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 We have done with the kisses that sting, 
 The thief's mouth red from the feast, 
 The blood on the hands of the king, 
 And the lie at the lips of the priest. 
 
 Swinburne 
 
 Is the Morality of Jesus 
 Sound? 
 
 A Lecture Delivered Before 
 the Independent Religious 
 Society, Orcheitra Hal!, 
 Chicago, Sunday, at 1 1 A. M. 
 
 By 
 M. M. MANGASARIAN
 
 7 make war against this theological instinct: 
 I have found traces of it everywhere. Whoever 
 has theological blood in his veins is, from the 
 very beginning, ambiguous and disloyal with 
 
 respect to everything 7 have digged out 
 
 the thcologist instinct everywhere; it is the most 
 diffused, the most peculiarly SUBTERRANEAN 
 form of falsity that exists on earth. What a 
 theologian feels as true, MUST needs be false: 
 one has therein almost a criterion of truth. 
 
 Nietzsche.
 
 StacR 
 
 Ann6x< 
 
 Is the flDoral teaching of 
 Sounb? 
 
 A great deal depends upon the answer to the question, "Is 
 the moral teaching of Jesus sound?" This question brings us 
 to the inner and most closely guarded citadel of Christianity. 
 If it can be captured, the rout of supernaturalism will be com- 
 plete ; but as long as it stands, Christianity can afford to lose 
 every one of its outer fortifications, and still be the victor. 
 Reason may drive supernaturalism out of the Catholic position 
 into the Protestant, and out of that, into the Unitarian, and 
 out of that again into Liberalism, but reason does not become 
 master of the field until it has stormed and razed to the ground 
 this last and greatest of all the strongholds the morality of 
 Christianity. 
 
 If Jesus was the author of perfect or even the highest 
 ideals the world has ever cherished, he will, and must, remain 
 the saviour, par excellence, of the world. Whether he was 
 man or God, which question Unitarianism discusses, is a 
 trifling matter. If his ethical teaching is practically without 
 a flaw, I would gladly call him God, and more, if such a thing 
 were possible. His walking on the water, or his raising the 
 dead, or his flying through the air, would not in the least 
 embarrass me. I could accept them all if he rose morally 
 head and shoulders above every other mortal or immortal, 
 our world has ever produced. It is claimed that he did. What 
 is the evidence? 
 
 To facilitate this discussion, and to concentrate all our 
 attention on the subject of this discourse, we will waive the 
 question of the historicity of Jesus. For the sake of argu- 
 ment, we will accept the gospels as history accept the authen- 
 ticity of the documents, the trustworthiness of the witnesses, 
 and the inspiration of the texts which we are to quote. We 
 
 3
 
 will grant every point; concede every claim, allow every con- 
 tention of the defendants. We will then say to them: Does 
 the evidence which you have presented and we have accepted 
 without raising any objections, prove that the moral teaching 
 of Jesus is perfect, or even the highest the world has ever 
 possessed ? 
 
 A system of thought, or a code of morals, is much like a 
 building. A serious crack in one of the walls, or a post that 
 is not secure in its socket, is enough to make the whole build- 
 ing unsafe. When a building is condemned, it is not con- 
 demned for the parts that are sound, but for the part or parts 
 that are unsound. To change my illustration, the strength of 
 a chain is in its weakest link. So is the strength of a religion 
 in its most vulnerable parts. By overlooking the weakness 
 and dwelling solely upon the strong points, we could make any 
 religion appear as the best in the world ; as a similar bias 
 would prove the most rickety building even perfectly safe. A 
 lawyer, an advocate, or special pleader, may conceal, or cover 
 up the cracks in the walls of a building, or the defects of an 
 institution. But why should I? My object is not to save the 
 building, but the people who are in it. I am not interested in 
 saving the creed or the religion, but the people who stake their 
 lives on it. I am not trying to earn my fee, I am trying to 
 serve the people. Why should I, then, be expected to spread 
 the mantle of charity over a building that deserves to be con- 
 demned, or plead for a religion that blocks the path of advance- 
 ment? And why, why should any religion beg for charity? 
 To a cashier of a bank, to a treasurer of a corporation, to an 
 official of the municipality or the state, who should beg the 
 examining committee not to look into all his dealings, but 
 only to report what good they can of him, we say: "You are 
 guilty." Not only that, but he is also trying to make us his 
 accomplices. 
 
 Lawyer-like, preachers often tell their hearers to see only 
 the good in the bible, for instance. "When you are eating 
 fish," they say, "you eat the meat and throw away the bones. 
 Do the same with the bible." "But why should anything in the 
 bible be meant to be thrown away? Pardon me if I use a 
 stronger expression why should any part of the Word of 
 God be destined for the garbage box? 
 4
 
 It is a pleasure, and it confirms us in our optimism, to admit 
 that in all the religions of the world, even in the crudest, there 
 is much that is good, as in every structure or dwelling there 
 are rooms and walls and posts that are perfectly sound. 
 Religions live, as buildings endure, by the soundness there 
 is in them. It is not the cracked wall or damaged pillar which 
 supports the building it is the sound parts that keep it to- 
 gether. The same is true of religions. It is the truths they 
 contain that preserve them. Mohammedanism, for instance, 
 has survived for nearly fifteen centuries, and its survival is 
 due to the virtues and not to the vices of the Mohammedan 
 faith. This is equally true of Judaism and Christianity. If 
 human Society has survived for these many centuries, it is 
 because, imperfect as it is, there is enough of justice and honor 
 among men to keep it from disintegration. But is that any 
 reason why we should be content with what little justice or 
 truth there is in the world, and not strive for more? And 
 shall we hold our tongues on the terrible injustice and oppres- 
 sion all around us simply because there is also goodness and 
 virtue among men? Simply because the human race keeps 
 going as it is, shall we not endeavor to improve it? And be- 
 cause there is some good in all religions, shall we shut our 
 eyes to the dangerous fallacies they contain? Is it not our 
 duty as well as our privilege to labor for a more rational and 
 a more ennobling faith? 
 
