once, but it would set 
 wholesome influences at work, the effect 
 of which would soon be visible and 
 would increase very fast." 
 
 Tom Benedict had been showing un- 
 
58 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 easiness for some time as the Judge set 
 forth these heretical views, and at the 
 first decided pause ventured to suggest 
 that the church view of Sunday observ- 
 ance was not a matter of mere human 
 prescription. He regarded it as a matter 
 of divine ordinance and command, not to 
 be lightly set aside by Christians on the 
 ground of social expediency. 
 
 " I cannot see," replied the Judge, 
 " why we should not take a sensible 
 view of what Divine command is and 
 from what it is to be derived. I do not 
 admit that your church view of Sunday 
 is a Christian view, in the sense that it 
 was sanctioned by Christ's teachings. I 
 think the very contrary. It is rather a 
 revival in modern times of the Hebrew 
 idea, for which the English Puritans 
 were largely responsible. It was a part 
 of the dismal repression which they in- 
 fused into religion, and it is singular how 
 far they forced their spirit upon English 
 and American Protestantism. Why on 
 earth should we in this age of the world 
 model our day of rest on the Jewish Sab- 
 bath of three or four thousand years 
 
SUN DA Y OBSER VANCE. 5 9 
 
 ago? Why insist even that the Chris- 
 tian Sunday is the same thing as the 
 Mosaic seventh day? 
 
 " I have a great deal of admiration for 
 Moses, but he did his work a long time 
 ago, and h did it for the people under 
 his charge, in conditions that ceased to 
 exist ages ago. He had some concep- 
 tions which, like those of other great 
 men, are good for all time, but he was 
 not making laws and ordinances for Eu- 
 rope^ and America in the nineteenth cent- 
 ury of the Christian era, of which he had 
 no conception whatever. The genius of 
 Moses appears in nothing so remarkably, 
 as in the largeness of mind with which he 
 appropriated the noblest conceptions of 
 earlier ' seekers after God ' for the use 
 of his own people. Men had long before 
 found out that it was evil to steal, to 
 murder, to commit adultery, etc. ; Moses 
 formulated it into simple law. The 
 Chaldaeans, two thousand years before, 
 observed every seventh day, as what they 
 called Sabbattu 'a day of rest for the 
 soul ' ; Moses proclaimed its observance 
 as a duty to Jehovah. 
 
60 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 " He had a very difficult undertaking, 
 had Moses, in rescuing a horde of ig- 
 norant slaves from Egyptian bondage 
 and establishing them in their promised 
 land as a great nation-. It was one of 
 the great exploits of early history, for I 
 assume that it was in its main substance 
 a historical event, as truly as the siege of 
 Troy, however much of the marvellous 
 and the mythical there may be in the ac- 
 counts of it, as in accounts of all great 
 events of the early history of mankind. 
 It was a time of superstition, of signs and 
 wonders, and of religions even the best of 
 which were Paganism, according to any 
 modern view. Moses could never by his 
 personal authority have kept that people 
 in subjection and carried out his mission. 
 The Hebrews had their conception of a 
 deity, like other peoples of the time, and 
 it was undoubtedly a high conception for 
 those days, and Moses developed and 
 magnified it to very good effect, and the 
 annalists of his achievements doubtless 
 did it a good deal more. But the Deity 
 of Moses was strictly the God of the He- 
 brews and of nobody else, and with the 
 
SUN DA Y OBSER VA NCE. 6 1 
 
 tendency to gross idolatry all about them 
 it required a good deal of impressive 
 demonstration to keep them obedient 
 and loyal to him. He was their ruler 
 and their King, and he must be regarded 
 with awe in order to be obeyed. Theoc- 
 racy was natural to the time and people, 
 and furnished to Moses just the agency 
 he required for his great mission. It was 
 one of the striking and notable develop- 
 ments^ of early human history, and its 
 influence, like that of so many other 
 striking developments, is felt yet. 
 
 " But, after all, the laws and ordi- 
 nances laid down by Moses were for the 
 children of Israel in the situation in 
 which he had to deal with them. The 
 worship and observances which he pre- 
 scribed were proper to the Supreme 
 Deity ' the Highest,' as the Chaldaean 
 Abraham called Him, in comparison with 
 the multitude of 'other gods' as Moses 
 and the Israelites conceived Him, and the 
 rules and rites were intended very largely 
 to restrain the people from idolatry, from 
 straying after the gods of other people, 
 and to induce subjection and obedience. 
 
62 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 One of the methods of holding the minds 
 of the people in subjection to Jehovah 
 and to his servant, Moses, was the en- 
 tire devotion of one day in seven to his 
 worship and the sacrifices of the priests 
 and the rest from all ordinary occupa- 
 tions. But even the Hebrew Sabbath 
 was pharisaically distorted by the Puri- 
 tans, as it had been by the most relig- 
 ious classes in the time of Jesus, and as 
 it is now. The early Jews not only wor- 
 shipped Jehovah and studied his law on 
 the Sabbath, but they marked the day 
 by better clothes, finer food and genial, 
 kindly social enjoyment. One of the 
 notable things in the history of Jesus is 
 the number of dinners and suppers and 
 feasts he went to ' on the Sabbath day.' 
 And even he was never accused of break- 
 ing the Sabbath for that. Any one who 
 does not confine his attention to the Ten 
 Commandments, but studies the account 
 of all the Mosaic lawgiving cannot fail 
 to see how human it all was, and how 
 in keeping with the character and situa- 
 tion of the people. Its practical purpose 
 is plain enough. 
 
SUNDA Y OBSER VANCE. 6 3 
 
 " With the theocratic nature of the 
 government established for the tribes, 
 in anticipation of their settlement in 
 the land of their fathers, it was per- 
 fectly natural that we should have ' The 
 Lord said unto Moses ' or ' The Lord 
 spake unto Moses, saying,' or 'Thus 
 saith the Lord,' instead of ' Be it en- 
 acted,' or ' It is decreed by Moses/ 
 Meses felt himself possessed by ' the 
 Spirit of the Lord ' and he thundered it 
 forth ; and was listened to. Now, I be- 
 lieve in having one day in seven set apart 
 and consecrated for the people of our day 
 and generation, adapted to their condi- 
 tions and needs, and calculated to elevate 
 their lives and characters, without regard 
 to what may have been most necessary 
 and fitting for the children of Israel forty 
 centuries ago, when they had just emerged 
 from a long slavery and were about to set 
 out on a great history as an independent 
 people in the Land of Canaan." 
 
 " The Judge seems to be a good deal 
 of a free-thinker," I observed to Tom, as 
 
64 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 we came out into the night, which was 
 rather dreary. 
 
 " Yes," was the reply, " he is an ab- 
 solute free-thinker about everything. I 
 only wish I was enough of a student and 
 of a talker to answer him, for I know 
 there are answers to his views that are 
 very convincing. But he is too much for 
 me, and I should only get demolished if I 
 undertook to reply to him, for he has a 
 vast deal of learning on the subject at 
 command, which I am not familiar with." 
 
 "Perhaps if you were, you would be 
 still less inclined to tackle him," I re- 
 marked, and left Tom at his corner to 
 pursue his own cogitations, while I sought 
 my couch with supreme unconcern as to 
 the outcome of the controversy. 
 
V. 
 
 THE JUDGE DISCOURSES AT LARGE ON 
 RELIGION. 
 
 THE " Owls " gathered again the next 
 Saturday night in the inmost recesses of 
 the Asphodel grottoes and I was on 
 hand early that is, considerably before 
 twelve o'clock had struck. I anticipated 
 a resumption of the Sunday talk, or at 
 least some sort of a sequel to it, and 
 I was not disappointed. The Judge's 
 remarks about Sunday observance and 
 the attitude of the churches were upper- 
 most in the minds of those present, and 
 it did not take long to open up the 
 subject again. Tom's mind being the 
 most anxious, he was the first to set the 
 Judge going. 
 
 " I am afraid you are not altogether in 
 sympathy with the Christianity of the 
 day," he said rather uneasily, addressing 
 himself to the Mentor of his youth and 
 
66 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 manhood, " judging from your talk a 
 week ago." 
 
 " Well, I do not quite like to say I am 
 not in sympathy with it, for I am a 
 believer in the necessity and the benefit 
 of religion for mankind, and the present 
 Christianity is the best we have now ; 
 but I do feel that the Church has failed 
 to adapt itself in recent years to the 
 progress of ideas, that it has got out of 
 sympathy with the spirit of the time, 
 has largely lost its hold upon the people, 
 and is not doing anything like the 
 good it might do. I want to see it 
 revise its Constitution, so to speak, and 
 adjust itself to the conditions and needs 
 of the present day. I would not on any 
 account be numbered among the assail- 
 ants of religion or the assailants of 
 Christianity. It seems to me just as 
 senseless as assailing government or as- 
 sailing republicanism because principles 
 become distorted and misapplied and 
 methods of administration are subject 
 to abuses. People need religion, and are 
 better for it, but, like everything pertain- 
 ing to human life, it is a matter of de- 
 
RELIGION. 67 
 
 velopment and adaptation to changing 
 character and needs. 
 
 " Why, you can hardly pretend to 
 think that, while people cling so to the 
 sacredness of the Hebrew Scriptures, 
 they really believe in the cosmogony of 
 Genesis, the mythology of Moses, and 
 the Israelite conception of God, or regard 
 the annals and chronicles of the Jewish 
 dynasties and struggles, full of imperfec- 
 tions and inconsistencies as they are, as 
 a record * inspired ' in any such sense as 
 to imply that it is infallibly correct ? It 
 seems strange to me that people should 
 continue to discuss the matter seriously 
 and give the opponents of their religion 
 such a vantage-ground of attack. The 
 fact is that people do not believe these 
 things, however they may acquiesce in 
 traditions that the Church has not given 
 up for fear of disastrous consequences 
 that would never come. But why at- 
 tack Moses and his laws and denounce 
 the God of Israel and the manner of 
 worshipping Him ? It was all a very 
 wonderful development for its time, far 
 above anything then existing, at least in 
 
68 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the same part of the world, and it raise 
 the Jewish nation immensely. It w; 
 the first great development of hums 
 genius applied to religion, and the wo 
 der is not that the conception of Gc 
 and of worship was so gross and mat eric 
 but that it was not more so. 
 
 " Jehovah, the Deity of a race, of a p 
 culiar people, with his ' jealousy,' his ten 
 ble power, his fierce anger, and his love < 
 sacrifices and burnt offerings, is, accordir 
 to modern ideas, a heathen conceptioi 
 and his worship was a kind of paganisr 
 But it was a far more exalted conceptic 
 than that of the tribes that surrounde 
 the Hebrews, and the worship was r 
 ligion pure and undefiled compared 1 
 theirs. I regard Jehovah and his wo 
 ship and his government as a productio 
 of the religious genius of the Hebrew 
 and not as a Divine revelation to tf 
 human race, except so far as all manife 
 tations of humanity may be so regardei 
 Even as a revelation, it must be judge 
 by higher and better ones, such as a] 
 pear in the later Hebrew Scriptures then 
 selves. But the system was an outgrowt 
 
RELIGION. 69 
 
 of the character and wants of the people, 
 and was a great help to their progress 
 until they at last failed to adapt it to 
 their advancement, allowed it to fossilize, 
 and then they fell away from all vital re- 
 ligion. Now, Jews and Christians both 
 keep up the pretence of sanctifying the 
 fossils. 
 
 " It is not at all to be wondered at 
 that the early efforts of the Jews to 
 account for the origin of the world and 
 the human race should be crude and 
 fabulous, like those of all other ancient 
 peoples. The wonder is that people 
 with brains at this age of the world 
 should persist in trying to regard them 
 as anything else and to reconcile them 
 with science. It is not at all strange that 
 the account of Moses's dealings with 
 the children of Israel should contain so 
 much of the mythical and the miracu- 
 lous. The conception of God as their 
 Ruler came naturally to them, and the 
 character he assumed in that conception 
 was one adapted to their comprehension 
 and calculated to secure obedience to 
 the leaders through whom his commands 
 
70 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 came to them. That all commands an< 
 laws and ordinances should be put ii 
 form as emanating directly from the in 
 visible Ruler was natural, even neces 
 sary ; and the worship devised was cal 
 culated to impress the people and mak 
 them submissive. But what man o 
 sense can really study these things with 
 out seeing their peculiar fitness for thei 
 time and place, and their incongruity 
 with the present state of the world? I 
 needs no learning, only common sense 
 You must have noticed how purely ; 
 matter of this world it all was. Th 
 offences and penalties, some of then 
 characteristic only of barbarism, had t< 
 do with material things alone. All prom 
 ises and menaces related to the well-be 
 ing the worldly, material well-being o 
 that particular people in the land whicl 
 was given them. There is nothing spii 
 itual in the motives and ends inculcated 
 There was no conception of immortalit; 
 or of any other life than this, and n< 
 regard for any other people but the chii 
 dren of Israel. 
 
 " What I am driving at in all this i 
 
RELIGION. 7 1 
 
 the idea that in all times religion has 
 been a matter of development of evolu- 
 tion, if you please just as government 
 has been ; that it has been the production 
 of the genius of the peoples, springing 
 from their highest conception of Deity, 
 human duty, and human destiny ; has 
 found form and expression through their 
 prophets and leaders, and has been 
 adapted from time to time to their needs, 
 or else has lost its hold and left them to 
 lapse into irreligion." 
 
 11 But you do not deny that there was 
 much of permanent value in the religion 
 of the ancient Hebrews," suggested Ben- 
 edict. 
 
 " Why, of course not. One genera- 
 tion or one age does not improvidently 
 throw away the fruits of the experience 
 of those that have gone before it. There 
 is much of permanent value in the ex- 
 perience and teachings of all ancient 
 peoples who were not in abject barbar- 
 ism. We do not regard the writings of 
 Plato and the sayings of Socrates as 
 'sacred ' because they contained wisdom 
 of permanent value to the human race, 
 
72 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 nor do we hesitate to reject what later 
 experience and thought concludes to be 
 worthless for us. Our conception of the 
 age of the world is apt to get inverted. 
 The world was not old in those ancient 
 days, but young. It is older now than 
 it ever was before, and the human race 
 has had more experience. In fact, it has 
 advanced more in knowledge and achieve- 
 ment and in thought in the last fifty 
 years than it has sometimes done in ten 
 times that period. Progress is made by 
 holding to the wisdom of one age, sifting 
 it from the chaff in which it is more or 
 less enveloped, and adding to it. Prog- 
 ress is hindered by assuming that on 
 some subject of vital concern the last 
 word was spoken ages ago, or that the 
 word then spoken is not to be disputed 
 or enquired into. Men must advance in 
 their religion as in other things, or it will 
 cease to fit the human race and to help it 
 onward and upward." 
 
 "But," queried Benedict, " did not 
 the advent of Christianity make a great 
 change, doing away with the dead forms 
 of Hebrew worship, replacing with living 
 
RELIGION. 73 
 
 principles the detailed mandates of the 
 old law, and modifying the Hebrew con- 
 ceptions of divinity? " 
 
 " Precisely that. It relegated the old 
 system to the limbo of dead mythologies, 
 and made its records a history and a liter- 
 ature, interesting for study and useful for 
 instruction more or less. Why not admit 
 and accept this, instead of insisting that 
 certain books of the Hebrew people were 
 the inspired word of God and not to be 
 really studied and criticised, simply be- 
 cause a convocation of priests some cen- 
 turies after Christ made ' Holy Script- 
 ure ' of them, deciding which were 
 inspired and which were not. Science, 
 including that of historical criticism, will 
 be accepted by the best minds and by 
 common sense, and it is useless to fight 
 against it ; although based on material 
 facts, it changes and grows with an ad- 
 vancing knowledge of the facts. So 
 Christianity has been a matter of growth 
 and adaptation in the past, and must 
 be in the future if it is to retain its 
 power for good. The life and teach- 
 ings of Jesus were its foundation, and I 
 
74 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 see no prospect of an improvement 
 upon those, rightly interpreted and ap- 
 plied ; but Jesus founded no church, 
 organized no system, formulated no 
 creeds. That has been the work of 
 others, and it has undergone much trans- 
 formation since the days of the Fathers 
 of the church. The Christianity of the 
 Middle Ages was not that of the Fathers, 
 and the Christianity of to-day is not that 
 of the Middle Ages. 
 
 " The trouble with the Church now is 
 that human progress during the present 
 century has been very rapid and very 
 great, in scientific knowledge, in histor- 
 ical knowledge, in all manner of intel- 
 lectual development and achievement, 
 and even in moral conception, and the 
 Church has not kept up with it. The 
 Church seems to have ceased to examine 
 all things and to hold fast that which 
 is good, but rather to persist in holding 
 fast that which is traditional and con- 
 ventional. If Christianity is to take pos- 
 session of mankind again, it must accept 
 what mankind has learned, take in the 
 results of man's experience, and adapt 
 
RELIGION. 75 
 
 its methods to living conditions and 
 needs. 
 
 " What do we see now ? Acquiescence 
 in certain man-made and unyielding creeds 
 by intelligent, well-meaning men, because 
 it is socially respectable, morally inspir- 
 ing perhaps for them personally (though 
 that is subject to doubt), a good thing, 
 they think, for their families and a means 
 of doing something in a perfunctory way 
 for charity ; a general rejection of these 
 old forms, creeds and systems of belief 
 by scholars and students and earnest 
 thinkers, those I mean who think with 
 their brains and accept the conclusions of 
 thought, and not those whose cerebra- 
 tions are controlled by feeling and senti- 
 ment and who only imagine that they 
 think ; and the alienation of the great 
 mass of the poor and the humble from 
 the influence of religion. With all our 
 outworn creeds and conflicting sects we 
 have little vital Christianity in these 
 days, and, as I said before, the sheep are 
 wandering without a shepherd." 
 
 " But you do not suppose," interjected 
 the anxious Thomas, " that the mass of 
 
76 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 unlettered people understand the results 
 of historical criticism to which you have 
 referred, that they appreciate the conclu- 
 sions of science, or that they are capable of 
 being restrained and guided by mere mor- 
 al principles, philosophically inculcated ! " 
 " I believe that the unlettered people, 
 as you call them, can be better restrained 
 and guided by accepting facts and the 
 conclusions of reason, by admitting the 
 truth that can be justified and defended 
 to their common sense, than by clinging 
 to errors and delusions which make it 
 necessary to appeal to superstition. The 
 wisdom of the age is not confined to the 
 learned. The results of science and the 
 conclusions of philosophic study get 
 abroad and permeate the common mind 
 they are * in the air/ as the saying is. 
 There is a receptive instinct among the 
 people which makes them, in general, 
 capable of learning what the highest 
 minds are capable of teaching, and some- 
 how the essence of it gets to them 
 through the universal contact that is 
 characteristic of the time. The minds of 
 the unlettered are not so far removed 
 
RELIGION. 77 
 
 from those of the lettered but that a 
 common spirit in matters of belief and 
 unbelief pervades them. There are acute 
 and penetrating minds, addicted to read- 
 ing and thinking and talking, even among 
 the ' common people,' and ideas spread 
 when they are of the kind that the men- 
 tal atmosphere is prepared to carry and 
 the mental soil ready to receive. 
 
 " I knew an old Scotch weaver once, 
 who, for general information and reading 
 and the power to digest and assimilate 
 what he acquired and to communicate it 
 to others, was the superior of any man I 
 know in this club. I tell you the days of 
 superstition have gone by, and the age 
 of common sense has come and must be 
 accepted." 
 
 " I can't say that I like this glorifying 
 of common sense," said Benedict with a 
 little sigh of impatience. " I think there 
 are better things than common sense in 
 human nature. There are feelings and 
 sentiments that may be true, as well as 
 opinions ; there is a spiritual side to our 
 nature as well as a practical side. I like 
 the expression 'horse sense/ because it 
 
78 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 sets that down to the animal category, 
 in the sphere of oats and hay and other 
 material things, where it belongs. Spirit- 
 ual faith may be as true in its conclusions 
 as 'horse sense,' and I think it is infi- 
 nitely higher." 
 
 " O, yes ; that may be, but they deal 
 with different orders of things in the same 
 great universe and they must somehow 
 be consistent. I do not see why a man 
 who looks straight out of his eyes with a 
 clear vision for all that comes within his 
 view is not just as capable of lofty senti- 
 ment and high spiritual conception as the 
 one that insists on looking through dis- 
 torted lenses or colored glass. I take 
 common sense as simply the faculty of 
 seeing and judging things according to 
 what knowledge and reason dictate, in- 
 stead of being deluded by imagination 
 and controlled by fear and hope. The 
 great intellect of the time is not different, 
 except in degree, from the ordinary intelli- 
 gence of the time. It reaches farther but 
 in the same direction, and wherever it 
 opens the way the other eagerly presses in. 
 Its tension is that way. 
 
RELIGION. 
 
 79 
 
 11 In days when knowledge was scant 
 and the means of knowledge slight, when 
 reason was ill-armed and overborne, when 
 superstition was rampant and men's pas- 
 sions and feelings mightier than their 
 minds, religion was adapted to the exist- 
 ing conditions and had to be or die. In 
 a time of wider and clearer knowledge, of 
 universal education and prevailing com- 
 mon sense, if you will excuse the term, 
 religion must be readjusted or lose its 
 vitality. You remember the chapter in 
 1 Notre Dame de Paris,' headed * Ceci 
 tuera cela,' 'this' referring to the print- 
 ing press, and ' that ' to the Church. The 
 printing press has killed the Church of 
 Louis XL's time, and will kill any church 
 that is based on superstition. I want to 
 see the Church save itself, for it cannot be 
 spared. I want to see it a power for the 
 salvation of the human race from the ten- 
 dencies of degeneration and for its eleva- 
 tion and improvement." 
 
 " Well, what would you have it do?" 
 queried Thomas, the believer. " What is 
 the basis of your new reformation ? " 
 
 " I would have it discard the require- 
 
8O MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 ment of a belief in the miraculous and all 
 which that implies and all that depends 
 upon it." 
 
 Tom looked as though lightning had 
 struck just behind his chair, and the 
 party broke up more quietly than usual, 
 though I noticed Colonel Bloodgood in- 
 dulged in a deep chuckle that made his 
 face redder and his eyes bluer than ever. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE JUDGE GETS DIVERTED TO A DIS- 
 COURSE UPON POLITICAL IMMORAL- 
 ITY. 
 
 ONE Saturday I met my friend Bene- 
 dict, as I did frequently, for the purpose of 
 going to the Asphodel with him for the 
 midnight meeting. For the first time he 
 seemed doubtful about going. In answer 
 to my expression of surprise he said : 
 
 " These religious discussions that we 
 have been drifting into are not altogether 
 pleasant to me. I am satisfied with such 
 faith as I have and strongly attached to 
 my religious associations, and why should 
 I have them disturbed ? " 
 
 "Well, well," I replied, "your faith 
 can't be very strong or very well founded 
 if it will not stand discussion between 
 friends ; and I see nothing to disturb your 
 associations, unless you are ready to 
 admit that they are based upon illusions 
 
82 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 or delusions, and in that case I should 
 think you would be glad to find some 
 better foundation for them." 
 
 " Perhaps it would prove only a less 
 comfortable delusion and leave a fellow 
 in a more unstable frame of mind," was 
 the reply. " I am no reformer and have 
 no liking for breaking things up. I never 
 knew before that the Judge was so radical 
 in his views. I knew he was what is 
 called * liberal ' in everything and that he 
 belonged to no church, but he has always 
 been rather reticent on religious matters 
 when I have seen him. His daughter be- 
 longs to the Episcopal church, I think. 
 At least she goes there and takes part in 
 charitable work, and he often goes with 
 her and contributes quite liberally to all 
 causes that he approves of, though I 
 know he draws the line at foreign mis- 
 sions and maintains that we have enough 
 to do nearer home, and that the heathen 
 most in need of our help are at our own 
 doors." 
 
 "O, well," said I, "the Judge is all 
 right. He is not seeking to disturb any- 
 body's faith, but only wants it to have a 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 83 
 
 more solid basis. However, something 
 else may come up to-night which you 
 would be sorry to miss," and so Tom 
 went along with some evident reluc- 
 tance. 
 
 We found the Judge and Colonel Blood- 
 good seated quietly together, and appar- 
 ently talking politics in the most friendly 
 manner. Contrary to my usual custom 
 of non-intervention, I remarked that pol- 
 itics was rather out of season as a sub- 
 ject of discussion or even of conversa- 
 tion. 
 
 " The only time I talk politics is when 
 it is out of season," remarked the Judge. 
 " People are so unreasonable, not to say 
 irrational, in their politics that it some- 
 times makes me doubt whether I am not 
 premature in my confidence that the 
 time has come for the rule of reason in 
 other things. Still, I do not give up my 
 confidence that the kingdom of common 
 sense is at hand." 
 
 Tom visibly winced at this and seemed 
 to fear the direction the talk might take, 
 and I felt called upon to violate my prin- 
 ciple of neutrality and silence once more 
 
84 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 by asking the Judge if he did not think 
 that the verdict of the people was gen- 
 erally about right in this country. 
 
 " I can't say that I think it is always 
 right, by any means, and ' generally about 
 right ' does not mean much. You see, I 
 do not consider one political party as 
 altogether right and the other alto- 
 gether wrong, or even that the two are so 
 very far apart in the matter of right and 
 wrong; so it is easy to say, whichever 
 way the election goes, the decision of the 
 people is 'perhaps about right.' If it 
 had gone the other way, the remark 
 would have been just as applicable pos- 
 sibly more so. I have an abiding confi- 
 dence that in the long run decisions of 
 the people, or ' verdicts * of the people, to 
 accept the common phrase, will be on the 
 whole nearer right than decisions by any 
 other power would be, and that it is safer 
 to trust to them. The people will give 
 themselves as good government and as 
 sound public policy as they are ready for, 
 and it is better for them to work out 
 their problems than for any superior 
 order of persons to impose solutions upon 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 85 
 
 them, even if the superior order were ad- 
 mitted to exist or could be got into the 
 position of governing for us. I certainly 
 do not think that our more intelligent, 
 better educated, and wealthier class would 
 give us better government or any sounder 
 policy if the political power^were exclu- 
 sively in their hands. On the contrary, 
 the great mass of the people the * lower 
 classes ' if you choose to call them so 
 being possessed of political power, is just 
 what saves us from an oppressive dom- 
 ination of selfishness and greed. 
 
 " What I deplore most is the extreme 
 party spirit that seems at all times to 
 be latent among our people, and which 
 breaks into fierce extremes whenever 
 there is political excitement. That is 
 when people seem to me to be so irra- 
 tional that I take no satisfaction in talk- 
 ing politics. Most partisans are grossly 
 unfair to their opponents and capable of 
 saying the meanest things about them, 
 unless they happen to know them per- 
 sonally, when they may admit that they 
 are decent human beings in everything 
 but their political views. These violent 
 
86 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 partisans in time of political excitement 
 they are deplorably numerous talk and 
 act as if they believed one half of the 
 people of the country were trying to ruin 
 its prosperity, if not to subvert its insti- 
 tutions, whereas one half is exactly as 
 patriotic as the other, differing only in 
 their opinions as to the best policy for 
 promoting the welfare of the nation. 
 Sometimes even this difference of opinion 
 is almost imaginary, and the party spirit 
 springs chiefly from the contest between 
 two organizations for control, though per- 
 sons possessed with it convince themselves 
 that they are inspired by lofty principles 
 and patriotic purposes. Really, they are 
 simply in a temper of ' fight ' for the 
 victory of their side, like the participants 
 in a mighty match of strength and skill. 
 They are blinded to every consideration 
 but that of party success. In one of our 
 violent political contests, where an issue 
 of principle is actually involved, very 
 few persons have really any intelligent 
 attachment for the principle. They show 
 in their talk that they do not half under- 
 stand it, and many of those who do 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 8/ 
 
 understand it do not really believe in it 
 as stated and contended for by their 
 party. If the same party had been led 
 to declare for the very opposite princi- 
 ple these rank partisans would have 
 shouted just as loudly in support of its 
 position and followed its leaders just as 
 zealously. 
 
 " The vital questions in our politics 
 nowadays are merely commercial and 
 industrial, relating to material well-being, 
 and the concern of the mass of the peo- 
 ple in regard to them is precisely the 
 same for all ; and this makes intense and 
 intolerant party spirit seem more inscru- 
 table. Of course, memories and tradi- 
 tions of the past and inherited or derived 
 prejudices have much to do with it, but 
 there seems to be an inherent tendency 
 in human nature to choose sides and get 
 up a fight. Once a man has taken his 
 position, the cause in which he is enlisted 
 is righteous altogether ; the Lord of Hosts 
 is on its side and the salvation of man- 
 kind depends on its success. It is fortu- 
 nate that there are some sober brains in 
 all ranks, which refuse to be upset or 
 
88 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 carried away by this fiery breeze of pas- 
 sion. It is said that the majority rules in 
 this country. But in normal conditions 
 it is a minority, and not a very large one 
 either, that in every contest tips the 
 scale and decides which party shall be 
 trusted with power. 
 
