Introductory material (continued 7)

Orthodoxy has not advanced upon the religion of the Fiji Islander. It is the same yesterday, today and forever. Now we are told that there is a god; and nearly every nation has had a god; generally a good many of them. You see the raw material was so cheap, and Gods were manufactured so easily, that heaven has always been crammed with the phantoms of these monsters. But they say there is a god, and every savage tribe believes in a God. It is an argument made to me every day. I concede to you that fact; I concede to you that all savages agree with you. I admit it takes a certain amount of civilization, a certain amount of thought, to rise above the idea that some personal being, for his own ends, for his own glory, made and governs this universe. I admit that it takes some thought to see the universe is good and all that is good, and every star that shines is a part of God, and I am something, no matter how little, and that the infinite cannot exist without me, and that therefore I am a part of the infinite. I admit that it takes a little civilization to get to that point.

Now every nation has made a god, and every man that has made a god has used himself for a pattern; and men have put into the mouth of their god all their mistakes in astronomy, in geography, in philosophy, in morality, and the god is never wiser or better than his creators. If they believe in slavery, so did he; if they believe in eating human flesh, he wanted his share; if they were polygamous, so was he; if they were cruel, so was he. And just to the extent that man has become civilized, he has civilized his god. You can hardly imagine the progress that our God has made in four thousand years.

Four thousand years ago He was a barbarian; tonight He is quite an educated gentleman. Four thousand years ago He believed in killing and butchering little babes at the breasts of their mothers; He has reformed. Four thousand years ago He did not believe in taking prisoners of war. He said, kill the old men; mingle their blood with the white hair. Kill the women. But what shall we do, O God, with the maidens? Give them to satisfy the lust of the soldiers and of the priests! If there is anywhere in the serene heaven a real God. I want him to write in the book of His eternal remembrance, opposite my name, that I deny that lie for Him.

Four thousand years ago our God was in favor of slavery; four thousand years ago our God would have a man beaten to death with rugged rocks for expressing his honest thought; four thousand years ago our God told the husband to kill his wife if she disagreed with him upon the important subject of religion; four thousand years ago our God was a monster; and if He is any better now, it is simply because we have made Him so. I am talking about the God of the Christian world. There may be, for aught I know, upon the shore of the eternal vast, some being whose very thought is the constellation of those numberless stars. I do not know; but if there is he has never written a bible; he has never been in favor of slavery; he has never advocated polygamy, and he never told the murderer to sheathe his dagger in the dimpled breast of a babe. But they say to me, our God has written a book. I am glad he did, and it is by that book that I propose to judge them. I find in that book that it was a crime to eat of the tree of knowledge. I find that the church has always been the enemy of education, and I find that the church still carries the flaming sword of ignorance and bigotry over the tree of knowledge.

And if that story is true, ought we not after all to thank the devil? He was the first school master; he was the first to whisper liberty in our ears; he was the author of modesty. He was the author of ambition and progress. And as for me, give me the storm and tempest of thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Punish me when and how you will, but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And there is one peculiar thing I might as well speak of here. While the world has made gods, it has also made devils; and as a rule the devils have been better friends to man than the gods. It was not a devil that drowned the world; it was not a devil that covered with the multitudinous waves of an infinite sea the corpses of men, women and children.

That was the good god. The devil never sent pestilence and famine; the devil never starved women and children; that was the good God. The meanest thing recorded of the devil is what happened concerning my servant Job. According to that book God met the devil and said: "Where have you been?" "Oh, been walking up and down." "Have you noticed my man Job; nobody like him!" "Well, who wouldn't be; you have given him everything; but take away what he has, and he will curse you to your face." And so the devil went to work and tried it. It was a mean thing. And that was all done to decide what you might call a wager on a difference of opinion between the serene highnesses. He took away his property, but Job didn't sin; and when God met the devil, he said: "Well, what did I tell you, smarty?" "Ah," he said, "that is all very well, but you touch his flesh and he will curse you; and he did, but Job didn't curse him. And then what did God do to help him! He gave him some other children better looking than the first ones. What kind of an idea is that for a God to kill our children and then give us better looking ones! If you have loved a child, I don't care if it is deformed, if you have held it in your arms and covered its face with kisses, you want that child back and no other.

I find in this bible that there was an old gentleman a little short of the article of hair. And as he was going through the town a number of little children cried out to him "Go up, thou bald head!" And this man of God turned and cursed them. A real good-humored old fellow! And two bears came out of the woods and tore in pieces forty-two children! How did the bears get there? Elisha could not control the bears. Nobody but God could control the bears in that way. Now just think of an infinite God making a shining star, having his attention attracted by hearing some children saying to an old gentlemen, "Go up, thou bald head!" and then speaking to his secretary or somebody else, "Bring in a couple of bears now!" What a magnificent God! What would the devil have done under the same circumstances? And yet that is the God they want to put into the constitution in order to make our children gentle and kind and loving.

You hate a God like that. I do; I despise him. And yet little children in the Sabbath-school are taught that infamous lie. Why, I have very little respect for an old man that will get mad about such a thing, anyway. What would the Christian world say of me if I should have a few children torn to pieces if they should make that remark in my face? What would the devil have done under the same circumstances? I tell you, I cannot worship a God who is no better than the devil! I cannot do it. And if you will just read the old testament with the bandage off your eyes and the cloud of fear from your heart, you will come to the conclusion that it was written not only by men, but by barbarians, by savages, and that it is totally unworthy of a civilized age. I believe in no God who believes in slavery. I will worship no God who ever said that one of His children should own another of His children. But they say to me, there must be a God somewhere! Well, I say I don't know. There may be. I hope there is more than one—one is so lonesome. Just think of an old bachelor, always alone! I want more than one. And they say, somebody must have made this! Well, I say I don't know. But it strikes me that the indestructible cannot be created. What would you make it of? "Oh, nothing!" Well, it strikes me that nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a decided failure. For my part, I cannot conceive of force apart from matter, and I cannot conceive of matter apart from force. I cannot conceive of force somewhere without acting upon something; because force must be active, or it is not force; and if it has no matter to act upon, it ceases to be force. I cannot conceive of the smallest atom of matter staying together without force. Beside, if some god made all this, there must have been some morning when he commenced! And if he has existed always, there is an eternity back of that when he never did anything; when he lived in an infinite hole, without side, top or bottom! He did not think, for there was nothing to think about. Certainly he did not remember, for nothing had ever happened. Now I cannot conceive of this! I do not say it is not so. I may be damned for my smartness, yet—I simply say I cannot conceive of it, that is all. But men tell me, you cannot conceive of eternity! That is just what I can conceive of. I cannot conceive of its stopping. They say I cannot conceive of infinite space! That is just what I can conceive of; because, let me imagine all I can, my imagination will stand upon the verge and see infinite space beyond. Infinite space is a necessity of the mind, because I cannot think of enough matter to fill it. Eternity is a necessity of the mind, because I cannot dream of the cessation of time. But they say there is a design in the world, consequently there must be a designer. Well, I don't know.