 In the teachings attributed to Jesus, whose nativity is 
 celebrated to-day (*) in Europe and America, there is much 
 that we are in cordial sympathy with. We can say the same 
 of all the founders of religions. If any one were to point out 
 to us passages of beauty in the four evangels, I for myself 
 would gladly agree to all that may be said in their praise. 
 But if I were asked to infer from these isolated passages that 
 the ethical teaching of Jesus is not only the most perfect within 
 human reach, but also sufficient to the needs of man for all 
 time, I would deem it a stern duty to combat the proposition 
 with all the earnestness at my command. It would then be 
 the duty, indeed, of every one to denounce the attempt to arrest 
 the progress of the world by holding it bound to the thought of 
 one man. In the interest of morality itself, it must be shown 
 (') Christmas Sunday, Dec. 26, 1909. 
 
 5
 
 that Jesus is not the highest product of the ages, nor is he 
 the best that the future can promise. There is room beyond 
 Jesus. But not only was Jesus not the perfect teacher his 
 worshippers claim him to have been, but there are flaws in his 
 system cracks and rents in the walls of his temple so serious 
 and menacing, that not to call attention to them would be to 
 shirk the most urgent service we owe to the cause of humanity. 
 
 My first general criticism of the morality of Jesus is, that 
 it lacks universality. It is not meant for all peoples and all 
 times. It is rather the morality of a sect, a coterie, or a 
 secret society. I object to the provincialism of Jesus. Jesus 
 was not a cosmopolite. He was a Hebrew before he was a 
 man. If we find Jerusalem on the map of the world and draw 
 a circle around it, covering the rest of the map with our 
 hands, we will then have before us all the world that Jesus 
 knew anything about, or cared for. Little did he think of the 
 rest of the world. The continents of Asia, Africa, Australia, 
 Europe, and the, as yet, undiscovered America, had no place 
 whatever either in his thought or affection. The yellow millions 
 of China and Japan, the dusky millions of Hindustan, the 
 blacks of Africa with their galling chains, the white races with 
 the most pressing problems which ever taxed the brain of man 
 do not seem to have deserved even a passing notice from 
 Jesus. It is quite evident that such a country as our America, 
 for instance, with its nearly one hundred millions of people 
 of all races and religions, dwelling under the same flag, and 
 governing themselves without a King or a Caesar, never 
 crossed the orbit even of his imagination. Is it reasonable 
 to go to a provincial of this description for universal ideals? 
 
 What Jesus has in mind is not humanity, but a particular 
 race. Israel is the nation that monopolizes his attention, and 
 even in that nation his interest is limited to those that believe 
 in him as the Messiah. The idea of a world-salvation was 
 utterly foreign to his sympathies. His disciples were all of 
 one race, and he emphatically warned them against going into 
 the cities of the Gentiles to preach the gospel. He tells them 
 that he was sent expressly and exclusively for the lost sheep 
 of the house of Israel. Of course, we are familiar with the 
 "Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every 
 creature," but Jesus is supposed to have given that command- 
 6
 
 ment after his death. In his life time, he said, "Go not into 
 the cities and towns of the Gentiles." If he said, "Go not, 
 to the Gentiles !" when he was living, the "Go to the Gentiles," 
 after his death, has all the ear-marks of an interpolation. The 
 two statements squarely contradict each other. Granting that 
 Jesus knew what he was talking about, he could not have 
 given both commandments. Moreover, from the conduct of 
 the apostles who refused to go to the Gentiles until Paul came 
 about, who had never seen or heard Jesus, it may be con- 
 cluded that Jesus did not change his mind to the very last on 
 the matter of his being sent "only for the lost children of the 
 House of Israel." 
 
 But the thought of Jesus is as Hebraic as are his sympath- 
 ies. His God is invariably the "God of Abraham, Isaac, and 
 Jacob." Suppose he had also called God, "The God of Abra- 
 ham, Confucius and Socrates." Ah, if Jesus had only said 
 that ! The idea of the larger God was in the human mind, 
 but not in his. The idea was in the air, but Jesus was not 
 tall enough to reach it. He did not look beyond a tribal 
 Deity. The God of Jesus was a Hebrew. To Jesus David 
 was the only man who looked big in history. Of Alexander, 
 for example, who conquered the world and made the Greek 
 language universal the language in which his own story, the 
 story of Jesus, is written, and which story, in all probability 
 would never have come down to us but for the Greek language 
 and Alexander; of Socrates, whose daily life was the beauty 
 of Athens; of Aristotle, of whom Goethe said that he was 
 the greatest intellect the world had produced; of the Caesars, 
 who converted a pirate station on the Tiber to an Eternal 
 City Jesus does not seem to have heard at all and if he 
 had, he does not seem to care for them, any more than would 
 a Gypsy Smith. 
 
 The heaven of Jesus is also quite Semitic. His twelve 
 apostles are to sit upon twelve thrones to judge the twelve 
 tribes of Israel. There is no mention of anybody else sitting 
 on a throne, or of anybody else in heaven except Jews. People 
 will come from the east and the west, from the north and the 
 south to meet their father, Abraham, in heaven. The cosmog- 
 raphy or topography of the world to come is also Palestinian. 
 It has as many gates as there are sons of Jacob ; all its 
 7
 
 inhabitants have Hebrew names ; and just as on earth, outside 
 of Judea, the whole world was heathen, in the next world, 
 heaven is where Abraham and his children dwell ; the rest is 
 hell. Indeed, to Jesus heaven meant Abraham's bosom. And 
 we repeatedly come across the phrase, "heavenly Jerusalem" in 
 the New Testament, as the name of the abode of the blessed? 
 Is it likely that a man so racial, so sectarian, so circumscribed 
 in his thought and sympathies, so local and clannish, could 
 assume and fulfill the role of a universal teacher ? 
 