 "The political forces are in reality four, 
 and not two. There are the two parti- 
 san masses forever pitted against each 
 other and striving for the mastery. 
 Then there are the indifferent, the venal, 
 the scum and driftwood of politics that 
 can be gathered in by one side or the 
 other or divided between them by 
 various sordid inducements. Finally, 
 there are the thinking, cool-headed and 
 conscientious citizens, who refuse to see 
 the good all on one side and the bad all 
 on the other ; who decline to take their 
 knowledge from stump speakers and 
 their principles from conventions of dele- 
 gates most of whom have no principles 
 and want none ; citizens whose object 
 is not party success and offices for one 
 set of selfish men rather than another, 
 but the adoption of sound and safe 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 89 
 
 methods and the promotion of policies 
 that will produce real benefits. This par- 
 ticular ' element ' pervades all ranks, 
 and rarely attempts to organize itself. 
 It cannot be crushed because it cannot 
 be hit. It cannot be bought or wheedled 
 or frightened or dragooned to one side 
 or the other. Our safety is in this ele- 
 ment of health, this antidote for virulent 
 partisanship, this antagonist of the cor- 
 rupt and venal force. 
 
 " One of the highest evidences of the 
 patriotic foresight of Washington is his 
 warning to the country on the subject of 
 party spirit. But I think one of its 
 worst and most insidious effects could 
 not have been foreseen by him, and that 
 is its production of immorality in politics. 
 Men condone or excuse or connive 
 at practices in politics by which their 
 own party gains advantage, which in 
 private and personal affairs they would 
 regard as infamous. They seem to look 
 with actual complacency, if not with 
 positive satisfaction, upon insincere pro- 
 fessions, false pretences, and tricks wor- 
 thy of sharpers. Bribery and corruption 
 
QO MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 do not startle them, if it is their own 
 party that gains by it. Trafficking in the 
 suffrage for the benefit of this candi- 
 date or that seems to be justified to the 
 seared consciences of otherwise decent 
 men by the fact that there is gain in it 
 for the party which they profess to be- 
 lieve is in the right. It is rather dis- 
 couraging to notice how little sense of 
 real shame is produced by the exposure 
 of corrupt practices in politics, and how 
 vague and perfunctory is the condem- 
 nation of them. Men engaged in them 
 or more or less directly responsible for 
 them are scarcely put out of countenance 
 by exposure, arid lose no caste in their 
 party. In fact there is a disposition to 
 use all the powerful influences of the 
 party to shield them from any other 
 unpleasant consequences than the criti- 
 cism of their opponents, for which they 
 care little because it comes from their 
 opponents and does not represent a gen- 
 eral sentiment of real condemnation. 
 Why, men who prostitute official power, 
 which should be exercised only for pub- 
 lic ends, to promote their personal or 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 9 1 
 
 partisan designs boldly pose as patriots 
 of exceptional virtue and nobody laughs 
 or turns away in disgust ; men who use 
 money boldly and lavishly to buy votes 
 or to carry elections by knavish methods 
 are held up in their own party as moral 
 and religious teachers of great merit 
 instead of canting hypocrites, and expect 
 to get public rewards for* their sacrifices 
 and expenditures, not in behalf of the 
 public good, but of party success. The 
 pulpit is absolutely silent about political 
 abuses and corruption, though they are 
 about the most demoralizing evils of the 
 day, because ministers and deacons, and 
 pillars of the Church are as much be- 
 sotted with this blind party spirit as any- 
 body. 
 
 " The whole trouble comes from this 
 intense party spirit, for with men of 
 fair intelligence, moderate education, and 
 average honesty it really confounds the 
 public good with party success. Most of 
 these men actually believe, in the excite- 
 ment of a canvass, that the welfare of the 
 country depends upon the success of 
 their party, and that the triumph of their 
 
92 M/DNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 opponents would bring, if not the ruin 
 and disaster that they predict, at least 
 serious injuries to the public weal. So 
 they countenance lies and false pre- 
 tences, contemptible tricks and devices 
 for influencing ignorant and unreasoning 
 voters, even the corrupt use of money 
 and of public trusts, provided they be- 
 lieve that their party really gains by such 
 means. Of course there are party men 
 who deplore these things and would 
 gladly put an end to them, and there are 
 others who use them without the least 
 scruple, because they expect personally 
 to gain by them and are never troubled 
 by qualms of conscience. But the great 
 body of partisans without whose acqui- 
 escence these evils could not exist, are so 
 convinced that the ascendency of their 
 party is essential to the well-being of the 
 Republic that they are inclined, if not to 
 justify, at least to connive at any means 
 which the leaders and managers find 
 necessary or effective for its maintenance. 
 Their moral sensibilities are blunted by 
 party spirit." 
 
 " But don't you think, Judge, that it 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 93 
 
 does make a difference what party is in 
 control? " asked Benedict. 
 
 " Make a difference ? Certainly it 
 makes a difference, and there have been 
 times when it made a very serious differ- 
 ence : but at such times there was no 
 need of these evil methods and corrupt 
 practices ; the difference itself determined 
 the action of the people. But there 
 never could be a difference that would 
 justify the discarding of moral principle, 
 throwing common honesty and decency 
 overboard, and disregarding all standards 
 of right and wrong in human conduct, 
 and in these days the difference is not 
 such a very serious matter anyway. The 
 Colonel here, who is an old-fashioned 
 Democrat, though always a patriot to 
 the core, will probably admit that noth- 
 ing very disastrous will come from the 
 defeat of his party at the last elec- 
 tion." 
 
 " O, I've got used to it," ejaculated 
 the Colonel ; " but I do believe that even 
 if disaster is avoided a great good will be 
 postponed." 
 
 " And you, Tom, I suspect," resumed 
 
94 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the Judge, " would have been ready to 
 admit that no serious harm had been 
 done, if the Colonel's party had staid in 
 power, though you are disposed to be- 
 lieve that all political wisdom and virtue 
 is on the other side. Well, then, what 
 excuse is there for this intense party 
 spirit which is not willing to be restricted 
 by the bonds of the moral standard in- 
 sisted upon in everything but politics? 
 I make no distinction of parties in this 
 matter. Aside from questions of imme- 
 diate motives, opportunities, and means, 
 they are alike in the use of unrighteous 
 methods. The seat of the evil is in a 
 debauched public sentiment and a seared 
 public conscience, and party spirit is the 
 cause of both. Political immorality is 
 a crying evil, and one that menaces free 
 institutions more than any other, if not 
 more than all others. It exists in admin- 
 istration, in legislation, in party manage- 
 ment, and in popular political action. 
 All the moral and religious teachers in 
 pulpit and press and on every platform of 
 instruction ought to be stirred up against 
 it" 
 
POLITICAL IMMORALITY. 95 
 
 " Quite a Jeremiad," I remarked to 
 Tom as we set out homeward. 
 
 " Yes, and there is ground enough for it, 
 I must say. The Judge is sound enough 
 in his views on morality," was the reply 
 in tones that might be taken as implying 
 that there was some question about the 
 soundness of his views on something else, 
 theology perhaps, or the relative merits 
 of political parties. 
 
VII. 
 
 SOME FREE DISCOURSE ON SUPERSTI- 
 TION AND WORSHIP. 
 
 THE next Saturday night after the 
 Judge's digression into politics, on saun- 
 tering into the club after the theatre I 
 was surprised to find Tom Benedict 
 already on hand, as if eager for a renewal 
 of the disquieting discussion which had 
 been interrupted, and which I felt sure 
 would be resumed. 
 
 " Hello ! " I ejaculated, " I hardly ex- 
 pected to see you here to-night. I sus- 
 pect the Judge is likely to get back to the 
 subject which seemed to rasp your ortho- 
 dox sensibilities a couple of weeks ago." 
 
 " O, pshaw!" was the astonishing 
 reply ; " you don't suppose I am so weak 
 in the faith that I can't stand candid dis- 
 cussion ! In fact, I have been getting 
 anxious to hear how he was going to 
 justify the ground he took, and had made 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. 97 
 
 up my mind to bring up the subject my- 
 self if he didn't." 
 
 It is curious how minds accustomed to 
 association get to running in the same 
 track. Without any special reason I felt 
 sure that our mentor would return to the 
 subject that he opened to view in declar- 
 ing that the Christian Church ought to 
 give up the long-cherished belief in mir- 
 acles. It was too startling an announce- 
 'ment to be left in the air, as it were. It 
 was evident that Tom also had antici- 
 pated a return to the subject and had 
 given much more thought to it than I 
 had. His apparent aversion seemed to 
 have given way to a sort of anxiety to 
 have it out. And when we got together 
 in our inner sanctum, it speedily ap- 
 peared that the Judge had divined the 
 state of mind through which his young 
 friend had been passing, and had come 
 with a full purpose to justify the ground 
 he had taken for the relief, if possible, of 
 the anxious soul of the devout Thomas. 
 
 When we were settled in our easy 
 chairs around the small table and before 
 Tom had any occasion to carry out his 
 
98 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 resolve to bring up the subject himself, 
 the Judge, with a benignant glance at 
 him, but addressing his words directly 
 to the Colonel, who probably had not 
 given the matter a thought, said rather 
 abruptly: 
 
 "There is nothing I deprecate more 
 than mere attacks upon the faith and the 
 religious sensibilities of people. There is 
 nothing in human discussion that I dis- 
 like so much as the ranting infidelity 
 that coarsely and bluntly assails the 
 Christian Church and the records of re- 
 ligious development, and attributes to 
 them the iniquities in human history 
 with which they have been associated. 
 Religious sentiment and aspiration is, 
 after all, the chief thing that marks the 
 distinction between men and brutes. It 
 is the mightiest means by which men are 
 elevated and kept up, and through it 
 the progress of the race has made its 
 way. But, like everything else, it is a 
 subject of development and adaptation 
 to conditions of an orderly evolution. 
 Conceptions of the Deity change from 
 age to age, and no matter what the 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. 99 
 
 preachers say, ours are vastly different 
 from those of Moses and the prophets. 
 Ideas about worship change, too, in ac- 
 cordance with the knowledge and intel- 
 lectual habits of the time. What I 
 complain of is that Christianity, which, 
 so far as its fundamental principles go, 
 can be adapted to any new condition, 
 should be so bound to traditions and 
 the conceptions of rude ages, and should 
 be dragging to the rearward of human 
 progress instead of helping to lead it. 
 For the result is that it loses its hold, 
 not only upon thinking people, but upon 
 the mass, which instinctively imbibes the 
 conclusions of modern knowledge and 
 reason, and it sacrifices its power to lead 
 and raise mankind. It is not holding the 
 forces of society in restraint and giving 
 them effective guidance, as it might be 
 doing." 
 
 " But do you think religious belief and 
 worship and all that sort of thing neces- 
 sary to reasonable beings at all ? " cyni- 
 cally inquired the un-pious and non-relig- 
 ious Colonel. 
 
 " Certainly I do," was the prompt 
 
IOO MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 answer. " There may be a question 
 of the form and manner of belief and 
 worship, but I cannot conceive of a 
 state of man so reasonable that he would 
 not find some form and manner a neces- 
 sity of his nature. You and I, Colonel, 
 may fancy that we are so rational that we 
 can always do right by ourselves and 
 others out of mere prudence and good 
 sense, but I imagine that in some of the 
 vicissitudes of life we might find help to- 
 ward high conduct and demeanor in the 
 recognition of a beneficent Power in the 
 universe and through the feelings that 
 find expression in the worship of such a 
 Power. I believe a morally and intellec- 
 tually perfect human being would be a 
 very devout person, as the mere result of 
 perfection, and devotion helps imperfect 
 people to become better, or, at the very 
 least, to resist becoming any worse. O, 
 you know perfectly well that, taking the 
 whole community together, the praying, 
 church-going people are morally and 
 socially the 'better element.' What I 
 want is to see a prevailing religious teach- 
 ing and worship that recognizes all that 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. IOI 
 
 science teaches and all that reason dic- 
 tates, and can consequently resume the 
 leadership of the human race, which the 
 Church of to-day has substantially lost. 
 
 " But all this is mere rambling. My 
 great point is that absolutely all belief in 
 what is called * miraculous ' should be 
 given up. Then the rest would follow ; 
 for that involves much." 
 
 " But," interposed Tom in almost 
 breathless agitation, " surely religion 
 assumes the supernatural and depends 
 upon it. You wouldn't give that up?" 
 
 " Well, that depends on what you call 
 ' supernatural.' Natural is extensive 
 enough for me. The God of the uni- 
 verse must be the most natural of all 
 things, the essence of which all nature 
 is the embodiment nature, terrestrial 
 and celestial. Nature that is seen and 
 can be studied must of necessity be con- 
 sistent with that which is unseen and can 
 only be vaguely comprehended, but com- 
 prehended the more clearly as we under- 
 stand better the revelation that comes 
 within our mental range. I take the world 
 and man to be our only real revelation. 
 
102 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 Stick to ' supernatural ' as a word of 
 distinction if you will, but get rid of 
 superstition. The world is outgrowing 
 it. Religion used to be full of it because 
 the world was full of it, and nearly all 
 men's minds were subject to it. Now, 
 knowledge and reason and prevailing 
 common sense are driving it out, and 
 religion must give it up or be laughed at ; 
 and when the augurs cannot meet with- 
 out laughing their system is doomed. It 
 must be given up because reason demands 
 it ; and it may be given up because re- 
 ligion does not need it. 
 
 " I cannot see why we should not re- 
 gard reports of miracles two thousand 
 years ago or four thousand years ago 
 just as we regard them now, or why 
 reported miracles in one country and 
 among one ancient people should not be 
 treated just as they are when they ap- 
 pear in the records of some other country 
 or people. I do not believe that the law 
 and order of nature have changed since 
 human records began, or that the Su- 
 preme Power of the universe has under- 
 gone a revolution in methods in the brief 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. 103 
 
 space of six thousand years, more or less. 
 Why should I accept miraculous tales 
 about Abraham or Moses or Joshua or 
 Jonah, because they are found in Hebrew 
 records, when I reject precisely analogous 
 ones with which other ancient records 
 are filled, merely because there is a sort 
 of lineal descent of the religion we have 
 inherited from that which finds its ex- 
 position and embodiment in Hebrew 
 literature? That is not reason enough 
 for me. The Buddhist and the Moham- 
 medan have a precisely analogous reason 
 for believing in the miracles of their re- 
 ligions ; so had the civilized pagans of 
 Greece and Rome and Persia and Egypt, 
 but we do not admit the sufficiency of 
 the reason in their cases. 
 
 " Superstition has not wholly fled 
 from the earth yet. There are people in 
 Africa and the South Sea Islands who are 
 behind the Israelites and Egyptians of 
 Moses's day, and they are still having 
 miracles. Even in civilized countries and 
 right among ourselves we hear of mirac- 
 ulous and supernatural things every now 
 and then, but we do not believe in them, 
 
104 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 and those who do are regarded as either 
 particularly ignorant or as fanatical and 
 deluded. There is plenty of literature 
 nowadays containing accounts of mir- 
 acles, but it finds little acceptance. The 
 records of the Middle Ages are full of 
 accounts of such marvels in and out of 
 the Christian Church, because that was a 
 time of ignorance and superstition. They 
 were readily accepted and the stories 
 became easily current without conscious 
 fraud. How many fictitious tales go 
 about even now relating to mere ordinary 
 affairs and are accepted as true? Mira- 
 cles and supernatural doings are the com- 
 mon-places of ancient records, even of 
 some that have the soberest historical 
 purpose. Greek and Roman literature is 
 stuffed with them and Oriental literatures 
 are largely made up of them. It was 
 hardly possible for any great event to 
 happen or any great character to figure in 
 the world two thousand years ago or 
 more, or even one thousand years ago, 
 without giving rise to accounts of miracu- 
 lous occurrences which were generally 
 believed. 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. 105 
 
 " Now, I should like to know why we 
 are to cast away all other miracles and 
 supernatural happenings as unworthy of 
 belief and cling to those that appear in 
 the records of the ancient Hebrews 
 some of them religious and some not 
 and in the early records of Christianity. 
 The same critical processes apply to all 
 ancient records, and have been applied, 
 and they produce the same results as to 
 .what is credible and incredible in their 
 contents. Whatever plea is put in as to 
 a special sanction for certain of these rec- 
 ords, the obstinate fact remains that the 
 progress of human knowledge and human 
 reason has broken the hold of a belief in 
 miracles on the minds of intelligent men 
 and even of those not so very intelligent, 
 and they cannot be guided and controlled 
 through any such belief. Something 
 more potent and consistent with the 
 hard common sense that prevails must 
 take its place. I do not believe that 
 common sense and the truest spiritual 
 sense are or can be antagonistic. 
 
 " The Roman Catholic Church is more 
 consistent in this matter than the Protes- 
 
IO6 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 tant churches. It is based avowedly on 
 superstition, though it would not accept 
 that as the right word, and there may be 
 enough of superstition in the world to 
 sustain the fabric for a long time yet. 
 Tlie Catholic priesthood maintains that 
 miracles and special divine revelations do 
 occur now, as they always have occurred ; 
 but it has the prudence not to counte- 
 nance a study of the * sacred ' records by 
 the laity, and it is generally admitted, 
 except by itself, to be opposed to the 
 progress of knowledge and of ideas. But 
 there is not superstition enough left for 
 the Catholic Church and a lot of Protes- 
 tant denominations, too. The differences 
 among the latter all have their root in the 
 superstitions of the past, for when men 
 believe in things that will not bear the 
 test of knowledge and reason they begin 
 at once to differ and divide, because there 
 is no common standard of judgment. 
 The superstitious and unreasoning are ca- 
 pable of believing anything, and the di- 
 rection their faith will take all depends 
 on the idiosyncrasies of some powerful 
 teacher or leader among them. Don't 
 
_ SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. IO/ 
 
 you suppose that the Buddhists and the 
 Mohammedans are just as earnest and 
 just as thoroughly convinced that theirs 
 is the only true religion, as ever the 
 devotees of a Christian sect were ? 
 
 " I denounce no man's religion, either 
 of the present or the past. It may be 
 the best of which he is capable and better 
 for him than none. The religion of a 
 man will partake of his character, that of 
 ,a people will be shaped by its character, 
 that of a time will be determined by the 
 prevailing spirit. But the world has been 
 advancing rapidly in the last fifty years, 
 and the Church has not kept up. It is 
 anchored to the past, loaded with tra- 
 ditions, water-logged with superstition. 
 What is the result? Some emotional, 
 earnest believers, largely women and 
 young persons ; many half-believers, in- 
 cluding a large part of the clergy; more 
 who acquiesce and conform, as the best 
 thing to do in the interest of good behav- 
 ior ; and a vast and increasing crowd out- 
 side the pale altogether. Some of these 
 latter are good enough and safe enough as 
 citizens and members of the community, 
 
IO8 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 but there are in the mass elements of dan- 
 ger. When the great body of unenlight- 
 ened men cease to be held to a belief in a 
 higher Power and a higher Judgment, 
 you cannot guide them by mere counsels 
 of worldly prudence and philosophy. 
 Immediate self-interest and all manner 
 of passions will carry them beyond 
 bounds. The problem of self-govern- 
 ment threatens to work into insoluble 
 intricacies. 
 
 " I regard a restoration of the restraint 
 and elevating influence of Christianity 
 over society as necessary to the uplifting 
 of mankind from their low condition, the 
 salvation of free institutions and the sys- 
 tem of popular government ; and I regard 
 as necessary to that restoration a casting 
 out of inherited superstitions and the ac- 
 ceptance of the rule of reason, the adop- 
 tion of every valid conclusion of science 
 and rational criticism, the readjustment 
 of the Church to the lines of modern prog- 
 ress in knowledge and thought, and a 
 return to the original Christian princi- 
 ples of mutual consideration and help- 
 fulness rather than a continuance in the 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. 109 
 
 selfishness and greed of modern soci- 
 ety. 
 
 " I am confident that this would conflict 
 with nothing essential in the fundament- 
 al teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, and 
 would not interfere with a rational worship 
 and devotion, appealing to the sentiments 
 and feelings of humanity in reverence for 
 the Deity. Nay, more, I believe it thor- 
 oughly in harmony with the Divine 
 fatherhood, the human brotherhood, 
 which Jesus Christ proclaimed as the true 
 ideal. I anticipate nothing permanent 
 from ' new religions ' got up by societies 
 or liberal sects, however much nearer the 
 truth they may be in some points than 
 the historic Church. The Church is his- 
 toric, the growth of time, the result of 
 human development. It cannot be dis- 
 placed but it may be reformed, as from 
 time to time it has been ; and now it 
 needs reformation as never before. But 
 the reform should come from within. To 
 me personally it does not matter; I can 
 maintain a belief alone and shape my 
 course unaided by association. But so- 
 ciety needs a great organization for the 
 
I 10 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 restraint, inspiration, elevation, and guid- 
 ance of its members ; one which has 
 vitality and vigor in it, which can com- 
 mand the service of the best minds and 
 the most zealous natures, and that can 
 reach and regenerate the wandering flocks 
 that have no shepherds. 
 
 " It is a sad state of things when the 
 ablest teachers of the prevailing religion 
 doubt their own doctrines, and no longer 
 preach them with conviction ; when ear- 
 nest believers are confined mainly to 
 women and exceptionally emotional men ; 
 when sober citizens belong to the church 
 because it is highly respectable, a good 
 thing for their families and perhaps prof- 
 itable for business and advantageous in 
 social life, and not because they believe 
 in its dogmas or have a vital interest 
 in the real business of regenerating the 
 race. Even the word ' dogma ' has come 
 to have rather an offensive sound, and 
 doctrinal preaching is deprecated. Why ? 
 Because there is an unavowed recogni- 
 tion that the dogmas and doctrines are 
 not such as to commend themselves any 
 longer to the acceptance of reasonable 
 
SUPERSTITION AND WORSHIP. I I I 
 
 beings. They are calculated to repel and 
 not to win. 
 
 " I say, Discard the belief in miracles, 
 not because you and I cannot believe in 
 them, not simply because historical inves- 
 tigation and scientific criticism discredit 
 them, but because the civilization with 
 which we have to deal has outgrown be- 
 lief in them, and you cannot re-establish 
 it. Doctrines based upon faith in them 
 are no longer potent to restrain and guide 
 men. If the Christian religion is to dom- 
 inate the civilization of this and the com- 
 ing generation, it must accept their 
 intellectual conclusions, and base its sys- 
 tem of faith upon these, or at least throw 
 out what is irreconcilable with them. It 
 is because I appreciate the great need of 
 the power and influence of some religion, 
 * pure and undefined/ to counteract the 
 material and selfish tendencies that are 
 always working for degradation, that I 
 care about this. 
 
 " I used to say, Let every man believe 
 or pretend to believe what he pleases, and 
 let the Church pursue its own way, so 
 long as I am at liberty to cherish my own 
 
I 12 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 ideas and regulate my own conduct ; but 
 in all these recent discussions of labor 
 troubles, political abuses, and social 
 evils, it has seemed to me that the old 
 foundations of the Moral Standard were 
 broken up, and that it is in danger of 
 being engulfed in confusion and lost 
 sight of. A religious reformation is the 
 great need of the time, and I am looking 
 for a new Luther to be its herald." 
 
 " Well, are you satisfied ? " I asked of 
 Tom as we wandered forth perhaps a 
 little dazed. 
 
 " No, I am only confused," was the 
 quiet reply, and Tom had no further 
 word to say that night on any subject. 
 He seemed to be thinking, all to him- 
 self. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE JUDGE OBJECTS TO MAKING A 
 FETICH OF THE SCRIPTURES. 
 
 TOM had evidently been turning the 
 matter over and trying to get out of the 
 confusion of mind in which the Judge's 
 last talk had left him. He seemed to 
 feel that the discussion ought not to go 
 on in this one-sided way, and though he 
 had no great confidence in his own 
 forensic powers, he had made up his 
 mind that he would at least make a state- 
 ment from his point of view. So when 
 the Owls got together again, he made 
 bold to express himself in the terms 
 following, having apparently laid it all 
 out in his mind, but finding it somewhat 
 difficult to give full expression to his 
 ideas: 
 
 " My dear Judge, I just want to state 
 how I look at the matter we were talking 
 about, or rather that you were talking 
 
114 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 about, a week ago. You admit the 
 necessity of some system of religious 
 faith and the benefit of some form of 
 worship. You must therefore accept the 
 fundamental idea of a Creator of the 
 universe having a direct relation to the 
 human race and of a motive and sanction 
 for conduct aside from mere worldly 
 prudence. You must admit some destiny 
 for human beings beyond the struggle for 
 a tolerable existence here. Otherwise 
 you cannot expect to replace, unless for 
 the fortunate and philosophic few, mere 
 selfish motives, looking to immediate 
 satisfaction, with anything higher. Now, 
 admitting any kind of dependence on a 
 higher Power and a beneficent purpose 
 on the part of that higher Power toward 
 the human race, what is there unreason- 
 able in supposing that the Almighty 
 should work out a revelation of his will 
 and purpose through human history, and 
 why should not the record of that revela- 
 tion be regarded as divine? In certain 
 stages of human development what we 
 call ' miracles ' may have been necessary to 
 impress the minds of men with belief in 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. I I 5 
 
 the higher Power, and I see no reason 
 why they may not have been used. It 
 seems to me that there has run through 
 history in ancient Judaism and in Chris- 
 tianity a current of divine revelation, and 
 I cannot see why we should not regard 
 the writings which contain a record of it 
 as sacred, and in a certain sense in- 
 spired." 
 
 " Well," said the Judge, complacently, 
 " the trouble with that theory is that it 
 is not broad enough, and it will not stand 
 the tests which conscientious students 
 must apply to all past records, if they 
 wish to understand them rightly. I do 
 not believe in making a fetich of any 
 writings whatever, or cramping the mind 
 to fit any easy or comfortable explanation 
 of things. I would set no limits to the 
 efforts of the human mind to find out 
 and to understand. I have no objection 
 to a providential theory that will include 
 the whole scheme of human history and 
 its records. Here is the universe to-day, 
 and here is man with his capacities and 
 possibilities, and the history of his prog- 
 ress, and all we know or can know 
 
Il6 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 about a higher Power is derived from a 
 study of these and from our inner con- 
 sciousness. But to my mind that is 
 enough. 
 
 " I take the God of the universe, what- 
 ever human conception of him may be, 
 as actually 'the same yesterday, to-day, 
 and forever,' and the laws of development 
 and progress under his stimulus and guid- 
 ance to be unchanged and unchangeable. 
 I object to taking the local deity of an 
 ancient nomadic tribe as anything but 
 possibly the highest conception of divin- 
 ity existing at that time. If this deity 
 differs little from those of other tribes at 
 first, being supposed to reveal Himself in 
 fire and cloud and storm, delighting in 
 bloody sacrifices, subject to fierce out- 
 breaks of anger and vengeance and fits of 
 repentance and mercy, why should I re- 
 gard it as the actual beginning of a God in 
 which, in this day of enlightenment, I am 
 to believe ? God has not grown up with 
 the human race ; but the human concep- 
 tions of deity have. If a great leader of 
 Israel raised the tribal conception of 
 deity which he found among his people 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. \ I J 
 
 to that of an unseen Ruler of a nation 
 who was to make it great and prosperous, 
 and derived from it laws, and statutes for 
 the government of the people, used it 
 to inspire patriotism and confidence, ele- 
 vated its worship and purged it of the 
 grossness of the earlier conception, what 
 am I to see in that but evidence of prog- 
 ress in that race and of the genius of its 
 first great leader? 
 
 " The God of Israel, to whose alleged 
 commands authority is still attached, 
 does not correspond to your conception 
 of the Deity or mine, whatever you may 
 try to think about it. With the ancient 
 Hebrews, from the birth of their nation 
 religion and politics were one, and wor- 
 ship was patriotism. Hence their gen- 
 ius, their statesmanship, and their philos- 
 ophy were religious, and their teachers 
 and prophets gradually developed and 
 broadened the conception of the Deity, 
 elevated his attributes, purified his 
 worship, and extended his sway finally 
 to all the nations of the earth, at the 
 head of which Israel was to stand. Is this 
 God gradually growing and developing, 
 
Il8 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 or even gradually revealing himself, or is 
 it a gradually developing conception of 
 God, which is not finished yet ? Have 
 not others besides Hebrews contributed 
 to lofty conceptions of the Divine Being 
 in ancient times, and have not modern sci- 
 ence, knowledge, and thought contrib- 
 uted more than all the ancients to a true 
 idea of Deity? Make your ' Divine Prov- 
 idence' cover all peoples, all times, all the 
 teachings of the past and present, and I 
 do not object to your name for it. Ex- 
 tend your ' revelation ' to all human expe- 
 rience and thought, and you may call it 
 divine if you will. Accept all the wisdom 
 of the ages as profitable for teaching, and 
 you may say it is inspired for aught I care. 
 And as for your sacred Scriptures, let 
 their sacredness be determined by their 
 character and usefulness to men and not 
 by the canon of the priests of ages 
 ago. 
 