Paley says that the more wonderful a thing is, the greater the necessity for creation; that a watch is a wonderful thing, and that it must have had a creator; that the watchmaker is more wonderful than the watch, therefore he must have had a creator. Then we come to God; He is altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker, therefore He had no creator. There is a link out somewhere; I don't pretend to understand it. And so I say, that had the world been any other way, you would have seen the same evidence of design, precisely. We grow up with our conditions, and you cannot imagine of a first cause. Why? Every cause has an effect.

Strike your hands together; they feel warm. The effect becomes a cause instantly, and that cause produces another effect, and the effect another cause; and there could not have been a cause until there was an effect. Because until there was an effect, nothing had been caused; until something had been caused, I am positive there was no cause. Now you cannot conceive of a lost effect, because the lost effect of which you can think, will in turn become a cause and that cause produce another effect. And as you cannot think of a lost effect, you cannot think of a first cause; it is not thinkable by the human mind.

They say God governs this world. Why does He not govern Russia as well as He does Massachusetts? Why does He allow the Czar to send beautiful girls of sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, simply for saying a word in favor of human liberty, to mines in Siberia, where they draw carts with knees bruised and bleeding, with hands scarred and swollen? What is that God worth that allows such things in the world He governs? Did He govern this country when it had four millions of slaves?—when it turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post—when the holy bible was an auction-block on which the mother stood while her babe was sold from her breast?—when bloodhounds were considered apostles? Was God governing the world when the prisoners were confined in the Bastille? It seems to me, if there is a God, and someone would repeat the word "Bastille." it would cover almost his face with the blood of shame. But they say heaven will balance all the ills of life. Let us see: A large majority of us are sinners—at least a large majority with whom I am acquainted; and a majority of the Christians with whom I am acquainted are worse than sinners. And if their doctrine is true, you will be astonished at the gentlemen you will see in hell that day. You will know by the cast of their countenance that they used to preach here. They say that it may be that the sinners here have a very good time, and that the Christians don't have a very good time; that it is awful hard work to serve the Lord, and that you carry a cross when you deny yourself the delights of murder and forgery, and all manner of rascality that fills life with delight. But they say that while the rascals are having a good time, they will catch it in the other world. But, according to their account, ninety-nine out of a hundred will be damned, and I think it will be a close call for the hundredth. Like that dear old Scotch woman, when she was talking about the Presbyterian faith, some one said to her: "My dear woman, if your doctrine is true, nobody but you and your husband will be saved." "Ah," said she, "I'm na' sae sure about John." About one in a hundred will be saved, and the other ninety-nine will be in misery. So that on the average there will not be half as much happiness in the next world as in this. So, instead of God's plan getting better, it gets worse; and throughout all the ages of eternity there will be less happiness than in this world. This world is a school; this world is where we develop moral muscle. It may be that we are here simply because men cannot advance only through agony and pain. If it is necessary to have pain and agony to advance morally, then nobody can advance in heaven. Hell will be the only place offering opportunities to any gentleman who wishes to increase his moral muscle.

A gentleman once asked me if I could suggest any improvement on the present order of things, if I had the power. Well, said I, in the first place, I would make good health catching instead of disease. There will be no humanity until we get the orthodox God out of our religion. I want to do what little I can to put another one in God's name, so that we will worship a supreme human god, so that we will worship mercy, justice, love and truth, and not have the idea that we must sacrifice our brother upon the altar of fear to please some imaginary phantom. See what Christianity has done for the world! It has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand organ and Ireland to exile. That is what religion has done. Take every country in the whole world, and the country that has got the least religion is the most prosperous, and the country that has got the most religion is in the worst condition.

In the vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the religions of men and there, too, are nearly all their gods.

The sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls, cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden, with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent, and his necklace of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with seas of blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi, the white-armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and left the thrones of heaven desolate. Along the banks of the sacred Nile, Iris no longer wandering weeps, searching for the dead Osiris. The shadow of Typhon's scowl falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore, and his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still waiting for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the old beliefs wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in the mystery of a language lost and dead Odin, the author of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant Ymir, strode long ago from the ice halls of the North; and Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes mountains to the earth no more.

Broken are the circles and the cromlechs of the ancient Druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered with the centuries' moss are the sacred cairns. The divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs have died out in the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside; Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no more with love. The streams still murmur, but no naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles no dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olympus. Not even the beautiful women can lure them back, and Danae lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed forever are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of the prophets, and the lard once flowing with milk and honey is but a desert waste. One by one the myths have faded from the clouds; one by one the phantom host has disappeared, and, one by one, facts, truths and realities have taken their places. The supernatural has almost gone, but man is the natural remains. The gods have fled, but man is here. Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods created with the nations must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and, like men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next. The religion of our day, and country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future than others have been. When India was supreme, Brahma sat upon the world's throne. When the sceptre passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, swept to empire, and Zeus put on the purple of authority. The earth trembled with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons, and Jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her territory, with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations of the world, and now Jehovah sits upon the old throne. Who will be His successor?

Ingersoll's lecture on The Religion of Our Day

Ladies and Gentlemen:—I am glad that I have lived long enough to see one gentleman in the pulpit brave enough to say that God would not be offended at one who speaks according to the dictates of his conscience; who does not believe that God will give wings to a bird, and then damn the bird for flying. I thank the pastor and I thank the church for allowing its pastor to be so brave.

I admit that thousands and thousands of church people, with their pastors and the deacons, are today advocating religious principles that they deem right and good. I honor these men, but I do not believe that their method is a good one. I do not want these people to forgive me for the views I entertain, but I want them so to act that I will not have to forgive them. I am the friend of every one who preaches the gospel of absolute intellectual liberty, and that man is my friend.

Is there a God who says that if man does so and so He will damn him? Can there be such a fiend? I am not responsible to man unless I injure him; nor to God unless I injure Him, but one cannot injure God, for "He is infinite."