 But not only was the world of Jesus a mere speck on the 
 map, but it was also a world without a future. Jesus expected 
 the world to come to an end in a very short time. And what 
 was the use of trying to get acquainted with, or interested in, a 
 world about to be abandoned? The evidence is very con- 
 clusive that Jesus believed the end of the world to be imminent. 
 He says : "Verily I say unto you, ye shall not have gone 
 through the cities of Israel before the son of man come." As 
 Palestine was a small country, and its few cities could easily 
 be visited in a short time, it follows that Jesus expected the 
 almost immediate end of the world. In another text he tells 
 his disciples that this great event would happen in the lifetime 
 of those who were listening to him: "This generation," he 
 says, "shall not pass away," before the world ends. This be- 
 lief in the approaching collapse of the world was shared by 
 his apostles. Paul, for instance, is constantly exhorting Chris- 
 tians to get ready for the great catastrophe, and he describes 
 how those still living will be transformed when Jesus appears 
 in the clouds. 
 
 The earliest Christian Society was communistic, because all 
 that they needed was enough to subsist upon before Jesus re- 
 appeared. It would have been foolish from their point of view 
 to "lay up treasures on earth" when the earth was soon to be 
 burnt up. Moreover, they were not commanded to labor, but 
 to "watch and pray." The fruits of labor require time to ripen 
 in, and there was no time. The cry was, "Behold the bride- 
 groom is at the door." Hence, to "watch and pray" was the 
 only reasonable occupation. We can see for ourselves how 
 this belief in the near end of the world would create a kind 
 of morality altogether unsuitable to people living in a world 
 that does not come to an end. Jesus never dreamt that the 
 8
 
 world was going to last, for at least another two thousand 
 years. If anyone had whispered such a thing in his ears, he 
 would have gasped for breath. Could the curtain of the future 
 have been lifted high enough for Jesus to have seen in advance 
 some of the changes that have come upon the world during 
 the past twenty centuries, the fall of the Roman Empire, the 
 rise of Mohammedanism, carrying two continents and throw- 
 ing the third into a state of panic, wresting the very Jerusalem 
 of Jesus from the Christians and holding it for a thousand 
 years ; had Jesus been able to foresee the Dark Ages, the Italian 
 Renaissance, the German Reformation, the French Revolution, 
 the American Revolution with its Declaration of Independence, 
 and later on, its Emancipation Proclamation, and finally, 
 had Jesus caught even the most distant gleam of that magnifi- 
 cent and majestic Empire, the Empire of Science, with its 
 peaceful reign and bloodless conquests, slowly and serenely 
 climbing above the horizon, bringing to man such a hope as 
 had never before entered his breast, and giving him the stars 
 for eyes, and the wind for wings had but a glimpse of all this 
 crossed the vision of this Jerusalem youth, his conception of a 
 world soon to be smashed would have appeared to him as the 
 infantile fancy of a well, what shall I say? I shall not say 
 of a fanatic, I shall not say, of an illiterate, let me say of 
 an enthusiast. The morality of Jesus not only lacked univers- 
 ality, but it was also framed to fit a world under sentence of 
 immediate destruction. 
 
 Jesus' doctrine of a passing world was born of his pessim- 
 ism. The old/ whether in years, or in spirit, as Shakespeare 
 says, are always wishing "that the estate of the Sun were now 
 undone." Weariness of life is a sign of exhaustion. The 
 strong and the healthy love life. The young are not pessimists. 
 Jesus had the disease of aged and effete Asia. He was not 
 European in ardor or energy. He contemplated a passing pan- 
 orama, a world crashing and tumbling into ruins all about him, 
 with Oriental resignation. The groan of a dying world was 
 music to him. He enjoyed the anticipation of calamity. The 
 end of the world would put an end to effort and endeavor, 
 both of which the Asiatic dislikes. To tell people that the 
 world is coming to an end soon, today, tomorrow, is not to 
 kindle, but to extinguish hope ; and without hope our world 
 9
 
 would be darker even than if the sun were to be blotted out of 
 the sky. 
 
 The objection against Christianity, as also against its parent, 
 Judaism, is that it seeks to divert the attention of man from 
 the work in hand to something visionary and distant. It was 
 to direct men's thoughts to some other world that Jesus be- 
 littled this. 
 
 What are you doing, asks the preacher. 
 
 I am laboring for my daily bread. 
 
 Indeed ! Have you not heard that Jesus said : "Labor not 
 for the meat that perisheth ?" 
 
 And what are you doing? 
 
 We are building a city. 
 
 What ! Do you not know that it is written in the Word of 
 God that, "Here we have no abiding City?" 
 
 And you 
 
 I have married and have decided to share my life with the 
 woman I love. 
 
 And have you not read in St. Paul's Epistles, says the 
 preacher again, that they who are married neglect the things 
 of the Lord ? 
 
 And you? 
 
 We are laboring to improve the world we live in to make 
 it a little cleaner and sweeter. 
 
 But do you not know, asks the man of God, that the world 
 will soon pass away, that, as Jesus has foretold, the sun will 
 turn black, the stars will fall, and the elements will be con- 
 sumed in a general conflagration? 
 
 The effect of the teaching of both Judaism and Christianity 
 is to incapacitate man for earnest work now and here. And 
 what do these religions offer in place of the home, the love, 
 the world, which they take away from us? Let us ask the 
 priest : 
 
 Where then is our home? 
 
 Yonder! and he points into space with his finger. 
 
 Where? In the clouds? 
 
 Higher. 
 
 In the stars? 
 
 Higher still. 
 
 In the ether? 
 
 10
 
 No, higher yet, far, far away. You can not see it. You 
 have to take my word for it. 
 