 " It seems to me peculiarly absurd to 
 keep up a superstitious reverence for 
 that valuable and interesting and in 
 many respects really noble and sublime 
 collection of Hebrew literature known as 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. I 19 
 
 the Old Testament. How many really 
 do preserve the traditional reverence for 
 it, notwithstanding the pretence of the 
 Church? Is it generally talked about 
 and referred to now outside of the church 
 doors wjth any particular reverence ? 
 How many people are shocked by jocose 
 references to the Jonah story or the tale 
 about Daniel in the lion's den or the cir- 
 cumstances of Adam's fall ? Few even 
 of devout people read, for their own de- 
 votion and edification, any but the ethi- 
 cal and poetical books, and those only 
 in detachments and separate chapters, 
 and there is not one in a thousand of 
 moderately-educated people who have a 
 systematic knowledge of the contents of 
 the whole collection. A clergyman who 
 would read the volume through in course 
 before an intelligent congregation would 
 upset half his creed before he got 
 through. A prudent orthodox divine 
 would not dare try the experiment. 
 Why, there is not a more thoroughly 
 human collection of ancient literature 
 in existence, if you read it with your 
 eyes open and your mind free from prej- 
 
J2O MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 udice. It is mainly the attribution to 
 Jehovah of every law and regulation, every 
 plan and purpose of ruler and teacher, 
 every appeal, threat and promise of re- 
 former and prophet, that has imposed its 
 authority so long. But that attribution 
 was natural to the circumstances, after 
 Moses established the theocratic idea 
 and identified pride of race and national 
 patriotism with worship of Jehovah. 
 
 " The writings of the really learned 
 orthodox critics are very diverting to me, 
 and quite as much calculated to impress 
 the purely human character of the Jew- 
 ish literature upon the mind as are the 
 efforts of their free-thinking opponents, 
 and it is curious that they are able to 
 reconcile their own conclusions with the 
 exclusive theory of Divine inspiration to 
 which they cling. All searching criticism 
 only confirms the common-sense view 
 which an unbiased mind would naturally 
 take if you could imagine it to come to 
 the study of the Old Testament without 
 preconceptions. I had what I consider 
 the enormous advantage of escaping all 
 religious teaching as a child and a youth, 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. I 2 I 
 
 though I had plenty of moral instruction, 
 and I have been studying religion more 
 or less in recent years as I would study 
 any other phase of human development, 
 politics for- instance. 
 
 " It is generally admitted now that 
 what are called the books of Mpses were 
 largely made up ages after Moses's day, 
 chiefly about the time of the restoration 
 from Babylonian exile, out of old docu- 
 ments of various origin pieced out with 
 traditions and fragments, and with origi- 
 nal interpolations by the collators. It 
 was rather clumsily done, too, the order 
 of events being sometimes inverted or 
 disjointed and inconsistent accounts be- 
 ing patched together with little effort 
 at harmony. It showed more candor 
 than skill, for your Jewish scribe did not 
 seek literary finish or regard the rights of 
 different authors. Aside from its evi- 
 dently mythological character the account 
 of the creation and the destruction of the 
 human race by a great flood consists of 
 a patchwork of two quite different leg- 
 ends, and its naive assumption of the ex- 
 istence of other people than the Adam 
 
122 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB, 
 
 family in the world at the start and of 
 others than Noah's descendants after the 
 Deluge is not to be swept aside as some- 
 thing that should not be questioned. 
 The laborious efforts to explain these 
 things, to reconcile them with science, 
 and all that, are laughable. They need 
 no explanation, and have nothing to do 
 with science. They are natural enough as 
 one of the many rude attempts of ancient 
 peoples just beginning to study and to 
 write, to account for the origin of things. 
 The world and the human race were to 
 be accounted for, then the Hebrew race 
 and the Jewish nation. There were anal- 
 ogous efforts and similar records among 
 other ancient peoples. All such records 
 are full of legends and marvels, and 
 those of the Jews are rather excep- 
 tional in the lack of imagination and a 
 poetic spirit ; but why sacred or inspired ? 
 Neither is there anything strange in the 
 tales of signs and wonders in connection 
 with the bringing of the Israelites out of 
 Egypt and establishing them in Canaan 
 when we consider that the account was 
 made up from imperfect records and 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. 12$ 
 
 from legends and traditions long after the 
 event, and is known in many respects to 
 be historically inaccurate. How much of 
 the so-called laws of Moses originated 
 with that great lawgiver no man can find 
 out, but it is known that the collection 
 in both its varying versions was put 
 together and published centuries after his 
 time. Of course there were interpola- 
 tions and additions, and accumulations. 
 Otherwise, we must suppose there was no 
 progress in priestly legislation in the long 
 intervals of the monarchy to the reforma* 
 tion of Josiah. O, the whole thing and 
 the process of its accumulation and put- 
 ting in form is so very human, so analo- 
 gous to what was done elsewhere in the 
 world, that the old theories and notions 
 about it are utterly untenable to any one 
 who studies and thinks, or even reads the 
 record itself, in the light of modern 
 knowledge. It is simply astonishing that 
 ink should still be wasted in defence of 
 the fetichism or that peculiar notion of 
 * divine inspiration ' which would authen- 
 ticate these records as infallibly correct. 
 " What is true of the Mosaic books is 
 
124 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 also true of the historical annals that fol- 
 low. They were made up in the form in 
 which we have them long after the events 
 and from various materials. They con- 
 tain crudities and inconsistencies, inver- 
 sions and derangements, injections and 
 excrescences, such as it would be natural 
 to expect, considering the lack of literary 
 workmanship on the part of the scribes 
 of those days. There are some rather 
 curious legends and tales withal, but 
 what is Samson compared to Hercules 
 and Theseus, or Saul's experience with 
 the Witch of Endor and the ghost of 
 Samuel by the side of many ancient ora- 
 cles and Sibylline revelations ? Why 
 deny to those old Jews the right which 
 all other peoples have exercised to ac- 
 count for things and to illustrate their be- 
 lief in the supernatural by the use of the 
 imagination ? 
 
 " I read the Old Testament a good 
 deal, and much of it is mighty good read- 
 ing. It contains a wonderful record of 
 the development of a remarkable people 
 and the growth in the world of religious 
 ideas some of which must still be ac- 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. 125 
 
 cepted as fundamental. But, then, the 
 laws of Moses contain many barbarisms 
 and comparatively little of permanent 
 value. The moral and social standard 
 of the Jews was not high on the whole, 
 even in precepts attributed to Jehovah ; 
 their conception of God was Oriental and 
 one-sided, at first monstrous, then des- 
 potic, and their forms of worship were 
 gross, but doubtless fitted to the condi- 
 tion of their people. They had no notion 
 of the immortality of the soul or of other 
 sanctions for conduct than worldly well- 
 being. All the threats of punishment 
 and promises of reward related to this 
 life. Possibly Moses, who, being edu- 
 cated as an Egyptian prince and priest, 
 was of course familiar with the idea of 
 immortality, purposely kept it out of 
 view in order to bring to bear direct ma- 
 terial motives on the gross minds of his de- 
 graded and slavish people ; perhaps he 
 did it to have no Egyptian associations 
 in their simple theocracy. Higher con- 
 ceptions they derived from other Eastern 
 races after their own ' Divine revelation ' 
 was completed. What good can come 
 
126 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 from continuing to call that collection of 
 their literature which has been kept to- 
 gether so long and translated into so 
 many languages under the name, Old 
 Testament, the inspired word of God or 
 even sacred Scriptures ? What sense is 
 there in making a fetich of it ? 
 
 " You might say, what harm does it do 
 if the delusion operates as a restraint and 
 helps to keep human beings upon their 
 good behavior? My answer is that it is 
 ceasing to have that effect, because peo- 
 ple are ceasing to believe in the old view, 
 and the Church by maintaining it is 
 losing its hold upon honest convictions. 
 I detest all hypocrisy and false pretence 
 and all deliberate use of delusion to con- 
 trol people's conduct. I am persuaded 
 that ministers and a large majority of 
 adult male church members have no be- 
 lief in the old doctrine of Divine Revela- 
 tion and the inspiration of the Scriptures 
 in the exclusive sense in which those 
 phrases have been applied to the He- 
 brews. Why keep up the pretence? 
 The rising generation will not be imposed 
 upon by it ; the godless crowd cannot be 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. 12 J 
 
 won by it ; and more and more earnest, 
 thinking, and educated people will be 
 repelled from the service of the Church. 
 
 " Why, it is the clinging to ' creeds out- 
 worn ' and doctrines decayed that makes 
 the religion of Christianity open to at- 
 tacks that cannot be successfully repelled, 
 and it is melancholy to see great audi- 
 ences paying to be entertained and 
 amused by such attacks. Colonel Inger- 
 soll talks about the * mistakes of Moses ' 
 in matters of science and social regula- 
 tion, and people laugh. But, pray, why 
 should not Moses, or those who wrote 
 about him make mistakes in the infancy 
 of civilization, and what has it to do with 
 anything vital to Christian faith to-day ? 
 Let go the notion that this old record is 
 the Word of God and therefore necessa- 
 rily infallible, and such attacks fall harm- 
 less. When Ingersoll says that the He- 
 brew God of the Moses and Joshua era 
 was, according to modern ideas, a mon- 
 ster in some of his aspects, in his wrath 
 and jealousy and vengeance ; in his de- 
 light in bloody sacrifices ; in his sanction 
 of slavery and polygamy and concubin- 
 
128 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 age, and of atrocities in war, he says what 
 is indisputably true, and all attempts to 
 answer him are impotent. But admit 
 that this was only the crude human con- 
 ception of a deity, reflecting the charac- 
 ter of the people believing in Him, and 
 that these barbarisms belonged to the 
 time and the people, and such onslaughts 
 are harmless. It is not safe to stick to 
 indefensible ground, and that is the 
 trouble with the orthodox disputants in 
 these controversies. The attacks are 
 telling, and doing harm, and it would be 
 an immense gain for mankind if the 
 Christian Church would only take a new 
 position, accepting all the results of 
 learning and reason as parts of its very 
 foundation. Then it could bring to its 
 service the best intellect, the soundest 
 moral conviction, and the most zealous 
 activity, extend its organization and do 
 the work of regenerating mankind, which 
 is needed as much now as ever, but 
 which needs to be carried on by new 
 methods." 
 
 When this discourse ended, Colonel 
 
THE SCRIPTURE FETICH. 1 29 
 
 Bloodgood drew a long breath, as if re- 
 lieved of a tiresome subject, and lighted 
 a fresh cigar. "O well/' he grunted, 
 " what's the use ? Let's get out into the 
 air. I feel as though I had been listen- 
 ing to a sermon." 
 
 Tom seemed bewildered again and 
 somewhat depressed, and hurried away. 
 I remained alone a while, comfortably 
 cogitating and wondering at the various 
 ways in which human brains are occupy- 
 ing themselves nowadays. 
 
IX. 
 
 SWITCHED OFF TO THE QUESTION OF 
 IRISH-AMERICANS. 
 
 " NOW, I tell you, Judge," the Colonel 
 was saying as I entered the midnight 
 conclave, "all this palaver of yours 
 about what the Church and church peo- 
 ple, ought to do is of no earthly use. You 
 have your own views of society and 
 morals and religion, and I have mine, 
 and, thank goodness, the time has gone 
 by when anybody can interfere with 
 them or prevent our expressing them, 
 and why should we worry ourselves about 
 the beliefs or the ways of doing things 
 of people who are more pious than we 
 are ? They may be narrow and bigoted 
 and short-sighted and all the rest of it, 
 but it doesn't hurt us, and we can't help 
 it. I have no sort of faith in your new 
 reformation and putting Christianity on 
 a basis of modern thought. Things will 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 1 3 I 
 
 drift along, and the evils and abuses 
 which you think the Church ought to 
 tackle, whatever they are, will probably 
 get worse until society in self-defence 
 will organize into associations for ethical 
 culture or moral improvement, and this, 
 that, and the other thing to teach peo- 
 ple what their own self-interest requires. 
 Meantime, the Church will stick to the 
 miraculous and the supernatural, and 
 work upon the remnants of supersti- 
 tion and drag more and more behind 
 the age. Anyhow, you and I won't 
 live to see any material change in its 
 attitude. Let's talk about something 
 else." 
 
 "All right, Colonel," replied the Judge, 
 with a cheery laugh, " I am not trying to 
 head a moral and religious revolution, but 
 only give my personal views on such mat- 
 ters as come up. I doubt if any one man 
 can greatly hurry up the evolution of 
 the human race or if any institution can 
 do much to hinder it. Certainly private 
 conversation in the recesses of the As- 
 phodel will not have much effect upon 
 it one way or another. Start your own 
 
132 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 topic, for you must have something on 
 your mind." 
 
 " Well, I want to ask the assembled 
 company a question, a sort of national 
 conundrum. What, in your opinion, is 
 the greatest calamity that ever befell this 
 country? " 
 
 The assembled company was not in a 
 mood for answering conundrums, but 
 Mr. Benedict ventured the opinion that 
 the African slave-trade in which our en- 
 terprising fathers indulged might be con- 
 sidered quite a calamity and the source 
 of greater calamities ; but that did not 
 lead up to the Colonel's train of thought, 
 and he repudiated it as an answer to 
 the question. 
 
 " I have no fancy for going into blind 
 pools or answering blind questions," 
 quoth the Judge; "and as you evidently 
 put the question because you have an 
 answer for it yourself, out with it. As 
 the middleman at the minstrels would 
 say, What is the greatest calamity that 
 ever befell this country ? " 
 
 " The potato rot in Ireland." 
 
 "Well," said the innocent and short- 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 133 
 
 seeing Tom, " I should say that that was 
 a great calamity for Ireland, but how was 
 it a calamity for this country ? " 
 
 " On the contrary, it was a compara- 
 tive blessing to Ireland and for Irishmen; 
 but for this country I consider it an 
 awful calamity in starting that tide of 
 emigration that has played the devil with 
 us ever since. Why, it sent into this 
 country about the most undesirable, the 
 most mischievous, the most damnable 
 element of population that could have 
 been scraped out of the corners of the 
 earth, and a large proportion of the pub- 
 lic evils that we have to contend against 
 are due to this infernal Irish element." 
 
 " Oh, come now," replied the Judge, 
 deprecatingly, "you are addicted to ex- 
 aggeration, and you put it too strongly." 
 
 "Not a bit, not a bit! Look at the 
 criminal records and notice the propor- 
 tion of Irish names among those who are 
 guilty of crimes of violence and disorder. 
 If there is a row on the street there is 
 pretty sure to be an Irishman at the bot- 
 tom of it. Who constitute the 'gangs' 
 that infest certain quarters of the city and 
 
134 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 terrorize the neighborhood ? Irishmen 
 every time. If a picnic or social gather- 
 ing degenerates into a drunken fight it al- 
 ways appears that the rowdy element that 
 does the mischief is Irish. Talk about 
 the evils of the liquor traffic ! Who keep 
 the worst and most disorderly saloons ? 
 Who violate and evade the laws and show 
 a contemptuous disrespect for public 
 authority in the matter? Your McGlorys 
 and Geoghegans and Flanagans and Shar- 
 keys and others of their ilk, with mighty 
 few exceptions. They seem to take to 
 whiskey-selling and politics as ducks take 
 to water, and this Irish mixing of whis- 
 key and politics is accountable for much 
 of the degeneration in both. Take the 
 labor question and the conduct of labor 
 organizations. The noisy, blatant, push- 
 ing Irishmen, full of ignorance, preju- 
 dice and passion, and devoid of sense, 
 intellectual or moral, are what set the 
 business astray. It is they that bring in 
 boycotting, violence, and unjust methods, 
 which do harm to both sides and good to 
 neither. It is the Irishmen among work- 
 ingmen that are all the time setting up 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 135 
 
 labor parties and using the right of 
 suffrage as a bludgeon to intimidate 
 people who know better into doing fool- 
 ish things. They bedevil the prison 
 labor question and a thousand other 
 questions through the labor vote and 
 the Irish vote, which the politicians 
 dread because it may turn the party 
 scale any time, without regard to sense 
 or reason. 
 
 " It is because the Irish vote is not 
 guided by principle or conviction or 
 patriotism or sense of right, or anything 
 else but Irish prejudice and recklessness, 
 that it is so formidable and demoralizing. 
 It plays the very devil with politicians 
 and public men, who are afraid of its 
 rushing to one side or the other and 
 upsetting their calculations, simply be- 
 cause it cannot be enlightened or rea- 
 soned with, but is liable to be swayed 
 by all manner of appeals to prejudice and 
 passion. How utterly impotent and 
 absurd that whole Murchison-Sackville 
 business would have been if there had 
 been no Irish in this country, or if the 
 Irish were people of sense ! It is their 
 
136 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 disregard of reason and lack of sense of 
 moral responsibility, their disrespect for 
 public authority and the necessary re- 
 straints of law, that have caused most of 
 the evils of public administration, es- 
 pecially in cities. They push into the 
 retail liquor business and ward politics, 
 take possession of primary meetings and 
 get into office, and what is the conse- 
 quence? They have no scruple about 
 buying or selling votes or public privi- 
 leges or legislation, and they are sure to 
 use any position they can get for their 
 own benefit and that of their friends, 
 without regard to public rights or public 
 interests. There are other rascals in pol- 
 itics and in office, but the Irish have led 
 the way, established evil practices, and 
 become so much of a force that the 
 others are emboldened, and men of de- 
 cent instincts are overwhelmed or driven 
 out. The old Tweed business would 
 have been impossible but for the Irish 
 power and influence in New York poli- 
 tics. So would ' boodle ' aldermen and the 
 infamous buying and selling of franchises 
 and of legislation. It is the Irish de- 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 137 
 
 pravity and cussedness, with its reckless 
 push and grab, that has been the main 
 factor in demoralizing politics, municipal 
 administration, State legislation and the 
 whole business. 
 
 " Another thing. Who brought the 
 Catholic Church into this country and set 
 up its influence against the very spirit 
 of our institutions ? The Irish. The at- 
 tacks upon the public-school system come 
 from them and their priests. They are 
 responsible for diverting public funds 
 from public purposes to the support of 
 private sectarian institutions. The Cath- 
 olic Church would undermine the very 
 principles of our Government if it could, 
 and its power is altogether out of propor- 
 tion to the number of its adherents on 
 account of its aggressive and insidious 
 methods and its control over that Irish 
 vote of which I was speaking. 
 
 " Besides, when great questions of 
 national policy are to be settled, involv- 
 ing the welfare of the country and its 
 people, how do the Irish act in politics? 
 Do they study, and try to understand 
 the questions at issue, and act upon rea- 
 
138 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 son and conviction with reference to the 
 interests of the United States, or are 
 they swayed by what some party conven- 
 tion or some prominent politician may 
 have said about Ireland or the Irish cause 
 on the other side of the ocean ? Is love 
 of America and her institutions and de- 
 votion to her welfare more potent than 
 hatred of Great Britain, even when 
 nothing that concerns either Ireland or 
 Great Britain is in any way involved ? 
 That peaceful and profitable relations 
 with Great Britain are our best policy is 
 plain enough to any man of sense, and 
 nobody would think of seeking or risking 
 any other, unless forced to it by most 
 potent reasons, but for the pernicious 
 influence of the cursed Irish. Bah ! No 
 calamity ever befell this country to be 
 compared with that which set the flow of 
 Irish immigration to our shores, and our 
 strongest ground of resentment against 
 Great Britain is the policy that reduced 
 the Irish to the necessity of emigrat- 
 ing." 
 
 "Well, well," ejaculated the Judge, 
 when Colonel Bloodgood stopped for 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 139 
 
 breath. " Got through with your tirade 
 against your fellow-citizens of Irish ex- 
 traction? " 
 
 " I don't know whether I have or not. 
 There are probably a lot of counts in the 
 indictment that I have forgotten to men- 
 tion, but perhaps I have made my reason 
 clear for deploring that potato rot." 
 
 " O, but," quickly replied the Judge, 
 " I imagine this immigration would have 
 come if that particular event had not 
 occurred, though not with such a sudden 
 rush at the start. There are other causes 
 back of that, causes that made the fail- 
 ure of one particular crop produce a 
 famine in a country naturally capable of 
 providing for a much larger population. 
 There is some basis of truth for your 
 sweeping assertions, of course ; but they 
 do no sort of justice to the Irish. I do 
 not believe their coming here will prove 
 to be a national calamity to the country 
 in the end. I consider them very good 
 raw material for citizens ; rather too raw, 
 perhaps, and introduced too suddenly 
 and rapidly for the immediate good of 
 the body politic, but destined in the 
 
140 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 long run to furnish a very excellent and 
 useful strain to our conglomerate popu- 
 lation. 
 
 " You must consider why the Irish 
 exhibit some unpleasant characteristics. 
 Aside from the fact that they are an 
 impulsive race, rather apt to feel more 
 strongly than they think, the experience 
 of generations has had a great effect upon 
 them as a people, and their experience 
 has been altogether exceptional. You 
 speak of their disrespect for public 
 authority and their disregard for law. 
 Well, for generations they have had a 
 foreign authority imposed upon them 
 which has had very little regard for their 
 rights and interests, and they have hated 
 and resisted it, not without reason. They 
 have been accustomed to have laws made 
 for them, with very little voice of their 
 own in the matter, and these laws have sac- 
 rificed them and their substance for the 
 profit or benefit of others, and so they have 
 come to regard it as a merit to evade the 
 laws and fight against those set to en- 
 force them. Consider the confiscation of 
 their lands ; the establishment of alien 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 141 
 
 ownership ; the system of landlordism, 
 absenteeism, the extraction of the wealth 
 of the soil to be carried off and spent 
 elsewhere, and the impoverishment of its 
 occupants ; the crushing of Irish indus- 
 tries, one after another, in the interest of 
 English trade, and the destruction of the 
 possibilities of commerce in Ireland it- 
 self by a cruel and selfish policy. All 
 this has produced at once poverty and 
 ignorance, for education comes only 
 through some degree of freedom and 
 prosperity. The unjust oppressions and 
 repressions only intensified attachment to 
 the Catholic Church, which became the 
 only friendly power the people could 
 look up to. What reason have these 
 people had for attachment to civil 
 authority, respect for laws, and devotion 
 to the interests of the Government?" 
 
 " But I am not talking about the Irish 
 in Ireland," answered the Colonel. "I 
 will admit all you please about the 
 wrongs they have suffered and the rea- 
 sons they have at home for hating Eng- 
 land. But when they come over here 
 and become citizens why should they 
 
142 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 bring their Irish cause and their anti- 
 British feeling into our affairs, and main- 
 tain an attitude toward authority and 
 legal restraint here that they have no rea- 
 son for?" 
 
 " Because you cannot expect a people 
 to be transformed all at once by a change 
 of skies. I do not count it against them 
 by any means that they retain their keen 
 attachment for their native land and 
 their kindred, and feel an intense sympa- 
 thy for the cause which they leave behind 
 without meaning to turn their backs upon 
 it. I do not wonder in the least that 
 they cherish their hatred of England and 
 their love and devotion for their Church 
 and their priests. As to their failure to 
 respect authority and law and to appre- 
 ciate the demands of government here, 
 the habits and tendencies produced by 
 generations of experience will not change 
 suddenly under new conditions. Their 
 lack of education and discipline cannot 
 be supplied all at once ; the results of a 
 total inexperience in self-government and 
 in the regulation and management of 
 affairs cannot be overcome in a few years' 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 143 
 
 time, and the attitude of mind and feel- 
 ing produced by oppression and wrong 
 will persist in spite of everything. That 
 the mass of Irish in this country have not 
 the right appreciation of the duties and 
 responsibilities of citizenship, a sound 
 feeling in regard to the submission due to 
 public authority and the respect due to 
 law, or an enlightened capacity for the 
 tasks of citizens in legislation and admin- 
 istration, is not at all strange, and cannot 
 be regarded as * inexcusable/ " 
 
 " That's all right enough," exclaimed 
 the Colonel, " if they only had a decent 
 modesty and would let things alone until 
 they learn something. But they seem to 
 think that they can run things and that 
 they have a right to run them, and they 
 push in, to the disgust of their betters, 
 and make a mess of it. They want to 
 make laws and administer them and vio- 
 late them all at once." 
 
 "Well," replied the imperturbable 
 Judge, " perhaps the fact that they have 
 so long been deprived of the powers and 
 rights of citizens and have been striving 
 so hard to get a chance to use them may 
 
144 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 account for the eagerness with which 
 they plunge into political activity and 
 the ardor with which they seek opportu- 
 nities for doing something in the way of 
 government. Of course, so long as they 
 are badly equipped by education, train- 
 ing, and experience, and have no clear 
 standard of action worthy of the citizens 
 of a free country, the practical result is 
 in many ways bad. But the qualities 
 they display have their good side. Their 
 strong attachment to their own land and 
 race may in time be transferred to their 
 adopted country and converted into a 
 deep and wholesome patriotism. Their 
 eagerness and activity in politics and 
 public affairs are not bad things in them- 
 selves. If people of native blood and 
 of long American descent had more of 
 that disposition and did some of the 
 pushing it would be better for them. A 
 willingness to do public work needs only 
 to be united with capacity and high 
 motives to become a salutary force, and 
 this Irish peculiarity of seeking a chance 
 to share in making and administering the 
 laws would not be mischievous if prop- 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 145 
 
 erly inspired and guided, as it may be in 
 time. 
 
 " We must look on the favorable as 
 well as the unfavorable side of the Irish- 
 man as a possible American, and consider 
 what he may become under the influ- 
 ence of education and political experi- 
 ence. While you find fault with the 
 Irish character, you have probably known 
 of individual cases in which it is revealed 
 in an exceptional attachment, fidelity, and 
 trustworthiness. We know there have 
 been Irish patriots, statesmen, orators, 
 judges, equal to the best. With our bad 
 specimens in the Board of Aldermen, the 
 Legislature, and elsewhere we have still 
 found even here and in these days some 
 of our ablest and most upright public 
 men among those of Irish birth or de- 
 scent. It shows what they are capable 
 of and what they may come to as a fac- 
 tor in our citizenship. Let their love of 
 liberty, their strong attachment to race 
 and country, their ardor for public activ- 
 ity, and even their fidelity to their 
 Church be gradually pervaded by a truer 
 enlightenment and toned up to a higher 
 
146 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 level of real conscientiousness converted 
 into genuine American patriotism as 
 the best tendencies and developments of 
 the race show that they may be, and the 
 Irish will become a valuable element in 
 our population. We need an infusion of 
 their traits, and when they really get 
 infused into the national blood they will 
 have a good effect. 
 
 " I tell you it is the combination of 
 races and characteristics that is to make 
 the American character great and solid in 
 the future. The English current as modi- 
 fied by the soil is deep and strong, and 
 will be the solvent, but it will be improved 
 by the Irish ardor and self-assertion, the 
 German sturdiness and liberality, the 
 French lightness and keenness, and nil 
 the other moral and intellectual ingredi- 
 ents of nationality, when they become 
 blended, as they will in time. You can- 
 not make a new people in a generation, 
 and we who are in the seething that the 
 first mingling of elements produces are 
 disturbed by the commotion ; but the 
 combination will be effected in time, the 
 effervescence will subside, and the com- 
 
THE IRISH-AMERICANS. 147 
 
 pound will be wholesome. The strong 
 Irish element has been poured in some- 
 what suddenly and rapidly, and it has 
 some of the qualities of quick-lime, but it 
 will furnish one of the best ingredients 
 after all. The process of assimilation 
 will go on with increasing rapidity as the 
 first crudity of the elements is overcome 
 and the streams of raw material diminish 
 in volume, relatively to the whole mass 
 at least, and we shall emerge safely from 
 the incidental turmoil of the operation of 
 compounding a people." 
 
 " O well, I suppose so," responded the 
 Colonel, with something like a groan. 
 "You are always looking away back or 
 away ahead and finding comfort in the 
 long run. But I am obliged to do my 
 living just about now, and I would like 
 to feel that something is finished and set- 
 tled down, and to have things done 
 decently and in order while I have some 
 concern with them. I can't reconcile 
 myself to nuisances because there are 
 forces at work that will abate them after 
 I am dead and gone; and to my mind 
 
148 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 just here and now the Irish in America 
 are an infernal nuisance." 
 
 With this vigorous assertion of his 
 original opinion the Colonel arose and 
 led the way to a break-up of the party, 
 a thing he does only when unusually 
 excited. 
 
X. 
 
 THE JUDGE GETS BACK TO MOSES AND 
 THE PROPHETS. 
 
 TOM BENEDICT seems to have got into 
 a very uneasy state of mind lately. 
 
