RADICAL DISCOURSES
ON
RELIGIOUS SUBJECTS.
DELIVERED IN MUSIC HALL, BOSTON, MASS.,
BY
WILLIAM DENTON.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY WILLIAM DENTON.
FOR SALE BY WILLIAM WHITE AND COMPANY,
158 WASHINGTON STREET.
1872.




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872,
BY WILLIAM DENTON,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.




PREFACE.
THE following discourses, with the exception of the
second, which was given before the Parker Society in
1864, were delivered in Boston Music Hall on Sunday
afternoons, between the years 1868 and 1872, to the
Spiritual Society meeting in that place. Several of
them have been published in pamphlet form, and have
met with a large sale. I send them out in a volume at
the request of many who desire them in this more permanent form, and because it is thought that they may
thus reach and benefit some who otherwise might not
notice them.
WILLIAM DENTON.
WELLESLEY, MASS., Oct. 12, 1872.








C ONTENTS.
PAGE.
MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS                        1.  
BE THYSELF.                        43
THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN SCIENCE                 77
IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE.....         113
ORTHODOXY FALSE SINCE SPIRITUALISM IS TRUE....   157
WHAT IS RIGHT?.... 183
~WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?.                                  215
CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY.....                     245
THE GOD PROPOSED FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION           277
A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.......     311








MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.








MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
"WHAT must I do to be saved? " said a trembling
jailer to his prisoners, eighteen hundred years ago.
Since that time, millions, with tearful eyes, have asked
the same question; and even to-day multitudes pause
for the reply. The answer given to the jailer was,
"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved; " and the answer given by Paul and Silas then
is the answer generally given by Christian clergymen
to inquirers now.
Webster says, that'" save " means " to preserve from
injury, destruction, or evil of any kind." Does believing in Jesus save men in this sense?  To believe
is to take for true what is told us by another. Will
believing that Jesus was born of a virgin; that he performed wonderful miracles; that he died on the cross,
or rose again; that he was the son of God, or God himself, or any thing else respecting him, - will this preserve men from injury, destruction, or evil of any
kind?
What are the evils that afflict mankind to-day, and
from. which we need to be saved? There is none
greater than ignorance: it is the prolific parent of
1                             1




2              MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
innumerable ills - of poverty, crime, and misery - that
can never be told.  The ignorant man walks through
the world blindfolded, but with all the confidence of
one who can see. He is always liable to fall down
precipices and into.pits, and is sure to choose a blind
guide.  Ignorant parents bring into the world children,
that, by virtue of their generation, can never be
healthy or wise, but must be a burden to themselves
and their friends till death releases them. The ignorant farmer knows not how to treat his land, and his
meagre crops only half satisfy the needs of his hungry
family. The ignorant king makes the land mourn on
account of his folly; and ignorant priests keep the
multitudes who trust them constant slaves to grovelling superstitions. Ignorance fills our lunatic-asylums,
almshouses, hospitals, and jails: it is, indeed, the
fruitful soil in which vice of all kinds flourishes, and
produces its baneful crops.  Men drink intoxicating
drinks, and boys learn to chew tobacco, because they
are ignorant of the bad effects of these practices on
the human system; and half the licentiousness of the
world would be removed, were the perpetrators aware
of the suffering that invariably follows.
Will believing in Jesus save us from  ignorance?
will it reveal to us a knowledge of our physical and
mental systems, and their relation to the external
world, so that we may reap the enjoyment that springs
friom  a life ordered in harmony with natural law'?
Then, blessed faith! it shall be the first thing inculcated in the nursery; and a college professor destitute
of this will lack the most essential qualification. Locomotives shall carry those who inculcate it on every




MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.               3
train; balloons shall drop the saving creed, printed in
all tongues, over all lands; and telegraphs flash the
intelligence as wide as the race.
Alas! Jesus himself was ignorant, -so ignorant of
the effect of the use of intoxicating drinks, that he
not only drank them, but, if we are to believe one of
his biographers, he even made them for other people
to drink. He had such anl incorrect idea of the size
of our planlet, that he supposed- lhe had seen all the
kingdoms of the earth from  the top of a Syrian
mountain; and was so ignorant of the inviolability of
natural law, that he believed and taught that prayer
could transport mountains from one locality to another.
He never seems to have thought that the fabulous stories of the Old Testament were other than divine
truths, and imposed them upon his unsuspecting believers. One of the greatest expounders of the Cthristian faith, that prince of believers, Paul, says that he
counted all things loss for the excellency of the knowledge of this same Jesus.  Writing to the Corinthians,
among whom he had preached, he says he determined
to know nothing among them, only Jesus and him crucified; and then declares that " the wisdom  of this
world is foolishness with God," and that " the Lord
knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain."
It is evident that Paul's belief in Jesus, instead of
leading him to increase in knowledge, only led him to
despise it. It is true that lhe recommends believers to
grow in knowledge; but it is the knowledge of Jesus
Christ: and how much ignorance will such knowledge
dispel?  He who grows only in the knowledge of
Christ must be ignorant of what it is most important
for him to know.




4             MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
The Christian sentiment of more modern times is
represented in one of Wesley's hymns: —
"Nothing is worth a thought beneath,
But how we may escape the death
That never, never dies."
That man's mind must be poorly stored with information, who is forever thinking about how he may
escape an impossible death.
Take Christians as a body, and how ignorant of natural science they are! They seem to have been influenced by Paul's advice, "' Beware, lest any man spoil
you through philosophy;" and it is notorious, that
generally, ill the same proportion as a mall becomes a
philosopher does he become spoiled for a Christian.
Christianity arose on the world like a baleful star; and
the long night of the dark ages set in, that it took the
invention of printing and the revival of philosophical
literature to disperse. Christianity burned the books
of the Greek and Roman philosophers, and would
have burned the philosophers themselves, had they
been living, and not recanted. When Christians are
intelligent, it is where surrounding conditions have
made them so, and in proportion to their outgrowth
of the original spirit of Christianity. Belief in Jesus,
then, does not save from ignorance.
Poverty is a great calamity. When it is so great as
to produce hunger, it masters the man, possesses him,
and sends him into society a human wolf. When it
exists in less degree, it prevents a man from buying
books, wearing good clothes, living in a comfortable