 And, unfortunately, so many of us take his word far it. 
 And upon what terms will the priest condescend to pilot us to 
 our invisible and aerial mansions ? We must turn over to him 
 now, our all, mind, body and lands. The doctrine of a world 
 hastening to destruction, while it has demoralized the people, 
 it has enriched the churches. During the middle ages, and 
 earlier, and also in more recent times, more than once the cred- 
 ulous public has been scared out of its possessions by the 
 preachers of calamity. Jesus can not very well clear himself 
 of responsibility for this, because, it was he who tried to hurry 
 the people out of a world soon to be set on fire. When a 
 young man asked Jesus' permission to go and bury his father, 
 he was told to "Let the dead bury their dead." This was 
 extraordinary advice to a son who wished to do his father a 
 last service. But Jesus was consistent. The world was catch- 
 ing fire and there was no time to lose. The morality of Jesus 
 was the morality of panic. He would not give people the time 
 to think of anything else but their own salvation from the im- 
 pending doom. This was Bunyan's interpretation of the spirit 
 of Christianity, for he made Christian, the hero of his story, 
 to flee at once from the city of destruction, leaving his wife 
 and children, his neighbors and his country behind. The 
 morality of panic ! 
 
 That this superstition that the world was about to be des- 
 troyed influenced the whole teaching of Jesus, as well as de- 
 pressed his spirits, will be seen by an examination of his famous 
 Sermon on the Mount. Matthew and Luke give somewhat 
 different reports of it. It is likely that Luke's is the less em- 
 bellished, and therefore more representative of Jesus' real atti- 
 tude toward life. In the third Gospel, Jesus says, "Blessed are 
 the poor." Matthew gives it as, "Blessed are the poor in 
 spirit." If the first document had the latter form, it is not 
 likely that a later copyist would drop the "in spirit," but if the 
 earlier simply read, "Blessed are the poor," a later writer might 
 find it convenient and necessary even, to soften it by adding the 
 words "in spirit." In Luke there is nothing said about hunger- 
 ing after righteousness, it is merely, "Blessed are ye, that 
 hunger now : for ye shall be filled." The drift of the Sermon 
 ii
 
 as given by Luke, which in all probability is nearer the original 
 than that given by Matthew, and which is at any rate equally 
 inspired, is to wean men from a world which- is but a snare and 
 a delusion, and to get them to cultivate other-worldliness. Let 
 me quote a few of the beatitudes : 
 
 "Blessed be ye poor; for yours is the kingdom of God. 
 Blessed are ye that hunger now; for ye shall be filled. Blessed 
 are ye that weep now, for ye shall laugh 
 
 "Woe unto you that are full; for ye shall hunger. 
 
 "Woe unto you that laugh now; for ye shall mourn and 
 weep."( l ~) 
 
 And the next world according to Jesus was not really a 
 better world, but the reverse of this. Some are hungry now, 
 some are full. In the world of Jesus, those who are full now, 
 will be hungry, and those who are hungry now will be full. 
 Here Lazarus is suffering, and Dives is in comfort ; there, they 
 will change places. That is not a world worth looking for- 
 ward to. It is not even a new world, but the old world turned 
 about and actually made much worse. The suffering, the 
 misery, the pain, in the world, now, are at least temporary, but 
 there, they will be eternal. Here, the rich man, at least, gives 
 of the crumbs of his table to Lazarus, but in heaven Lazarus 
 refuses even a drop of water to moisten the lips of Dives in 
 hell. No healthy and optimistic soul could have dreamed so 
 prosaic a dream. The future is a place of revenge according to 
 Jesus. Such a future as he describes, with thrones for his 
 friends, and hell everlasting for the stranger, would, if really 
 accepted, smite humanity with the worst kind of pessimism. 
 We could pardon Jesus for wishing the destruction of this 
 world, if he only offered a better one in its place. 
 
 It is in the light of this belief in a vanishing world that the 
 teachings of Jesus should be interpreted. "If any one," says 
 Jesus, "take away thy coat, let him take thy cloak also." Of 
 course. Of what use is property in a world soon to be set on 
 fire? Besides, according to the Sermon on the Mount, the 
 way to have property in heaven is not to have any here. To 
 Jesus, the world was like a tavern good only for a night's 
 lodging; or to change the simile, the world was like a sinking 
 ship from which, to save ourselves, everything else must be 
 (') Luke, VI Chap. 
 
 12
 
 thrown overboard. Who would care to accumulate wealth, 
 who would care to marry, or rear children, on a sinking ship? 
 Could such an alarmist be a sane moral teacher? Yet, Jesus 
 must have been sane enough to realize that the command not 
 to resist evil, to give to everyone that would borrow ; to turn 
 also the other cheek to the aggressor ; and to let the robber 
 bully people out of their belongings, would upset the very 
 foundations of human society and create a chaos -unspeak- 
 ably injurious to the moral life ; but what is the difference if we 
 are on a sinking ship ! In the same spirit, Jesus advises his 
 disciples to let the tares grow up with the wheat. It is not 
 worth while trying to separate them now, the time is so short. 
 And when he says that we must "hate father, mother, and 
 children for his sake," he means that to escape this great, this 
 hastening calamity which he predicts, would be better for us 
 than to cultivate the affections and the friendships that will 
 soon be no more. It is really impossible for anyone believing 
 in a heaven to be quite just to the world that now is. The 
 other world looks so important to the believer that this one 
 becomes, as John Wesley expressed it, "A fleeting show." 
 
 The position of Jesus on the important question of mar- 
 riage and the relation of the sexes is also to be studied in the 
 light of the belief that the world is not going to last very long. 
 