When I was young I was told that the bible was inspired, written by God, that even the lids of the book were inspired. They say He is a personal God; if so, He has not revealed Himself to me. There may be many gods. As I look around I see that justice does not prevail, that innocence is not always effectual and a perfect shield. If there be a God these things could not be. If God made us all, why did He not make us all equally well. He had the power of an infinite god. Why did God people the earth with so many idiots? I admit that orthodoxy could not exist without them, but why did God make them? If we believe the bible then He should have made us all idiots, for the orthodox Christian says the idiots will not be damned, simply transplanted, while the sensible man, who believeth not, will be sent to eternal damnation? If there is any God that made us, what right had He to make idiots? Is a man with a head like a pin under any obligation to thank God? Is the black man, born in slavery, under any obligation to thank God for his badge of servitude?

What kind of a God is it that will allow men and women to be put in dungeons and chains simply because they loved Him and prayed to Him? And what kind of a God is it that will allow such men and women to be burned at the stake? If God won't love such men and women, then under what circumstances will he love?

Famine stalks over the land and millions die, not only the bad but the good, and there in the heavens above sits an infinite God who can do anything, can change the rocks and the stones, and yet these millions die. I do not say there is no God, but I do ask, what is God doing? Look at the agony, and wretchedness and woe all over the land. Is there goodness, is there mercy in this? I do not say there is not, but I want to know, and I want to know if a man is to be damned for asking the question?

(He eloquently recited the agonies that clustered around the French Bastille, where great men and heroic women suffered and died for loving liberty, and said: If there is a God, I think that one word, Bastille, would bring the blush of shame to His face.)

I find that the men who have received revelation are the worst; and that where the bible goes there go the sword and the fagot. If an infinite God makes a revelation to me He knows how I will understand it. If God wrote the bible he knew that no two people would understand it alike.

When I read the bible I found that God in His infinite wisdom couldn't control the people He had created and that He had to drown them. If I had infinite power and couldn't make a people that I could control and had to drown them, why I'd resign.

Then I read in the bible such cruel things, and I do not believe that God can be cruel. Such cruelty may make one afraid, but cannot inspire love. I can't love a god that will inflict pain and sorrow, and I won't.

The preachers say all unbelievers will go to hell—tidings of great joy. When I confront them they—say I'm taking away their consolation. The old bible does not mention hell or heaven. Now God should have notified Adam and Cain of hell, but He didn't. When He came to drown all those people He didn't tell a single one that He would drown him. He talked all about water—nothing about fire. When He came down on Mount Sinai, and told Moses how to cut out clothes for a priest, He never said one word on the subject. When God gave Moses the ten commandments, engraved on stone, there He said not one word about hell. There was plenty of room on the stone; why did He not add: "If you don't keep these commandments you will be damned." Through all these ages, when God was talking all the time, and when every howling prophet had His ear, not one word did He utter of hell or heaven. For 4,000 years God got along without mentioning those places or even hinting of them. It seems to me that we ought to have been notified by Him.

(Here the orator recalled many stories from the old bible and subjected them to keen irony and ridicule. Reciting the story wherein the she bears came out of the woods and tore to pieces the forty children who mocked the prophet, he asked: If God did that, what would the devil have done under the same circumstances? Why; he said, did not God give a sure cure for leprosy, unless He wanted to have His chosen people to have that frightful disease?)

Do you believe that God ever told a widow if her brother-in-law refused to marry her to spit in his face? Do you believe any such nonsense from a god? I call that courting under difficulties. (Then Colonel Ingersoll dwelt pathetically on the sweet, innocent babes eaten up by the lions in the den, after Daniel was rescued from their jaws, and asked the question, what kind of a god was it that allowed such horrible deeds?)

They say that I pick out all the bad things in the bible. Well, God ought not to have put bad things in the book. If you only read the bible you will not believe it. Why, it is such a bad book that it has to be supported by legislation. In Maine and elsewhere they will send you to jail for two years if you deny the bible or the judgment day.

No, we are told we must not only believe in the God we have been talking about, but must also believe in another one.

Let us look at the church today. The orthodox church—that is, all but the Universalist. He is trying to be orthodox, but he can't get in. The God of the Universalists, to say the least, is a gentleman.

Now, what is this religion? To believe certain things that we may be saved, that we won't be damned. What are they? First, that the old and new testament are inspired. No matter how kind, how just a man may be, unless he believes in the inspiration, he will be damned.

Second, he must believe in the trinity. That there are three in one. That father and son are precisely of the same age, the son, possibly, a little mite older; that three times one is one, and that once one is three. It is a mercy you don't know how to understand it, but you must believe it or be damned. Therein you see the mercy of the Lord. This trinity doctrine was announced several hundred years after Christ was born: Do you believe such a doctrine will make a man good or honest? Will it make him more just? Is the man that believes any better than the man who does not believe? How is it with nations? Look at Spain, the last slave-holder in the civilized world; she's christian, she believes in the trinity! And Italy, the beggar of the world. Under the rule of priestcraft money streamed in from every land and yet she did not advance. Today she is reduced to a hand-organ. Take poor Ireland, groaning under the heel of British oppression; could she cast off her priests she would soon be one with America in freedom.

Protestantism is better than Catholicism, because there is less of it. Both dread education. They say they brought the arts and sciences out of the dark ages; why, they made the dark ages and what did they preserve? Nothing of value, only an account of events that never happened. What did they teach the world! Slavery!

The best country the sun ever shown upon is the northern part of the United States, and there you will find less religion than anywhere else on the face of the earth. You will find here more people that don't believe the bible, and you will find better husbands, better wives, happier homes, where the women are most respected and where the children get less blows and more huggings and kissings. We have improved just as we lost this religion and this superstition.

Great Britain is the religious nation par excellence, and there you will find the most cant and most hypocrisy. They are always thanking God that they have killed somebody. Look at the opium war with China. They forced the Chinese to open their ports and receive the deadly drug, and then had the impudence to send a lot of driveling idiots of missionaries into China.

Go around the world, and where you find the least superstition, there you will find the best men, the best women, the best children. Two powerful levers are at work; love and intelligence. The true test of a man is generosity, that covers a multitude of sins.

They have got so now they damn a man on a technicality. You must be baptized by immersion, sprinkling or pouring. If you come to the day of judgment and can't show the watermark, you're damned!

What more: That a fellow named Adam, whom you don't know and never voted for, is your representative. You are charged with his sins. Equally abused is the doctrine of atonement, that you are created with the sacrifice of another. If Christ had more virtue than Adam had meanness, then you are ahead.

Atonement is the corner-stone of the Christian religion. But there is one great objection. It saves the wrong man, and it is not honest. (In holding up the atonement to ridicule the orator said: "If Judas had failed to betray Christ, the mother of Christ would be in hell today." Then he ridiculed the miracles recorded in the new testament, pronounced them absurdities. He said that the four apostolic writers were very contradictory in their statements, and did not even agree as to the last word of this great man.)