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.             5
house, and compels him frequently to dwell in an unhealthy neighborhood. It presses a man to the earth
under its iron heel, and crushes, too often, the manliness out of him: it fetters the soul, stultifies the intellect, makes men mean, and keeps them so.
Will belief in Jesus cure men of poverty? Where
could we find a poor believer if this was true? Jesus
himself was poor, and very poor. He says, " The foxes
have holes, the birds of the air have nests; but the Son
of main hath not where to lay his head."  He was dependent, indeed, during the latter part of his life, upon
the charity of his friends. When a tax was demanded
of him, a miracle was wrought, so the story goes, to
obtain the paltry amount, which the scanty purses of
Jesus and Peter were unable to furnish. Indeed, the
early followers of Jesus were poor almost to a man,
and consoled themselves by saying that God had chosen
the poor of this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of
the kingdom. If the present believers in Jesus were
to believe in him implicitly, and obey him fully, they
would be equally poor. If they were to cease to labor,
lay up nothing, imitate the birds, and take no thought
for to-morrow, how long would it be before poverty
would have every one of them in its grip? Jesus exclaims, "' Wo unto you that are richli " and one of his
poor followers, James, echoes his cry; while Paul says,
"Having food and raiment, let us therewith be content."  What a poverty-stricken people we should be
if these statements were generally believed, and the
commands of Jesus and his apostles obeyed! If we
took no thought for food and raiment, we should soon
be hungry and naked; if we did not lay up for our



6             MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
selves when young and healthy, we should become
paupers when old and infirm; and, if we were satisfied
with food and raiment, where would be our railroads
and locomotives, our steamships and telegraphs? Who
would own a microscope or telescope? and in what
condition would be the arts and sciences? It has only
been by disbelieving Jesus, disobeying these commands
of his, and practising the very opposite, that Christian
nations have obtained the magnificent results of modern
civilization. Believing in Jesus, then, does not save,men from poverty.
Disease is a great and widespread evil. It shrouds
man's life with gloom; it turns the blessings of nature
into deadly curses; its venom  rankles in the heart,
dims the eye, palsies the hand, and binds the tongue.
The diseased, it is said on good authority, actually outnumber the healthy; and, in consequence of this,
misery, like a dark cloud, comes between millions and
the sun of happiness that should shine upon all.
Will faith in Jesus bear away our infirmities, and
make us whole, as the faith of the woman is said to
have done, who but touched the hem of his garment?
What a boon to the afflicted!  We will indeed cast
medicine to the dogs; and quacks, apothecaries, and
doctors, who tinker the human system, may mourn for
the days that are gone: Jesus shall be our great
Pllysician, and a world of his healthy believers shall
swell to the heavens their song of praise. But the
flying pestilence heeds not even the blood of Jesus on
the door-post: it enters and destroys the chosen people
no less readily than it does the Egyptians.  Sickness
lays his hland on the Jesus-believing saint as heavily as




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.               7on the Jesus-rejecting sinner; and, if there is any difference, the odds seem to be on the wrong side; for,
as Solomon said of the conys, Christians are s" feeble
folk."  They read in their oracles, "Bodily exercise
profiteth little;" "Whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth;"
and, if true to their faith, they bow, and kiss the rod
that smites them, and neglect their bodies in this world
that they may save their souls in the next. Christians
are, no doubt, more healthy than special classes that
might be mentioned, but nowhere near as healthy as
those who, having outgrown Christianity, regard it as
a duty they owe to themselves to learn the laws of
health, and to live lives in obedience to them. Fevers
burn Christians, and agues chill them; colds visit them,
and consumption feeds upon them; and their salvation,
instead of placing a barrier between them  and the
enemy, like a spy in the camp, invites his approach.
The preachers of the Christian gospel are especially a
weak, puny, sickly set of men: a robust man among
them is an exception. After laboring "' in their Master's service " for a few years, they are generally broken
down, and require trips to Europe or the Holy Land
to recruit their health. The more sickly of them rely
upon doctors to heal their bodies, as their church-members rely upon Jesus for the cure of their souls, and
generally with as little success.
Some of the ancient Christians, it is true, believed
that Christianity included a remedy of disease: hence
James says, "' Is any sick among you? let him send
for the elders of the church; and let them pray over
him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord;




8             SMAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
and the prayer of faith shall saver the sick, and the
Lord shall raise him up."  What an easy, cheap, and
expeditious way is this! But where is the Christian
that believes in it,. and practises accordingly? He
sends for the elders only when they happen to be physicians, and then has more faith in their pills than
their prayers, and in internal oleaginous applications
rather than external; for the experience of long ago
has demonstrated the uselessness of the practice that
James recommends.
Death is spoken of by Christians as the "king of
terrors," at whose approach the strongest fear and
tremble.  When men become subjects of King Jesus,
does lie deliver them from this potentate?  Does he,
at least, relieve them from all fear of what is inevitable? Then Christianity is still a boon, and its system  of salvation worthy of acceptation; for life has
little charm for that man who has continually before
his eyes the fear of death. Jesus, the object of the
Christian's faith, died young: he could neither deliver
himself from  death, nor from  the terror that it
inspired. Hear his prayer in prospect of approaching death: "If it be possible, let this cup pass from
me."  It was not possible; and in the anguish of his
soul lie exclaims, "My God, my God! why hast thou
forsaken me?"  Unable to deliver himself, how call
lie deliver his believers?  So overcome by terror at
the prospect of his own death as to " sweat, as it were,
great drops of blood," it is not surprising that the
believers in him tremble at the skeleton grim. Some
Christians, it is true, die without fear, and some with
courage, hope, and even joy; but we have no evidence




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.               9
that this is owing to their belief in Jesus, since it is
true of believers in all religions, and in none.  There
is, indeed, good reason to think, even from the admissions- of Christian ministers themselves, that unbelievers, as a rule, have much less fear of death than the
majority of Christians.  " In all my experiences,"
says the Rev. Theodore Clapp of New Orleans, " I
never saw an unbeliever die in fear. I have seen
them expire, of course, without any hopes or expectationls, but never in agitation from dread or misgivings
as to what might befall them hereafter. It is probable
that I have seen a greater number of those called
irreligious persons breathe their last than any other
clergyman in the United States.... When I first
entered the clerical profession, I was struck with the
utter inefficiency of most forms of Christianity to
afford consolation in a dying-hour."  And this is what
we might reasonably expect. Most Christians believe
in a God who is angry with the wicked every day,
one who will damn a soul for one sin unrepented of:
they believe in a devil of almost infinite power, and a
hell of torment unutterable, to which the best of them
are apt to feel that they are liable; while the worst
that the unbeliever can fear is an eternal sleep, in
which he will know no more than the violet which
blooms on his grave.  Your salvation, then, Christian,
saves neither from death nor the fear of it.
Fire, when it obtains the mastery, is an evil to be
dreaded, and any salvation from its ravages would be
gladly received; but the Christian's belief does not
save him  from  them.  The fire licks up the very
churches with its flaming tongue, and consumes alike