 It certainly would be absurd to have any weddings, as it 
 would be cruel to have children, or to accumulate property, or 
 to acquire knowledge, in such a world. Tolstoi, in his Kreut- 
 zer Sonata, which is a terrible story, interprets the real Chris- 
 tian attitude toward marriage. He shows conclusively that it is 
 inconsistent for a follower of Jesus to marry. Even as the 
 believer must give up all property, he must also give up the 
 family. If he is single, he must not marry ; if he is married, 
 he must live as though he was not married. Tolstoi proves 
 his contention by quoting among other texts, the following 
 from Jesus : "And everyone that hath forsaken wife or chil- 
 dren or lands for my name's sake" which words are a direct 
 recommendation to forsake kith and kin, wife and husband, 
 in fact everything. To be a Christian, according to Count 
 Tolstoi, is to follow the example of Jesus who abstained from 
 marriage. What is the use of talking about divorce when 
 marriage is forbidden ? Jesus said that Moses allowed divorce 
 13
 
 because of the hardness of men's hearts; and marriage is 
 permitted, according to Paul, as a concession to human weak- 
 ness. The Christian ideal, however, is celibacy. Jesus is very 
 positive on this point. You will not blame me if I quote his 
 own words, just as I find them in the New Testament. In 
 the gospel of Matthew, chapter nineteen, verse twelve, Jesus 
 speaks of three kinds of eunuchs : first, those who were born 
 deformed; second, those who have been mutilated by men; 
 and third, those "who have made themselves eunuchs for the 
 kingdom of heaven's sake." This is an invitation to all who can 
 to emasculate themselves. Is not this pernicious teaching? 
 A man could not teach such a doctrine in America to-day 
 without laying himself open to the contempt of his fellows, 
 but when preached by Jesus, hypocrisy and cowardice combine 
 to extol it as divine wisdom. Fortunately, such teaching is 
 admired not obeyed. That is as far as hypocrisy cares to 
 go. It is owing to the healthy manhood of the occidental 
 nations that this Asiatic superstition has not altogether bank- 
 rupted civilization. In the early centuries many of the 
 followers of Jesus mutilated their bodies "for the kingdom of 
 heaven's sake." There is in Russia a sect called Skopskis, with 
 a membership of six thousand, which follows the practice rec- 
 ommended by the founder of Christianity. 
 
 The vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, lead prac- 
 tically to self-destruction. Poverty is helplessness, or nothing- 
 ness; chastity is self-mortification; obedience, by which is 
 meant, absolute surrender of the will to another, is the stamp- 
 ing out of the mind. Goodness ! It is not only the world that 
 Christianity wishes to destroy, but also man. Annihilation 
 the Buddhist Nirvana, seems to be its goal. How to make a 
 man a mere zero poor, emasculated, and a mental slave, seems 
 to be the ideal of this Asiatic cult. After two thousand years 
 of modern education, such is the hold of Jesus upon the Chris- 
 tian world, that in our churches is still sung the hymn : 
 "O, to be nothing, nothing!" 
 
 With this doctrine of celibacy in view, the indifference of 
 Jesus to the rights of women as human beings is not a surprise. 
 It has been well said that "those who trample upon manhood 
 can have no real respect for woman." Jesus never spoke of 
 God except as a father. If the highest principle or being in
 
 the universe is a "he," of course woman can never hope to be 
 on an equality with man. Motherhood will always occupy a 
 secondary place as long as the father is a god. If God is a 
 father, what mother can be on an equality with him? He 
 must rule ; she must obey. Women do not stop to think that 
 religion Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism is the most 
 stubborn obstacle in the path of their advancement. Jesus 
 ignored women in all the essentials of life. He did not love 
 any one of them sufficiently to share his life with her. He 
 had no place for the love of woman in his heart. He kept 
 twelve men as his constant companions. Suppose Jesus had 
 invited some gentle and devoted woman to the honor of 
 apostleship, what an example that would have been ! But he 
 was not great enough to rise above the bigotry of his age. 
 Surely, there were women in his circle of acquaintance better 
 than Judas Iscariot, who sold him for a paltry sum of money. 
 Women may wait upon Jesus at the table, they may give 
 birth to him, and nurse him ; they may fall at his feet to bathe 
 them with their tears and wipe them with their tresses but 
 to be his apostles not that. Had Jesus been really a great 
 genius he would have understood that in the work of saving 
 people, the co-operation of woman is indispensable. There are 
 no better saviors than women. How many a husband has been 
 saved from drink from the gutter even, by his wife. How 
 many sons have been shielded from a prodigal's fate by a 
 mother's all-conquering devotion. Yet for this splendid force 
 or agency of reform, Jesus had no appreciation whatever. 
 
 If I were hanged on the highest hill 
 
 Mother o' mine; 
 I know whose love would follow me still 
 
 Mother o' mine. 
 
 Jesus failed to see in woman that which inspires the poet, 
 the painter, the hero, to do their best. He took the Asiatic 
 view of woman. "Can man be free," sang Shelley, "if woman 
 be a slave?" Suppose Jesus had said that! 
 
 The bible is on the whole very unfair to woman. This is 
 a sign of its inferior morality. It is the bully who takes ad- 
 vantage of the physically weak. When, in the Garden of 
 Eden, God is about to punish the first couple for their dis- 
 obedience, he is much less considerate of the woman than he is 
 of the man. "In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," 
 IS
 
 is the curse for Adam. That was not a curse at all. Labor 
 is not only honorable, it is also pleasureable. Many work 
 who do not have to they work, not from pressure, but from 
 pleasure. Many who retire from business do so with regret. 
 It is indolence that is a curse. The divine curse against the 
 serpent is even milder. He is told to walk upon his belly for 
 the rest of his life a change of locomotion was his punish- 
 ment. But when Jehovah curses the woman, he shows, I 
 was going to say, the effect of his Asiatic training. "Unto 
 the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy 
 conception ; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children ; and 
 thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over 
 
 thee/'O) 
 
 "I will greatly multiply thy sorrow." And why? Is it 
 because she is stronger and can therefore endure more suffer- 
 ing than the man? Why should she be struck a heavier and 
 a more crushing blow ? And observe that she is cursed in the 
 act which constitutes the greatest and most heroic service a 
 woman renders to the human race, the giving birth to child- 
 ren. The pain of child-bearing is to be henceforth, says the 
 deity, very much more painful. Well may we blush for Je- 
 hovah. If there is a divine moment in human life, it is when 
 a woman becomes a mother. All the tenderness, the love, the 
 gentleness, the devotion, the sweetness, and the compassion, of 
 which we are capable, will not be enough to outweigh the 
 suffering a woman endures to give life and light to a new being. 
 And think of choosing this delicate and helpless moment to 
 strike at her! And this is the being who has sent his son to 
 save us! But who shall save Jehovah? 
 