The ascension was the most striking, the grandest of the miracles, if true, yet the ascension is only recorded by two of these writers. If He was God, I know he will forgive somebody for not believing the miracles, unless convinced.

Another contradiction in the book: in one gospel the condition of salvation is "whosoever believeth shall not be damned," and in another we are promised that if we forgive our enemies God will forgive us—and there's sense in this last promise. The first I believe a lie—it was never spoken by God.

Christ said: Love your enemies. Nobody can do that. The doctrine of Confucius is sound—to love one's friends and to do justice to one's enemies without any mixture of revenge.

If Christ was God, did He not know on His cross what crimes would be done in His name? Why didn't He settle all disputes about the trinity and about baptism? Why didn't He post His disciples? Because He could no more see into the future than I can. Only in this way can you acquit him of the crimes committed in His name. The way to save our own souls is to save another soul. God can't turn into hell a man who makes on this earth a little heaven for himself, wife and babes.

Any minister who preaches the doctrine of hell ought to be ashamed. I want, if I can while I live, to put an end to all belief in this infamous doctrine. That doctrine has done incalculable harm, wrought incalculable injury. I despise it, and I defy it.

The orthodox church says that religion does good; that it restrains crime. It restrains a man from artificial, not from natural crimes. A man can be made so religious that he will not eat meat on Friday, yet he will steal.

Did you ever hear of a tramp coming to town and inquiring where the deacon of the Presbyterian church lived.

The bible says consider the lilies. What good would it do a naked man standing out in the bitter blasts of this night to consider the lilies.

What is the social position of a man in heaven who through all eternity remembers that if he had had a grain of courage he would never have been there.

The realization of our day does not satisfy the intelligence of the people—the people have outgrown it. It shocks us and we have got to have another religion. We must have a religion of charity; one that will do away with poverty, close the prisons and cover this world with homes.

Ingersoll's Lecture on Heretics and Heresies

Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly expresses it, will be guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the minority believe; it is a name given by the powerful to the doctrine of the weak. This word was born of the hatred, arrogance, and cruelty of those who love their enemies, and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the other. This word was born of intellectual slavery in the feudal ages of thought. It was an epithet used in the place of argument. From the commencement of the Christian era, every art has been exhausted, and every conceivable punishment inflicted to force all people to hold the same religious opinions. This effort was born of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the salvation of the soul. Christ taught, and the church still teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. God is supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred, every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have died are supposed, at this moment, to be suffering the agonies of the damned. The church persecutes the living, and her God burns the dead.

It is claimed that God wrote a book called the bible, and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat difficult to understand. As long as the church had all the copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world; but when it was printed and read, people began honestly to differ as to its meaning. A few were independent and brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and for the extermination of these men the church used all her power. Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the work of enslaving the human mind. For ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the earth of honest people. They infested every country, every city, town, hamlet, and family. They appealed to the worst passions of the human heart. They sowed the seeds of discord and hatred in every land. Brother denounced brother, wives informed against their husbands, mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted in the clasp of chains, the flames devoured the heroic, and in the name of the most merciful God, his children were exterminated with famine, sword and fire. Over the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly and sincerely differed with them upon any point whatever.

Give any orthodox church the power, and today they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deemed a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. Why should the church pity a man whom her God hates? Why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will burn in eternal fire? Why should a Christian be better than his God? It is impossible for the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has been perpetrated by the church. Let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. Every nerve in the human body capable of pain has been sought out and touched by the church. Toleration has increased only when and where the power of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the spirit of the Christian has remained the same. There has been the same intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent with the ignorant creed.

Every church pretends that it has a revelation from God, and that this revelation must be given to the people through the church; that the church acts through its priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with a revelation—not from God—but from the church. Had the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of course there could have been but one church, and that church never could have advanced. It might have retrograded, because it is not necessary to think, or investigate, in order to forget. Without heresy there could have been no progress.

The highest type of the orthodox christian does not forget. Neither does he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living fossil, imbedded in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object, he denounces all kinds of free thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. When he had the power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. It meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death.

In those days the cross and rack were inseparable companions. Across the open bible lay the sword and fagot. Not content with burning such heretics as were alive, they even tried the dead, in order that the church might rob their wives and children. The property of all heretics was confiscated, and on this account they charged the dead with being heretical—indicted, as it were, their dust—to the end that the church might clutch the bread of orphans. Learned divines discussed propriety of tearing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned, and the general opinion was that this ought to be done, so that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blasphemies, to shock the christians who were burning them. With a mixture of ferocity and christianity, the priests insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a slow fire, giving as a reason, that more time was given them for repentance.

No wonder that Jesus Christ said, "I came not to bring peace but a sword!"

Every priest regarded himself as the agent of God. He answered all questions by authority, and to treat him with disrespect was an insult offered to God. No one was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey.

In 1208 the inquisition was established. Seven years afterward; the fourth council of the Lateran enjoined all kings and rulers to swear an oath that they would exterminate heretics from their dominions. The sword of the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes feasted upon the agonies they inflicted. Acting as they believed, or pretended to believe under the command of God, stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another world—hating heretics with every drop of their bastille blood—savage beyond description—merciless beyond conception—these infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy, leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. They crushed their bones in iron boots, tore their quivering flesh with iron hooks and pinchers, cut off their lips and eyelids, pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust needles, tore out their tongues, extinguished their eyes, stretched them upon racks, flayed them alive, crucified them with their head downward, exposed them to wild beasts, burned them at the stake, mocked their cries and groans, ravished their wives, robbed their children, and then prayed God to finish the holy work in hell.

Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars of bigotry. The Catholic burned the Lutheran, the Lutheran burned the Catholic; the Episcopalian tortured the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the Episcopalian. Every denomination killed all it could of every other; and each Christian felt it duty bound to exterminate every other Christian who denied the smallest fraction of his creed.

In the reign of Henry the VIII., that pious and moral founder of the Apostolic Episcopal church, there was passed by the Parliament of England an act entitled, "An act for abolishing of diversity of opinion." And in this act was set forth what a good Christian was obliged to believe.

First, that in the sacrament was the real body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Second, that the body and blood of Jesus Christ was in the bread, and the blood and body of Jesus Christ was in the wine.

Third, that priests should not marry.

Fourth, that vows of chastity were of perpetual obligation.

Fifth, that private masses ought to be continued.

And sixth, that auricular confession to a priest must be maintained.