10             MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.
the dwelling of Christian and infidel; and insurance
societies are just as needful to the one class as to the
other.
Is the believer in Jesus any safer in a thunder-storm
for his belief?  See that church-steeple shattered, and
the minister in the pulpit struck dead upon his knees;
while in awe his Christian brethren whisper, " Mysterious Providence!"
The floods are no respecters of persons. Christians
drown as readily as their unbelieving neighbors, under
like circumstances. Cast a Christian and an infidel
into the sea: which will sink first?  The one who
knows not how to swim; and there is more salvation
from drowning in a cork than ill the faith of the one
or the infidelity of the other.
In what respects, then, 0 Christian! does belief in
Jesus, whom  thou callest Christ and Saviour, save
thee at all?  " Our salvation," replies the Christian,
"is from sin, from the wrath of God, and from eternal torments: it concerns not itself with sickness, poverty, floods, fires, and such trivialities, but with things
of eternal moment."  If the salvation by Jesus is
indeed a salvation from sin, we will welcome it. From
sin, —from lying, stealing, intemperance in all its
forms; from anger, bitterness, and all uncharitableness; from jealousy, revenge, and all meanness; from
war and all its horrors; from crime and all its results,
what a salvation that would be! I know that Jesus
is said in Matthew to have received his name of Jesus,
which means " saviour," because he should save his people from their sins; but where are the people that he
hlas saved?  Caln those who call themselves Christians




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.             11
be in reality his people? Jesus himself acknowledged that he was not good. When one called him
" good Master," he said, " Why callest thou me
good? There is none good but one, that is God." John,
the beloved disciple of Jesus, says, "If we say that
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is
not in us."  It is evident, then, that he did not consider himself to be saved from all sin.
The Christians of to-day universally confess themselves Lo be sinners. In the Episcopalian church they
repeat every Sunday morning, " Almighty and most
merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from
thy ways like lost sheep.  We  have  followed
too much  the devices and  desires of our own
hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws.
We have left undone those things which we ought to
have done, and we have done those things which we
ought not to have done; and there is no health in us.
But thou, 0 Lord, have mercy upon us miserable
offenders."  Very similar are  the confessions of
Christian clergymen of all denominations, reiterated
from the pulpit every seventh day; and the believing
brethren, in whose name they pray, devoutly say,
"Amen."  And, in doing so, they acknowledge the
statement to be correct. But what worse is an unbeliever than this? Some of them are not as bad. All
Christians pray, " Forgive us our trespasses," as Jesus
taught his disciples to pray; and it is evident, by his
doing so, that he did not believe that their faith in
him would save them from committing sin, as the confessions of modern Christians show= its helplessness in
their case. Where is the Christian that is saved:from




12            MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.
sin, or that even professes to be?  Should any mall
claim to be, and he a married man, let his wife be
questioned " separate and apart " from  her husband;
and, if she be truthful, her statement will prove the
worthlessness of his claim. Indeed, Christians seem
to take pride in confessing what great sinners they are,
and unblushingly sing, what can only be true of one
of them, —"I the chief of sinners am;
But Jesus died for me."'
The very reason why they should not be sinners at all,
according to their theology.  What merchant will
credit another the sooner because he is a Christian, or
place more confidence in him when making a bargain?
Some have done so only to find themselves grievously
disappointed.  We are surrounded by believers in
Jesus,- men and women who profess to have been born
again, and passed from a state of nature into a state
of grace; who profess to have been saved by this great
salvation: but where are those that never lie, nor prevaricate; who never take advantage of another in a
bargain; who are never angry, nor sulky, nor greedy,
nor refuse to help the needy; who are temperate in
all things, - never use tobacco or intoxicating drinks,
nor injure their bodies by any indulgence?  Where
are thlose that are never bigoted, intolerant, or uncharitable, and whose consciences absolve them every
evening, so that they have no need to pray, " Forgive
us our trespasses," for they have no trespasses to be
forgiven? The Christian Church, with all its pretensions, cannot furnish a single one. What, then, are




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.               13
we to think of the statement that Jesus saves men
from sin?
Christianity did not save the South from slavery,
where it was commenced and carried on by Christians
and Christian ministers, whose hands were strengthliened by their Christian brethren of tile North: the
one forged the fetters and applied them; the other
riveted them, and cursed in the name of Jehovahl all
who attempted to break them; while most of those
who wrote and lectured against slavery were men
whom the Church branded as infidels.
Belief in Jesus does not save men from war and
cruelty.   Christian nations have been notoriously
fighting nations; and Christian wars have been among
the most cruel and bloody. " There are no wild beasts
as ferocious as Christians who differ concerning their
faith," said the heathen in the fourth century; and,
if we are better now, it is due not to the superiority
of our faith, but to the advance which the best types of
our race present in accordance with the operation
of natural law.  "' What a dreadful picture," says
Dr. Dick, "'would it present of the malignity of
persons who have professed the religion of Christ,
were we to collect into one point of view all the persecutions, tortures, burnings, massacres, and horrid
cruelties, which in Europe and Asia, anld even in the
West Indies and America, have been itnflicted on conscientious men for their firm adherence to what they
considered as the truths of religion  
It must be confessed, that, if some of the teachings
of Jesus were obeyed, war would be impossible; but
when lie declares that the punishment of a false faith




14            MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
will be damnation, and that damnation everlastilng
fire, that man must be more than mortal who believes,
and is not led in some degree to persecute those whose
faith is, in his opinion, erroneous.
Christianity does not save from intemperance; for,
while men almost universally believed in Jesus where
the evil was, it grew till it overshadowed the land. It
invaded the pulpit, and dragged to untimely graves
hosts of the strongest Christian believers. The first
temperance paper was published by Joseph Livesay
of England, who was what is called an infidel; and
it was not till outsiders had done the heavy work, and
they saw a prospect of assistance from it, that Christians took much interest in the temperance movement.
The Bible is the bulwark of moderate drinking, and
the example of Jesus one of its principal supports.
Christianity does not save from bigotry and intoleralce. No people in our country are as bigoted as
Christian believers; and it is no wonder. Jesus
looked forward to the time when he should sit on the
throne of his glory, and say to to those who had neglected
the believers in hilml, " Depart from  me, ye cursed,
into everlasting fire."  If he had possessed the power,
he would evidently have given his enemies a taste of
earthly fire, as so many of his followers subsequently
did. Paul was charged with bigotry to the lips, and
fulminates his anathemas like a pope's bull; and even
the'" loving John" would have turned Theodore
Parker out of his house in the name of Jesus, as the
Boston Christian bigots tried to pray him out of the
world.
The religion of the despised Nazarene, peaceful