 "And thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule 
 over thee." At the threshold of life she is sold into slavery. 
 She is not given to Adam to share with him the dignity of 
 humanity, the duties and rights of life, but to be his creature. 
 Suppose Jehovah had said: "A woman is as much a human 
 being as a man, and because of her physical weakness, I shall 
 charge myself to be her special protector and friend until man 
 shall have advanced sufficiently in culture and civilization to do 
 full justice to her." Ah, if Jehovah had only said that! In 
 the Episcopal and Catholic marriage services, to this day, the 
 
 (') Genesis III:i6. 
 
 16
 
 wife is asked to promise to obey her husband. And this is 
 the religion that pretends to be just and impartial to women. 
 From the silence of Jesus on this subject, in a country and at 
 a time when woman's condition was deplorable, and where the 
 curse with which she had been cursed had really taken effect, 
 as well as from the few words he said about marriage, Jesus 
 shows his utter incapacity to tear himself from his Asiatic 
 environment, or to rise to the nobler ideals of an -advancing 
 civilization. 
 
 Again, in the light of his belief in a world soon to dis- 
 appear, it becomes clear why Jesus ignored such subjects, for 
 instance, as education, art and politics. There is not a word 
 in all the sayings and sermons of Jesus about schools, or the 
 acquisition of knowledge of nature and its laws. He does 
 not devote a single thought to the education of children. Not 
 once does he denounce ignorance, which is the mother of all 
 abominations. In the age in which he lived, ignorance was the 
 most abundant as well as the worst crop his own country raised. 
 And yet, Jesus had absolutely nothing to say against it. It 
 would take time to conquer knowledge, and the time was too 
 short. Moreover, in the world to come, such knowledge would 
 be superfluous. What wisdom the believers needed would be 
 given to them miraculously, even as God rained down manna in 
 the desert to the children of Israel. This idea that everything, 
 even our daily bread, is given to us, not acquired by us, ex- 
 plains also why Jesus ignored the subject of labor the great 
 transformer that transforms the world's waste places into gar- 
 dens and its swamps into flourishing cities. "Consider the lilies 
 of the fields," argues Jesus, with a suggestion of poetry in his 
 usually severe and solemn speech, "they toil ot, neither do 
 they spin," from which it is to be inferred that, if the lilies 
 can be so fair and flourishing without toil or labor, so can man, 
 if he will only put his trust in God. 
 
 The kingdom of heaven which is to take the place of this 
 world when it has been burned down to ashes, is not an evolu- 
 tion, or a growth out of present conditions, but it is a totally 
 different order, and is to be introduced suddenly and by 
 miracle. This idea makes human labor unnecessary. Hence, 
 the advice of Paul to the slave, not to seek his freedom, 
 and that of Jesus, to let the tares grow up with the wheat. It
 
 is not by any effort on our part ; it is not by human science or 
 labor, but by magic, that is to say, by some unknown, myster- 
 ious and sudden manner like the thief at night, that the king- 
 dom of God is to come. 
 
 Little things as well as great issues, Jesus would have us 
 leave to providence. Therefore his warning : Take no thought 
 for the morrow. In other words labor is necessary for those 
 people only who have no Father in heaven who takes notice 
 of even the falling sparrow. But the believer has only to 
 cast his net into the sea and fishes with pearls in their mouths 
 will help him pay for his wants. Faith will not only move 
 mountains, but it can make a single loaf of bread to satisfy 
 the hunger of thousands. In fact, a miracle-worker like 
 Jesus could not consistently recommend labor, which means 
 application of means to ends. Jesus was a magician. Morality 
 is a Science. 
 
 But let us now consider Jesus' answers to special problems 
 presented to him by many of his hearers for solution. You 
 know the story of the rich young man who came to Jesus to 
 ask him the way to eternal life. "Keep the ten command- 
 ments," Jesus told him. But when the youth answered that he 
 was already doing that, Jesus said, "If thou wilt be perfect, 
 sell all that thou hast and give it to the poor and thou shalt have 
 treasure in heaven." I am not surprised that the young man 
 went away disappointed. What is there in poverty to entitle 
 a man to eternal life ? Is it not a perverse doctrine that asso- 
 ciates beggary with moral perfection ? Why should the mendi- 
 cant be the pet of heaven. If you give all that you have to the 
 poor, you will have to depend upon charity for your living, or 
 starve. And where will the charity come from, if all men were 
 to follow the advice of Jesus and cultivate poverty? But 
 wealth means life, it means enjoyment of the world and ex- 
 uberance of spirits, which things Jesus dreads. Poverty means 
 lassitude, asceticism, low vitality, prostration and weariness 
 of life, which things Jesus considered essential to the des- 
 truction of the world, which he hoped for. It is only for this 
 world, however, that Jesus believes in poverty. In the next, 
 his followers will receive a hundred-fold for every sacrifice 
 made. They will be given thrones, crowns, jeweled streets to 
 walk in and mansions of pure gold in which they will drink 
 18
 
 of the fruit of the vine. Heaven, in the opinion of Jesus, is like 
 a bank which pays ten thousand per cent for every privation 
 suffered in this world. The most pronounced commercialism 
 even is not so extravagant as that. The heaven of Jesus is 
 more materialistic than this world. 
 