 For my part, I like to hear the Judge 
 talk, but am quite indifferent as to the 
 subject of his discourse. I have no fond- 
 ness at all for theological or religious 
 discussion, and was always rather bored 
 by it until I fell into the company of the 
 Asphodel " Owls." The Colonel makes 
 no concealment of his aversion to that 
 kind of talk, and the Judge evidently has 
 no preference for it. He rarely starts a 
 subject himself, and can talk on one 
 thing as well as another, and he seems to 
 be about equally interested in all kinds 
 of human topics. 
 
 At first Tom was disturbed by the free 
 and easy discussion of religious ques- 
 tions, and seemed to be disposed to avoid 
 
150 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 it. Then his mind appeared to get 
 started on a novel line of thought novel 
 to him, though one would think it rather 
 hackneyed by this time and he became 
 anxious to have the Judge go farther in 
 the direction that had at first alarmed 
 him. The Colonel had introduced that 
 Irish conundrum of his for the purpose of 
 getting clear of a field of discussion that 
 was distasteful to him, and anticipated 
 that it might be dropped and something 
 fresh brought up at each sitting. The 
 Judge showed no inclination to bring the 
 old matter up again. But Tom, as I say, 
 had been put into an uneasy frame of 
 mind, and evidently could not get out of 
 his head the questions that had been 
 raised. Neither was he satisfied with 
 the way in which they were left. He of 
 the settled faith and confident convic- 
 tions, to whom a questioning of the basis 
 of traditional beliefs had been rather 
 shocking than otherwise, was the one now 
 to revert to the disquieting subject, as the 
 dazzled moth is impelled to return to the 
 light that is perilous to its fluttering life. 
 Conversation had been drifting among 
 
MOSES AND THE P2WPHETS. l^l 
 
 desultory preliminaries and had settled 
 down to nothing definite at the next 
 convocation after the Irish discussion, 
 when Tom, who had appeared to be 
 under some uncommon constraint, finally 
 broke out : 
 
 "Judge Truman" I believe I have 
 not let the Judge's name out before ; but 
 no matter, let it stand, he isn't ashamed 
 of it "Judge Truman, I am not satis- 
 fied with the way the great subject of 
 Divine revelation has been left in our 
 previous talks. I understood you to say 
 that you had no objection to such 
 phrases as Divine revelation and Divine 
 Providence if their application was 
 broad enough, and yet you do not accept 
 the Scriptures as sacred in any special 
 sense, or the record which they contain 
 as a revelation of God's providence any 
 more than any other human record. I 
 don't think I have a clear idea of your 
 position, and if it is not tiresome to the 
 others, I should like to hear a further 
 explanation." 
 
 The Colonel uttered a half-contempt- 
 uous grunt, rolled his cigar about under 
 
152 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 his white mustache, and gave it a new 
 grip with his teeth, but made no objec- 
 tion, and I readily acquiesced, and so the 
 Judge opened his discourse in his quiet, 
 off-hand way. 
 
 "It really seems rather queer to me," 
 he began, " that in the light of the knowl- 
 edge and thought of the day, accessible 
 to everybody that can read and has ears 
 to hear, these should be regarded as open 
 questions at all, rather than accepted 
 commonplaces; and the queerest thing of 
 all is that it should cause distress of mind 
 to intelligent and educated people to 
 accept the conclusions of reason in place 
 of the traditions of the Church : but I 
 suppose I am unable to make sufficient 
 allowance for the force of teachings that 
 have come down from generation to gen- 
 eration in families, where they begin 
 early with the feelings and sentiments 
 and get little hold on the intellect. 
 
 " What you call my position is not 
 mine particularly. It is simply the posi- 
 tion that any rational mind is impelled to 
 hold if it gets rid of prejudices and does 
 its own thinking in the light of this 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 153 
 
 present year of grace as it shines on the 
 American metropolis. 
 
 "The highest conception that we can 
 now form of the God of the universe, 
 accepting all that science and history and 
 reason teach, is of course nearer to a true 
 conception than any that was possible 
 before this present age of the world ; and 
 whatever the Almighty may be now, he 
 was at the beginning of human history, 
 and has been all through it, and will be 
 to the end. He was not one thing to 
 Moses and the prophets, another thing 
 to the apostles, and yet another to the 
 Christian Church of the Middle Ages 
 and to the churches, mosques, and tem- 
 ples of to-day. It is humanity that has 
 changed and not divinity ; it is humanity 
 and not divinity that varies all over the 
 earth now. If the Almighty has looked 
 after the development of the human race 
 at large and in detail in the sense implied 
 in speaking of Divine Providence, I opine 
 that he had just as much to do with 
 ancient Egyptian and Persian civilization 
 as with that of Canaan and Judaea, just 
 as much with China and India and Greece 
 
154 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 and Rome as with Palestine. People 
 speak of such men as Washington and 
 Lincoln and Grant as having been raised 
 up by Providence at critical times for a 
 special service. Well, in a broad sense, 
 that may be so. I never dispute such 
 statements, though I may interpret them 
 in my own way, but I am sure that they 
 are raised up by Providence just as much 
 as Moses and Joshua and David were, 
 and that the annals of modern history 
 and literature contain just as much of 
 revelation as those of any ancient people 
 whatever. 
 
 " Take this question of Moses and the 
 prophets, which signifies practically all 
 the human history of the Old Testament. 
 Now, as I have said before, I have a 
 great admiration for Moses and his work, 
 and only wish the record could be dis- 
 tinctly reduced to its historical elements 
 and Moses could get full credit for what 
 he did. He was a great leader among his 
 people, a good deal of a statesman for 
 the rude age in which he lived, in short, 
 a genius, appearing at just the right time 
 for a great work. Perhaps that is Provi- 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 155 
 
 dential, but I do not see how it differs 
 essentially from the appearance of any 
 other great genius who turns to the task 
 of his time and people, which is waiting 
 for the hand that can perform it, and gets 
 the thing done. We now know that the 
 record of Moses and what he did was 
 made up ages after his time out of vari- 
 ous materials handed down through 
 priests and scribes and mingled with tra- 
 ditions and legends. The accumulations 
 of priestly legislation were all attributed 
 to him and through him to Jehovah, and 
 the mass cannot be fully analyzed now, 
 and it would be of no particular use if it 
 could. The record is framed in myths 
 and the kind of explanations that always 
 accompany the first attempt to account 
 for known events. 
 
 " First, the world and its inhabitants are 
 accounted for in a rude fashion ; then the 
 Hebrew race and its claims upon the 
 territory it seized and occupied, and 
 finally the bondage and oppression in 
 Egypt of the descendants of Israel, from 
 which Moses rescued them. Doubtless 
 Abraham may be regarded as a person- 
 
156 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 ification of the ancestral Hebrew, who 
 impressed strong characteristics upon his 
 race, and the patriarch story probably 
 has elements of history in it. But the 
 Jehovah and the Elohim to whom 
 so much is attributed are just exactly 
 as historical as Baal and Dagon, or 
 Zeus and Jupiter. It is no more strange 
 of this than of any other primitive 
 people that they should attribute every- 
 thing to their deity, for they all did 
 it. The Joseph story is to my mind 
 the most interesting of Scripture legends, 
 and there is doubtless the shadow of 
 historic fact in it. But famine in a re- 
 gion of deserts and watercourses was no 
 uncommon thing and always meant the 
 shifting of locality by nomadic tribes 
 dependent upon their herds and flocks. 
 The settling in Egypt was a natural event 
 enough and the subsequent oppression 
 was nothing strange. But the great 
 achievement was the rescue of that peo- 
 ple from bondage, the making of a nation 
 in what was called * the wilderness,' and 
 the establishing of that nation in the 
 land which it claimed as the heritage of 
 
MOSES AND THE PXOPHETS. 157 
 
 its forefathers. That was a great exploit, 
 and the man who conceived and carried 
 it out should have at least as much credit 
 for it as other great men get for what 
 they do. 
 
 " Moses understood the Egyptians as 
 well as the Israelites, and he took ad- 
 vantage of the periodical plagues and 
 scourges to which they were subject and 
 of their superstitions ; he fanned the an- 
 cestral pride of his own people and ex- 
 cited their hopes of freedom and of be- 
 coming one of the nations of the earth, 
 and he was remarkably favored by circum- 
 stances, as other men of genius have been 
 at critical times since then. So he got 
 that people out of Pharoah's clutches 
 with great skill and energy, and put the 
 Red Sea between them and the land of 
 bondage. Of course, in after ages the 
 achievement was surrounded with signs 
 and wonders and mythical doings, but 
 what of it ? So have other great achieve- 
 ments been enveloped in the same way. 
 
 " I take that Pentateuchal account of 
 the wandering in the wilderness to be 
 mainly mythical. Historical light reaches 
 
158 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 that far with uncertain glimmerings, and 
 we know that Moses had got his people 
 into a country where they could live and 
 wait. Their ancestors were nomadic and 
 accustomed to wandering with flocks and 
 herds. Headquarters were established at 
 the great well of Kadesh. Around the 
 rescued people were related tribes from 
 which they received accessions. Canaan 
 was occupied by a stronger people than 
 they, and to get possession was no small 
 undertaking. Moses was not fool enough 
 to rush helter-skelter over Jordan with an 
 unorganized and undisciplined mass of 
 people unfit for war and not ready for 
 national existence. He addressed him- 
 self to the task of organizing, disciplin- 
 ing, training, and preparing that people 
 for its great undertaking, and it is no 
 wonder if it took forty years and was 
 attended with difficulties and perplexi- 
 ties, and if at last he had to leave the 
 actual invasion to a military leader whom 
 he had succeeded in raising up. 
 
 "You must remember that after all 
 this was practically a mere tribe of peo- 
 ple, divided into clans, the population of 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 159 
 
 a good-sized county, and that the land 
 which they looked upon as theirs, and 
 which they were determined to get pos- 
 session of, was not much larger than the 
 State of Connecticut. They had to wait 
 and to prepare themselves, and to get ac- 
 cessions from neighboring tribes and to 
 look out for a favorable opportunity for 
 attack, when the Canaanites had trouble 
 on their hands. And after all, there was 
 no driving out and taking full possession, 
 but a long struggle occupying hundreds 
 of years, a gradual conquest and subjec- 
 tion, and an amalgamation more or less 
 complete with the former occupants of 
 the territory. It was a process quite 
 analogous to others going on from time 
 to time in the world's history. 
 
 " But I am wandering somewhat from 
 my main point, which was simply to men- 
 tion that Moses, as a typical Biblical 
 character, was simply a man using human 
 agencies to accomplish terrestrial objects 
 for his people. 
 
 " Now I am going to make one of my 
 blunt assertions that you, at least, my 
 dear Tom, are apt to regard as startling, 
 
l6o All D NIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 if not shocking. The work of Moses was 
 political, and not religious in any modern 
 sense. The so-called theocracy which he 
 established was a matter of politics and 
 statesmanship, with a purpose as worldly 
 as the laws of Solon or the Constitution 
 of the United States. I do not mean 
 that he did not share in his people's 
 belief in their God or in their awe of the 
 dreadful power of Jehovah which they 
 beheld in the operations of the elements, 
 but he developed and applied that belief 
 for the purpose of giving them the soli- 
 darity of a nation. He reminded them 
 of the traditional promises to Abraham, 
 Isaac, and Jacob, and tried to impress 
 them with confidence in their fulfilment. 
 One thing he must have or fail in his 
 design, and that was submission and 
 obedience. He stood little chance of 
 getting it for himself, but he might get 
 it for Jehovah, and he strove to fill the 
 minds of the people with fear and dread 
 of that Being and to keep them in con- 
 stant subjection to commands from One 
 with power to punish as well as to re- 
 ward. He must keep the people to- 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS, l6l 
 
 gether, preserve their identity, and fill 
 them with patriotic ardor for their own 
 great cause, to prevent them from min- 
 gling with other tribes and being absorbed 
 in them. 
 
 " The most emphatic commands and 
 fiercest threats were directed against the 
 worship of the other gods of those tribes, 
 or any form of worship akin to it. And 
 rightly too, for all of the idolatrous 
 paganisms involved such worship of the 
 powers of nature as led peoples and 
 priesthoods into the foulest and most 
 obscene practices, ruinous to all physical, 
 mental and moral stamina. Half the laws 
 and ordinances were intended to fix the 
 minds of the people in subjection to the 
 unseen Ruler and Leader whom Moses 
 professed to represent, and to keep their 
 thoughts upon His promises and threats. 
 That was the purpose of the elaborate 
 worship and the offerings upon the altars, 
 of the strict Sabbath and the periodical 
 feasts. The ' Jehovah 'the 'I am ' 
 of the Mosaic announcement was a pure, 
 wholesome and holy conception of deity; 
 but he was Israel's God and the enemy 
 
1 62 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 of all other gods, and he was capable of 
 destructive anger and fury of which all 
 must beware. He must be obeyed or all 
 would be lost, and the theocratic system 
 was intended to keep this people in sub- 
 jection to leadership and to government." 
 
 " But you do not mean," exclaimed 
 Tom, " that Moses deceived the people 
 of Israel to secure obedience ? " 
 
 " Well, this is said to have been some 
 four thousand years ago, and it was a 
 rude stage of intellectual and moral 
 development. How many great leaders 
 in political movements since then have 
 used the means to control masses of peo- 
 ple which they found to be most effectual 
 for the purpose ! Your judgment is 
 warped by the habit of regarding those 
 old Hebrews as different from human 
 nature elsewhere and since. Haven't we 
 living evidences of some of the character- 
 istics of that race in which inherited pecu- 
 liarities are especially persistent ? Are 
 there no instances of deception in the ac- 
 counts of Jacob or in the conduct of other 
 ancient Israelitish rulers than Moses, de- 
 ceptions even which are openly attributed 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 163 
 
 to the counsel of Jehovah? Moses had 
 an intense and fiery nature ; he was in 
 dead earnest ; he had turned his back upon 
 the delights of civilization and royalty ; 
 he had, like Mohammed after him, lived 
 in the deserts alone with his projects and 
 his God ; he was absolutely consecrated 
 to his great work. So Moses may have 
 believed in the promises and purposes of 
 Jehovah, and regarded himself as an 
 instrument in carrying them out : but it 
 was his own plans and commands that he 
 always attributed to that source, and his 
 own scheme of worship and of govern- 
 ment for which he claimed a divine sanc- 
 tion, and I have no doubt he used ' signs 
 and wonders ' so far as he could to im- 
 press the people, without any actual 
 supernatural intervention. 
 
 " Why, think for one moment ; in spite 
 of all your prejudices and teachings you 
 cannot possibly identify that Hebrew 
 Deity with your own conception of God. 
 Then it was not a reality, but the concep- 
 tion of the time and the people, and a 
 mere popular conception of Deity does 
 not give actual commands and make 
 
164 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 actual demonstrations of a concrete pres- 
 ence. Consider, further, that the record 
 which we are considering was made up 
 long after the events, and we cannot 
 fully separate the real Moses from the 
 half-mythical man of God which he be- 
 came. 
 
 " I tell you, the theocracy and the 
 theocratic system was a great thing, and 
 served a great purpose, but it was as 
 much a human device as the system of 
 Lycurgus in Sparta. It was the means 
 by which the Hebrew nation was estab- 
 lished and made great. It was not very 
 lofty so far as social, domestic, and per- 
 sonal virtues are concerned, although it 
 was far above the level of the times ; but 
 it was shrewdly devised for the safety of 
 the community, and inculcated those pre- 
 cepts that were for the security of the 
 state. It had to do wholly with the 
 earthly well-being of one people, and its 
 religious sentiment was in reality mainly 
 a sentiment of patriotism. 
 
 " Moses accomplished his work, and 
 the nation got itself on foot after a fash- 
 ion, and had its worldly vicissitudes. It 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 165 
 
 ruled itself through judges, as they were 
 called, though really they seem to have 
 been gallant military leaders, and at 
 length they set up a kingdom. It had 
 its wars and struggles, which developed, 
 as other such struggles have, a great con- 
 queror and king in the person of David. 
 It grew in wealth and power and luxury, 
 and under Solomon rivalled the grandeur 
 of other nations. It became corrupt and 
 divided ; and it was overrun and humbled 
 by other nations. 
 
 " Read the story with open eyes and a 
 clear head. The tale is interesting and 
 instructive. Don't let dogmas and super- 
 stition spoil it for you, as they have for 
 so many people. I believe if the Old 
 Testament could be stripped of those 
 antique wrappings that have so long 
 mummified it, it would be read much 
 more than it is, and would contribute 
 more to the enlightenment of the world. 
 I would like to see the superstitious view 
 of it dispelled and a sensible one ac- 
 cepted, not for the purpose of weakening 
 its influence, but in order to get rid of 
 distorted views which are a hindrance 
 
1 66 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 to its proper and wholesome influence. I 
 believe it would then be read and studied 
 much more than it is now, for the Bible- 
 reading habit seems to me to have largely 
 gone out. An aversion to it has been 
 bred in healthy minds by theology and 
 dogmatism, and it is a pity. 
 
 " I know it is claimed that the Bible 
 is studied more widely by the people at 
 large to-day than ever before. If so, I am 
 glad of it, although that has not been my 
 observation ; but to whatever extent this 
 is true, it will be found to be in conse- 
 quence of the admission of the light of 
 new discoveries, fresh criticism in philol- 
 ogy, and in general the application of my 
 favorite solvent common sense to the 
 interpretation of its poetic legends and 
 Oriental mysticisms, making the Script- 
 ures teachers of ethics rather than of 
 theological systems. 
 
 "Another good effect of a common- 
 sense view of its character would be to 
 promote the collection of the really valu- 
 able and instructive parts without any 
 rubbish, and the proper collating and 
 simplifying of records of events, with 
 
MOSES AND THE PROPHETS. 1 67 
 
 rational elucidations and explanations. 
 We might get a common-sense commen- 
 tary in place of the bewildering mass of 
 lumber which laborious divines have piled 
 all over it." 
 
 " But," said Tom, as the Judge paused, 
 " I thought you were going to say some- 
 thing about the prophets as well as about 
 Moses. It seems to me you will have to ad- 
 mit some special inspiration in their case." 
 
 " Well, it is getting late, and I 
 reckon I have said enough for the pres- 
 ent. I don't believe the Colonel could 
 stand any more to-night ; but perhaps, if 
 it is not too wearisome for him, we can 
 take the subject up again." 
 
 "O, I can stand it," the Colonel re- 
 joined, cheerfully, pulling at his cigar to 
 bring up its dying fire. " In fact, I 
 rather like to hear you ripping and tear- 
 ing the old creeds and dogmas, and let- 
 ting fresh air into the tombs of theology, 
 and then we may get the light of reason 
 and common sense into Tom's head, and 
 it will do him good. He is worth saving, 
 and I am willing to be sacrificed in the 
 good work." 
 
1 68 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 So the party separated, the Judge and 
 the Colonel going out arm in arm, and 
 Tom and I sauntering up the street and 
 quietly talking the matter over regardless 
 of the late hour. Tom was uncommonly 
 calm about it. 
 
XL 
 
 MORE DISCOURSE ABOUT ANCIENT 
 SCRIPTURE. 
 
 " DON'T forget that you promised to 
 give us your ideas about the prophets," 
 said Tom rather anxiously to the Judge, 
 as the conversation seemed to be drifting 
 off in a wholly different direction. 
 
 " Did I make a promise? " responded 
 the Judge, lifting his eyebrows. "I 
 hardly think I could have done that, for 
 it is a thing I try to avoid where prom- 
 ises are unnecessary. Minds and moods 
 change so that easy promising is a bad 
 practice. However, I have no objection, 
 if it is agreeable to the company, to talk- 
 ing Scripture again, though it seems next 
 to impossible to get people to look at 
 the subject with a straight vision. It is 
 really curious, the misconceptions that 
 exist about the Bible and especially the 
 Old Testament, after ages of systematic 
 
J/O MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 teaching of them as Holy Scripture 
 misconceptions and false notions as to 
 what they really contain. 
 
 " I think I have mentioned more than 
 once the fact that the Hebrews, during 
 the period of their literature which 
 Christians call sacred, had no conception 
 of the immortality of the soul or of a 
 future life. How many devout Bible 
 readers are conscious of that most signifi- 
 cant fact? Most of the law had nothing 
 to do even with morals, and the obser- 
 vances it imposed had no spiritual pur- 
 pose or meaning whatever. The re- 
 straints necessary to social order and na- 
 tional development were recognized, but 
 every promise and sanction related to 
 mundane well-being, and even the pioph- 
 ets in their loftiest flights recognized no 
 destiny for man beyond this world. The 
 idea of justice and righteousness was 
 highly developed under their teaching, 
 but it was inculcated for its value to the 
 community and to the national life. 
 Even the great poem of Job, which was 
 intended to illustrate an unswerving con- 
 fidence in the justice of Jehovah and a 
 
MOKE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. I/I 
 
 vindication of that confidence, was con- 
 fined to this human life for working out 
 its theory of divine compensation, and 
 hence was inevitably in contradiction of a 
 large part of human experience, for the 
 righteous are not always rewarded and 
 the wicked punished in this world. The 
 collection of national proverbs and wise 
 sayings, to which the name of Solomon 
 was attached, contains no wisdom but 
 that of this earthly stage of being, and 
 the most devotional of the Psalms, most 
 of them of a date long after David, con- 
 tain no hint of the rewards of a life here- 
 after. Although, as I said the other 
 night, Moses must have been familiar 
 with the conception of immortality 
 among the Egyptians, the ideas that 
 came to prevail among the Jews on this 
 subject before the time of Jesus were 
 derived primarily from the Persians in 
 the time of the captivity and from other 
 heathen sources. 
 
 "The whole angelology and demon- 
 ology which the early Christian writers 
 mixed with their theology is of pagan 
 origin. The old Hebrews had little or 
 
172 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 nothing of it. Like all primitive people 
 and like imaginative children of to-day, 
 they had notions of unseen and malevo- 
 lent beings, dwelling in lonely places, but 
 Satan came from the Zoroastrian mythol- 
 ogy, and the very scanty references to 
 such a personage are in writings made up 
 after the Exile. How many times do you 
 suppose Satan, as a personification, is 
 mentioned in the Old Testament? Just 
 five, and three of those are in the book 
 of Job, where he is represented as an 
 agent of Jehovah for testing his servant 
 of the land of Uz. Did you ever think 
 how much the ideas of English-speaking 
 people about the Bible are derived from 
 Milton and not from the Bible itself? 
 Milton injected the demonology and 
 angelology of later times, in which he was 
 richly versed, into the Garden of Eden in 
 a most extraordinary fashion. The so- 
 called sacred record has no hint of it. 
 In the simple tale of Genesis there is no 
 devil and no Satan, but the tempter was 
 simply the serpent just the snake of the 
 fields and nothing else. The Hebrew 
 mythology was strikingly barren of su- 
 
MORE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. 173 
 
 pernatural creatures aside from the 
 Elohim and the great Jehovah, and an 
 occasional angel messenger from Him. 
 " The prophets enlarged and elevated 
 the conception of Jehovah and his attri- 
 butes. He was originally a tribal deity, 
 dwelling in storms and darkness, in tem- 
 pests and fire, and on inaccessible moun- 
 tain-tops, making terrible visits to the 
 camp of his people, and taking up his 
 abode in a gilded box within a special 
 tent. With the attributes of power, of 
 wrath, of jealousy, and vengeance, he was 
 used to control a superstitious and unruly 
 people. He was pretty well forgotten 
 and neglected except by a few priests 
 during the period of national develop- 
 ment, and when the era of reformation 
 came, the struggles with foreign enemies, 
 and the captivity and the restoration, he 
 appears with quite a new character. 
 There were seers and prophets, as among 
 other ancient peoples, and marvellous 
 legends were preserved about them. 
 Sometimes they broke out against the 
 doings of the people and their rulers and 
 uttered terrible warnings, and sometimes 
 
174 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 their counsel had much influence even 
 with Kings and great warriors. Of 
 course, they represented a genuine re- 
 form element, both in patriotism and 
 religion, and were generally accepted as 
 the mouth pieces nd agents of Jehovah. 
 Sometimes they mysteriously disappeared 
 and were said to be snatched up by Jeho- 
 vah himself. 
 
 " But what we mean by the prophets 
 of Israel were the preachers and reform- 
 ers of a later day, some of whose utter- 
 ances were most lofty and impassioned. 
 A very distorted view of them, however, 
 has been produced by magnifying the 
 predictive element in the oracles they 
 left behind or those attributed to them, 
 for these were collected after their time, 
 and some were incongruously patched 
 together and assigned to the wrong 
 authors, while in some there are un- 
 doubted interpolations. But their gen- 
 eral character and purpose are easily 
 understood. They are extremely human 
 productions, these so-called prophecies, 
 with most decidedly worldly ends in 
 view, though highly patriotic and im- 
 
MORE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. I 75 
 
 pressive for the most part. It was the 
 primary purpose of these great preachers 
 to restore veneration for Jehovah and 
 submission to his laws. The original 
 theocracy had been lost sight of by rulers 
 and people ; for a long time the law was 
 forgotten and its observances neglected, 
 while worship was paganized in the high 
 places. The result was a relaxation of 
 the true national spirit of Israel and of 
 the pride of race, with a loss of that 
 peculiar Jehovistic patriotism that gave 
 courage and confidence in war and kept 
 the people from heathen degradation in 
 peaceful times. The prophets in preach- 
 ing reform, in uttering threats and warn- 
 ings, in recalling promises and predicting 
 disaster or triumph, spoke in the name 
 of Jehovah as all the teachers of Israel 
 had been wont to do, and as those char- 
 acterized as false prophets and de- 
 nounced by Jeremiah and others did 
 also. 
 
 " Of course they regarded themselves 
 as chosen and commissioned for their 
 special work, but so do many preachers 
 nowadays. Some of them represented 
 
1 76 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 their commission as being imparted in 
 visions and supernatural revelations, in 
 which they may easily have been sincere, 
 for they were all men of the excitable or- 
 ganization called ' the prophetic tempera- 
 ment.' Yet even that is a condition 
 not unknown in modern times. How 
 about Bunyan's immortal dreams and 
 visions, for instance ? Why allow Eze- 
 kiel and Daniel less liberty or more 
 inspiration? But, like Moses, these 
 great reformers were politicians or states- 
 men more than theologians in our sense. 
 They were concerned not about the salva- 
 tion of souls, but about the salvation 
 of their people as a political body and a 
 nation. They preached a high morality 
 in some respects, but it was mainly with 
 reference to maintaining the social and 
 political strength of the people. That 
 vice and iniquity, injustice and oppres- 
 sion, and disregard of the authority of 
 law sap the fibres of national strength and 
 degrade a people, making them easy 
 victims to their enemies, was not a 
 secret confined to Hebrew teachers, and 
 it needed no special revelation. In all 
 
MORE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. 
 
 times of social and political degeneration 
 there are men of clear vision, strong con- 
 victions, and unflinching courage to de- 
 nounce the evils of the time and utter 
 warnings of the consequences." 
 
 "But," exclaimed Tom, "these proph- 
 ets did predict future events, did they 
 not?" 
 
 " Yes, and so have a great many other 
 reformers, and as far as they have had 
 real insight and foresight their predic- 
 tions have been substantially fulfilled. 
 When such a people as Israel were laps- 
 ing into idolatry and corruption, and for- 
 getting the spirit of their fathers ; when 
 they had incompetent, dishonest, and 
 degraded rulers, and were surrounded by 
 active enemies, it needed no supernat- 
 ural vision to foresee the consequences, 
 and nothing but courage to predict them. 
 To those who understood the power and 
 the aggressive policy of Assyria and 
 Babylonia and Persia, when the line of 
 their conquests encroached upon the 
 borders of Israel, it was plain that noth- 
 ing but the arousing of the pride and 
 virtue of the people, the stimulating of 
 
1/8 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 their confidence in their Divine Ruler, 
 which was the source of their power, 
 courage, and energy, would avert de- 
 struction from them; and it was almost 
 equally plain that this would not be done, 
 and that they would not be saved from 
 conquest and captivity. The prophets 
 cried out with a wonderful energy, set- 
 ting forth the evils and iniquities with 
 which the people were besotted, warning 
 them of the inevitable consequences, 
 appealing to them in the name of their 
 God, reminding them of the promises of 
 the past and the destiny to which the 
 race was born. Of course they pre- 
 dicted ; how could they help it ? They 
 used all the resources of their language, 
 with its symbolism and Oriental imagery, 
 to rouse and save a doomed people. So 
 far as their predictions were definite, 
 some of them were substantially fulfilled 
 and some of them were not. They were 
 speaking for a personal Ruler to whom 
 they attributed certain set purposes and 
 methods, and events went on in a 
 natural course, as human events will, 
 subject to laws and circumstances and 
 
MORE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. 179 
 
 the character and condition of those 
 involved. I can see no more divine 
 agency or supernatural intervention in 
 this history than in any other. 
 