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.               15
while an infant, became a fighting bully as soon as it
could use its fists. It imprisoned, banished, and burnt;
it inaugurated war for the religious opinion's sake,
and deluged Europe and Asia with blood.  When this
was over, dungeons were filled, racks invented, and
the fagot burned the refractory sceptic that milder
means failed to convert.  Do not suppose that this
spirit is extinct.  A revival of orthodox religion is a
revival of uncharitableness and  hate; then  men
think most of its damnatory creed; their hatred of
infidelity and the infidel is proportioned to their love
of souls.  Here is a prayer that was offered in the
Young Men's Christian Association of Bostoni only a
few days ago, and reported in " The Boston Herald."
"' Lord, if that infidel that Brother C. told us about is
at work this morning writing his tracts, Lord, paralyze his arm!"  Who cannot see that this praying
brother would have paralyzed the arm himself, if lie
had possessed the power?
Lying clings to Christian nations as creeds do to
Christian churches.  Leading Christians are notorious
falsifiers for God: their religious tracts and books
abound with calumnies against unbelievers, sophistry
and special pleading that would have disgraced a Roman lawyer in the days of Cicero; and it is no wonder
that they practise occasionally on their own accountl
what they so frequently do for their religion and their
God.
It may be said, that, although Christianity does not
save men from all sinning, it still does much to restrain
themn from vice; and this cannot be denied.  Mohamnedanism  does the same thling: it restrains its be



16            MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
lievers from the use of intoxicating drinks. Professors
of the Christian religion are frequently restrained by
it from the commission of such sins as the Church denounces; but, on the other hand, the Church upholds
sins by virtue of its belief in Christianity. It was
thus that it upheld slavery, and to-day upholds
woman's degradation. It has two vices peculiarly its
own: it robs man of one-seventh portion of his time,
which it generally employs in idleness or superstition;
it has invented a sin which it calls sabbath-breaking,
and spends more time and effort to prevent men from
committing this imaginary crime than it does to hinder
them from doing what justice universally condemns.
The bigotry and intolerance so generally manifested by
it in proportion to its influence have made it the greatest engine ever invented to fetter the human mind; and
it is only as its power decreases, and the soul is liberated from its influence, that the large-brained races of
the world attain to those results of enlightenment in
which now even Christianity makes its boast.
The salvation that is said to come from a belief in
Jesus is not a salvation from sin,- nothing can be
much more certain, - and we still ask, " What does Jesus save men from? "-" From the wrath of God? "
Does your God, then, become angry? - he whom you
believe made worlds more numerous than drops of
water in the ocean by the word of his mouth; he who is
perfect in love, a perfect father, and we his children.  I
know men who would be ashamed to be angry, men who
would blush to have their wrath excited by a man —
their equal: and yet you believe in a God who is angry,
and angry with man. It cannot be so. But, if so, what




MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.              1
makes God angry? You tell me it is sin; for your
Scriptures say that God is angry with the wicked every
day. But you confess every day that you are wicked:
how, then, can you be saved from the wrath of God?
If you are telling the truth morning and evening, you
are a sinner; and the book in which as a Christian you
believe declares that the soul that sinneth shall die: it
also declares that"" the wrath of God is revealed fromn
heaven against all unrighteousness and ungodliness of'
men," and asks, - what should be to you a solemn
question, - " If the righteous scarcely be saved, where
shall the sinner and the ungodly appear? "  Your God
must hate you if you are a sinner: so that your salvation does not even save you from the wrath of God.
" But our faith enables us to appropriate the merits
of Jesus, so that we receive the reward of his perfect
obedience. Jesus is called the Lord our righteousness; for, though we can do nothing that is acceptable
to God, we clothe ourselves by faith with his virtue,
and he becomes all in all to us."  Can it be that? I understand you? You may injure both your body and
your soul by licentious indulgence; but, by exercising
faith in Jesus, God will reward you for his chastity.
You may lie and steal, since these vices are human;
but only believe, and you appropriate the divine honesty and veracity of your Saviour, and all is well.
What a gospel of rascality is this! What a comfor'table doctrine for the man who wishes to excuse his
shortcomings, and escape the just penalty of his misdeeds! No wonder that immorality flourishes wherever it is preached! Under its influence Inci are
content to confess themselves sinners every Sunday,
2




18 ~           VMAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
and trust in Jesus to save them; while they are just
as content to go on sinning during the week: for the
Sunday confession must be made, and the Sunday trust
exercised, at all events.  But it is certain that nothing
can be more false than this doctrine.  Paul truly says,
6 Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
Nothing more true, as our daily experince demonstrates. No man can break a physical law, and another bear the consequences; nor can any man sin, and
Jesus suffer the penalty for him; nor did lie suffer it
eighteen hundred years ago in anticipation of the
offences the Christian sinner would commit in coming
time.  Jesus had no merit to spare: fanatic as he was,
he felt and acknowledged his own deficiency; and the
strlcture of the universe forbids any appropriation of
the merits of another.
But we are told that the salvation that comes by faith
in Jesus saves us from eternal torments.  But what
evidence is there that any such torme'nt exists?  The
very lightning that in its fury knows no respect of
persons; the bounteous rain that distributes its blessings upon all; the smiling moon, peeping into the
fevered face of the debauchee; the sunshine, looking
through the gloomy bars of the prison, and whispering
hope to the doomed criminal, that gilds alike the
gallows and the church-vane with its glory; the calm
evening, cooling the sultry air, lighting the lamps in
tile hall of night, and hushing the birds, that saint and
sinller may sleep, - all teach the absurdity of this orthodox fable.  Should there be any eternal torment,
the Christian is as likely to suffer it as any, if his Bible
in which he trusts is to be credited. It is only those




MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.              19
who obey the commandments of Jesus that have a right
to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates
of pearl into the celestial city. But Christians do not
obey them. They resist evil; they lend, hoping for
something; they judge; they lay up treasures on
earth; they take thought for to-morrow, and act in
all respects as if Jesus had never said a word in reference to these subjects. Jesus teaches that they only
are founded on the rock who obey his teachings: all
others are to be swept into perdition when the tide of
God's wrath shall flow over a ruined world. In no
wise is there any hope for thee, Christian: thy salvation is a sham, thy great Physician a quack; the only
diseases that he cures being imaginary ones that faith
in him has produced.
The Christian doctrine of salvation is built on the
Christian doctrine of damnation; and the doctrine of
damnation rests upon the doctrine of original sin; and
this upon the story of man's fall from a condition of
original purity and goodness. But of this story science
may be said to have proved the utter falsity. Geology
has settled the question as far as our planet is concerned. It has not fallen from an originally perfect
condition to one in which volcanoes belch, storms howl,
earthquakes heave and ingulf, and ferocious beasts
devour.  Geology proves, that, in all these respects,
the world has improved, and is to-day a better abode
for human beings than at any past period in its history.
Archaeology, a younger sister of geology, has in like
manner proved that man has not fallen from a state
of sinless perfection to one in which lying, stealing,
drunkenness, and licentiousness characterize him, but