This creed was made by law, in order that all men might know just what to believe by simply reading the statute. The church hated to see the people wearing out their brains in thinking upon these subjects. It was thought far better that a creed should be made by Parliament, so that whatever might be lacking in evidence might be made up in force. The punishment for denying the first article was death by fire. For the denial of any other article, imprisonment, and for the second offense—death.

Your attention is called to these six articles, established during the reign of Henry VIII, and by the Church of England, simply because not one of these articles is believed by that church today. If the law then made by the church could be enforced now, every Episcopalian would be burned at the stake.

Similar laws were passed in most Christian countries, as all orthodox churches firmly believed that mankind could be legislated into heaven. According to the creed of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty leads to hell. It was claimed that God had founded the church, and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a traitor to God, and consequently an ally of the devil. To torture and destroy one of the soldiers of Satan was a duty no good Christian cared to neglect. Nothing can be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of God by killing your own enemies. Such a mingling of profit and revenge, of heaven for yourself and damnation for those you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary Christian never resists.

According to the theologians, God, the father of us all wrote a letter to His children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has been measured only by her power. During all these years of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she has devoured, pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with the conscience of a serpent. Such is the history of the church of God.

I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are as bad as their creeds. In spite of church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart. They have been true to their convictions, and with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none, have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. Imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured every hardship and scorned danger and death. And yet, notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error was a crime. They knew that the bible so declared, and they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost. They believed that religion was of God, and all heresy of the devil. They killed heretics in defense of their own souls and the souls of their children. They killed them, because, according to their idea, they were the enemies of God, and because the bible teaches that the blood of the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven.

Nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her child into the Ganges. Nature never prompted men to exterminate each other for a difference of opinion concerning the baptism of infants. These crimes have been produced by religions filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. These religions were produced for the most part by ignorance, tyranny, and hypocrisy. Under the impression that the infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded the destruction of heretics and infidels, the church perpetrated all these crimes.

Men and women have been burned for thinking that there was but one God; that there was none; that the Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was somewhat older than his Son; for insisting that good works will save a man, without faith; that faith will do without good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be barred eternally, because its parents failed to have its head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though He had a nose; for denying that Christ was His own father; for contending that three persons, rightly added together, make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for denying the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can forgive sins; for preaching that God is an essence; for denying that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubting the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing at irresistible grace, predestination, and particular redemption; for denying that good bread could be made of the body of a dead man; for pretending that the Pope was not managing this world for God, and in place of God, for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement; for thinking that the Virgin Mary was born like other people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient to make a good sized woman; for denying that God used His finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not answered, that diseases are not set to punish unbelief; for denying the authority of the bible; for having a bible in their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to attend, for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and for refusing; for being a Catholic, and for being a Protestant, for being an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist, and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy, and all this she did because it was commanded by a book—a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book, to examine it, even, was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.

The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men.

How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?

Unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of the sixteenth century a man by the name of Gerard Chauvin was married to Jeanne Lefranc, and still more unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage was a son, called John Chauvin, who afterward became famous as John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian church.

This man forged five fetters for the brain. These fetters he called points. That is to say, predestination, particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace, and the perseverance of the saints. About the neck of each follower he put a collar, bristling with these five iron points. The presence of all these points on the collar is still the test of orthodoxy in the church he founded. This man, when in the flush of youth, was elected to the office of preacher in Geneva. He at once, in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of the Presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of Geneva, on pain of banishment, were compelled to take an oath that they, believed this statement. Of this proceeding Calvin very innocently remarked, that it produced great satisfaction. A man by the name of Caroli had the audacity to dispute with Calvin. For this outrage he was banished.

To show you what great subjects occupied the attention of Calvin, it is only necessary to state, that he furiously discussed the question, as to whether the sacramental bread should be leavened or unleavened. He drew up laws regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribed their diet, and all whose garments were not in the Calvin fashion were refused the sacrament. At last, the people becoming tired of this petty, theological tyranny, banished Calvin. In a few years, however, he was recalled and received with great enthusiasm. After this, he was supreme, and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva. Under the benign administration of Calvin, James Gruet was beheaded because he had written some profane verses. The slightest word against Calvin or his absurd doctrine was punished as a crime.

In 1553, a man was tried at Vienne by the Catholic church for heresy. He was convicted and sentenced to death by burning. It was his good fortune to escape. Pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to Geneva for protection. A dove flying from hawks, sought safety in the nest of a vulture. This fugitive from the cruelty of Rome asked shelter from John Calvin, who had written a book in favor of religious toleration. Servetus had forgotten that this book was written by Calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weakness to be forgotten in power; that it was produced by fear instead of principle. He did not know that Calvin had caused his arrest at Vienne, in France, and had sent a copy of his work, which was claimed to be blasphemous to the archbishop. He did not then know that the Protestant, Calvin, was acting as one of the detectives of the Catholic church, and had been instrumental in procuring his conviction for heresy. Ignorant of all this unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this very Calvin. The maker of the Presbyterian creed caused the fugitive Servetus to be arrested for blasphemy. He was tried; Calvin was his accuser. He was convicted and condemned to death by fire. On the morning of the fatal day, Calvin saw him; and Servetus, the victim, asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer, for anything he might have said that had wounded his feelings. Servetus was bound to the stake, the fagots were lighted. The wind carried the flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. Vainly he implored a speedy death. At last the flame climbed around his form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white, heroic face. And there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass.

Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but Presbyterianism was left; honor, justice, mercy, reason and charity were all exiled; but the five points of predestination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, total depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints remained instead.

Calvin founded a little theocracy in Geneva, modeled after the old testament, and succeeded in erecting the most detestable government that ever existed, except the one from which it was copied.

Against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised his voice. The name of this man should never be forgotten. It was Castellio. This brave man had the goodness and the courage to declare the innocence of honest error. He was the first of the so-called reformers to take this noble ground. I wish I had the genius to pay a fitting tribute to his memory. Perhaps it would be impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to say, Castellio was in all things the opposite of Calvin. To plead for the right of individual judgment was considered as a crime, and Castellio was driven from Geneva by John Calvin. By him he was denounced as a child of the devil, as a dog of Satan, as a beast from hell, and as one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of honest error, crucified Christ afresh, and by him he was pursued until rescued by the hand of death.

Upon the name of Castellio, Calvin heaved every epithet, until his malice was satisfied and his imagination exhausted. It is impossible to conceive how human nature can become so frightfully perverted as to pursue a fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because he is good, just and generous.

Calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin, sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical, heartless and infamous. He was a strange compound of revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice. In other words, he was as near like the God of the old testament as his Health permitted.