 " There is one thing certain about 
 those old prophets. They elevated the 
 standard of social and political morality 
 and exalted very much the conception of 
 the Deity, extending his sway over all 
 nations and recognizing in him the crea- 
 tor and ruler of the universe. Until 
 after the Captivity and the contact with 
 Persian and Babylonian mythology they 
 had no angels or devils aiding or oppos- 
 ing the Almighty or interfering with 
 mankind. That ' divine revelation ' was 
 not made to the chosen people, but to 
 the heathen. Even Solomon's Cherubim 
 and Seraphim were brought from Assyria 
 by Hiram of Tyre. 
 
 "The heaven and hell that have 
 figured so much in Christian theology 
 have no germs or suggestions in the 
 'sacred literature' of the Hebrews. 
 These were not ' revealed ' to them. 
 Late in their history they conceived of 
 heaven as the dwelling-place of the 
 
ISO MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 Almighty ; and after the invasion of 
 Persian mythological ideas there was an 
 occasional injection into their literature 
 of references to other occupants of the 
 celestial region. It was not an abode of 
 disembodied spirits. Men died and went 
 into the darkness of Sheol, a place of 
 death and inanition, never to return. It 
 was not a place of doom, but of nothing- 
 ness. I think if the Old Testament 
 literature were studied and taught ration- 
 ally it would be more useful and instruc- 
 tive to us and do more good in the 
 world, and if the dogma of inspira- 
 tion as it has been generally received 
 were definitely discarded instead of being 
 formally retained, a heavy shackle would 
 be thrown from the minds of devout 
 men, and religion would gain by it." 
 
 "But," Tom interjected, uneasily, as if 
 fearful that the subject was about to be 
 dropped, " you have said nothing about 
 the most important aspect of the proph- 
 ecies the prediction of a coming Mes- 
 siah." 
 
 " Well, in the sense commonly meant 
 by it, I cannot find anything of the 
 
MORE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. 1 8 1 
 
 kind in them. One of the chief burdens 
 of the utterances of the prophets was 
 their confidence, through all the evils and 
 vicissitudes of Israel, in the traditional 
 promise attributed to Jehovah of the 
 greatness and perpetuity of the nation. 
 When it was at its worst they declared 
 that it would be purged of the elements 
 of evil and impurity and regenerated ; a 
 purified remnant would be saved and 
 re-establish the kingdom of David. 
 Though they were overwhelmed and 
 broken up and carried into captivity, it 
 was only for their sins and their disobe- 
 dience, and the same mighty arm that 
 delivered them out of Egypt would yet 
 rescue them and fulfil the convenant 
 with Jacob. This hope and promise is 
 what chiefly inspired the prophets, and in 
 their varied forms of figurative speech 
 they foretold that a great King would 
 yet spring from the house of David and 
 restore a purer and loftier theocracy, in 
 which Jehovah should reign and his own 
 anointed should sit on the throne to 
 execute his will. 
 
 " You know that Messiah was the 
 
1 82 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 Hebrew word for anointed, and was first 
 applied to the priests and afterward to 
 the kings. The hope with which Isaiah 
 tried at once to arouse and cheer the peo- 
 ple was undoubtedly that of the final res- 
 toration of the nation under the Davidic 
 dynasty and its attainment of a grandeur 
 never before known. His Messianic pre- 
 dictions and those attributed to other 
 prophets clearly related to a national 
 ruler, who should reign in righteousness 
 and equity indeed, but whose dominion 
 was to be as secular as that of David or 
 Hezekiah. Those were among the pre- 
 dictions most conspicuously unfulfilled. 
 "It is a striking commentary on the 
 Jehovah of the ancient Hebrews as the 
 actual God of the universe and the per- 
 sistent inclination to accept the records 
 of their history and literary production 
 as his inspired word, that, in point of 
 fact, the one all-embracing promise of 
 national greatness and perpetual domin- 
 ion was constantly deferred and finally 
 defeated in the completest fashion by 
 the utter destruction of the nation and 
 scattering of the people. Some of the 
 
MORE ABOUT ANCIENT SCRIPTURE. 1 8 3 
 
 Jews, however, still cherish the promise 
 and believe the prophecies will yet be 
 fulfilled. 
 
 " The modification of the Messianic 
 idea, after the hope of national recon- 
 struction and greatness grew faint, which 
 enabled the early Christians to lay hold 
 upon it and make it one of the corner- 
 stones of a fabric of dogma, came along 
 after the prophecies that have been re- 
 garded as inspired. Isn't it a little curious 
 that the modification and shaping of that 
 idea, which prepared it for the early fram- 
 ers of Christian dogma, ran through the 
 apocryphal books and the apocalyptic 
 writings, which were excluded from the 
 canon of genuine Scripture, and which 
 have no claim to inspiration, but are mere 
 profane productions of the human mind. 
 Why, the Fathers of the Church, the 
 makers of creeds, and the defenders 
 of dogmas have drawn ten times as much 
 from these old mystic sources as from 
 either the Old Testament or the New." 
 
 "Well," grumbled the Colonel, "I 
 hope you are satisfied by this time, for 
 
1 84 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 really I am getting sick of these discus- 
 sions. I can stand them once in a while, 
 but two in succession are a heavy dose. 
 After all, what are all these heretical 
 novelties, any way, but the common- 
 places of common-sense?" 
 
 Tom left me that night with a cheer- 
 ful avowal that he was going to enter 
 upon a course of study of Scripture on 
 his own account. He had thought he 
 knew something about it, but was afraid 
 he did not. 
 
XII. 
 
 A DISCUSSION OF THE VALUE OF 
 HUMAN EVIDENCE. 
 
 THE next Saturday night I got to the 
 club uncommonly late, and just as I en- 
 tered the room where midnight wisdom is 
 dispensed the Colonel was saying with 
 vigorous emphasis : 
 
 " I tell you human testimony isn't 
 worth a rap anyway. There isn't more 
 than one person in a hundred who can 
 state a thing as it is, even when it is 
 within his own knowledge, and there isn't 
 one in a thousand who is habitually 
 accurate or anywhere near it, or who 
 even tries to be accurate ; and when it 
 comes to hearsay and second-hand state- 
 ments, good Lord ! the facts get dis- 
 torted and mangled, so that a cautious 
 man has to adopt the rule of believing 
 nothing that he doesn't see and know for 
 himself ; and he has to be careful or he 
 
1 86 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 will be deceived about what he thinks he 
 sees and knows. 
 
 " It makes me laugh to see how resent- 
 ful people are when their statements of 
 facts are questioned and how wrathful 
 they get when accused of lying. Why, 
 lying is the principal use to which human 
 speech is put, and those who get the 
 maddest when accused of it are most 
 addicted to it. A border-ruffian or a 
 grog-shop loafer, who scarcely knows 
 what it is to tell the truth, will make a 
 killing matter of it. Duels have been 
 fought because men of * honor,' men 
 who bragged about the sacredness of 
 their word, have been ' insulted* by some 
 one who charged them with lying. In 
 nine such cases out of ten they did 
 lie and knew it. The insult consisted in 
 having the truth told to them. 
 
 " I have highly-respectable people tell 
 me things every day which I know are 
 not true, and which they know are not 
 true ; in many cases I know that they 
 know they are lying, and they themselves 
 rather suspect that I know it. It is a 
 frequent experience with me to hear per- 
 
VALUE OF HUMAN E VIDENCE. 1 8/ 
 
 sons relate the same thing twice, without 
 any sort of agreement between their 
 statements. I have even had the same 
 thing told to me twice by the same per- 
 son, at no very long interval, with utterly 
 irreconcilable variations, and yet if I had 
 plainly told him of the discrepancy he 
 would have felt insulted and regarded me 
 as an uncivil boor." 
 
 " Now let me interrupt you just here," 
 mildly interposed the Judge, " before the 
 point gets beyond recall. The case you 
 just mentioned suggests another reason 
 for the general lack of accuracy besides 
 that of a want of veracity or a propensity 
 for lying, and that is infirmity of mem- 
 ory. While it is true that people are 
 wofully careless in their statements, 
 there are very few clear and correct mem- 
 ories. A man who tells you the same 
 thing twice in different ways has forgot- 
 ten the second time that he ever told 
 you about it before. He has also forgot- 
 ten his first form of statement, and it is 
 just as likely that he has forgotten the 
 actual facts. Most memories are hazy ; 
 details get lost and confused in them, 
 
1 88 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the imagination undertakes to revive and 
 supply these details and doesn't do it 
 twice alike. Men with uncertain mem- 
 ories, lively imaginations, and a disposi- 
 tion to talk may get the reputation of 
 being arrant liars when they do not in 
 the least intend to falsify, and are not 
 conscious of misrepresentation. They 
 undertake to tell a thing of which they 
 do not retain the details except in a 
 vague way, and they give life to their 
 narrative by supplying them as they go 
 along as best they can. They repeat the 
 matter to some one else, and both the 
 actual details and those of their first 
 story have fallen into obscurity in their 
 minds and they have to furnish a new 
 set, and in each case there is no real inten- 
 tion of departing from the facts. This 
 does not militate against your statement 
 as to the value of evidence, but I should 
 not call these inaccurate people liars. 
 They do not deliberately misstate with 
 intent to deceive." 
 
 " No, perhaps not," replied the Col- 
 onel, " but there are very few people who 
 do not do that on occasion. Everything 
 
VAL UE OF HUMAN VIDENCE. 1 89 
 
 depends upon whether there is a motive. 
 Men will lie to get themselves out of an 
 awkward corner, and make apologies and 
 explanations that they know are not true. 
 They will lie to gain a point of some 
 kind, especially a point in which there is 
 pecuniary profit. Why, I know men who 
 stand high among their fellow-men high 
 in the Church, some of them who will 
 make statements to serve whatever pur- 
 pose they may have in view, without the 
 smallest regard for the facts. They wish 
 to convince you of something or persuade 
 you to do something, or to promote their 
 own interests in some way or other, and 
 they tell you the most favorable things 
 that they can think of without the least 
 regard for the truth." 
 
 " Well, that is more like lying than the 
 other," replied the Judge, " but even 
 that is not altogether wilful in many 
 cases. I know just such men as you 
 speak of, who would not only resent 
 being told that they departed from the 
 truth, but who are really not conscious of 
 doing so. The moral nature, as well as 
 the memory, is subject to a certain foggi- 
 
I QO MID NIGH 7^ TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 ness. There are some men who cannot 
 hold facts clearly in mind, who lack 
 distinct perceptions of the moral value 
 of the truth, but who in pleading a case 
 or pursuing an object are possessed by a 
 sort of emotional control that governs 
 their words. They make statements, as 
 you say, that have no relation to actual 
 fact, and that exhibit no regard for the 
 truth, but they are not aware of it at the 
 time and cannot be convinced of it after- 
 ward. Such men have no idea of the 
 estimation in which they are held by 
 those who know them, and would be 
 greatly surprised if told that they had a 
 reputation for lying. If they were told 
 so they would hardly believe it, and if 
 persuaded of the fact, would honestly 
 think that injustice was done them." 
 
 " I don't take quite so charitable a 
 view of human nature as you do," the 
 Colonel replied. " I believe people gen- 
 erally know when they are lying, and 
 their moral weakness consists in not 
 caring." 
 
 " O, of course, as to many people," the 
 Judge responded ; " it is deplorably com- 
 
VALUE OF HUMAN EVIDENCE. 191 
 
 mon, no doubt, especially in the small 
 affairs of life, but we must discriminate 
 and recognize the things that ought to 
 qualify our broad statements if we wish 
 to be truthful and just ourselves. Go 
 on, Colonel, you have the floor." 
 
 " Well, to get away from the small 
 affairs of life. I hardly ever hear a pub- 
 lic speaker of any kind or grade without 
 being sure that he is wrong in most of 
 his statements, and deliberately so in 
 many of them. Political speakers, for 
 instance, make all manner of distorted 
 and garbled statements, mangle histori- 
 cal events, play the deuce with statistics, 
 all for a purpose, and the proportion of 
 truth in what they say could only be 
 detected by a close analysis, which most 
 people do not or cannot make. And 
 preachers, Oh, my! what 'rousing whids* 
 have I not heard them ' vend, and nail't 
 wi f Scripture ! ' When I used to go to 
 church for I did go occasionally at one 
 time it was a marvel to me how men 
 could stand in the pulpit and illustrate 
 and enforce lessons, as they called them, 
 with statements from history or biog- 
 
192 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 raphy or practical life that had no sem- 
 blance of truth in them. Twisting 
 Scripture all out of shape and proving 
 anything and everything with it is bad 
 enough, but telling tales of everyday 
 experience that are not true for the pur- 
 pose of enforcing Divine truth always 
 struck me as peculiarly atrocious." 
 
 " I do not go along with you alto- 
 gether," remarked the Judge, as the Col- 
 onel showed an inclination to yield the 
 floor to somebody else, " but I agree sub- 
 stantially with your main position as to 
 the value of human testimony, especially 
 in matters in which the feelings or emo- 
 tions or sentiments of the witnesses are 
 enlisted. Every lawyer knows how diffi- 
 cult it is to get witnesses to make a clear 
 statement and stick to it, even when they 
 have no intention to tell anything but 
 the truth. Lawyers are often suspected 
 of cooking up false evidence when they 
 are merely trying to get their witnesses 
 to tell a straight story, to clear up their 
 memories and get the facts as they are. 
 They find that a difficult job, and even 
 when they think they have got the evi- 
 
VAL UE OF HUMAN E VIDENCE. 1 93 
 
 dence clearly laid out, the infirmities of 
 their own witnesses are liable to upset it. 
 The perceptions of most people are im- 
 perfect ; their observations are inaccurate ; 
 their senses deceive them ; their mem- 
 ories are misty and confused, and their 
 feelings and motives get mixed up with 
 their efforts to state facts, and so it is 
 hard to get at the truth from their evi- 
 dence. 
 
 " Take matters that get into print. 
 We have a strange disposition to put 
 confidence in what we see in print, ' in 
 black and white/ as we say, as if black 
 and white were more veracious than 
 other colors, and we are inclined to be- 
 lieve something in a newspaper when we 
 would not believe the same thing if it 
 were told to us by the very man who has 
 written it for the paper. Put it in a 
 book and we hardly dare question it ; 
 give the book some peculiar sanction by 
 a council of wiseacres and doubt is sacri- 
 legious. Take any matter that comes 
 within your own knowledge, which is 
 reported in the public prints, and how 
 often the statements seem to be incorrect 
 
194 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 or misleading ; and yet generally there are 
 some pains taken to get the facts and to 
 state them correctly. The character and 
 conduct of men in public life is repre- 
 sented in such a variety of lights that 
 nobody can tell what manner of men 
 they really are ; and when I have known 
 one of these personages, whose behavior 
 has been much discussed, it has amused 
 me to think how different he was from 
 any conception that could be formed of 
 him from the evidence before the public. 
 " In a general way a public person may 
 be said to have four distinct characters at 
 least. There is the real person with his 
 qualities, whatever they may be ; there is 
 the person as he estimates himself and 
 as he tries to appear ; there is the person 
 as he is represented and measured by his 
 friends and admirers; and there is the 
 same person as portrayed by his enemies. 
 The hardest of these to get at is the real 
 person, and the different portraits inter- 
 posed before the vision do not help much 
 to the true idea. I suppose no person 
 has any distinct or accurate notion of 
 what others think of him. We do not 
 
VAL UE OF HUMAN E VIDENCE. 1 9 5 
 
 know the sound of our own voices, or at 
 least we do not know how they sound to 
 others, and there is a general conspiracy 
 to keep us in the dark as to our own 
 reputation among those about us. We 
 may get vague hints of the opinion, 
 favorable or otherwise, of various individ- 
 uals, but the general impression, the 
 character we bear in the view of others 
 we can never clearly apprehend. We 
 move in a world of mirrors and lenses 
 with various angles of reflection and 
 refraction, and the images are magnified, 
 minified, distorted and colored, and alto- 
 gether things are truly not what they 
 seem. 
 
 " If it is so hard to get things truthfully 
 stated and to apprehend them as they are 
 in the present, with our own senses at 
 work, with our personal knowledge of 
 existing conditions and our ability to 
 judge and to make allowances, how much 
 harder must it be to know just what to 
 believe in the records of the past records 
 made up at different times and in differ- 
 ent lands, at all sorts of distances of 
 time and place from the actualities, under 
 
196 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 conditions that cannot be distinctly re- 
 produced, and by men with various defi- 
 ciencies, mental and moral, and various 
 motives and purposes." 
 
 "Ah! I thought it was generally ad- 
 mitted," ejaculated the Colonel, "that 
 history and biography are a pack of lies. 
 They may be curious and interesting to 
 look at, like a panorama, but we have to 
 remember that we do not see the actual 
 events or the actual men, but pictures of 
 them made by artists more or less clumsy 
 or more or less skilful, and all aiming at 
 effect and not at truth." 
 
 " There you are again, with your ex- 
 treme statements and your sweeping 
 generalizations," replied the Judge. 
 " There has been a good deal of con- 
 science and careful labor put into efforts 
 to reproduce the past truthfully, and by 
 close study I think we may get a fairly 
 correct idea of the most important phases 
 of human experience. But it is only by 
 comparing and sifting evidence. It is 
 perfectly true that grave historians have 
 been so biased or so hampered that they 
 have put events on record in anything 
 
VAL UE OF HUMAN E VIDENCE. 1 97 
 
 but the true light, and personalities are 
 the most difficult of all things in history 
 to get a correct view of. If a man is im- 
 portant enough to go into history he loses 
 some, if not all, the characters he had 
 in life and acquires new ones. His real 
 character, the man as he actually was, is 
 apt to go out of sight almost wholly, and 
 we get one or more reproductions of him 
 with new lineaments. If he is written up 
 by his enemies, as a strong person like 
 Cromwell or Bonaparte is sure to be, we 
 get his bad qualities magnified and his 
 good ones suppressed or shaded out of 
 sight, until he becomes a being that never 
 existed. His admirers produce another 
 image equally far from truth, and there 
 are two Cromwells or Bonapartes, who 
 never existed except on paper. Men are 
 given to hero worship, and like to have 
 their heroes painted on a great scale and 
 in strong colors. Realistic biography is 
 something we have rarely had. Men of 
 action, whose lives are woven in with his- 
 torical events, appear more nearly in their 
 true proportions than those who as great 
 leaders have gained an ascendency over 
 
198 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB, 
 
 the sentiments and affections of their fol- 
 lowers. 
 
 " But there is nothing in which human 
 evidence is so uncertain and so untrust- 
 worthy as that which verges on the mys- 
 tical and unknown, that excites credulity 
 and the weakness for the supernatural 
 which seems to be inherent in human 
 nature. Did you ever undertake to in- 
 vestigate Spiritualism or Mesmerism ? I 
 did at one time, and everybody ought to 
 do it once in his lifetime if he wishes to 
 learn how little dependence is to be put 
 on human testimony or even on the 
 human senses. I have been told most 
 marvellous things about mediums and 
 clairvoyants by persons whose veracity I 
 did not doubt, and yet when I tried to 
 test them for myself I could find none of 
 the marvels. The real thing and the 
 reported thing were as unlike as mist and 
 sunlight. For years I tried with all 
 manner of mediums to get one sim- 
 ple and conclusive test of spirit-com- 
 munication, but never got it. What 
 stories are told of wondrous clairvoy- 
 ant visions, of marvellous cures by 
 
VA L UE OF HUMAN E VIDENCE. 1 99 
 
 faith, and of the power of mind over 
 mind ! 
 
 " I do not deny that there is something 
 at the bottom of these things. There 
 seems to be a mysterious margin to life 
 and experience extending into the un- 
 known, and psychical research is groping 
 over it. What it means and with what it 
 connects I do not pretend to guess. The 
 subjective action of faith and emotion 
 is great with some people. There is a 
 curious magnetism in personality of 
 which we are all more or less conscious. 
 Individual affects individual in a thousand 
 different ways, and the influence of mind 
 upon mind, or perhaps more strictly of 
 temperament upon temperament, has no 
 measure. One person may gain a mighty 
 ascendency over another or over many 
 others. In hypnotism, mesmerism, me- 
 diumship, clairvoyance, faith-cure, and all 
 the rest, there is a vague something be- 
 sides humbug and delusion, but it is so 
 enveloped in these as to be difficult to 
 study. In this realm of peculiar personal 
 power and personal subjection to power, 
 this occult region of intangible relations, 
 
2OO MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 human evidence becomes almost abso- 
 lutely worthless, and an attitude of scep- 
 ticism is the only defence of an honest 
 mind. Things may be done that seem 
 miraculous simply because we do not 
 understand them. Feats of jugglery are 
 miracles to the simple-minded. The 
 miracles of one age may be the common- 
 places of another, science and knowledge 
 having explained what was once incom- 
 prehensible and attributed to supernatural 
 agency. So, things that now seem like 
 miracles may yet be explained on natural 
 principles. But in all matters seemingly 
 miraculous in any age, whatever of gen- 
 uine there may be is sure to become 
 buried up in exaggerations and multipli- 
 cations as they are reported by amazed 
 witnesses to credulous hearers. 
 
 " It is mainly because human evidence 
 is so very uncertain, especially as it gets 
 recorded in times of little scientific knowl- 
 edge and much superstition, that I con- 
 sider it absurd to make belief in miracles 
 a test of religious soundness." 
 
XIII. 
 
 A DISCOURSE ON THE POWER OF PER- 
 SONALITY. 
 
 I GOT in the way, one while, of putting 
 in an appearance at the midnight conclave 
 somewhat behind time, and I did not 
 always know how the conversation had 
 started. One night the Colonel seemed 
 to have been roused by some sort of ref- 
 erence to equality, or equal rights, or 
 something of the kind, for when I en- 
 tered the room he was saying in his cus- 
 tomary vigorous style, from which I 
 always omit the most forcible expletives : 
 
 " This talk about equality is all moon- 
 shine. Notwithstanding the consecrated 
 phrase, we know perfectly well that 
 all men are not 'created equal/ but that 
 they come into the world with all manner 
 of inequalities and differences inherent 
 in their constitutions. What one can 
 achieve another cannot, though you give 
 
2O2 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 them the same chance. Put obstacles in 
 the way of one and he will overcome 
 them and carry all before him. Give an- 
 other a clear track and he will never get 
 anywhere." 
 
 "I don't suppose anybody seriously 
 denies so very obvious and common- 
 place a fact as that, do you ? " put in the 
 Judge. 
 
 " Not directly, perhaps ; but when a 
 conclave of woman's rights persons or 
 labor agitators or Socialistic cranks get to 
 prating about equality they plainly assume 
 that human beings are equal in capacity 
 if they only have the same chance, and 
 that it is circumstances or society or un- 
 just laws that produce differences of con- 
 dition." 
 
 "O well," replied the Judge, "they 
 know better than that, of course, but 
 they talk in extremes for effect. What 
 they are really contending for is equality 
 o opportunities. You know that men 
 with superior capacity and training, espe- 
 cially if they begin with wealth on their 
 side, have an enormous advantage over 
 others, and they are pretty apt to use it 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. 2O3 
 
 selfishly and get more than their superi- 
 ority entitles them to. They exercise a 
 large control in industrial affairs, in social 
 affairs, in political affairs, in legislation 
 and administration, and they certainly 
 have used that control to increase their 
 advantage over the less capable. The 
 rich and strong are altogether too apt to 
 use their power and their advantages for 
 their own selfish benefit, producing an ine- 
 quality of condition out of proportion to 
 the inequality of capacity and of useful- 
 ness. It seems to me that one of the high- 
 est purposes of Christianity is to correct 
 this wrong and induce those who have 
 many talents to use them for the general 
 good and for the relief of those who have 
 few." 
 
 " Now, let us not talk Christianity or 
 church to-night," the Colonel interjected ; 
 "stick to the text. My notion is that 
 inequality among men is about the most 
 striking fact in life and the most impor- 
 tant to human progress." 
 
 " No doubt of that whatever," re- 
 sponded the Judge. "A wise philoso- 
 pher has remarked that a minority of one 
 
204 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 may be in the right, and I say that m the 
 inequality of men one person may weigh 
 more than all the rest of his day and gen- 
 eration put together. He may include in 
 his single personality all the essential 
 qualities and powers of all the brains and 
 character extant, and by virtue of that fact 
 may exert more influence in his time than 
 all other living men put together. Put 
 this one man in the scale against all the 
 rest and he will tip the beam, and if cir- 
 cumstances are favorable he may gain 
 an ascendency over a people which they 
 cannot resist, and its effect may last for 
 ages. 
 
 " We often notice the vast variety of 
 feature and expression that may appear 
 within the small limits of the human face. 
 There is at least an equal variation with- 
 in the narrow limits of the ordinary 
 h.uman character. Assuming that there 
 is a certain aggregate of powers and qual- 
 ities belonging to that character, they 
 vary immensely in the proportion and 
 combination of details, but they do not 
 get beyond certain limits. One is in part 
 a repetition of another, a little stronger 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. 205 
 
 here and a little weaker there, and all the 
 mental power and moral qualities of a 
 million men are no more in quantity, per- 
 haps, than those of some one man among 
 them. The man's mind may be a sort of 
 composite photograph of all the other 
 minds, and there might be a man of 
 genius the perimeter of whose intellect 
 would include all and more than all that 
 was in the brains of the rest of the race. 
 To be sure, genius is apt to be greatness 
 on one side only of human character, but 
 it might be so comprehensive as to take 
 in all sides. 
 
 " After all, the difference among men 
 is within small limits. A few more 
 ounces of brain of finer quality, a slightly 
 different combination of elements consti- 
 tuting the force of temperament, and a 
 man may rise over the heads of the mul- 
 titude and lead it whither he will. He 
 comprehends all that others comprehend, 
 and more, too. He sees all that they see 
 "and what lies beyond their vision as well. 
 He becomes like a mighty schoolmaster 
 among his boys, leading and directing 
 them because he is greater and wiser than 
 
206 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 they. I don't much like the word genius, 
 but I suppose it means simply the superi- 
 ority that comes from endowment beyond 
 the normal standard. A man of special 
 genius may be a great astronomer or 
 poet, or inventor, or soldier, his mind 
 bulging over the normal line in one direc- 
 tion; a man of universal genius would be 
 a Gulliver among the Lilliputians. 
 
 " This power of personality, noticeable 
 in small ways all about us, in the force of 
 individual attraction and repulsion, when 
 it appears on a large scale accounts for 
 much in human history and progress. Its 
 influence is modified or limited by its 
 qualities and by circumstances, but the 
 personality of one man may have most 
 astounding effects. It may found a na- 
 tion or save it from destruction, and 
 change the course of a people's history. 
 It may give one man an ascendency 
 which all hostile forces cannot break. 
 Call it Divine Providence or call it evolu- 
 tion and I do not see why the two may 
 not be the same thing but how many 
 times has the stress of circumstances 
 brought forth the man for some great 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. 2O/ 
 
 emergency, and through him solved the 
 problem into which human affairs had be- 
 come tangled ! Moses and David, Alexan- 
 der and Caesar, Cromwell and Bonaparte, 
 Washington and Lincoln, what do not 
 these names signify as to the size of the 
 factor in human affairs that may be ex- 
 pressed in the personality of one man! It 
 may be the factor without which the 
 problem were insoluble for the time being, 
 and without which its solution would call 
 for other processes and produce different 
 results to the world 
 
 . " And wonderful it is, the ascendency 
 which a single personality may gain over 
 the minds of men in its own time and 
 the times thereafter. In a small way it is 
 shown in the devotion of soldiers to some 
 strong and generous commander, in the 
 complete subserviency of followers to 
 some popular leader, and occasionally in 
 the command which a teacher like Ar- 
 nold or a preacher like Wesley acquires 
 over a large body of disciples who spread 
 the influence of his personality far and 
 wide. On a larger scale it appears in 
 the case of great statesmen or military 
 
208 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 leaders, and when the two characters are 
 combined in one person the ascendency 
 that he may acquire over a patriotic 
 people is extraordinary, as you know. 
 You have only to think of Cromwell, of 
 Frederick the Great, of Bonaparte, and 
 of what they were in the history of 
 their time, to realize how large a factor 
 one man of superior powers may be in 
 the computations of life. What would 
 not the French people do for Bonaparte 
 when he was alive ? and what effects did 
 his prestige have upon the nation long 
 after his great brain was dust ! 
 
 " But I deem the most powerful quality 
 of all, combined of course with others on 
 a heroic scale, to be personal disinterest- 
 edness or unselfishness. Nothing in the 
 long run so commands the homage of 
 mankind. Neither Washington nor Lin- 
 coln was a man of great genius in war or 
 statecraft, though they had powers that 
 served the occasion in that respect ; and 
 the esteem in which they are held is due 
 more to a belief in their unselfish pa- 
 triotism, their devotion to the cause of 
 their country, than to admiration for 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY, 2OQ 
 
 great intellectual power. Such men 
 speedily become idealized in the public 
 mind ; their defects disappear, their 
 faults become unknown or disbelieved in, 
 and their strong qualities are more or less 
 magnified, especially when death has 
 silenced detraction. I suppose the one 
 flawless idol of this land is Washington, 
 and the worship of what he represents is 
 a great conservative influence. 
 