20            MAN' S TRUE SAVIORS.
that, from the condition of a savage, he'has climbed
during ages to the civilization of the present. The
opinion held by those who have made archaeology a
study is well represented in the address of Lord
Dunraven to the Cambrian Archmological Association:
"' If we look back through the entire period of the
past history of man, as exhibited in the result of
archaeological investigation, we can scarcely fail to
perceive that the whole exhibits one grand scheme of
progression, which, notwithstanding partial periods of
decline, has for its end the ever-increasing civilization
of main, and the gradual development of his higher
faculties." And in the statement of Sir John Lubbock,
in the closing chapter of " The Origin of Civilization,"
" Existing savages are not the descendants of civilized
ancestors. The primitive condition of man was one
of utter barbarism; and from this condition several
races have independently raised themselves."
Archeology has demonstrated that chiliads of years
before the world was made, according to biblical chronology, man in England, Scotland, France, Belgium,
and Europe generally, was a savage. The remains of
his cannibal feasts which have been found show the
amazing distance that he has since travelled on the
road to perfect manhood.  What lifted him out of this
pit, and gave to the world the architecture of Egypt,
the art of Etruria, the poetry and philosophy of Greece,
the morality of Gautama and Confucius, and the
jurisprudence of Rome? All this long before Jesus
was born, and probably before a chapter of the Bible
was written. That advanced man which advanced
the planet, his dwelling-place, for millions of years




MAN S TRtJE SAVIORS.             21
before his foot trod it. What pushes-the tree on from
the sapling, struggling for existence, to the towering
pillar of living beauty? The spirit in the tree, pushing, urging day and night, and that never allows it to
rest. What carried the earth upward from the monotonous wilderness of heated rock to the ocean-bearing,
lake-gemmed, mountain-crowned planet of to-day? and
life, from the polype of the sea-bottom to the croaking frog and the thinking man? The all-controlling
Spirit, never resting, never far away, as inseparable from
the universe as a mangs soul is from himself; and this, in
the first rude men, carried them on, awakened thought
in their souls, lit a fire of love in their hearts, whispered of heaven in their ears, and to-day reveals to
them a condition of perfection to which humanity
must yet attain, and for which the best men are daily
striving.
Man, then, has not fallen: the foundation of damnation and the necessity for orthodox salvation is gone.
God did not make a pure fountain, allow the Devil to
poison it, and then compel the whole human race to
drink of it, and at the same time threaten them with
eternal torment if they should manifest its evil effects.
But, if man did not fall from an originally pure condition, then he did not receive from that fall that never
occurred a corruption of his nature, whereby he is
"inclined to evil, and that continually."  I never can
remember the time when I was not inclined to good,
when I did not love truth, honesty, temperance, purity,
manliness; and I do not believe that I am an exception in this respect. I believe this to be the general
feeling of all men. The protest which the soul makes




22             MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
against absurd forms, useless ceremonies, and false notions, is mistaken for opposition to virtue and goodness.
I cannot say that I was naturally fond of Sunday; it was
the most melancholy day of the week: nor did I take
much delight in sermons; not because I disliked the
goodness inculcated in them, but because there was so
little in them attractive to my youthful mind. The
goodness that supports asylums, that establishes schools,
that founds temperance, peace, and antislavery societies, that calls forjustice to woman and to the laborer,
and that overthrows tyranny, is the  goodness of
human nature, that throbs with more or less intensity
in every breast, and which Christianity ostentatiously
claims for itself, while it conveniently passes over to
the credit of what it calls "' the world " the evils which
are its own legitimate fruit.
Are Mohammedans less temperate than the Christians who tempt them with intoxicating drink? Are
Hindoos less honest than British Christians, who have
stolen from them their country, and who enrich themselves by impoverishing the inhabitants?
But we are told that all persons do wrong; that is,
they knowingly violate natural law. I grant it; but,
if that proves original sin, it will not be at all difficult
to prove original virtue. All persons do right; and
they do right ten times where they do wrong once.
No man was ever known to tell more lies than truths,
or to be for a longer time angry than good-natured.
The fact is, that human beings are born neither in
virtue nor sin, but capable of both: and, with each
succeeding age, man's ability to master his animal
propensities increases; and he thus grows into virtue,




MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.              23
as he does toward perfect manhood, for which he
started at the beginning, but to which he cannot attain
without the time essential for that growth.
If the doctrine of original sinll is false, then the
notion that God doomed the race to endless perdition
on account of a condition resulting from it is false.
Man was never lost, nor in danger of being lost: that
in his history that looks most like it is his belief of
such a fable. The damnation from which Jesus is
supposed to save men only exists in the imagination
of those who believe in this soul-enslaving superstition. When I ask for the evidence on which the faith
in eternal damnation rests, I am pointed to the
Bible, which I am told is God's word. Before believing such a doctrine on the statement of the Bible, you
ought to be as certain that the Bible is true as that
your head is on your shoulders. The very fact that
the Bible teaches it is sufficient evidence that the Bible
is untrue.  Where, O Nature, my mother! dost thou
teach such a horrible doctrine as these ignorant children of thine are blasting men's souls with?  Not in
the south wind, that sweeps over the land to-day with
life and beauty following in its path. Out of the cold
arms of winter springs the land; the loosened streams
are leaping from the hills with musical cadence; the
green grass is peeping; the buds are swelling; and the
long-silent birds are pouring their melody into our
souls. How these voices give the lie to this howling
blasphemy! Thou sun, that turns the world over, and
warms it into life; that kisses the cheek of the cottager's
child, and smiles on the beggar as sweetly as on the
pompous bishop; that lights up the malefactor's cell as




24            MAN' S TRUE SAVIORS.
gloriously as the cathedral, - thou preachest a gospel
in which no such soul-harrowing dogma is found.
The headache of the drunkard is but the voice of
Nature saying to him, "' Do thyself no harm." The
burn of the child is painful; but the pain teaches it a
lesson that it needs to learn: and, if the burn is so
severe that it must die, Nature wraps her arms about
thle little one, sends it into a precious sleep, and wakens
it for a start in a higher life.
How could damnation be the penalty for manl's doing
what by virtue of his very constitution he must do?
Maln was as certain to sin as a green apple is to be
sour; and time and favorable conditions are as necessary to cure him as to ripen and sweeten the apple.
But, if men were never liable to damnation, the
necessity for evangelical salvation never existed. God
never allowed the Devil to rend the world; and there
never was any need for his Son to come from heaven
to patch it. God never hurled the world into the pit
of perdition with his right hand; and there was
therefore no necessity for him to lower the rope of salvation down with his left for the lost wretches to seize
by faith. Men never were far from God; and they
consequently need no one to bring them nigh. They
were never damned, nor in danger of it; and Orthodox salvation is as unnecessary as a lightning-conductor
in a coal-mine.
The method by which God is supposed to save men
through faith in Jesus shows monstrous absurdity and
cruelty on the part of God who offers it, and great
unmanliness on the part of those who accept it. Man,
the finite, has sinned against an infinite God; he has




MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.              25
broken his most holy law: and God justly consigns
him to eternal torments; and it is only by an exercise
of his infinite mercy that a way of escape has been
provided.  So mucll Orthodoxy assumes.  It is evidently false; for nothing can be more unlljust or unreasonable. All men sin everywhere, and have always
done so: it is therefore evident that wrong-doing is
inevitable.  What God could punish men, and, above
all, eternally punish them, for doing what, inl the
nature of things (and these he had himself made), all
of them must do? Tie up your boy's legs, and flog
him till his back is gory, because he does not run six
miles an hour; keep him without food for three days,
and then kill him because lie steals a crust from your
pantry, - and you are a kind, considerate parent, compared to a God who makes men with a strong disposition to do wrong, permits a Devil to tempt them, and
then annexes the penalty of eternal damnation to the
crime of wrong-doing.
God is angry with the sinner: the wrath of his indignation boils.  With the sword of vengeance in his
hanid, lie is ready to strike the fatal blow. Just as the
glittering blade is about to descend, the innocent Jesus
appears on the stage.  " Spare, oh, spare the sinner! "
says Jesus.  " Only on one condition." -" Name it,"
says Jesus. " Thou must die in his stead, or my justice can never be satisfied." -"-' I will: let the blow
descend."  God plunges the sword of his justice into
the heart of Jesus, and then receives the sinner to his
bosom graciously; and he goes on his way, singing, —
" Jesus has paid the debt we owe,
And God is satisfied."




26            MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.
To save man by such a plan, supposing it to be possible, is to sink him in meanness and degradation.  So
instinctively do men scorn it, that mesmeric excitements, under the name of revivals of religion, are got
up to overcome this natural repugnance.  We have
sinned, - such is the doctrine, - and are justly sub
ject to punishment; but an innocent being offers to
bear the penalty, if we will believe in him, accept lim,
and bow down to him. "No, thank you, Jesus, no!
I much prefer to bear the consequences of my own
transgressions, that I may learn the lesson from them
that nature inculcates, and whose tendency is to make
me wiser and better.  There may be men who wish to
dodge the consequences of their deeds: they may accept your offer; but I cannot, -still less if, in accepting it, I am at the same time to accept of you as my
master."  If to hell I must go, I will go a free man,
and with that sense of manhood that must transform
the pit of perdition into paradise.
I charge this doctrine with being not only false, but
dreadfully pernicious.  If Jesus bears away the consequences of our guilt, takes our place, washes us in
his blood, so that, though black as ink, we can in an
instant be made white as snow, why should we struggle
for purity? why should we wrestle with temptations
daily, and strive earnestly td live lives in harmony with
our ideal of manhood? Faith in Jesus must be of
infinitely more importance than faithfulness to principle: to obtain the cloak of his righteousness, and skulk
under it, and be credited with the merit that belongs
to another, becomes much more important than to live
a righteous life; and thus the Church, by its acceptance




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.              27
of' this doctrine, makes men satisfied with a tenth-rate
morality, alid puts off the day of the world's redemption.
What, then, shall we do to be saved?  Evils are
around us like mosquitoes in July: like bloodhounds,
whose scent call never be baffled, they dog our footsteps. got a soul but needs salvation from them: lhow
shall it be obtained?  Let us see what has saved us inll
ti mes past.
Once, man trod the wild, a naked savage.  The sun
scorched him by.day, and the cold wind chilled him as
he lay on the branches of a tree at niglht.  The sleet
fell upon his bare breast, and, melting, ran in streams
to his feet.  He searclled the woods for wild fruit, and
dined oil acorns, crab-apples, wild plums, and clhestnuts, or roots that lie scratched out of the ground. -At
times, he outran the wild rabbit, sucked its warni blood,
and ate its quivering flesh, nor thlouglit of better fare.
What saved him from this pitiable condition?  What
taught him to build a house, clothe himself with befitting garments, and thus bid defiance to the elements?
Nature, that brought man into existence, did not
launch him  on the ocealn of life without a pilot or
charts, merely promising to supply them at some future
time.  She did not send Jesus with a beacon-light four
thousand years afterwards, and'make the success of
millions of vessels depend upon their ability to see
what to most of tl-em inl the nature of things was invisible. Tile first man carried his savior in lhis soul,
and no man since has ever been destitute; and just in
proportion as men -have attended to this savior have
they been delivered from evil, saved from sin and suf



28            MIAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
fering, and led into truth and right, and the heaven
that inlvariably accompanies them. By using his mental powers, man learned to spin and weave, and make
for himself garments for all seasons and all weather:
it was thus he learned to fashion the wooden club, the
hammer and axe of stone, then of bronze, and, lastly, of
steel, to fell the trees, to dig the stone, to burn the
lime, and rear his household home; and, in process of
ages numerous, the naked, houseless savage was transformed into artistic man.  And all this long before
Adam rose or fell, before the snake was cursed, or the
Bible Saviour promised.
In the times of old, man wearily wandered over the
earth: if he wished to go a hundred miles, every step
had to be taken by his own feet. IHe climbed the
rugged mountain-steeps, waded or swam the streams,
threaded his way through the wilderness, and with
bleeding feet and exhausted body arrived at his destination. IHe saw the wild steed; anlld increasing intelligence taught him its use: with a stenm of a vine for a
bridle, he mounted, and with exultant spirit bounded
the country over.  As his intelligence further increased, he levelled the lbills, filled the valleys, bridged
the streams, united distant lands.by highroads and
railroads, over which flies the locomotive, outstripping
the eagle in its flight.
Where we now assemble, and hundreds of thousands find ample subsistence, a hundred savages would
have starved three hundred years ago. Take a glance
backward, and view this region as it was. The beasts
of the chase have fled; deep snow covers the ground,
and lunger dwells in every miserable hut; hollow-eyed




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.               29
men and women look into the wan faces of their famishing children, who vainly cry for food; the last bone
is picked, the last scrap of skin roasted and eaten:
death calls them one by one, and with returning spring
the prowling wolves pick their bones. What saves us
firom such a fate to-day?  Our increased intelligence.
This taught us to plough, to sow, to reap; and over our
broad land waves bread for a world.  The salvation of
Orthodoxy never produced a blade of grass nor a grain
of wheat: it is as powerless to stay the hunger of the
savage as it is to quench the deep thirst of tile enlightened soul.
Ignorance once covered the land like a pall, and Nature's preachers discoursed for ages to deaf souls. The
thought, as it slowly rounded itself inll malln's brain, had
no power of projection fiom the mind that gave it birth,
but lay there shrouded, and died with its possessor.
By the development of his inherent nature, man grew
into speech, formed signs for sound, shaped the reed,
and then the feather that dropped from a passing bird's
wing; from the waving flag by the river-side first, and
then from a nation's tatters, brought forth paper, and
made the wisdom of one the property of the many.
He ransacked the sunless caves, and brought to light
the iron and the lead, and formed the printing-press,the multiplier of thought, the long-wished-for lever
that moves the world.
In his infancy man was terrified by eclipses that
swallowed  the day, and  comets whose fiery hair
streamed over the evening sky, and portended to' him
most fearful calamities.   He saw in storms, tornadoes,
volcanoes, and earthquakes the presence of angry gods