 It is often claimed that this doctrine of Jesus was a great 
 comfort to the unfortunate, who were given something to look 
 forward to. If they were poor, here, they could hope to be 
 rich there. It is true to a great extent that Christianity won 
 its way into the hearts of the masses by flattering them. 
 "Unto the poor the Gospel is preached," said Jesus. And 
 what was its message to them? You have lost this world, 
 but the next will be yours. In my opinion this promise, while 
 it sounds big, is a very empty one. It taught the poor to submit 
 to oppression, instead of inspiring them to rebellion against 
 injustice. Jesus did not tell the truth when he said that pov- 
 erty, hunger, ignorance, misery, were blessed. 
 
 You are also familiar with the story of the men who came 
 to Jesus to ask him whether they should pay tribute to Caesar ? 
 Instead of giving to this question a direct answer, Jesus re- 
 sorts to quibbling He asks for a coin, and when one is 
 presented, "Whose is the superscription," he asks. "Caesar's," 
 is the answer. "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," 
 commands Jesus. But one moment: Is a coin Caesar's be- 
 cause his superscription is upon it ? Is it not rather the 
 property of the man who has earned it by his labor? Shall 
 Caesar claim everything that he can put his stamp upon? 
 Was hot Jesus recommending the blind worship of force when 
 he told them to respect Caesar's name? Suppose, instead of 
 evading the question, or attempting a smart answer to it, 
 Jesus had calmly and clearly explained to them that no govern- 
 ment, be it human or divine, is just, which is not based upon the 
 consent of the governed. Ah, if Jesus had only said that. 
 
 But he also teljs us to "Give unto God the things that 
 belong to God." God and Caesar! Behold the two masters, 
 from neither of which did Jesus deliver man. And how do 
 we give unto God the things that belong to God? If we give 
 it to the priests, will it reach God and how much of it will 
 reach him? Moreover, if we are to tell the things that belong 
 to Caesar by the stamp upon them, how are we to tell the 
 19
 
 t 
 
 things that belong to God? And how did the deity come to 
 let Caesar in as a partner? And what will there be left for 
 us after God and Caesar have had each his share ? It is diffi- 
 cult to understand how the robust occidental can find any moral 
 uplift or guidance in so whimsical a piece of advice. Jesus 
 was asked a great question, the question of political autonomy 
 and international law, but he gave to it a trifling answer. 
 
 Let us take another example. I have more than once 
 called your attention to the story of the thief on the cross. 
 There were really two of them. To one of them Jesus prom- 
 ised paradise. What became of the other? Both men were 
 malefactors, but one of them believed in Jesus and became a 
 saint at the last moment. Can anything be more immoral? 
 Can anything be more arbitrary or fatalistic? If we wished 
 to show that it made no difference how people lived, and that 
 the only thing that saves is faith, which is as effective at the 
 eleventh hour as at the first we could not have invented 
 a better argument than is furnished by this story in the gospels. 
 
 Observe that the man magically saved, as this malefactor 
 was, becomes meaner and more selfish after he is converted 
 than he was before. He imagines that God is just waiting 
 yonder to welcome him, and that heaven is being put in order 
 for his reception, while his crime sinks into a mere nothing 
 in his eyes. Like the thief on the cross, he has not a single 
 thought of his victims not a single pang of remorse for the 
 suffering he has caused. Conversion has made him callous. 
 Whether his victims are saved or damned, he does not care. 
 All his thoughts are centered upon his own future happiness 
 and glory. But suppose the thief on the cross had said to 
 Jesus when the latter invited him to paradise: "But, what 
 about my victims, Lord? The men and women and children 
 I have ruined and sent to their doom ! How can I be happy 
 in heaven, with my victims in hell to whom I gave no chance 
 in the last hour to believe and be saved? Hanging on the same 
 cross with you, Lord, has made my heart a little more tender, 
 and has awakened my conscience. I have become a better man 
 since I met you. Let me then go where I can atone in some 
 real way for my crimes. Let my heaven consist in serving 
 the people I have wronged, until we can be saved together." 
 
 20
 
 If Jesus had only provoked that for a reply from the con- 
 verted thief! , 
 
 Compare with this puffed-up vanity and meanness of the 
 malefactor converted by miracle, the glorious behavior of 
 Othello in the presence of death. Jesus' company made the 
 thief on the cross contemptible ; Shakespeare's touch made 
 Othello divine. As he is about to leap into the arms of death, 
 Othello is not thinking of his soul, or of his future; his one 
 and only thought is of his victim. He does not whine in the 
 ears of heaven, nor does he beg to be saved from the punish- 
 ment he deserves. He is no coward trying to sneak into 
 heaven while his Desdemona lies in her blood at his feet. 
 Listen to the words the great poet speaks by his mouth : 
 
 Whip me, ye devils, 
 
 From the possession of this heavenly sight ! 
 Blow me about in winds ! Roast me in sulphur ! 
 Wash me in steep-down gulfs of liquid fire ! 
 
 No vision of heaven, no thought of glory for himself, can tempt 
 Othello to forget his crime. He prefers hell for himself as 
 the only thing with which his awakened conscience can be 
 calmed. That is the way to be converted! 
 
 The Christian doctrine of forgiveness is the doctrine of 
 license. Jesus commands us to forgive "seventy times seven." 
 He does not seem to realize that the more accommodating we 
 are to the criminal, the more we sap the foundations of moral- 
 ity. "Judge not," says Jesus, "that ye be not judged." That 
 is very queer advice. We are not to see wrong or crime in 
 others lest they should find the same in us. It is the religion 
 of a guilty conscience which abstains from criticising lest 
 his own faults should be exposed. "You say nothing about 
 me and I'll agree to say nothing about you," is a conspiracy 
 to defeat justice. "For with what judgment ye judge ye 
 shall be judged," continues Jesus. Not at all. If a man has 
 slandered you, must you slander him? If you have been 
 robbed, must you rob in return? Do you have to judge an- 
 other with the same prejudice, bigotry and malice with which 
 he judges you? And must you refrain from passing any 
 righteous judgments from fear of being misjudged or mis- 
 understood by the world? Were we to follow this false 
 teaching, we would be giving crime a free sway, with every 
 tongue tied against it. 
 