 " But the power and prestige of a great 
 military commander or statesman, even 
 when his course is not marred by selfish 
 ambition, are small in comparison with 
 those of really great moral and religious 
 teachers and leaders. There have been 
 few such of extraordinary greatness in all 
 the world's history, but they stand con- 
 spicuous above all others in the lasting 
 influence they have exerted and the ex- 
 alted position to which they have been 
 raised in the estimation of mankind. 
 Let really great human genius take the 
 form of insight into man's nature and re- 
 lations, let it deal with the unsearchable 
 mysteries of life and lift the curtains of 
 birth and death, between which love and 
 
2IO MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 hate, hope and despair, play their thrilling 
 dramas, and it will speedily become dei- 
 fied. Admiration and wonder are not suf- 
 ficient homage for that kind of genius. It 
 commands worship. 
 
 " Consider the power and influence of 
 Confucius, who taught deep truths, not 
 for his own benefit, but for those of his 
 people and race, and who gathered disci- 
 ples and followers in his lifetime from 
 whom his teachings were spread through 
 the most populous empire of the world 
 and sent down to after generations. He 
 illustrates the force of a personality great 
 on the side of moral and ethical wisdom. 
 
 " Zoroaster lived before the Hebrew 
 prophets and established a religious sys- 
 tem from which organized Christianity 
 has derived far more in past times than 
 from Judaism. The notion of two great 
 Powers, those of good and evil, contend- 
 ing for the soul of man, for its salvation 
 or destruction, together with the notion 
 of good and evil spirits, angels and devils, 
 in the service of these powers, had its 
 origin in the Zoroastrian system. Both 
 the ethical and spiritual aspects of that 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. 2 1 1 
 
 system were loftier than anything taught 
 by Moses or the prophets. The Hebrews 
 got some inkling of them at the time of 
 the Persian captivity and after ; and they 
 were wrought somewhat into the Judais- 
 tic theology of the post-canonical period, 
 and still more into the development of 
 the Christian system. Zoroaster's life 
 and teachings are enveloped in myths and 
 miracles, but their effects in the world are 
 beyond calculation. 
 
 " Most wonderful of all illustrations of 
 the power of personality save one per- 
 haps is that of Siddhartha Gautama. 
 By his life and teachings he commanded 
 the devotion of a large body of followers 
 before his death and furnished the basis 
 of a religious and moral system which 
 won the submission of a larger portion of 
 the human race than any other that ever 
 existed, and that, too, among a people of 
 acute intellect and high civilization. In 
 purely ethical teaching he stands almost 
 without a peer in human history. His 
 power over the minds of men was largely 
 due to self-sacrifice and a disinterested 
 devotion to the well-being of the human 
 
212 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 race. His gospel was proclaimed as a 
 gospel of salvation from sin five centuries 
 before Christianity. The essence of his 
 teaching was the subduing of evil and the 
 cultivation of good, the purification of 
 life culminating in universal charity. 
 Nothing could be loftier so far as mun- 
 dane existence is concerned. 
 
 " Through his character and teaching 
 Gautama attained his wonderful ascend- 
 ency, which grew and expanded after his 
 death. But his followers had the irresis- 
 tible human tendency the human neces- 
 sity, I might say of organizing mystic 
 doctrines and ceremonies and observances 
 out of his simple but profound teachings, 
 and the Buddhist religion of after times 
 had only its roots in the gospel of the 
 great Buddha ? It was no long interval 
 after Gautama's death that his birth and 
 life and departure became enveloped in 
 legends and miracles, as was inevitable. 
 He was born without an earthly father 
 a favorite explanation in early times of 
 purity of character and was wise and 
 sinless from his birth. Angels ministered 
 to him and wise men sought him out in 
 
THE POWER OF PERSONALITY. 
 
 his infancy and prophesied his greatness 
 and goodness. An aged priest predicted 
 that he was to lead the world to salva- 
 tion. His footsteps were attended by 
 miracles, and the cremation of his body 
 was accompanied by supernatural mani- 
 festations. Belief in these things en- 
 tered into the religion of his followers. 
 
 " There have been other great teachers 
 who have led men by a hold upon their 
 deepest sentiments, and by a sublime 
 confidence in asserting their mastery over 
 the mystery of life and death, and they 
 afford the very highest illustration of the 
 power which a single personality may 
 gain by possessing the greatness of 
 genius on the moral and spiritual side of 
 man's nature. Inequality among men ! 
 Why, the face of human nature is as un- 
 equal as the face of the earth, with its 
 general level and with its depressions and 
 dark caverns, and its elevations and lofty 
 heights!" 
 
 This did not turn out to be much of a 
 conversation or discussion. The Judge 
 fell into a continuous discourse, and no- 
 
214 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 body cared to interrupt him until he had 
 got through, and then nobody seemed to 
 have anything to say. As Tom and I 
 went out together, I interrupted his med- 
 itations by asking : 
 
 "What do you suppose the Judge is 
 driving at in these last two talks of his ? " 
 
 " O, nothing in particular, I fancy," 
 was the reply. " The Colonel started the 
 subjects and the Judge drifted off in quite 
 a characteristic way." 
 
XIV. 
 
 TOM GETS LIGHT ON THE BEARING OF 
 PREVIOUS REMARKS. 
 
 ONE Saturday night I had made one of 
 my rare visits to Tom Benedict's fireside, 
 and we walked down to the club to- 
 gether. It had seemed to me as though 
 Tom had been imprudently taking his 
 wife into his confidence in the matter of 
 the discussions of the " Owls." She had 
 an uneasy, half-anxious way about her 
 that was not usual, and I felt more con- 
 straint in her presence than before, 
 though I never could get on any sort of 
 easy terms with the too-angelic creature. 
 She said nothing to betray her anxiety, 
 but I could see that she really wished 
 that Tom would not go out, and half re- 
 sented my presence as an obstacle to her 
 saying so. When we were on the street 
 Tom said : 
 
 " I have been thinking a good deal 
 
2l6 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 about the application of those last two 
 talks, and of course I see the drift of 
 them, but I am really interested to hear 
 Judge Truman carry out his ideas to the 
 conclusion on the religious question. Do 
 you suppose he will take the subject up 
 again to night ? " 
 
 "I don't believe he will," I replied, 
 " unless somebody else starts it or invites 
 a continuation of the discussion. He is 
 a man who seems to be full of ideas 
 which he is just as willing to keep to 
 himself as to express, unless somebody 
 shows a desire to hear them. He is as 
 likely to talk about Arctic exploration or 
 the stock market as anything else, if no- 
 body indicates a preference." 
 
 " Well, I believe I will try to start him 
 on the old track, for my mind is full of 
 the subject," said Tom, <4 and as I can- 
 not get it out of my head I may as well 
 go on to some kind of satisfactory stop- 
 ping place with it." 
 
 " I am afraid you won't reach it," I re- 
 plied, " but you may be carried far 
 enough to worry along alone, and find 
 rest for yourself as best you may." 
 
BEARING OF PREVIOUS REMARKS. 2 1/ 
 
 We completed the walk in silence, and 
 found the Judge and the Colonel in what 
 we had come to regard as a sanctum of 
 our own for the late hours of Saturday 
 night, quietly conversing upon their ex- 
 clusive and inexhaustible stock of com- 
 mon interests. 
 
 " Well/' exclaimed the Judge in his 
 cheery way, " you old fellows are get- 
 ting averse to meeting before midnight, 
 while we youngsters would like to break 
 up without encroaching too much upon 
 the Sunday. I hope you haven't lost 
 any friends, Tom ; you are looking a bit 
 gloomy." 
 
 " O, no ; not gloomy, I hope, only 
 serious/' Tom responded. " I have been 
 thinking a good deal of late and studying 
 some, and perhaps it doesn't agree with 
 me. Do you know, I have spent all my 
 spare time for the last two or three weeks 
 reading the Old Testament in the light 
 of what you were saying to us about it, 
 and I must confess that I am inclined to 
 take a different view of it ; but really I 
 do not see that it makes much difference 
 with the Christian faith. I do not find 
 
2 1 8 MIDNIGHT TALKS A T THE CL UB. 
 
 that after all it depends very much upon 
 anything in the Hebrew Scripture, ex- 
 cept perhaps the Ten Commandments." 
 
 " Why make that exception ? " queried 
 the Judge. " They were a sort of solemn 
 and impressive formulation of the most 
 essential principles of the old law. The 
 first four had reference to the exclusive 
 worship of Jehovah and the observances 
 that were to guard against the idolatries 
 of Moab and Edom and the rest, and the 
 others embody certain ethical principles 
 common to all people and all time, recog- 
 nized as soon as there is civilization 
 enough to demand protection for society. 
 A purely secular moral standard now 
 would include all there is in them, and 
 more too. The Christian faith can hardly 
 be independent of anything in the shape 
 of truth and sound principle, but it is 
 not dependent on any particular state- 
 ment of them in past ages." 
 
 " What most troubles me, though," ex- 
 claimed the anxious Thomas, " is the 
 effect upon the New Testament of giving 
 up the sacredness of the Old as a revela- 
 tion of the Divine will." 
 
 
BEARING OF PREVIOUS REMARKS. 2 19 
 
 " That is a mere matter of words," re- 
 plied the Judge. " ' Sacredness,' ' revela- 
 tion/ * Divine will,' what do they mean ? 
 Is not the Divine will revealed in all hu- 
 man experience and knowledge and in 
 human thought and reason as well ? and 
 is it not as sacred in one place and time 
 as another? What the Hebrew Scriptures 
 really are and mean cannot be changed by 
 any juggle of words, and the results of 
 historical and scientific criticism will have 
 to be accepted. It is useless trying to 
 resist it. But the anxiety you express is 
 the common one. There would not be 
 much clinging to the idea of peculiar sa- 
 credness or of special inspiration in the 
 Old Testament if it were not for fears on 
 account of the New. Give up the idea 
 in the one case and you cannot hold on 
 to it in the other, and good people think 
 they must have it in order to retain belief 
 in what they have been taught to believe 
 and what they still wish to believe. 
 
 " They are quite right about that, but 
 they overrate the importance of the dog- 
 mas in which they believe, either to 
 moral conduct or a religious life in the 
 
220 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 highest and best sense. The life, char- 
 acter, and teachings of Jesus in their 
 purity are all there is essential, it seems 
 to me, to a Christian religion adapted as 
 much to these times as any other; and 
 these cannot be obliterated from history. 
 The more clearly they can be brought out 
 from the record and the more exclusively 
 they can be made the basis of preaching 
 and organized religious work, the more 
 effectual they will be for the regeneration 
 of mankind. They have become so in- 
 volved in mysticisms and dogmatisms, 
 and covered over with such an accumula- 
 tion of creeds and doctrines, that what 
 ought to attract has come to repel the 
 very people who most need the benefit of 
 religious faith." 
 
 " Then you would treat the New Tes- 
 tament record in the same critical spirit 
 as the Old ? " Tom asked, as if he could 
 possibly have thought otherwise. 
 
 " Why, of course, or any other record ! 
 Why not ? You doubtless think that 
 you must retain the theory of Divine in- 
 spiration in order to retain your belief in 
 the miraculous, and that vou must hold 
 
BEARING OF PREVIOUS REMARKS. 221 
 
 to that belief in order to have any bottom 
 for faith or confidence in the truth of re- 
 ligion. I do not think so. But whatever 
 you think, if you really make a critical 
 study of this record, you cannot avoid the 
 conclusion that it has all the defects and 
 imperfections of a human work, based 
 upon the uncertainties of human testi- 
 mony under circumstances that made it 
 exceptionally uncertain, and I do not see 
 how you are going to escape the logical 
 deductions from that conclusion. 
 
 " Now, look here, Tom ! I do not care 
 at all to expatiate on this subject unless 
 you wish it ; but if I do, of course I shall 
 say just what I think, and I hope I have 
 made it plain that I believe in the neces- 
 sity of religious faith and worship for 
 mankind and of the immense value and 
 importance of the Christian Church. 
 What I contend for here in the privacy 
 of our circle is that the Church, in order 
 to maintain its great influence and power 
 for good and do the work which most 
 needs to be done, absolutely must range 
 itself in line with modern progress in 
 knowledge and thought. It cannot re- 
 
222 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 tain an effectual hold upon the convic- 
 tions of men by requiring them to believe 
 what the most honest and serious of 
 students and thinkers cannot believe and 
 the ordinary every-day common sense of 
 the people will reject. 
 
 " You know there has been a good deal 
 of critical study of the New Testament 
 literature in recent years, and it yields 
 readily to the same tests as are univer- 
 sally accepted for all other human rec- 
 ords, and honesty requires us to accept 
 the results. Really very little study is 
 necessary to verify them. I don't want 
 to make myself tiresome by talking about 
 the political, social, and literary condi- 
 tions under which that record was pro- 
 duced, but I suppose you know this : 
 Christianity as a system was founded, 
 though not fully organized, a generation 
 after Jesus finished his teaching, by Paul 
 and the apostles. Their work was carried 
 forward by the so-called ' Fathers of the 
 Church,' whose writings were not made 
 canonical, as those of the first Christian 
 writers were. Paul was the father of 
 Christian dogma, and it was multiplied 
 
BEARING OF PREVIOUS REMARKS. 22$ 
 
 and extended by his successors ; and why 
 have not the religious leaders of to-day 
 as much right to modify it as they 
 had? 
 
 "You must remember that the letters 
 of Paul and the apostles were in all prob- 
 ability written before the Gospels. These 
 men founded the Christian system, not 
 simply on the life and teachings of Jesus, 
 but still more on his birth and death, 
 which they used as a means of introdu- 
 cing that mysticism which in those times 
 seemed to be a necessity of religion. It 
 was after this had been done, after the 
 Messianic idea had been modified and ac- 
 cepted and the prophecies had been inter- 
 preted to support it, after the idea of the 
 miraculous birth, the sacrificial meaning 
 of the Last Supper, the crucifixion, and 
 the resurrection, had been adopted and 
 wrought into the texture of the new faith 
 and perhaps a hundred years and more 
 after the actual events that the Gospel 
 record was made up in permanent written 
 form. And even what that was we do not 
 know: for the oldest claim for any manu- 
 script of any of the books dates it in the 
 
224 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 early part of the fourth century after 
 Christ ; and the most ancient of these 
 bear many evidences of errors in copying, 
 and subsequent changes and corrections. 
 What is the natural and inevitable conse- 
 quence? Actual written records were im- 
 perfect and fragmentary, made up from 
 the memory of different persons; oral 
 tradition was dim and distorted, and the 
 doctrines already promulgated and ac- 
 cepted necessarily affected the writers 
 and colored the narrative. Compare the 
 four different records as we have them 
 now, in English translations from varying 
 Greek manuscripts, and see if they do not 
 bear all the marks of human production. 
 They are not consistent with each other 
 in details. The same events are related 
 with material variations ; they are differ- 
 ently connected and assigned to different 
 times, places, and situations, and conspic- 
 uous and well-remembered teachings and 
 sayings are put in with no sort of agree- 
 ment as to the occasions that brought 
 them out. This does not impugn the 
 practical authenticity or good faith or im- 
 mortal value of the writings, but it gives 
 
BEARING OF PREVIOUS REMARKS. 22$ 
 
 them a very human character, does it 
 not ? " 
 
 There was a slight pause here, and the 
 perturbation of the devout Thomas was 
 plainly visible. He seemed to be trying 
 to get his shattered ideas together for 
 some kind of protest or reply, but the 
 Judge, noticing that he was bewildered 
 and would not do himself justice kindly 
 relieved him of all occasion for saying 
 anything by proceeding. 
 
 " I know, my dear boy, that this view 
 is shocking to you, although it is not new 
 to scholars, many of them earnest Chris- 
 tians, too. I only wish I could get you 
 to regard it as really in the interest of the 
 highest religion and the purest Chris- 
 tianity, and I think you may come to that 
 sometime if you study it out. I know 
 what is at the bottom of your troubled 
 mind, the miracles and all that they are 
 supposed to sanction and to sanctify. 
 Well, you must see by this time that 
 I think too much importance is at- 
 tached to belief in them. I do not ac- 
 cept them as miracles, of course, but I 
 do not pretend to say just how much 
 
226 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 of fact the stories may have sprung 
 from. 
 
 "You must remember what we were 
 saying about the value of human testi- 
 mony, especially when it relates to mys- 
 terious phenomena which people do not 
 understand, and to that border-land of 
 human experience which has so long 
 baffled psychological inquiry. Get it on 
 record through the oral traditions of a 
 hundred years in an uncritical time, and it 
 becomes impossible to sift it down to 
 facts. You know also that we admitted 
 that there is or may be much of reality of 
 some kind not supernatural, but belong- 
 ing to the unexplored realm of the nat- 
 ural in all this clairvoyant, spiritual-me- 
 dium, faith-cure, hypnotism, personal 
 magnetism business ; in short, that some 
 personalities peculiarly endowed have a 
 marvellous ascendency over others and 
 produce strange effects. I can easily im- 
 agine that this wonderfully constituted 
 and endowed teacher of humanity who 
 came out of Nazareth had such a com- 
 mand over the faith of the simple and 
 devout souls of the time as to produce 
 
 
BRA RING OF PRE VI US REMARKS. 2 2 / 
 
 very remarkable effects upon those 
 afflicted with many of the infirmities that 
 flesh is heir to. Do we not occasionally 
 hear of similar cures and similar control 
 over conduct even nowadays? All that 
 was real in what came to be known as 
 the miracles may be accounted for by 
 natural forces and influences, not much 
 understood even now, and not at all at 
 that time. That the reports of them 
 should become magnified and distorted 
 was simply inevitable ; and that they 
 were so is certain. 
 
 " As a test of the record of these 
 things, let me ask : Do you suppose that 
 any man of sense really believes that 
 insane or epileptic or cataleptic or any 
 other persons are or ever were possessed 
 by demons who could be driven out of 
 them and made to enter a herd of hogs ? 
 For my part, I cannot be made to believe 
 that any person actually dead was ever 
 brought back to life, though I do not 
 marvel at all that there should have been 
 reports and stories of such things. Does 
 it ever strike you as significant that the 
 most remarkable of the alleged miracles, 
 
228 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the raising of Lazarus, is mentioned only 
 in the latest and most doctrinized of the 
 Gospels? Would such an amazing ex- 
 hibition have escaped the knowledge and 
 memory of the earlier evangelists, those 
 who were nearest to the events and may 
 have derived their knowledge directly or 
 indirectly from eye- and ear-witnesses? 
 But the fourth Gospel differs from the 
 others to such an extent as to seem like a 
 record of different events and different 
 personages. The inconsistencies are ir- 
 reconcilable and to be explained only on 
 the theory that the latest book was writ- 
 ten to support the doctrines and interpre- 
 tations that had by that time been estab- 
 lished by the founders of the Church; or 
 at all events that it was tinged no, 
 stained and dyed throughout by the in- 
 tense doctrinal mysticism of its author, 
 whether that was the "Apostle John," or 
 the " Presbyter John," or whoever it was. 
 " Now I want you clearly to understand 
 my position on this matter. It is simply 
 that of freedom of study, freedom of 
 thought, and freedom of belief. I do not 
 object to others believing in the mirac- 
 
BEARING OF PRE VI US RE MA RKS. 2 29 
 
 ulous and the supernatural, if they can 
 honestly do so, and if it affords the most 
 satisfactory solution of the problem for 
 them. I object only to such a belief 
 being required, being obligatory, in order 
 that a person may be admitted to Chris- 
 tian fellowship; for honest and devout 
 minds must differ, and some of them can- 
 not avoid what I and many others regard 
 as rational conclusions. As I have said 
 more than once, the ordinary intelligence, 
 the every-day common sense, of people is 
 pretty sure to respond nowadays to the 
 conclusions of science and reason, to 
 accord with them in a rough way ; and 
 people cannot be won to better lives 
 by imposing upon them conditions of be- 
 lief which they cannot and will not ac- 
 cept. If the churches would broaden 
 their limits by letting ancient dogmas go 
 and giving liberty to honesty of belief 
 and of doubt, they could maintain as high 
 a standard of moral purity and integrity, 
 as lofty a form of a worship and as spirit- 
 ual a view of religion aye, more so 
 and greatly increase their power and in- 
 fluence for good. 
 
MUHHGffT TALCS AT TOE 
 
 ~ But I am talking too long and having 
 it too much to myself. I wish the rest of 
 ~ ; _ _" ~. . . . ~ i ! ~ _ iv ; n* r r 
 
 and have your own say about these 
 thing-. Suppose we wind up the whole 
 subject next tone with a 
 which each shaft express his 
 view; for in two weeks from this night I 
 expect to be on the ocean, bound for a 
 stay of some norths abroad." 
 
 " Count me oat ! " ejaculated the Col- 
 oad, who had sat grim and silent 
 throughout. " The whole thing wearies 
 me to death. I arn giad yon Apeak of 
 winding p next time, so far as thai sub- 
 ject is concerned, haft I am souy yoa 
 ale going abroad, thnagfr I suppose I 
 shall be off somewhere myself pretty 
 
 
 " Bat you must help wind up, for I par- 
 tmlafiy wish to hear what yon wifi say 
 
 "- - ^-^ * * ^ - A>X. .. A A ^^^^^^^9} 
 
 aner tmnmng tne matter over, re- 
 
 " AD right ; if I find I can think it orer, 
 I win, and let you know the result. And 
 Tom wOl come atovnd with the latest 
 
 oforthodox>. 
 
BEARING OF PREVIOUS KRMABKS. 2}l 
 
 And our silent friend, here, I hope we 
 may hear from him." 
 
 : Xo,Ithaiikyoii/*IrepUed- "Having 
 no * views ' to present, I prefer to be the 
 audience, making up in attention for lack 
 of numbers. Silent and kfe* are 
 grams, and I wffl be the silent Li* 
 
XV. 
 
 THE COLONEL MAINTAINS THE USEFUL- 
 NESS OF DELUSION. 
 
 THAT " symposium " suggested by the 
 Judge came off duly on the following 
 Saturday night, and was quite an occa- 
 sion. It prolonged the session of the 
 " Owls " until near three o'clock of Sun- 
 day morning, and I was unable to get 
 the most condensed statement of what 
 was said into one installment of my re- 
 ports. I could hardly cover the ground 
 of one speaker within the proper limits, 
 but I did not sleep until I got the whole 
 thing on paper, fearing lest it evaporate 
 from my memory and the notes I had 
 been making all the morning should be- 
 come undecipherable. 
 
 There was an unusual air of formality 
 about the gathering, the effect of a pre- 
 announced programme, which prevented 
 something of the free-and-easy spirit that 
 
USEFULNESS OF DELUSION. 233 
 
 had been the chief charm of the previous 
 talks. This having the thing in mind be- 
 forehand and thinking it over seemed to 
 impart a gravity to the occasion, which 
 would have spoiled it but for the antici- 
 pation that once for all each was to have 
 his say on a momentous matter which all 
 the previous desultory conversations had 
 almost unconsciously led up to. It was 
 to be disposed of and got out of the way, 
 and then the conclave was to break up 
 for the summer. 
 
 " Well, Colonel," said the Judge in the 
 brisk tone of a master of ceremonies 
 after we had got comfortably settled 
 down, " I have no doubt you concluded 
 to think over the matter we were talking 
 about a week ago and have got something 
 to say worth listening to." 
 
 " The matter you were talking about, 
 you mean," replied the Colonel, with a 
 glare in his blue eyes. " You know I 
 have no taste for this sort of discussion, 
 but I have decided for once to let out on 
 it, and I am going to astonish you by tak- 
 ing up the orthodox side." 
 
 "Nothing will astonish me," rejoined 
 
234 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the Judge with a sort of suppressed 
 chuckle, " but I will wager that Tom will 
 not accept your advocacy of the orthodox 
 side as satisfactory to him and other de- 
 vout believers." 
 
 " Perhaps not, but I cannot help that ; 
 if they will not accept the only ground 
 there is left for them to stand upon I 
 shall leave them to their fate hereafter. 
 You know my personal views well enough, 
 Judge. I accept science and reason, be- 
 lieve what I can find out to be true, and 
 prefer my own judgment to any one's 
 else ; and as to the Deity, the immortal- 
 ity of the soul, a future life, and all that 
 sort of thing, I simply say I don't know 
 anything about it, can't find out anything 
 about it, and don't believe anybody else 
 can. But " 
 
 This last word was spoken with porten- 
 tous emphasis and was followed by a long 
 pause, and then the Colonel set forth 
 upon a discourse which he had evidently 
 thought out with some care : 
 
 " What difference does it make if the 
 beliefs which it is so easy to criticise and 
 pick to pieces are founded in delusion ? 
 
USEFULNESS OF DEL US I ON. 2$$ 
 
 They may be just as necessary to restrain 
 and to sustain poor human nature as if 
 they were based upon demonstrated and 
 everlasting truth. I am inclined to think 
 that delusion may serve a very useful 
 purpose, and that it is hardly safe to 
 be in a hurry to dispel it. It may serve 
 in the place of props and scaffolding 
 in the slow process of building the 
 moral fabric of the human race until 
 it can stand firmly on the basis of 
 knowledge, or rather of wisdom, and it 
 is never safe to knock out your props and 
 take down your scaffoldings until the 
 building is complete. 
 
 " You admit that while the system of 
 Moses was crude and more or less bar- 
 barous it was adapted to the condition of 
 the people for whom it was intended and 
 was a good thing for them. The same is 
 true of any system at a given time and 
 place. It is the product of the people's 
 needs, the best result of such teaching as 
 they are capable of. It is not what a 
 perfected human race would have ; but 
 the human race is not yet perfected, and 
 these things are processes and means 
 
236 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 in its development, and not at all final 
 results. 
 
 " I believe the religion of this day or 
 any other day is just as good as the 
 people can benefit by, and if there is 
 superstition in it, or if it is founded in 
 delusion, that is a part of the necessity of 
 the case. People can believe in a delu- 
 sion with just as much enthusiasm as in 
 a truth ; and more, too, for enthusiasm 
 is a matter of feeling and not of intellect. 
 No person would be willing to die for a 
 scientific fact or a truth in philosophy, 
 but many people have died for their faith 
 in sheer delusion. Even Tom will admit 
 it in the case of heathen, who suffer and 
 die for their superstitions with all the 
 heroism of Christian martyrs. He must 
 also admit it in the case of some Chris- 
 tian martyrs when he remembers that 
 the persecuted heretics of one place or 
 time are the true believers of another, 
 and that men have died with equal stoi- 
 cism in support of propositions that were 
 contradictory of each other. It always 
 seemed absurd to me to take the willing- 
 ness of men to die for their faith as an 
 
USEFULNESS OF DEL US ION. 237 
 
 evidence of its soundness. Faith sus- 
 tained by delusion is just as strong and 
 will produce as much confidence and ex- 
 altation of feeling, as much hope and 
 assurance of blessedness, as that sustained 
 by the deepest philosophy. 
 
 " It is all very well for you and me to 
 say that we can go safely through life 
 doing our duty by ourselves and others, 
 and confident enough as to any future 
 destiny, without accepting the present 
 doctrines of so-called religion. Perhaps 
 we can, and perhaps a small fraction of 
 mankind are safe enough with nothing 
 but science and philosophy to guide 
 them, but it is not so with the great 
 mass. They do not know, they do not 
 think, they do not reason to sound con- 
 clusions, and they must believe or they 
 are lost. Men who are beset with pas- 
 sionate impulses that carry them into 
 vices and crimes, who cannot see that 
 these mean destruction for themselves, 
 and who lack the strength to resist them 
 even if they did appreciate their peril 
 what is the use in telling such men that 
 they will be happier and better off if they 
 
238 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 will do right and be good ? You cannot, 
 with all the science and philosophy ex- 
 tant, hold them from going down. They 
 must have something that will take hold 
 of their hopes and fears with a mighty 
 grip. 
 
 " Poor humanity, with its tendency to 
 sink into the beast, must believe in order 
 to be saved. It must have the strongest 
 kind of motives presented in order to 
 struggle successfully against depravity. 
 It must believe in most definite and 
 tangible rewards and punishments. It 
 must have a heaven to hope for and a 
 hell to shrink from, and these must be 
 positive, concrete things, and not bar- 
 ren abstractions or vague possibilities. 
 Heaven and hell were useful inventions, 
 and we cannot get on without them. We 
 must still bribe and scare people to sal- 
 vation or they will go to destruction. I 
 mean salvation and destruction in this 
 world, in a social, moral and political 
 sense. Argue, if you please, that belief 
 in a heaven and hell hereafter is founded 
 in delusion pure and simple, but it is no 
 less necessary as a restraining influence 
 
USEFULNESS OF DELUSION. 239 
 
 on that account. And I think the doc- 
 trines that inspire awe, excite hopes 
 and fears, and impress people in a 
 way to make them submit to authority, 
 serve a useful and necessary purpose, 
 whether they rest upon absolute truth 
 or not. 
 