3 0           MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.
or devils, whose wrath could only be turned away by
bloody and cruel ceremonies.  Science soothed and
comforted him: she put into his hand the telescope,
and brought these monsters of the sky into his home,
tamed them, and they became agreeable visitants. She
has not destroyed storms, volcanoes, and earthquakes;
but she has taught us how to foretell storms, informed
us where earthquakes are most likely to occur, and
pointed out the natural causes that produce them.
There was a time when war was man's universal
trade, and its curses came to every door; when whole
regions were ravaged, and neither age nor sex was
spared.  Man's growth in intelligence and beinevolence has assuaged its horrors; made distant nations
acquain ted, and united them by the bonds of commerce;
has given them peaceful pursuits, and promises in time
to destroy all war, and usher in the reign of universal
peace.
Man's intelligence does not enable him to cure all
sickness; but it does better. It teaches multitudes how
to prevent sickness, and will ere long instruct all, as
it has already by the discovery of anesthetics robbed
pain of its terrors.
What is it that saves us now? It is a summer's eveiing: a dark cloud rolls its sable folds over the sky.
Who shall save us from the bolt launched apparently
for our destruction?  It strikes: we are stunned; but
that slender rod saved us: along it the fiery flash
descended harmless to the ground.  Franklin is our
savior, and science instructed him.
The rain descends in unremitting. showers.  The
heavens seem dissolving, and threaten to wash the land




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.               31
into the sea. The river rises. Down go madly the
rushing waters; away the piers of the bridge are swept;
the bridge itself swings, sways for an instant, and is
gone; its timbers are hurrying down the stream. The
toll-house still remains, a frail island in the rushing
river; but the waters are rising: they are washing
away its foundations.  See that boy on the housetop
waving his handkerchief, a woman at the window,
looking at the angry waters, and wringing her hands
in despair! Hear the hoarse cries of the father as he
calls for help! Ill vain is faith. Prayers, psalms, hymns,
Bibles, can do nothing. Neither the virgin nor her Son
call aid the perishing family, and we shudder as we see
what must be their fate.  But here comes a boat
rowed by strong arms.  They are saved!'Children,
another, father, all are saved just as their home goes
dashing down the boiling flood.  What saved them?
Science and benevolence, — science, that taught men
to build the boat; and benevolence, or kindly feeling,
which is the heritage of humanity, of which no church
has a monopoly; which the people called wicked by the
Orthodox often manifest more strongly tlhai those they
consider most pious: these were the saviors of this
family, as they are the great saviors of mankind.
It is nlight: the last lamp has shut its eye, and
calmly the stars look down on the  sleeping  city.
Wrapped in soundest slumber we lie as the hours unconsciously fly.  We are aroused by clanging bells: what
a glare lights up the room! Hear the tramp of hurryillg feet in the street below, and that most fearful cry
of" Fire, fire! " We follow tile rushing throng. There
is the building: how the flames lick it with their fiery




32             MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.
tongues, and then leap as if in ecstasy above their victims! How well it is, we think, that all have escaped!
But they have not. Hear those screams, louder than
the crackling fire. It is a mother's voice, " Save, ohl,
save my child! "  The flames, like fiery serpents, are
on every side, ready to devour her, and there is no prospect of escape. "0 God," she cries in her anguish,
"save my child!"
Hearts throb, and eyes are dim with tears.  What
is that rising through the smoke?  A ladder! I hear
the oath of the fireman, though I cannot see him, as
he calls to his men. It is placed against the devoted
building: the hose from a steam fire-enlgine play on
each side of the window, and beat back the flames; aind
the arms of the kind-hearted, though rough-handed
and rough-tongued fireman, bear mother and baby in
safety to the ground amid the joyful shouts of the delighted spectators. They are safe! What saved them?
Prayer, in her case, was powerless as the breath that
utered it: the salvation of the Christian, if trusted in,
could but have paralyzed the arm of endeavor.  What
church would open its doors to the fireman that saved
her?  What future awaits him  if Orthodoxy is to
decide? Yet he was a savior: science aided him,
benevolence impelled him. Intelligence and love,
man's great deliverers in every age, - they have cured
a: thousand ills under which we suffered in the past,
and promise to cure or relieve all that remain.
Science has sunk wells in the desert, opened fountains by hundreds in the sandy.waste, and made it
blossom as the rose. It has dug mines innumerable,
and brought up blessings from the flinty bosom of the




MAN S, TRUE SAVIORS.              33
earth.  It has clothed us, heated our apartments, and
shorn winter of its rigor. It has robbed the small-pox,
that terrible scourge, of its horrors, cleansed our cities,
and said to the dreaded cholera, " Touch not my children, and do those who obey me no harm."  Aided
by benevolence, it has reformed our prisons, and banished the tortures that were so prevalent when the
Church ruled the land, and the Bible was regarded as
the fountain of all law. They have entirely changed
the character of our insane-asylums.  Wretched creatures are no longer chained in bare rooms, and left in
nakedness, filth, and cold, to howl and scowl their miserable lives away, as they were not a hundred years
ago, but are treated with better sense and greater
kindness, and generally restored to their friends in the
possession of health of body and soundness of mind.
By railroads and steamships science is uniting us
with all mankind ill bonds so firm that war can never
sever. Already we are shaking hands with China and
Japan. The barriers are falling that our mutual iglnorance erected; and in time we shall become so well
acquainted withi other nations, and our interests be se,
inseparably connected with theirs, that war will be1come impossible.
By physiology science is teaching us daily the laws
of health, and supplying us with motives to obedience;
and, wherever its instructions are heeded, the average
duration of human life is increasing.  By geology it
has enabled us to discard the old biblical fables of the
earth's and man's creation, and shown us the orderly
development of organic beings during ages of which
the Jewish cosmogonist never dreamed; and by phre3




34            MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.
nology it has revealed to us the cause of the strong
propensities to wrong-doing which some persons possess;
and thus, by placing a double guard where the danger
was greatest, much evil has been nipped in the bud. In
demonstrating to us that the basis of all intoxicating
drinks is alcohol, and that this is an acrid poison, it
has saved countless thousands from  drunkenness and
all its attendant evils, and it will in time banish it from
the earth.
Science, or knowledge, does more: it robs death of
its terrors. It has revealed to many of us a spirit in
all organic existences, and its conscious, continued existence in man; and comforted millions by giving
them the absolute assurance of life after death has
destroyed the body. It says to the mourner, "' Dry up
your tears: they are not dead, but born anew into a
higher life.  The earth claims the body; but that
which you loved, the spirit that animated it, is yet in
existence, and you shall meet again."  It reveals no
hell, it tells of no Devil, and shows the impossibility of
both. It preaches no forgiveness, it is true; but it
shows the possibility of outgrowing the effects of wrongdoing and how to enjoy by right-doing the bliss that
invariably flows therefrom.
What is it, my brother, that curses you, and from
which you wish to be delivered?  There are but
few evils from which a man cannot be saved in this
life; and all that this life fails to cure, the next will,
in my opinion, accomplish. " I am poor: my poverty
troubles me."  Give me your hand, my brother: I
have been just where you are, and I can sympathize
witl you. You can be saved. If there had been as