The best thing, however, about the Presbyterians of Geneva was, that they denied the power of the Pope, and the best thing about the Pope was, that he was not a Presbyterian.

The doctrines of Calvin spread rapidly, and were eagerly accepted by multitudes on the continent. But Scotland, in a few years, became the real fortress of Presbyterianism. The Scotch rivaled the adherents of Calvin, and succeeded in establishing the same kind of theocracy that flourished in Geneva. The clergy took possession and control of everybody and everything. It is impossible to exaggerate the slavery, the mental degradation, the abject superstition of the people of Scotland during the reign of Presbyterianism. Heretics were hunted and devoured as though they had been wild beasts. The gloomy insanity of Presbyterianism took possession of a great majority of the people. They regarded their ministers as the Jews did Moses and Aaron. They believed that they were the especial agents of God, and that whatsoever they bound in Scotland would be bound in heaven. There was not one particle of intellectual freedom. No one was allowed to differ from the church, or to even contradict a priest. Had Presbyterianism maintained its ascendancy, Scotland would have been peopled by savages today. The revengeful spirit of Calvin took possession of the Puritans and caused them to redden the soil of the new world with the brave blood of honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin, they, too, established governments in accordance with the teachings of the old testament. They, too, attached the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought. They, too, believed their church supreme, and exerted all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual despotism as infamous as it was absurd. They believed with Luther that universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell. Toleration was denounced as a crime. Fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening effect upon the Presbyterian church. To the ennobling influence of the arts and science the savage spirit of Calvinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. True, the old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded as a relic of the past. The cry of "heresy" has been growing fainter and fainter, and, as a consequence, the ministers of that denomination have ventured now and then to express doubts as to the damnation of infants, and the doctrine of total depravity. The fact is, the old ideas became a little monotonous to the people. The fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible grace, began to have a familiar sound. The preachers told the old stories while the congregation slept. Some of the ministers became tired of these stories themselves. The five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing short of irresistible grace could bear this endless repetition. The outside world was full of progress, and in every direction men advanced, while the church, anchored to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other denominations, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation, were springing up on every side, while the old Presbyterian ark rested on the Ararat of the past, filled with the theological monsters of another age.

Lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by the achievements of science, longing to feel the throw and beat of the mighty march of the human race, a few of the ministers of this conservative denomination were compelled by irresistible sense, to say a few words in harmony with the splendid ideas of today.

These utterances have upon several occasions so nearly awakened some of the members, that, rubbing their eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these grand ideas were not somewhat heretical? These ministers found that just in proportion as their orthodoxy decreased, their congregations increased. Those who dealt in the pure unadulterated article, found themselves demonstrating the five points to a less number of hearers than they had points. Stung to madness by this bitter truth, this galling contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal the lips of honest men. One of these ministers, and one who has been enjoying the luxury of a little honest thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already been indicted, and is about to be tried by the Presbytery of Illinois.

He has been charged:

First. With speaking in an ambiguous language in relation to that dear old doctrine of the fall of man. With having neglected to preach that most comforting and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul.

Surely, that man must be a monster who could wish to blot this blessed doctrine out and rob earth's wretched children of this blissful hope!

Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment? Think of the lives it has blighted—of the tears it has caused—of the agony it has produced. Think of the millions who have been driven to insanity by this most terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest and most cruel being in the universe. Compared with him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy. There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a God. Lower than this the soul can never sink. If the doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me have my portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a God infamous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons of men.

Second. With having spoken a few kind words of Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill.

I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert Collyer. I have read with pleasure some of his exquisite productions. He has a brain full of the dawn, the head of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet, and the sincere heart of a child.

Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of a noble and candid adversary? Is it a crime to compliment a lover of justice, an advocate of liberty; one who devoted his life to the elevation of man, the discovery of truth, and the promulgation of what he believed to be right?

Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises a self-denying and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charitable word over the grave of John Stuart Mill? Is it heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity of the tomb, dig open the grave, and ask his God to curse the silent dust? Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric creed? Does it still retain within its stony heart all the malice of its founder? Is it still warming its fleshless hands at the flames that consumed Servetus? Does it still glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition may be filled? Is it still starving the soul and famishing the heart? Is it still trembling and shivering, crouching and crawling, before its ignorant confession of faith? Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill been present at the burning of Servetus, they would have extinguished the flames with their tears. Had the Presbytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat-tails and warmed themselves.

Third. With having spoken disparagingly of the doctrine of predestination.

If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by law, predestination is that doctrine. Surely it is a cheerful, joyous thing to one who is laboring, struggling and suffering in this weary world, to think that before he existed, before the earth was, before a star had glittered in the heavens, before a ray of light had left the quiver of the sun, his destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that for an eternity before his birth he had been doomed to bear eternal pain!

Fourth. With having failed to preach the efficacy of vicarious sacrifice.

Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was about to be hanged—the Governor acting as the executioner. And suppose just as the doomed man was to suffer death, some one in the crowd should step forward and say, "I am willing to die in the place of that murderer. He has a family, and I have none." And suppose further that the Governor should reply, "Come forward, young man, your offer is accepted. A murder has been committed, and somebody must be hung, and your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death of the murderer." What would you then think of the doctrine of vicarious sacrifice?"

This doctrine is the consummation of two outrages—forgiving one crime and committing another.

Fifth. With having inculcated a phase of the doctrine commonly known as "Evolution" or "Development." The church believes and teaches the exact opposite of this doctrine. According to the philosophy of theology, man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years. To teach that there is that in Nature which impels to higher forms and grander ends, is heresy of course. The Deity will damn Spencer and his "Evolution," Darwin and his "Origin of Species," Bastin and his "Spontaneous Generation," Huxley and his "Protoplasm," Tyndall and his "Prayer Guage," and will save those, and those only who declare that the universe has been cursed from the smallest atom to the grandest star; that everything tends to evil, and to that only; and that the only perfect thing in Nature is the Presbyterian confession of faith.

Sixth. With having intimated that the reception of Socrates and Penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the least, a trifle more cordial than that of Catherine II.

Penelope waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's return, delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and un-weaving the shroud of Laertes, is the most perfect type of wife and woman produced by the civilization of Greece.

Socrates, whose life was above reproach, and whose death was beyond all praise, stands today, in the estimation of every thoughtful man, at least the peer of Christ.

Catharine II assassinated her husband. Stepping upon his corpse, she mounted the throne. She was the murderess of Prince Ivan, the grand-nephew of Peter the Great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who, during all that time, saw the sky but once. Taken all in all, Catharine was probably one of the most intellectual beasts that ever wore a crown.