 " I could never think that educated 
 Catholic priests had any real belief in the 
 forms and ceremonies of their Church, 
 but I suppose they see how effective 
 these are in bringing the ignorant and 
 superstitious, those in whom feeling is 
 more potent than reason, into submission 
 and control, and they use the system for 
 that purpose. It is a good thing they 
 do, for the lawless elements would be 
 more lawless, the tendency to socialism, 
 anarchy, and a general 'dissolution and 
 thaw' of society, would be stronger but for 
 this restraint. I conceive that the ritual- 
 istic churches the Roman and the Angli- 
 can have done a great thing in conserv- 
 ing the sentiment of religion ; the Protest- 
 ant churches generally have gone off 
 after intellectual barrenness of dogma- 
 tism and so have less control over their 
 
240 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 followers. There is less of religious re- 
 straint in other churches than the Roman, 
 at least, partly because their field is 
 among people who need it less ; but 
 they need a good deal of it, all the 
 same. 
 
 "And to get the restraint and the 
 incentive to effort that are necessary, I 
 tell you, people must believe, not think ; 
 especially those whose thinking capacity 
 is small. Your critical and philosophic 
 view of revelation is of no use to them. 
 A God of the universe who is a deduc- 
 tion from nature and science, a future 
 state that is a possible inference from 
 philosophy, are not enough. They must 
 have a God with positive attributes, with 
 a direct interest in their lives, upon 
 whom they feel themselves absolutely 
 dependent, and he must be revealed so 
 that there can be no question about it. 
 The future state of happiness or misery 
 must be a reality and not a deduction or 
 an inference, and hence only a possibil- 
 ity ; and to be a reality it must have 
 been revealed and made known with 
 authority. All this may be delusion, but 
 
USEFULNESS OF DELUSION. 241 
 
 what if it is ? It is just as necessary and 
 just as effective for all that. 
 
 4 ' Certainty is what men in this world 
 want, not doubt ; and they can get it only 
 by unquestioning faith in some author- 
 ity. Take away the anchorage for that 
 and they are adrift, on a perilous sea with- 
 out pilot or compass and with no guide 
 but the stars, which they do not under- 
 stand. 
 
 " Not only is this positive belief, this 
 unquestioning faith, which nothing but 
 the acceptance of Divine Providence and 
 Divine revelation can sustain, necessary 
 to enable people to strive against the evil 
 tendencies of their nature and to over- 
 come them, but it is necessary to give 
 them hope and comfort in the trials of 
 life. What satisfaction can science and 
 philosophy, with their doubtful infer- 
 ences, afford to that large portion of the 
 human race that must spend their days in 
 toil and hardship and privation, and are 
 beset with misfortunes and losses? They 
 work on year after year with little ease 
 or comfort ; they lose even the oppor- 
 tunity to earn bread at times. They see 
 
242 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 their families in poverty, sometimes in 
 suffering and misery ; they are subject to 
 sickness, and death comes at intervals to 
 try their souls. In this little span of life 
 what are their compensations and where 
 is their hope of compensation ? By all 
 means, teach them that there is a God, 
 who is not merely a remote and incom- 
 prehensible abstraction, but a personal 
 Father to them all. Let them believe 
 that he is watching over them and taking 
 note of their sufferings and hardships, 
 that he credits them with their efforts to 
 do right and to bear their burdens with 
 cheerful resignation, and that in his own 
 good time he will take them from this 
 vale of tears to an exceeding great 
 reward, which will more than make up 
 for all they have borne. 
 
 " Religious faith is necessary to sus- 
 tain the poor and the heavy-laden, to 
 inspire them to efforts that shall keep 
 them from giving way to moral degen- 
 eration and enable them to be virtuous, 
 honest, and upright, and that shall save 
 them from despondency and desperation. 
 And they are not the only ones that 
 
USEFULNESS OF DEL USION. 24 3 
 
 need it. Others meet with misfortune 
 and bereavement, and need the support 
 and consolation of a confident depend- 
 ence upon a higher Power ; they need it 
 to sustain and comfort them in trial and 
 affliction and they need it to aid them in 
 maintaining their integrity of character 
 in spite of the buffets of the world. 
 Take away their faith, and why should 
 they not commit suicide or plunge into 
 gratifications of passion that will lead to 
 speedy death ? 
 
 " You cannot get high enough in the 
 scale of intelligence or of worldly success 
 to escape the need of this kind of faith as 
 a restraining influence. The besetting 
 weakness of all mankind is Selfishness, 
 and it leads to a multitude of wrongs and 
 iniquities. Prosperity is selfish, wealth is 
 selfish, success is selfish, business is self- 
 ish, politics is selfish, and at the bottom 
 of all man's inhumanity to man is selfish- 
 ness. It leads to indulgence and excess, 
 and it leads to injustice and injury to 
 others. It is at the bottom of the moral 
 evils that afflict society. Knowledge 
 and philosophy may be the antidote of 
 
244 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 this for the few, but not for the many. 
 They need to be impressed with the idea 
 that this life is as nothing compared to 
 the life to come, and that by their selfish 
 course they are laying up wrath against 
 the day of wrath, that they are incurring 
 the displeasure of the Almighty, and 
 that the Lazarus whom they turn from 
 their gates will repose in Abraham's 
 bosom when they are suffering the tor- 
 ments which their wrong-doing deserves. 
 " I tell you, the men of this world, 
 to escape moral degradation and social 
 death and the disasters to society that 
 must come from the prevalence of the 
 evil tendencies of human nature, must 
 believe in a personal Deity who takes an 
 interest in their doings and will call them 
 to an account. They must believe in a 
 state of rewards and punishments com- 
 pared with which all the gains and losses 
 of this world are as dust in the balance. 
 They must be impressed with this belief 
 so that it will have a vital power over 
 their lives. On what shall it rest ? You 
 cannot 'base it on science and reason. It 
 must rest upon revelation, and a revela- 
 
USEFULNESS OF DELUSION. 245 
 
 tion that is authoritative and inspired, 
 for no other can preclude doubt. 
 
 " So you see that, although I do not 
 personally accept anything that the word 
 'faith* implies, I think the churches are 
 right in basing their teachings upon it 
 and holding to doctrines that are neces- 
 sary to support it. 
 
 " Neither do I deplore the division into 
 sects. The Roman Catholic system is 
 wonderfully adapted to its purposes, and 
 reaches the souls of men upon whom 
 rational preaching would be lost. But 
 beyond a certain line in the combination 
 of ignorance and knowledge, of supersti- 
 tion and reason, of emotion and thought, 
 that make up the human character, it 
 loses its hold, and other systems of belief 
 are better adapted to the work of Chris- 
 tianity. So far as people are allowed to 
 think and to judge they come to disagree 
 and to divide, and there are sects 
 adapted to the wants and needs of differ- 
 ent natures. So much the better! All 
 are provided for. Nor do I care if some 
 in the churches, even of their ministers, 
 do not really believe all that they profess, 
 
246 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 in continuing to accept the traditional 
 creeds. They may see the value, even 
 the necessity, of beliefs which in their own 
 minds they cannot fully accept, and they 
 may be convinced that they can act more 
 effectively in the great work of saving 
 sinners to use a cant phrase of theirs 
 by not disturbing these beliefs. Devout 
 freethinkers like you, Judge, and un- 
 devout, but self-confident, unbelievers 
 like me, are at liberty to take our own 
 way, and why should we meddle or make 
 with the churches or the religious sys- 
 tems that the state of the world and of 
 mankind makes necessary? Let them 
 alone, I say!" 
 
 Fully conscious that I have been unable 
 to preserve characteristic phraseology 
 and personal flavor of the Colonel's dis- 
 course, I yet think I have its substance 
 all right. When he had finished and was 
 lighting a cigar, with a manner denoting 
 immense relief, the Judge turned to Tom 
 and said, "Well, my boy, are you satis- 
 fied with that as a defence of the position 
 of the Church ? " 
 
USEFULNESS OF DELUSION. 247 
 
 " No, sir," was Tom Benedict's prompt 
 reply. 
 
 But, as I said at the start, this talk was 
 too long to be reported in one statement, 
 and we shall have to defer Tom's remarks 
 to another chapter. 
 
XVI. 
 
 TOM BENEDICT AS A DEFENDER OF 
 THE FAITH. 
 
 " THE objection I have to the Colonel's 
 position," Tom proceeded, " is that it 
 presents a total lack of sincerity and 
 good faith as the basis of what you 
 might call a policy for the Church and 
 for religious teachers. It is founded on 
 the Jesuitical maxim that the end justifies 
 the means, and it would use systematic 
 deception as a means of keeping people 
 on their good behavior. It is like the 
 wicked old practise of scaring children 
 with bogy stories to make them obe- 
 dient, and promising them impossible 
 things if they will be good. It is calcu- 
 lated to promote hypocrisy and demor- 
 alize society rather than keep it under 
 restraint. I mean, of course, if the the- 
 ory of delusion were to be admitted and 
 acted on. I do not think that any one 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 249 
 
 who does not in substance honestly 
 accept the doctrines of the Church can 
 be justified in subscribing to them, much 
 less in teaching them. 
 
 "I agree with the Colonel that faith 
 and belief are necessary ; they are and 
 must be, it seems to me, the very basis 
 of all real religion : but my ground is 
 that they must be founded not upon 
 delusion but upon Divine revelation, 
 which may be differently understood and 
 interpreted at different times and places, 
 but is in substance ever the same. I 
 know that I am myself conscious of the 
 need of a belief in a Deity who is some- 
 thing more than an abstraction. I do 
 not suppose that I am weaker or more 
 prone to evil than most men, but I find 
 it hard enough to pursue the course in all 
 the relations of life which I know to be 
 right, and I am sure I should come very 
 far short of it without my belief in the 
 Father of us all, who has laid his com- 
 mands upon us and watches over our 
 conduct, who will help us if we call upon 
 him, who will call us to account if we are 
 wayward and consciously erring, and who 
 
2$0 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 will reward and punish in another life 
 according to our deeds in this. There 
 would be no support in such a belief if it 
 were not confidently based upon actual 
 revelation. In fact, it cannot rest with- 
 out such a basis, it seems to me. 
 
 " But my faith does not proceed from 
 study and reason, though I admit that to 
 be sound it must be consistent with the 
 final results of knowledge that is, truth. 
 Yet it seems to me that there is more in 
 the nature of man than body and intel- 
 lect, and that the intuitions of the soul 
 and the consciousness of the spirit may 
 be as convincing as the processes of the 
 reason, and even more so, for they may 
 come nearer to absolute conclusions. It 
 is the consciousness of a spiritual being 
 within me, of spiritual needs and of 
 spiritual relationships, that is the real 
 bottom of my faith, and the purest and 
 most exalted natures have had this con- 
 sciousness in the highest degree. I take 
 their teachings, drawn from the intuitions 
 of spiritual insight, as being just as au- 
 thoritative in their way as the teachings 
 of great students and thinkers are in mat* 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 2$ I 
 
 ters of science and material philosophy. 
 The spiritual teachers too, deal with truth, 
 and are nearer to its source than scien- 
 tists and philosophers. 
 
 " Starting with this consciousness of 
 the spiritual nature of the soul, and its 
 needs and relationships, and accepting 
 the teachings in regard to it of those 
 who have had the deepest and loftiest 
 conceptions of that side of man's nature 
 and life, it is a natural and, it seems to 
 me, a necessary inference that we have a 
 destiny above and beyond this life. You 
 cannot prove it from scientific knowledge 
 and reasoning, but convictions that spring 
 from the spiritual side may be founded 
 in deeper truth than science and phi- 
 losophy have yet reached. Indeed, the 
 keenest reasoning of the old philosophers, 
 like Plato and Socrates, tended to the 
 same conclusions. If we are made for 
 another and a higher life than this, then 
 we must have a Maker who had designs 
 in creating us and in preparing the human 
 race for its destiny, and we are justified 
 in believing in his infinite power and wis- 
 dom and goodness and in his absolute 
 
252 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 righteousness, though none of us is ca- 
 pable of fully understanding his designs 
 and the methods by which they are 
 wrought out. We have ground enough 
 for faith and for accepting those teach- 
 ings which tell us that God is our Father, 
 that he watches over us and directs the 
 course of things in a way that is righteous 
 altogether and that his providence is over 
 every person, over the whole race and 
 over the universe. My belief in that 
 does not come from the study of nature 
 and of history, but from the soul and its 
 consciousness, with the aid of spiritual 
 teachings from those who seem to me to 
 have the deepest and closest relation with 
 things spiritual. 
 
 " Then, accepting as I do, without any 
 question of what science and reason may 
 teach, this one doctrine of the spiritual 
 life and destiny of man and his relation 
 to a paternal and beneficent Deity, 
 which seems to me to be quite apart from 
 the province of science and reason, all 
 the rest seems easy enough. That is, it 
 seems natural and rational that there 
 should have been a progressive revela- 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 2$$ 
 
 tion to man of his relation to the Creator, 
 his duties in this life, and his final des- 
 tiny. No doubt the understanding of 
 the revelation was imperfect when it was 
 made and is imperfect yet, and the task 
 was imposed upon the race of working 
 out its own salvation. I cannot see that 
 it is inconsistent with any scientific theory 
 of evolution and development, that the 
 processes of creation and of the perfec- 
 tion of the human race should have been 
 ordained by such a Deity as Christians 
 believe in, and that he should, in the 
 course of human development, have made 
 revelations of himself to men in such 
 ways as they were ready to apprehend. 
 When, according to his plan of perfecting 
 the race, it had reached a certain stage of 
 development, why should he not select a 
 people in which to plant and nourish the 
 germs of a true conception of himself and 
 of sound principles of conduct? It was a 
 part of the Divine scheme that the race 
 should grow and struggle forward and 
 upward. 
 
 " It is a petty notion that an all-wise and 
 beneficent God would of necessity make 
 
254 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 the race perfect all at once and keep it 
 in a state of Elysian happiness ; that, 
 having brought it into being on the face 
 of the earth amid the elemental forces, 
 he should preserve it from calamity, im- 
 plant in it only tendencies to good and 
 to happiness, and make a full and unmis- 
 takable revelation of himself at once. 
 The actual plan, so far as we can under- 
 stand it, seems to me much more divine. 
 Why, then, in the course of human de- 
 velopment should not the beginnings of 
 revelation have been made to the founders 
 of Israel, carried further through the 
 Egyptian bondage and deliverance, ex- 
 panded and exalted through the history 
 of the Kings and the teachings of the 
 prophets, and finally, through the contact 
 of Israel with other nations and the dis- 
 persion of the tribes, have prepared the 
 way for the fuller revelation to all the 
 world made through the Saviour ? 
 
 " It does not seem to me irrational to 
 believe that this process of development 
 of religious ideas, to which other nations 
 than the Hebrews made contributions 
 and which culminated in Christianity, 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 255 
 
 was in the strictest sense a process of 
 Divine revelation. That the prevailing 
 conceptions from time to time had the 
 crudity belonging to the stage of intel- 
 lectual and moral progress of the people 
 does not derogate from this theory, it 
 seems to me. Revelation was made so 
 far as man was prepared for it, and the 
 result had the imperfections of his capac- 
 ities and was subject to the misconcep- 
 tions to which the existing stage of hu- 
 man progress made it liable. The record 
 in which this revelation is embodied and 
 preserved has the characteristics of the 
 people, through whom and by whom that 
 record was made, and of the state of in- 
 tellectual and moral progress which they 
 had attained. Notions that have been 
 held sometimes and by some people as 
 to inspiration may not be sound ; but 
 that God in his infinite wisdom and prov- 
 idence made the revelation of his will 
 through a people chosen for the purpose, 
 working it out in their experience and 
 causing it to be preserved in their records 
 and literature, does not seem to me to 
 be an unreasonable thing to believe, and 
 
256 MIDNIGH7" TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 it does seem to me to be well supported 
 by evidence and argument. I can regard 
 this revelation and this record as Divine 
 and authoritative so far as they go, not- 
 withstanding any imperfection in the 
 teachings and conduct and writings of 
 the people through whom the process was 
 wrought out. I am not to expect the 
 scientific knowledge, the moral and social 
 advancement, or the philosophic spirit 
 that came ages later on in the develop- 
 ment of humanity. 
 
 " It seems to me clear that the world 
 had been prepared not only by the ex- 
 perience of the Jews and the share of 
 Divine revelation made through them, 
 but by developments among other peoples, 
 for the great revelation that came in the 
 person of Jesus Christ. It seems to me 
 that God had been slowly as it appears 
 to our conceptions of time bringing the 
 world to a condition for this grand step, 
 and then at the right time and in the 
 right way he raised up a Saviour for the 
 race. 
 
 " Then, as I accept the theory of a Di- 
 vine plan and Divine oversight from first 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 2 57 
 
 to last, I find no difficulty in accepting 
 what are called miracles. I do not see 
 why, in bringing into the world the 
 teacher whom the world needed and was 
 ready for, who was to stand in all after 
 ages as the type of perfection in human 
 character, who was to have the spiritual 
 insight and wisdom to reveal to men the 
 mystery of this life and give assurance of 
 a life to come, in which good would be 
 rewarded and evil punished, and to de- 
 monstrate immortality I do not see 
 why, I say, God should not have caused 
 this Saviour's birth by the creative power 
 of which we have so many evidences, 
 without an earthly father, why He should 
 not exercise supernatural powers through 
 him to convince the people for all time 
 of his Divine character and mission, and 
 even raise him visibly from the dead to 
 settle all doubts of a life beyond the 
 grave. I believe these things, not simply 
 because the Church teaches them and the 
 record contains them, but to me they 
 seem reasonable and in accordance with a 
 truly Divine method of bringing the hu- 
 man race to salvation and ultimate per- 
 
2$8 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 fection. With such study as I am able 
 to give the matter, it is easier to believe 
 this than not to believe it ; and it seems 
 to me to afford a much more satisfactory 
 explanation of religious history than 
 science and philosophical criticism can 
 give. 
 
 " With the Christian revelation, follow- 
 ing and completing the Hebrew revela- 
 tion, the human race had a sufficient 
 ground upon which to work out its spirit- 
 ual problems, and it has been engaged 
 upon this ever since, and will be engaged 
 upon it doubtless for ages to come. It 
 had direct revelation enough to proceed 
 upon safely. This might need continual 
 study. It might be subject to different 
 interpretations and be imperfectly under- 
 stood ; and so it happens that religious 
 teaching and Christian belief, and even 
 forms and manners of worship, have been 
 a matter of progress, and may still be so. 
 But I believe the more progress we 
 make, the more clearly we apprehend the 
 truths of nature, the truths of history, the 
 truths of revelation, and the truth regard- 
 ing the spiritual nature of man, the more 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 259 
 
 firmly established will be the basis of 
 faith in the fatherhood of God, the di- 
 vine character of Christ and his Gospel, 
 and all that is essential in Christian doc- 
 trine. 
 
 "You will see plainly enough that in 
 studying and thinking for my part in 
 to-night's programme I have been forced 
 a good deal from the ground which I sup- 
 posed myself to hold ; that is, I am com- 
 pelled to shift somewhat my point of 
 view and take things in a new light. At 
 first, I was much troubled in mind by the 
 bearings of your talks about Scripture, 
 the Church, inspiration, and so forth ; 
 but I think the disturbance was a good 
 thing for me, after all, and I feel myself 
 regaining my foothold. My confidence 
 in things which I had accepted as a mat- 
 ter of course without thinking much about 
 them was giving way ; but you have 
 enlarged my field of vision, and aroused 
 me to do some thinking on my own 
 account ; and while my ideas have been 
 taking a new form, I feel sure that in my 
 own mind they are to be substantially 
 confirmed in the end. 
 
260 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 u I accept freely and confidently the 
 idea that God's providence extends and 
 always did extend over all the earth and 
 all its people, and that his revelation 
 appears in all history and all human 
 experience, but that does not prevent me 
 from seeing a special revelation to man 
 through the religion of the ancient He- 
 brews and the birth, teachings, and death 
 of Jesus, or from regarding the record con- 
 taining it as divine and therefore sacred. 
 Without regard to theories about inspira- 
 tion, I think God took care to have the 
 revelation of his will duly made as hu- 
 manity developed and advanced, and 
 duly recorded and preserved for the per- 
 petual guidance and benefit of the race. 
 After thinking the matter all over, I still 
 find my own faith unshaken." 
 
 At the end of this discourse, which had 
 more spirit and eloquence than I have 
 been able to reproduce, the little com- 
 pany applauded Tom, to the astonish- 
 ment of loungers in the neighboring 
 room, even the Colonel joining in with a 
 grim smile. 
 
TOM DEFENDS THE FAITH. 26 1 
 
 " Well done, my boy ! " said the 
 Judge. "I guess we may as well drop 
 the subject now." 
 
 " O no, my dear sir," Tom replied, 
 warmly. " You must sum up the conclu- 
 sion of the whole matter and tell us 
 what you think of the Colonel's views 
 and mine. I am curious to hear what 
 you have to say." 
 
 " All right, if you insist upon it. I 
 suppose that was implied in the agree- 
 ment." And the Judge, after some little 
 delay, undertook to restore his lines so 
 far as they had been deranged. 
 
XVII. 
 
 THE JUDGE PLEADS FOR UNIVERSAL 
 TOLERATION AND ENLIGHTENMENT. 
 
 I CANNOT pretend to give the exact 
 language of the Judge's final discourse in 
 the symposium of " Owls," and it is use- 
 less to attempt to convey any adequate 
 idea of his peculiar earnestness of manner. 
 I can only fall back upon the formula of 
 the newspaper reporters and declare, 
 with more truth than sometimes charac- 
 terizes their assertions, that he spoke 
 " substantially as follows : " 
 
 " I do not wish to repeat or to modify 
 any views that I have heretofore ex- 
 pressed. My individual opinions are of 
 no special importance, and what I wish 
 to see is not their acceptance, but a 
 universal toleration of differences of opin- 
 ion among honest and earnest people, 
 and especially among people of a devout 
 and religious turn, and a general co-op- 
 
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION. 263 
 
 eration in the one great purpose of all 
 religion the elevation and improvement 
 of mankind. That, it seems to me, is 
 the real, the practical meaning of the 
 salvation of men. Men need to be saved 
 from sin that is, from the evil tenden- 
 cies of human nature and their own 
 selfish and degrading desires and raised 
 to higher conceptions of life and better 
 conduct. That is the true work of salva- 
 tion ; and whether it looks beyond this 
 life or not makes no serious difference 
 as to what needs to be done. That 
 which is best for man here below in the 
 highest sense is surely that which will 
 best fit him for any life for which he 
 may be destined. The best that can be 
 done to elevate and purify human charac- 
 ter and conduct in this world is the best 
 that can be done to prepare souls for a 
 higher life. 
 
 " It seems to me that all religions which 
 rise above gross superstition, and all 
 devout men, are really agreed upon those 
 things that are essential. The nearer 
 they come to truth the more they are in 
 harmony. Differences in belief necessa- 
 
264 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 rily indicate distance from truth, varying 
 in direction. Multiplicity of sects only 
 shows how far we are from the common 
 ground of absolute truth : as they 
 approach that ground their differences 
 must diminish ; and if they reach it the 
 differences must disappear. Differences 
 of belief that produce so many sects are 
 founded on dogmas and doctrines, and 
 these are only so many indexes of error, 
 or of distance from truth, which is nec- 
 essarily consistent -with itself. But all 
 the lines converge to the central light. 
 
 "All believers are wandering in the 
 same misty wilderness with the same 
 type of compass, but with needles de- 
 flected all sorts of ways by disturbing 
 influences. The efforts of mankind in 
 their progress are to clear away the 
 mists, to get visible landmarks, and to 
 correct the variations of the compass. 
 Creeds and doctrines have served good 
 purpose as charts in the past, but they 
 should be subject to constant correction. 
 To cling to those of the old explorers 
 just because they are old, is to remain in 
 error. They have been used so long now 
 
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION. 265 
 
 that radical corrections are needed. We 
 have learned so much in the past hun- 
 dred years that to hold to these creeds is 
 like sailing by Mercator's charts. 
 
 " For my own part I accept immortal- 
 ity and the life to come, for otherwise I 
 can find no adequate explanation of this 
 life and of the existence of what we 
 mean by the soul in man. I accept the 
 general idea of a beneficent Creator of 
 the universe and Father of mankind, for 
 otherwise I can find no adequate explana- 
 tion of the existence of the universe and 
 of mankind. There is revelation enough 
 in nature as explored by science, in his- 
 tory as explored by philosophy, and in 
 man himself as explored by reason, to 
 sustain that much of belief for me. 
 
 " And that is about all there is essen- 
 tial to any or all religion. The doctrines 
 and dogmas built all over the funda- 
 mental basis of religion come from the 
 efforts of men to interpret, to explain 
 and to support their faith, and to bring 
 others to accept it and live by it ; and 
 the variations of doctrine are but the 
 measure of the error that is in it. Old 
 
266 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 conceptions were crude, old beliefs were 
 necessarily made up largely of ignorance 
 and superstition, because the minds that 
 entertained them had not the means of 
 enlightenment. Ormuzd and Ahriman, 
 the Holy Ghost and the Devil, were the 
 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of old theolo- 
 gies. To-day the struggle between good 
 and evil needs no personifications. Sci- 
 ence has abolished the heaven and hell 
 of Christian mythology, because the blue 
 dome of Olympus has been dissolved into 
 the vast depths of the sky, and geology 
 leaves no place for the mysterious under- 
 world realm of Sheol or of Hades. The 
 region is occupied by elemental fires fed 
 by the ingredients of the earth's crust, 
 and not by departed souls. And yet 
 Oriental tropes and the visions of saints 
 need not petrify for all time our ideas of 
 future existence. The universe has space 
 enough for all the souls that may have 
 animated all the races of its innumerable 
 worlds. How do we know but that on 
 other planets and in other solar systems 
 the problems of life and death may have 
 been carried much nearer their last solu- 
 
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION. 267 
 
 tion than we have been able to reach, 
 with our realms of darkness in Africa 
 and Oceanica and our slums in London 
 and New York? 
 
 " As to future reward and punishment, 
 must not the soul carry that with it 
 wherever it goes? Is happiness or mis- 
 ery a question of place, in this world or 
 any other world ? 
 
 " I agree with the view that religious 
 faith may be just as earnest and just as 
 efficacious for the time if founded in de- 
 lusion as if founded in truth ; but not if 
 the delusion is conscious. I would not 
 try to keep up delusion knowing it to be 
 such or consciously make use of it even 
 to 'save souls.' Hypocrisy is hateful 
 and can produce no good results. I do 
 not think light is hurtful except to nox- 
 ious things, or knowledge dangerous to 
 anything but evil. Help people to know 
 and to think, and you lead them toward 
 safety. Any religious system that de- 
 pends on shutting the mind from light and 
 restraining the action of reason is supersti- 
 tion. It is built not upon bedrock, but 
 upon rotting piles in a sweltering morass. 
 
268 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 " My objection to the theory of a spe- 
 cial revelation running through the his- 
 tory of one people, imbedded in their 
 literature and revived and embodied in 
 one system of religious belief, is that it 
 does not accord with a wide understand- 
 ing and a profound view of the facts. 
 Advancing knowledge and searching 
 criticism will not sustain it ; and there is 
 loss in contending for an untenable posi- 
 tion. 
 
 " In a sense, the Jews were a ' chosen 
 people/ just as other races were, because 
 they had a special genius and accom- 
 plished a peculiar work. Whether you call 
 it ' Divine Providence ' or ' natural selec- 
 tion ' makes no difference : the fact re- 
 mains that, for instance, the Greeks were 
 gifted with a surpassing genius for philos- 
 ophy and art : the Romans were endowed 
 with an all-embracing power of organized 
 regulation and the compelling of human 
 and material forces to practical ends ; and 
 so the Hebrews, in spite of the crudities 
 of their conceptions, had a genius for re- 
 ligion, which enabled them to produce a 
 series of prophets and teachers, uttering 
 
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION. 269 
 
 germinal truths that have lived and borne 
 fruit in man's elevation, far beyond those 
 issuing from any other one nation. 
 
 "But the truths of religious senti- 
 ment are only one part of man's nature, 
 and God has wrought upon man in 
 multifarious ways. The theory of Provi- 
 dence and revelation must needs take in 
 all nature, all history and experience, 
 and all attainable philosophy. Then will 
 it be strengthened by advancing knowl- 
 edge and exploring reason, and not 
 weakened. 
 