 21
 
 But did not Jesus say "Love one another," and is not that 
 enough? If it were enough, the past twenty centuries would 
 have been centuries of peace and brotherhood. Instead, they 
 have been centuries of war and persecution. The world is in 
 need of a Jesus who can make people love. If Jesus has 
 this power why is Europe still armed to the teeth? I do 
 not deny the good intentions of Jesus. I question his power. 
 He has not even succeeded in making his own followers, 
 Catholics and Protestants, to love one another. Christianity 
 has had a good, long chance to show results. A religion 
 which is split up into an ever-increasing number of sects is 
 not going to bring about unity and brotherhood. "He that 
 believeth not shall be damned," and "depart from me ye 
 cursed," takes from the rose of love both petals and perfume, 
 and leaves only the thorns. 
 
 But Jesus also said "Love your enemies." The advice 
 of Confucius to "love our benefactors and to be just to our 
 enemies," is more sensible. It is neither practical nor desir- 
 able to love one's enemies. Can we love the slanderer, the 
 oppressor, the murderer? If our "enemy" is not all this, he 
 is not an enemy. But we can be just to the people who are 
 mean, deceitful, spiteful or pitiless toward us. Did Jesus love 
 his enemies? Why then was not Judas saved? And why 
 did he say to his disciples that for the people who rejected 
 them there awaited the awful fate of Sodom and Gomorrah? 
 
 But did not Jesus pray for his murderers on the cross? 
 Was his prayer answered? If there is any truth in history, 
 the Jews have suffered for their supposed participation in 
 the tragedy of Calvary more than words can describe. I 
 have always thought that the prayer, "Father, forgive them, 
 for they know not what they do," was put in Jesus' mouth, 
 at the last moment, for a theatrical effect. If the atonement 
 was one of the eternal decrees of God, the people who put 
 Jesus to death were only carrying it out. If, however, know- 
 ing that Jesus was a God, they, nevertheless, wanted to kill 
 him, they must have been imbeciles to suppose a God could 
 be murdered safely; but if they did not know the truth and 
 committed the crime ignorantly, they were not forgiven for 
 it, and the bible describes the fearful punishment prepared 
 for them. 
 
 22
 
 Another much commended saying of Jesus is the following : 
 "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have 
 done it unto me." This has been interpreted as a command 
 to help and succor even the poorest of the poor. I admire 
 the thought. I applaud the generosity. But would it not 
 have been grander, if Jesus, instead of saying, "ye have done 
 it unto me," had said, "ye have done it unto Humanity." 
 "For my sake" is not so large and noble as "for Humanity's 
 sake." One of my neighbor preachers said the other day 
 that he loved the poor and the lost "because Jesus loved them." 
 Then, it was Jesus he loved, and not his fellows. Evidently 
 he would not love them, if Jesus did not. What would become 
 of this preacher's interest in his fellowmen, should he ever 
 lose his faith in Christ? That explains why people often 
 say that without religion there can be no morality. We de- 
 sire a morality that can outlive all the gods. Christ or no 
 Christ, can we still be kind and just and compassionate 
 toward the weak and the unfortunate? 
 
 "If you take Jesus Christ out of the world, the world's a 
 carcass, and man's a disaster," cries the preacher at the top of 
 his voice. Of course. If everything is to be done for Jesus' 
 sake, what will become of morality, civilization or humanity 
 with Jesus dropped out? We need no better excuse for 
 summoning all our energies to combat a religion that commits 
 the destinies of our world to the keeping of one man, and 
 he, in all probability, a myth^ 1 ) 
 
 Let us recapitulate : Jesus taught a magical, not a scientific 
 morality. It was by being born of "water and the Holy 
 Ghost," whatever that might mean, and not by intellectual and 
 moral effort, that people were to be saved. He placed the 
 creed above the deed, and himself above humanity. "Believe 
 in me, do good for my sake," gives to morality a sectarian 
 stamp, or faint, which is bound to corrupt it. Morality is 
 born of liberty. Christianity is the religion of absolutism, in 
 which Jesus or God is everything, and man a mere puppet. 
 Christianity denies to man the right to reason. He must only 
 obey. There is no morality where there is no liberty. By his 
 doctrine of an impending catastrophe, a future hell, and by his 
 promises of fabulous wealth and glory beyond Jesus helped 
 to disturb and distort the judgment of the weak and the fear- 
 
 23
 
 ful, preventing thereby the cultivation of sane thoughts of life. 
 The morality of Jesus was the morality of panic. 
 
 And what do we offer in place of supernaturalism, whether 
 it be Christianity, Judaism, Mohammedanism, Brahmanism, 
 or any other "ism"? In place of magic or miracle, we offer 
 science; in place of "belief," we offer knowledge the open 
 light of day and the unhampered interchange of human love 
 and thought. In place of Christ or God both absent, and 
 neither dependent upon anything we can do for him we offer 
 Humanity, forever at our side, and in daily need of our 
 bravest service and most unstinted love. 
 
 O Read the author's The Truth About Jesus Is He a Myth? 
 
 THE STORY OF MY MIND 
 
 OR 
 
 HOW I BECAME A RATIONALIST 
 
 Price, Fifty Cents 
 
 I In this latest publication of the Independent Religious 
 Society, M. M. Mangasarian describes his religious Experience 
 how, starting as a Calvinist, a graduate of Princeton Theolog- 
 ical Seminary, and a pastor of the Spring Garden Presbyterian 
 Church in Philadelphia, he thought and fought his way up to 
 
 RATIONALISM 
 
 fl The book contains a dedication to "My Children," in 
 which the author says : f 
 
 " I am going to put the story in writing, that you may have it with 
 you when I am gone, to remind you of the aims and interests for which 
 I lived, as well as to acquaint you with the most earnest and intimate 
 period in my career as a teacher of men." 
 
 ORDER THROUGH 
 
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