Catharine, however, was the head of the Greek Church, Socrates was a heretic, and Penelope lived and died without having once heard of "particular redemption," or "irresistible grace."

Seventh. With repudiating the idea of a "call" to ministry, and pretending that men were "called," to preach as they were to the other avocations of life.

If this doctrine is true, God, to say the least of it, is an exceedingly poor judge of human nature. It is more than a century since a man of true genius has been found in an orthodox pulpit. Every minister is heretical just to the extent that his intellect is above the average. The Lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the people are not.

An old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to give up the ministry, and turn his attention to something else. The preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he had a "call" to the ministry. To which the deacon replied, "That may be so, but it's mighty unfortunate for you that when God called you to preach, He forgot to call anybody to hear you."

There is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim of the clergy that they are, in some divine sense, set apart to the service of the Lord; that they have been chosen and sanctified; that there is an infinite difference between them and persons employed in secular affairs. They teach us that all other professions must take care of themselves; that God allows anybody to be a doctor, a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist; that the Motts and Coopers—the Mansfields and Marshalls—the Wilberforces and Sumners—the Angelos and Raphaels—were never honored by a "call." These chose their professions and won their laurels without the assistance of the Lord. All these men were left free to follow their own inclinations while God was busily engaged selecting and "calling" priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters.

Eighth. With having doubted that God was the author of the 109th Psalm.

The portion of that Psalm which carries with it the clearest and most satisfactory evidences of inspiration, and which has afforded almost unspeakable consolation to the Presbyterian church, is as follows:

"Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan stand at his right hand.

"When he shall be judged, let him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin.

"Let his days be few; and let another take his office.

"Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.

"Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg; let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.

"Let the extortioner catch all that he hated; and let the strangers spoil his labor.

"Let there be none to extend mercy unto him; neither let there be none to favor his fatherless children.

"Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation following let their name be blotted out.

"But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy name's sake; because Thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.... I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth."

Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer. Think of one infamous enough to answer it. Had this inspired Psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments.

No wonder that the author of this inspired Psalm coldly received Socrates and Penelope, and reserved his sweetest smiles for Catharine the Second!

Ninth. With having said that the battles in which the Israelites engaged with the approval and command of Jehovah surpassed in cruelty those of Julius Caesar.

Was it Julius Caesar who said, "And the Lord our God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain?"

Did Julius Caesar send the following report to the Roman Senate? "And we took all his cities at that time, there was not a city which we took not from them, three-score city, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of Og, in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high walls, gates and bars; besides unwalled towns a great many. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men, women, and children of every city."

Did Caesar take the city of Jericho "and utterly destroy all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old?" Did he smite "all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings, and leave none remaining that breathed, as the Lord God had commanded?"

Search the records of the whole world, find out the history of every barbarous tribe, and you can find no crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those the bible's God commanded and approved. For such a God I have no words to express my loathing and contempt, and all the words in all the languages of man would scarcely be sufficient. Away with such a God! Give me Jupiter rather, with Io and Europa, or even Siva with his skulls and snakes, or give me none.

Tenth. With having repudiated the doctrines of total depravity.

What a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity of the human heart! How sweet it is to believe that the lives of all the good and great were continual sins and perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child is, in the sight of God, a sin; that the gratitude of the natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for others is an offense to heaven; that the noblest aspirations of the soul are low and groveling in the sight of God; that man should fall upon his knees and ask forgiveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime.

Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman and child in the wide world, with the exception of those who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glowing gulf of the hell!

Take from the Christian the history of his own church; leave that entirely out of the question, and he has no argument left with which to substantiate the total depravity of man.

A minister once asked an old lady, a member of his church, what she thought of the doctrine of total depravity, and the dear old soul replied that she thought it a mighty good doctrine if the Lord would only give the people grace enough to live up to it?

Eleventh. With having doubted the "perseverance of the saints."

I suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is that Presbyterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other folks are of going to hell. The real idea being, that it all depends upon the will of God, and not upon the character of the person to be damned or saved; that God has the weakness to send Presbyterians to Paradise, and the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire.

It is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the least of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all who have not been the recipients of a "new heart;" that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly infamous.

It is contended that the saints do not persevere of their own free will—that they are entitled to no credit for persevering; but that God forces them to persevere; while on the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance with the secret will of God, who does all things for His own glory. Compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea, that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be called absurd.

As to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints, I wish with all my heart that it may prove to be a fact, I really hope that every saint, no matter how badly he may break on the first quarter, nor how many shoes he may cast at the half-mile pole, will foot it bravely down the long home-stretch, and win eternal heaven by at least a neck.

Twelfth. With having spoken and written somewhat lightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doctrinal sermons.

Of all the failures of which we have any history or knowledge the missionary effort is the most conspicuous. The whole question has been decided here, in our own country, and conclusively settled. We have nearly exterminated the Indians; but we have converted none. From the days of John Eliot to the execution of the last Modoc, not one Indian has been the subject of irresistible grace or particular redemption. The few red men who roam the Western wilderness have no thought or care concerning the five points of Calvin. They are utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained in the Thirty-nine articles, the Saybrook platform, and the resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance. No Indian has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief. This of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries have had no effect.

Why should we convert the heathen of China and kill our own? Why should we send missionaries across the seas, and soldiers over the plains? Why should we send bibles to the East and muskets to the West? If it is impossible to convert Indians who have no religion of their own; no prejudice for or against the "eternal procession of the Holy Ghost," how can we expect to convert a heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and bibles and prophets and Christs, and who has a religious literature far grander than our own? Can we hope, with the story of Daniel in the lion's den, to rival the stupendous miracles of India? Is there anything in our bible as lofty and loving as the prayer of the Buddhist? Compare your "Confession of Faith" with the following:

"Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation—never enter into final peace alone; but forever and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal redemption of every creature throughout all worlds. Until all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin, sorrow and struggle, but will remain where I am."

Think of sending an average Presbyterian to convert a man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous and incomparable prayer! Think of reading the 109th Psalm to a heathen who has a bible of his own, in which is found this passage: "Blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid!"

Why should you read even the new testament to a Hindoo, when his own Chrishna has said: "If a man strike thee, and in striking drop his staff, pick it up and hand it to him again?" Why send a Presbyterian to a Sufi, who says: "Better one moment of silent contemplation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of outward worship?" "Whosoever would carelessly tread one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly alienate from God; but he that, living, embraceth all things in his love, to live with him God bursts all bounds above, below."

Why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heartless theology upon one who prays this prayer: "O God, show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast already bestowed thy mercy by having created them virtuous?"

Compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of the old testament—with the infamies commanded and approved by the being whom the are taught to worship as a God, and with the following tender product of Presbyterianism: "It may seem absurd to human wisdom that God should harden, blind, and deliver up some men to a reprobate sense; that He should first deliver them over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this, knowing that God would never be a whit less good, even though He should destroy all men."

Of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, Presbyterianism is the most hideous.

But what shall I say more? for the time would fail me to tell of Sabellianism, of a "Model trinity" and the "eternal procession of the Holy Ghost."

Upon these charges a minister is to be tried, here in Chicago; in this city of pluck and progress—this marvel of energy, and this miracle of nerve. The cry of "heresy" here, sounds like a wail from the Dark Ages—a shriek from the Inquisition, or a groan from the grave of Calvin.

Another effort is being made to enslave a man. It is claimed that every member of the church has solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. Upon this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he hands over his brains to bind the bargain. Should a fact be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to deny the fact and curse the finder. With scraps of dogmas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall be satisfied forever. What an intellectual feast the confession of faith must be! It reminds one of the dinner described by Sidney Smith, where everything was cold except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar.

Every member of a church promises to remain orthodox, that is to say—stationary. Growth is heresy. Orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been molted by the eagle of progress. They are the dead leaves under the majestic palm; while heresy is the bud and blossom at the top.

Imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at the other. The end that grows is heresy; the end that rots is orthodox. The dead are orthodox, and your cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated church. No thought, no progress, no heresy there. Slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members peacefully decay. There is only this difference—the dead do not persecute.

And what does a trial for heresy mean? It means that the church says to a heretic, "Believe as I do, or I will withdraw my support; I will not employ you; I will pursue you until your garments are rags; until your children cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears. I will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then my God will do the rest. I will not imprison you. I will not burn you. The law prevents my doing that. I helped make the law, not, however, to protect you, nor deprive me of the right to exterminate you, but in order to keep other churches from exterminating me."

A trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than truth; that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual growth of man. It means that churches are shambles in which are bought and sold the souls of men. It means that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing thought with force. It means that if it had the power, the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed, that it would bring again the whips, and chains, and dungeon keys, the rack and fagot of the past.

But let me tell the church it lacks the power. There has been, and still are, too many men who own themselves—too much thought, too much knowledge for the church to grasp again the sword of power. The church must abdicate. For the Eglon of superstition, science has a message from truth.

The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light. Not in vain did Voltaire, that great man, point from the foot of the Alps, the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in Europe. Not in vain were the splendid utterances of the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of science. The church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot stop the onward march of the human race. Heresy can not be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. It laughs at presbyteries and synods, at Ecumenical councils and the impotent thunders of Sinai. Heresy is the eternal dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day. Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual new world; the unknown sea, toward which the brave all sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress. Heresy extends the hospitalities of the brain to new thoughts. Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.

Why should a man be afraid to think, and why should he fear to express his thoughts?

Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that man should investigate the phenomena by which he is surrounded?

Is it possible that a God delights in threatening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and renown a God must win in such a field! The ocean raving at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous of a firefly!

Go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! Thrust the heretics out of the church. That is to say, throw away your brains—put out your eyes. The Infidels will thank you. They are willing to adopt your exiles. Every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. Cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the 109th Psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank God for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius.

Be true to your history. Turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. With a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. We want them all. Keep the ignorant, the superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and specifications. Keep them, and keep them all. Repeat your pious platitudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful, and read your bible to heretics, as kings read some forgotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution. You are too weak to excite anger. We forgive your efforts as the sun forgives a cloud—as the air forgives the breath you waste.

How long, O how long will man listen to the threats of God, and shut his ears to the splendid promises of Nature? How long, O how long will man remain the cringing slave of a false and cruel creed.

By this time the whole world should know that the real bible has not yet been written; but is being written, and that it will never be finished until the race begins its downward march or ceases to exist. The real bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christ. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or by signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity of fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appears to men in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf, and bud, and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.

Ingersoll's Lecture on The Bible

The true bible appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy or sacred, it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the external witnesses of its truth.

I will tell you what I mean by inspiration. I go and look at the sea, and the sea says something to me; it makes an impression upon my mind. That impression depends, first, upon my experience; secondly, upon my intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different brain, he has had a different experience, he has different memories and different hopes. The sea may speak to him of joy and to me of grief and sorrow. The sea cannot tell the same thing to two beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. So, when I look upon a flower, or a star, or a painting, or a statue, the more I know about sculpture the more that statue speaks to me. The more I have had of human experience, the more I have read, the greater brain I have, the more the star says to me. In other words, nature says to me all that I am capable of understanding.

Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer in the 109th Psalm! Think of one infamous enough to answer it! Had this inspired Psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments.

Now, I read the bible, and I find that God so loved this world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us. I have read this book and what shall I say of it? I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now, I don't believe the bible. Had I not better say so? They say that if you do you will regret it when you come to die. If that be true, I know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it—they don't tell their honest convictions about the bible.

The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. How long, O how long, will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long, will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?

The believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God. These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. They never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. For one, I cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the scriptures I leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. Clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from these flowers. Until these passages are expunged from the old testament, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. It contains pages that no minister in the United States would read to his congregation for any reward whatever. There are chapters that no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. There are chapters that no father would read to his child. There are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired.

But as long as the bible is considered as the work of God, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. The literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until the bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god.

In the days of Thomas Paine the church believed and taught that every word in the bible was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its history, and so far as the old testament is concerned, false in almost everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that the bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the bible? The old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine!

I love any man who gave me, or helped to give me, the liberty I enjoy tonight. I love every man who helped put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has lifted his voice in all the ages for liberty, for a chainless body, and a fetterless brain. I love every man who has given to every other human being every right that he claimed for himself. I love every man who thought more of principle than he did of position. I love the men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for mankind.

The best minds of the orthodox world, today, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, Jonah and all; you are simply required to believe in God, and pay your pew-rent. There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. These follies have passed away.

For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for free-thinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the nebular hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven?

Now when I come to a book, for instance, I read the writings of Shakespeare—Shakespeare, the greatest human being who ever existed upon this globe. What do I get out of him? All that I have sense enough to understand. I get my little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the drama, who knows nothing of the impersonation of passion; what does he get from him? Very little. In other words, every man gets from a book, a flower, a star, or the sea, what he is able to get from his intellectual development and experience. Do you then believe that the bible is a different book to every human being that receives it? I do. Can God, then, through the bible, make the same revelation to two men? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads is the man who inspires. Inspiration is in the man and not in the book.