 " I do not contend for any restriction 
 upon belief or unbelief. I would not 
 interfere with any form of faith that men 
 find satisfying to their souls. I would 
 merely open wide the temple-doors and 
 proclaim liberty to all the world. I 
 would invite people to search for the 
 truth with all the light the heavens can 
 give. Make Science and Knowledge and 
 Reason the handmaidens of Religion, and 
 give leave to every man to see by the 
 best light he can get. I am confident 
 that the cause of virtue and morality, the 
 cause of man's salvation, will be the 
 
2/O MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 gainer by it, and that the * kingdom of 
 heaven ' will be advanced. 
 
 " If the Christian Church could be 
 purged of its ' creeds outworn,' of its 
 fossilized dogmas and its mummified for- 
 malisms, if its windows could be opened 
 to the light of the universe, its sects 
 would fuse and coalesce, and there is no 
 reason why it should 'not draw to itself 
 a great vitalizing force that is now ex- 
 cluded. Let men believe what they must, 
 but do not compel them to believe what 
 they cannot, with the alternative of being 
 excluded from the company of those who 
 are striving together to do better, to be 
 better, and to make the world better, 
 You cannot force them to believe, and 
 to make them pretend to believe ' is not 
 and cannot come to good.' The policy of 
 insisting upon the old doctrines is mak- 
 ing hypocrites and not saints. When we 
 see men of sanctified professions serving 
 mammon in business and in public life 
 and belying every requirement of their 
 professed faith, we must conclude that 
 there is no real vitality in their religion. 
 They are bringing deep discredit on what 
 
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION. 2*]\ 
 
 they call the ' cause of Christ/ Christ 
 would repudiate and denounce them as 
 the Pharisees of this age. 
 
 " If we could break down the trammels 
 of antiquated creeds and revive the Jesus 
 of history from the petrifaction of ages 
 to a living reality in the minds of men, 
 there would be a new era in the con- 
 quests of religious faith. 
 
 " What greater inspiration is needed 
 than the life and teachings and the su- 
 preme sacrifice of One absolutely sinless 
 and unselfish Man ? It is the ideal of 
 the aspirations of the race. It would be 
 a mighty attraction to all that is best in 
 human nature, a regenerating force for 
 all mankind, while the old exclusive dog- 
 mas become more and more repellent as 
 the race advances in enlightenment. By 
 opening wide the doors and throwing 
 down the ancient barriers the best talent, 
 the highest character, and the most ear- 
 nest zeal could be brought into the 
 Church to aid in the work of redeeming 
 the race from the powers of darkness, 
 whereas now they are largely excluded. 
 
 " Moreover, it would be far easier to 
 
2/2 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 reach the hearts of men. They would 
 be asked to know, to reason, and to 
 understand, and could be led to see that 
 purity of life and right action bring their 
 own reward, and mighty influences could 
 be applied to help them in the struggle 
 against the powers of evil within and 
 without. The best part of society would 
 be turned into an educating and elevat- 
 ing force for the worst part, and one day 
 in the week could be devoted to a real 
 work of salvation among men. Three 
 generations of this kind of Christianity, 
 working with all the resources of knowl- 
 edge and reason and with the ardor of 
 intellectual liberty and moral zeal, would 
 transform the face of human society and 
 give civilization an advance greater than 
 it has known in all the time since the 
 Dark Ages. With the inculcation of a 
 broad charity and a spirit of the genuine 
 brotherhood of man it might abolish all 
 slums and sinks of iniquity, practically 
 exterminate crime and pauperism, and 
 dispel the deep shadows of ignorance and 
 poverty. 
 
 " I do not contend for any creeds of 
 
A PLEA FOX TOLERATION. 2/3 
 
 negation, any formal denial of things 
 that have been believed or that men find 
 it necessary to believe. I only plead for 
 liberty of thought and freedom of belief, 
 of honesty in teaching and in preaching, 
 and the discarding of those metes and 
 bounds that antiquated dogmas have set 
 up, which keep out of the great organ- 
 ization of the Christian Church much 
 of the best talent, the best learning, 
 and, in a great degree, the best religious 
 spirit of the age. Many give a formal 
 adhesion to creeds which they do not 
 really believe in, for the sake of not being 
 excluded ; but it is a compromise with 
 conscience that savors of hypocrisy. 
 Souls of resolute honesty will not do 
 this, and they are branded as unbelievers, 
 even as infidels, though they be the salt 
 of the earth. As a consequence, ' in- 
 fidel * is ceasing to be a term of oppro- 
 brium, and may become one of honor, 
 while membership in a church ceases to 
 be accepted as a guarantee of good char- 
 acter. Let us not forget that Jesus was 
 hounded to death by the religious leaders 
 of the Jews because he ' stirred up the 
 
274 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 people ' with teaching new interpretations 
 of the ancient creed, and that Paul and 
 Silas hardly escaped the same fate at the 
 hands of their own countrymen because 
 they ' turned the world upside down ' 
 with the same pestilent heresies. Is it 
 not time that the world learned from 
 experience not to * stone the proph- 
 ets?' 
 
 " For the sake of the power and in- 
 fluence of the Christian Church I would 
 like to see it cast off the trammels of old 
 superstitions and of doctrines sanctioned 
 only by imperfect knowledge and imper- 
 fect thinking and sanctified only by time 
 and tradition. The sanctifying processes 
 of time are inverted, and the inexperience 
 of the race is placed above its experi- 
 ence, its ignorance above its knowledge, 
 its credulity above its reason. Not only 
 would the widening of the limits of the 
 Church by clearing away the old barriers 
 of crumbling creeds bring in a mighty 
 force now excluded, but it would bring 
 the Church into closer contact with the 
 mass of humanity that needs to be 
 reclaimed from ignorance and from in- 
 
A PLEA FOR TOLERATION-. 2?$ 
 
 iquity, and would set new and power- 
 ful agencies at work for the regeneration 
 of society. 
 
 " Powerful as is delusion, persistent as is 
 superstition, obstinate as is credulity, I 
 believe the day has come in the progress 
 of civilization, when the old system of 
 promises and threats, whose fulfilment 
 depended on belief or unbelief in things 
 incredible, has lost its power, and when 
 knowledge and reason, sympathy and 
 help, are the proper weapons with which 
 to carry on the conquests of salvation for 
 the human race. I am not for tearing 
 down nor for building up, but for recog- 
 nizing growth and progress, and allowing 
 the old and dead material to slough off 
 and go to decay instead of trying to 
 plaster and bind it on in an ineffectual 
 effort to put a stop to growth and vital 
 development. 
 
 " Universal toleration and enlighten- 
 ment and the co-operation of all devout 
 and earnest souls in the work of salvation 
 in this world is what I would like to see, 
 confident that, whatever may be the 
 destiny of man in another life, this would 
 
276 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 be the most effectual means of insuring 
 his eternal well-being." 
 
 I have failed to give any adequate idea 
 of the Judge's farewell discourse, but I 
 have struggled with my memory and my 
 scrappy and illegible notes to the best of 
 my ability. I have the comfort of know- 
 ing that if he ever sees what I have writ- 
 ten it will be some months before he can 
 call me to account, and by that time he 
 will probably not think it worth while. 
 
 With this final religious symposium our 
 midnight gatherings are broken up, and 
 I do not know that they will ever be 
 renewed. Even if they are, I shall prob- 
 ably forsake this impertinent function of 
 " giving away" what is said, and content 
 myself with being merely an edified lis- 
 tener. 
 
XVIII. 
 
 TOM GETS SOME WORDS OF COMFORT 
 FROM THE JUDGE. 
 
 IT must have been fully five months 
 after the Judge's departure for Europe, 
 when vacation trips and summer diversions 
 were past, and we were all settled down 
 for the working season, to what the offi- 
 cial proclamations used to call our " cus- 
 tomary avocations," that I met Tom 
 Benedict at the Club late one Saturday 
 night, and asked him what he had heard 
 from his old friend. For my part I had 
 sweltered through the summer, when 
 others of our circle were diverting them- 
 selves, and had been away in the early 
 weeks of the autumn upon my own " bus- 
 iness and desire," such as it was. Tom 
 replied that the Judge had been detained 
 abroad longer than he had expected and 
 would not return for some time yet. 
 
 " But," he said, " I have lately had a 
 
2/8 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 long letter from him, the longest, I will 
 venture to say, of a merely personal char- 
 acter, that he ever wrote. You remem- 
 ber that religious discussion we carried 
 on here last spring in the small hours of 
 Saturday nights? Well, the fact is, I 
 couldn't get it out of my head. In the 
 summer I was all the time thinking about 
 those questions and reading up on them 
 and trying to settle them to my satisfac- 
 tion ; for, although at our last symposium 
 I thought I had got myself all straight- 
 ened out, I found that it was not alto- 
 gether so. But ti.e more I read and 
 thought, the more unsettled I seemed to 
 get ; and at last in sheer desperation I 
 concluded to write a long letter to the 
 Judge about my 'state of mind.' I sent 
 it to his Paris address but it reached him 
 at Amalfi, where, he says, it caught him 
 while indulging in a spell of ' loafing and 
 inviting his soul ' in the quaint and pic- 
 turesque old monastery there, a portion 
 of which has been turned into a sort of 
 hostelry for far-wandering tourists. It 
 was lucky my screed did catch him there, 
 for if he had had anything to do but 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 2/Q 
 
 ' loaf and invite his soul/ I should never 
 have got that long letter from him. Come 
 up to the house to-morrow night, and I 
 will show it to you." 
 
 So, on Sunday evening I once more 
 invaded Tom's sanctified domicile, sanc- 
 tified, I mean, by the Sabbath-intensify- 
 ing presence of his wife, who struck me, 
 however, as gradually acquiring a little 
 more of a this-world air and manner. 
 The subtle barrier between us didn't 
 seem to be quite so impenetrable as for- 
 merly ; but the letter was the main ob- 
 ject of my quest. I read it with a great 
 deal of interest, and got Tom's permission 
 to bring away a copy of such parts of it 
 as I wished. 
 
 The writer made scant reference to 
 his travels and his business, but was al- 
 lured into a brief description of the 
 soothing charms of his " loafing " place. 
 The main purpose of the letter, however, 
 was to respond to Tom's anxious ques- 
 tionings. Tom did not himself enlarge 
 upon these to me, and I was left to sur- 
 mise them from the Judge's reply. I 
 determined with Tom's consent, which he 
 
280 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 granted with some misgiving as to the 
 propriety of the course, to supplement 
 my reports of those midnight discussions 
 with some extracts from this letter. I 
 may as well assume that the reader has 
 as much acumen in inferring the na- 
 ture of the questionings from the char- 
 acter of the response, as I had to exercise, 
 and leave him to the same liberty of sur- 
 mise. 
 
 A good deal of the letter had direct 
 reference to Tom's troubles of mind over 
 the theological doctrines and questions 
 which had been the subject of the Club 
 talks, and presented in a connected, con- 
 cise and lucid way the substance of the 
 Judge's " views," as previously indicated, 
 but the passages which seem to me worth 
 quoting as a supplement to the " talks " 
 are those which follow : 
 
 " Now, my dear Tom, nothing could 
 be further from my wish than to unsettle 
 the religious faith of any man. I only 
 want to see faith brought into conformity 
 with knowledge and reason, which alone 
 can afford a solid and enduring basis for 
 it. While growing out of earlier stocks, 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 28 1 
 
 it ought to have the vitality of the pres- 
 ent age in it, advancing with knowledge 
 and the results of reason, and not be a 
 petrified heritage of the past, shaped 
 largely by ignorance and superstition. 
 We have a continuous * revelation ' and 
 we ought to have a continuous * scrip- 
 ture.' Haven't we as much right to our 
 seers and prophets, our teachers and 
 guides, with the privilege of original 
 thought and of interpreting the Divine 
 will, as any ancient people ? 
 
 " I quite agree with you as to those 
 1 fundamentals of all religious faith,' but 
 I do not quite see what they have to do 
 with these controverted doctrines over 
 which men have wrangled so long. I 
 have two great arguments as to the exist- 
 ence of God and the immortality of the 
 soul, which long ago satisfied my mind, 
 and I am quite at rest on those ques- 
 tions. There is one thing of which we 
 have absolute knowledge, and that is 
 our own existence, with the qualities, ca- 
 pabilities and tendencies of which we are 
 conscious, and which we see exhibited by 
 others; and we have a tolerably accurate 
 
282 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 knowledge of the things and conditions 
 about us. We can enlarge and extend 
 our knowledge indefinitely, but we are 
 finite and cannot comprehend everything. 
 Now I have right here, in myself, a suffi- 
 cient starting point for a proof of the 
 existence of God, which is more conclu- 
 sive to my mind than any other. I can- 
 not conceive of myself, with those quali- 
 ties which we call intellectual, moral and 
 spiritual, as existing without God ; yet 
 here I am. No knowledge of matter and 
 force and no reasoning upon these can 
 lead up to an explanation of man and his 
 life. This ' piece of work ' must have 
 had its origin with a creative power that 
 had to an infinite degree the qualities to 
 impart with which man is endowed. 
 Otherwise, to me the origin of man's 
 spirit is inconceivable ; and the one sure 
 thing is that it exists. 
 
 " We cannot altogether ' find out God,' 
 for we cannot grasp the infinite ; we 
 can only form conceptions, limited and 
 shaped by our knowledge and our power 
 of reasoning. I look upon the concep- 
 tions of a Deity as purely a matter of 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 283 
 
 evolution, varying and developing from 
 age to age. As I have often said, the 
 God of Moses is a different being from 
 the God of the later prophets, and of Job, 
 and most of the Psalms ; the God of 
 the ' old dispensation * is quite a different 
 being from the God ' revealed ' in the New 
 Testament ; and the ideal of the Supreme 
 Divinity has gone through many changes 
 in the teachings of the Christian Church, 
 from primitive times even until now. 
 Doubtless, He is the same, yesterday, to- 
 day and forever, but man's conception of 
 him is as multiform as the degrees of 
 man's knowledge and his ignorance, his 
 superstition and his wisdom. 
 
 " You say well, that worship is a neces- 
 sity of man's nature in his struggle for a 
 higher life, and that we cannot worship an 
 abstraction. Nobody does worship an 
 abstraction ; but everybody who worships 
 at all worships the highest and best con- 
 crete conception of the Deity that he 
 can form, even if he has to put it into 
 wood or stone and make it visible to his 
 eye. I cannot worship a Being like that 
 whom Moses is said tq have seen in a 
 
284 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 burning bush and who was supposed to 
 literally thunder commands and threats 
 from Mount Sinai ; who was ' jealous ' of 
 other gods that were assumed in the 
 record to be equally real ; who was 
 vengeful against his enemies ; who ' com- 
 manded ' one people to slaughter another 
 and was placated by bloody sacrifices and 
 burnt-offerings. Neither caa I worship 
 the God to whom David prayed in his im- 
 precatory Psalms ; or Him whom the 
 prophets represented as 'punishing ' Israel 
 by conquest and captivity, and promising 
 restoration and glory ; or the Being that 
 is represented to have demonstrated his 
 justice in the afflictions of Job. I find it 
 equally difficult to lift my soul up to the 
 God of the popes, or of Calvin, or Mil- 
 ton, or Knox, or Jonathan Edwards. All 
 these various ' Gods ' have been the con- 
 ceptions of men ; and they differ from 
 mine. What I say is that we should use 
 all our knowledge and all our reason in 
 forming the highest conception of the 
 Deity that we can reach, and the form 
 and spirit of our worship will be none the 
 worse for it. If God has been revealed to 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 285 
 
 us it is in our nature and our lives, in all 
 creation and all history, and the revelation 
 comes through knowledge and reason, and 
 is fuller to-day then ever before. Your 
 ancient dogmas and doctrines seem to me 
 a feeble support for a faith in the exist- 
 ence of God, and quite unnecessary to 
 it. 
 
 " My second great argument is for the 
 immortality of the soul, and is like unto 
 the other. It simply follows from the 
 other as a natural consequence. That I 
 exist I know ; therefore I believe that I 
 was created by God, whom I conceive of 
 as infinite in power, wisdom and good- 
 ness. I find it quite inconsistent with 
 such a belief to accept this imperfect life 
 as all for which I was made. I cannot ex- 
 plain this mundane existence at all with- 
 out assuming that it is preparatory for 
 another or a continued life ; and on that 
 assumption I have no great difficulty with 
 its problems. I have no fear of anything 
 that science or research, reason or philos- 
 ophy, can do to unsettle these l funda- 
 mental ' matters in religion. In fact I 
 believe that the more we know and the 
 
286 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 more clearly we think, the more we must 
 be confirmed in the conviction that the 
 existence of God and the immortality of 
 the soul afford the only reasonable ex- 
 planation of things as they are ; and 
 things as they are constitute an argument 
 which it is extremely difficult to get 
 around. 
 
 " Stick, my boy, to your ' fundamen- 
 tals ' and your * essentials/ but define 
 them clearly in your own mind and you 
 will find that they are untouched by the 
 warfare waged over matters of doctrinal 
 belief. 
 
 " The Messianic hopes of Israel and the 
 dreams of apocalyptic writers were woven 
 by the founders of Christian dogma with 
 the obscure facts of the birth of Jesus, 
 the luminous teachings of his lips, the 
 marvellous power of his life and character 
 as an example to mankind, the legends of 
 his wonder-working, the appalling stroke 
 of his atrocious death at the hands of 
 religious bigotry, and the belief attrib- 
 uted by tradition to his devoted fol- 
 lowers that he had risen from the tomb 
 and ascended into heaven to prepare for 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 287 
 
 the coming of his kingdom in glory upon 
 the earth. Out of these elements was 
 produced the mysticism of early Chris- 
 tianity, at a time when no religious sys- 
 tem could hope to gain a hold upon 
 mankind without mysticism. With the 
 intellectual and moral progress of later 
 times, this mysticism has been modified 
 by councils and by teachers, and has 
 gone through Protean evolutions to the 
 production of forms of faith and sects in- 
 numerable ; and in the great body of 
 the church many doctrines that could by 
 no possibility in the light of this day be 
 deduced from the record or the facts, 
 have been held sacred with the tenacity 
 of a superstitious conservatism. 
 
 " But through all this fabric of man- 
 made theologies strikes the light of scien- 
 tific and critical research, of knowledge 
 and reason, in these waning days of the 
 nineteenth century; and behind the flam- 
 ing torch of enlightened thought follows 
 the plain daylight of common sense, dis- 
 persing the owls and bats of ancient 
 superstition, the spectres and hobgoblins 
 of a distorted faith. But the expanding 
 
288 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 light in no way obscures the central 
 figure of that great Teacher, who rose 
 upon the world from the Galilean hamlet, 
 and in golden words set the point of de- 
 parture for a new religion of humanity. 
 On the contrary,, it dispels mists from 
 around it, revivifies it from petrifaction, 
 and makes it capable of a new power for 
 the regeneration of the race. 
 
 " ' Believe in me and ye shall be saved,' 
 calls for no faith in doctrines of inspira- 
 tion, of future reward and punishment, of 
 miraculous birth and death, of vicarious 
 atonement, or in any of the mystic dog- 
 mas that were woven into our inherited 
 theological systems. It requires no ab- 
 negation of the intellect or the conscience 
 of reasoning men. Faith in that large 
 doctrine of the fatherhood of God, the 
 brotherhood of man, purity of life, sacri- 
 fice of self, and devotion to the common 
 good as taught by Jesus, can never be 
 outgrown by the human race ; nor is the 
 race likely to have a higher exemplar of 
 that doctrine to look up to than the mar- 
 vellous Man of Nazareth, who announced 
 it with such confident and persuasive 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 289 
 
 words, and who died a victim to the 
 unreadiness of his age to accept it. The 
 world is yet far from reaching his ground. 
 "What, then, is the Church to do? 
 The changing and revision of creeds is a 
 perplexing task. But there is no occa- 
 sion for undertaking it. The world does 
 not want new creeds devised by fallible 
 men to stem the tide of progress. It 
 wants the 'ever open door,' the ample 
 page of knowledge freely spread, the full 
 light of reason, and the liberty to believe 
 what it finds to be true. There is no oc- 
 casion to dig out the strata of the earth's 
 crust and to get rid of the fossils of ages 
 past, in order to utilize the fruitful surface 
 where life goes on. The 'testimony of 
 the rocks ' is invaluable, as history, for 
 instruction in the present and guidance 
 for the future. Let the church of univer- 
 sal humanity, built up through the ages 
 with the materials that each age afforded, 
 open wide its doors to all who seek the 
 true and the good, who wish to promote 
 right conduct in themselves and others, 
 and who desire to co-operate for the ele- 
 vation and improvement of mankind ; 
 
290 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 and let no test for membership be re- 
 quired except the ordinary evidences of 
 good faith. Leave to men absolute 
 liberty to study, to think, and to believe 
 that only of which they are honestly 
 convinced ; invite them into church fel- 
 lowship without mental shackles, and 
 Christianity will start into new and vig- 
 orous life. 
 
 " That free thinking should be regarded 
 as inconsistent with true religion, is a 
 strange anomaly for an enlightened age. 
 Free thought is an essential factor in true 
 religion, and should be encouraged out 
 of consideration for the good of mankind. 
 The fullest attainable knowledge of what 
 has been and what is, the freest exercise 
 of the faculties with which man has been 
 endowed, and the clearest results of our 
 best reasoning, cannot but lead toward 
 the everlasting truth, and can by no pos- 
 sibility be inconsistent with the will of 
 the Supreme Power of the universe. 
 
 " What common sense dictates to the 
 Christian Church to-day, is not to revise 
 its creeds and amend its dogmas, but to 
 cast off altogether from them as a test of 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 29! 
 
 the fitness of men to teach religion, or of 
 the right of men to associate in its work 
 and share in its benefits. Let member- 
 ship depend upon purpose as shown in 
 character, not belief ; and let the creeds 
 drift into the ' dark backward and abysm 
 of time/ with the Delphic oracles and 
 the mummeries of the Middle Ages. 
 Let men learn what they can and believe 
 what they must with the record of the 
 past and the knowledge of the present to 
 aid them. 
 
 "What then would the Church gain, 
 and what would it become? It would 
 gain the best intellect and the highest 
 zeal which the living generation can 
 afford, and it would open its bosom to 
 the currents of light and of progress that 
 the expanding revelation of science and 
 reason is sending forth. From these it 
 would draw life and strength for its great 
 work of elevating and purifying human 
 character and conduct. That is its proper 
 work in the world. It should return 
 to the idea of ' salvation ' as originally 
 proclaimed salvation from sin in this 
 world, and not from punishment in an- 
 
292 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 other; for it is the dictate of common 
 sense that, whatever may be the truth 
 about immortality and a life to follow 
 death, the condition of the human soul 
 hereafter must inevitably depend upon 
 the condition it attains here. If it can 
 be made sound and healthy for this life 
 ' here on this bank and shoal of time,' it 
 cannot but be safe for the life to come; 
 for if the soul is released from corporal 
 bonds to live on in eternity, it can un- 
 dergo no transformation by the process, 
 else were the experiences of this life with- 
 out purpose. Right conduct and pure 
 character must needs be the condition of 
 happiness in all possible worlds, and 
 should therefore be the sole object of 
 religious teaching. 
 
 " If the gospel of salvation be directed 
 to the saving of the human race from vice 
 and crime, from wrong-doing in its many 
 forms, and from the miseries of poverty, 
 ignorance, and misfortune consequent 
 upon the weakness of human nature, 
 through the application of that all-em- 
 bracing doctrine of the sacrifice of self, 
 and of doing good to others, which is the 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 293 
 
 essence of that * love ' perfectly illustrated 
 by Jesus and eloquently preached by Paul, 
 it will manifestly hasten the coming of 
 the kingdom of God on earth, and pro- 
 mote the safety of surviving souls, regard- 
 less of beliefs about the ' undiscovered 
 country.' 
 
 " Do not think, my dear Thomas, that 
 I am disposed to disregard the spiritual 
 nature of man or to overlook its force 
 and importance in the development of 
 human society ; nor that I underrate the 
 element of worship in religion or its ne- 
 cessity in uplifting men in their character 
 and conduct here. In all our talks and 
 in this letter, which I marvel at myself for 
 writing in this balmy and soothing Medi- 
 terranean air, I have felt myself called 
 upon to deal only with what seemed to 
 me to be errors of opinion and of belief, 
 which have come to stand in the way of 
 reaching the springs of human action 
 and stirring them in a salutary manner 
 through appeals to the religious na- 
 ture. 
 
 " But, my dear fellow, keep this firmly 
 in mind : it does not matter so tremen- 
 
294 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 dously what one finds himself forced to 
 believe in regard to controverted ques- 
 tions of doctrine. Why should any per- 
 son be worried or distressed because he 
 is compelled to doubt what he has been 
 taught to regard as true and what he has 
 devoutly accepted because it was taught ? 
 Our minds ought always to be open to 
 new light, and if it dazzles at first it is 
 because we have been accustomed to shut 
 it out. I fully appreciate what you say 
 about the part which sentiment and emo- 
 tion play in all matters religious, but I 
 am so constituted that I cannot under- 
 stand why sentiment should not be as 
 pure and exalted, and emotion as fervid 
 and uplifting, when appealed to in the 
 daylight of the understanding and the 
 reason, as when excited in the darkness 
 of mental obscurity or the groping of a 
 blindfold faith. Nothing is easier than 
 to be deceived and misled in the dark ; 
 and it is surely safer to go with open eyes, 
 in the fullest light we can get. If the 
 emotional action of sentiment becomes 
 thereby less intense and nervous, it will 
 be more salutary and more joyous. 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 2$$ 
 
 ' Let not thy heart be troubled/ my son, 
 but keep thyself from that pestilent state 
 that frets and worries over doubts that 
 touch not the sacred truths of Ever- 
 lasting Good. Take thy studyings and 
 thy thinkings calmly, as behooves a man 
 of sense, and deal honestly with thy 
 soul. * * * 
 
 " Gently dost thou hint at the * woman 
 in the case ! ' Ah ! but can we not learn 
 men and women that we may have sepa- 
 rate minds and separate souls, with com- 
 mon sympathies? I would not have 
 thee 
 
 ' with shadowed hint confuse 
 A life that leads melodious days.' 
 
 " It is by making too much of doubts 
 and differences, and too little of common 
 purposes and aims, that the sons and 
 daughters of Adam draw apart. Respect 
 the faith of thy precious wife, and also 
 thine own ; but fear not the truth, in 
 whatever aspect it may appear. It is 
 thy friend and should be thy guide, 
 and it goeth ever towards the fullest 
 light. 
 
296 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 11 Until again I can look into thine 
 eyes and speak to thine ear direct, I 
 pray, dear Tom, that I may remain 
 a friend in whom thy trust need not 
 waver. 
 
 " GAMALIEL TRUMAN." 
 
 A week or two later, I had a long talk 
 with my friend Thomas, when we were by 
 ourselves in the inner room of the Aspho- 
 del Club, where we had been wont to 
 listen to the calm discourses of the Judge. 
 Tom seemed to have reached a stage of 
 repose, and his content was apparently 
 quite restored. 
 
 " I tell you what it is," he said to me 
 at lat, "I am surprised at myself. I 
 hardly know where I have been these last 
 few years, or what I have been thinking 
 of. In fact, I don't seem to have been 
 thinking. When I come to talk with 
 people of my acquaintance upon these 
 topics and the views of my old friend, 
 Judge Truman, I find a wonderful readi- 
 ness to acquiesce in them, in most points. 
 People who really give attention to these 
 questions seem to be coming to about 
 
WORDS OF COMFORT. 
 
 297 
 
 the same conclusions, and the old tradi- 
 tions haven't such a very strong hold 
 after all. Even clergymen especially 
 those who are proving their ' call to 
 preach ' by gathering people who are 
 * called to hear' I have found to be quite 
 familiar with arguments that were new to 
 me, and quite tolerant of the conclusions 
 to which they lead. I really believe a 
 theological revolution is coming, or rather 
 that it has already begun ; and I have 
 concluded that I am in favor of the revo- 
 lution, under the guidance of wise heads 
 and devout souls." 
 
 Parting with Tom at the street corner 
 I proceeded to my lonely lodgings, mus- 
 ing upon the Judge's calm confidence in 
 the conclusions of his study and my more 
 youthful friend's swift approach to the 
 same broad ground. I could not but be 
 reminded and finding deep satisfaction 
 in the remembrance of the great poet's 
 friend, 
 
 " Who touch'd a jarring lyre at first 
 But ever strove to make it true. 
 
298 MIDNIGHT TALKS AT THE CLUB. 
 
 " He fought his doubts and gather'd strength, 
 He would not make his judgment blind ; 
 He faced the spectres of the mind 
 And laid them : thus he came at length 
 
 " To find a stronger faith his own ; 
 
 And Power was with him in the night, 
 Which makes the darkness and the light, 
 And dwells not in the light alone." 
 
 THE END. 
 
II 
 
 3 < 
 
 LU J 
 
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 ID 
 
3 2106 00000 0791