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.             35
much pains taken in Boston to save men's bodies as
there has been to save their souls, you would not be
poor.  But you must never remain where you are.
Cursed is the man who is poor; but doubly cursed is the
man who is content to be poor. You must be economical; and I will not ask you to be more so than I have
been. Stop tobacco chewing and smoking instantly.
" My tobacco only costs me three cents a day." Yes;
but three cents a day is nearly eleven dollars a year.
Stop that glass of lager-bier: there is no value in it to
you, and it costs money, which you cannot afford. Let
rich men waste money on such folly if they choose:
you must not do it if you would conquer poverty.
Drink no longer tea and coffee. " Why, you would
take away all my comforts," I hear you say. When
you have ceased from the use of them, you will find
that it was the use that made the appetite for them,
and caused them to appear necessary. Hot water, and
milk and sugar taken with it, as with tea and coffee,
is more wholesome, cheaper, and in time you will like
it just as well. Cease eating rich cakes and lardcrusted pies; live simply; buy nothing because it is
fashionable.  You may save, the poorest of you, by
strict economy, fifty dollars a year. Buy with that a
piece of land (if you had what is justly yours, you
might get it without buying): build a house of your
own on it as soon as possible, if there are no more than
two rooms in it. I have lived in a house with one,
and know the happiness of the man who has a foothold on this planet, and a home that does not belong
to another.
You are sick, and that makes you unhappy.  But




36           1MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
what a blessing it is that the best of medicines can be
had for nothing! and, if you have vitality enough left,
they can cure you. If not, you will be better without
your body; and death will relieve you from its burden.
Exercise in the open air, sunshine, pure water, plain
food, - these are the medicines I recommend to you:
the medicines you buy of the apothecary are generally
as useless as they are dear.
You are a drunkard.  I do not despise you. I do
not tell you to wash in the blood of Jesus; for if you
could you would be no cleaner, and the same quantity
of whiskey would make you just as drunk. You
must abandon all intoxicating drinks, from brandy to
hard cider: that is the only way by which you can
obtain salvation. In time, all taste for these drinks
will die out, and you will be a free man. This remedy is infallible, and as good for prevention as it is for
cure. It has saved every man that fairly tried it, and
its benefit has been incalculable.
You have large amativeness, and at times this passion is your master. Do not suppose that you are the
only man in the world in the same condition. This
passion is the strongest; for only by its exercise can
the race be perpetuated. But you must not allow it
to master you. The man, the essential man, the
reasonable man, the moral man, must be the master;
and this can be done. You 1riust be temperate in all
thigs s: abandon tea, coffee, tobacco in all its forms,
and intoxicating drink in every shape. The use of
these increases the power of the animal propensities,
while at the same time it weakens the will, and
obscures the judgment. Pepper, mustard, spices, and




MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.              37
all condiments, if used at all, should be used very
sparingly. Never read books that appeal to amativeness, and arouse it.  Work hard, so that sleep will
overtake you as soon as your head reaches the pillow.
Do not loiter in bed after you are awake in the morning,-  not even on Sunday. Have worthy objects of
thought, and they will banish unworthy ones. If you
are unmarried, and over twenty years of age, find a
suitable companion, and marry': a good wife is worth
more to most men than a thousiia:d C1hrists.
I  Cam~ ignorant, and wish to be saved."' The man
who knows he is ignorant is on the highroad to knowledge. You feel what the wisest and best have felt,
and you have no need to be discouraged.  Resolve to
learn a little daily, and your acquisitions in -a few
years will surprise you. Read, but be sure to write;
think for yourself; make some branch of knowledge a
specialty, and give a little time to it daily. One thing
well learned will give you a taste for many others, and
help you to learn all others; and you will not be
ignorant in all respects, whatever you may still be in
many.
"But Ifear to die."'Cheer up: that is the last
thing that should trouble you. Find a good medium
for communication with the spirit-world, and you canl
receive evidence, as thousands have done, of the
existence of your friends, with warm  and loving
hearts, enjoying existence more than they did while
here. Death will lead you to them, and make you
olle of their number; and, when you are satisfied of
this, your fear of death will be gone, and you will be
saved.




38 -          MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
"' Is Jesus, then, a savior in no sense?"  All good
men, and in fact all men, are, to a certain extent,
saviors. The man who gives a hungry man a dinner
saves him in one sense: the woman who stands by her
friend in sorrow, and comforts her in affliction, is also
a savior. The wagoner who gave the young girl his
great-coat on a wet nlight, —he too was a savior.
Little is said about them; but there are thousands of
women who are saving men, children, and other
women, daily and hourly. To call this fanatic of Nazareth the Saviour of the world is to do injustice to the
noblest of mankind.  What a grand list is the list of
saviors! - Moses,Jesus, Confucius, Gautama, Socrates,
Plato, Watt, Joan of Arc, Fulton, Arkwright,  Herschell, Thomas Paine, Theodore  Parker, Fanny
Wright, Humboldt, John Brown, Garrison, Phillips,
and hosts of others. To many of them we owe vastly
more than we do to Jesus; and justice has yet to be
done them in the more intelligent future.
Science and benevolence, in all ages, have done the
work of salvation, and Orthodox religion and superstition have as constantly claimed the credit. "' We
have done it!" exclaim these impudent charlatans.
" See that dashing locomotive, with a thousand passengers at its heels! We'fashioned him with our
liands, breathed the air of life into his iron body, and
started him  onl his world-wide mission. We gave
wings to the telegraph, life to the printing-press; and
by us the world has advanced to thle noontide of
glory."  The fact being, that they lay dozing in the
darkened church till the scream of the engine and the
galvanic shock of the telegraph awakened them to a




MAN S TRUE SAVIORS.               39
knowledge of their existence.  Take from  man all
that science has done, and leave him all that orthodox
Christianity can do apart from  science, and what
would he be?  No house to shelter him; no garment
to  clothe him; no  machinery to assist him; the
great universe a sealed book; himself little more than
a blank on one of its pages. In a cave he would
sleep; and, when the sunbeams shone therein, he
would waken to recite his prayers to the Mumbo
Jumbo of his creed, who grumbles in the thunder, and
shows his anger in the oak-splitting lightning.
If science and benevolence are our great saviors,
let us cultivate them.
"Science is a child as yet; but her scope and power shall grow,
And her triumphs in the future shall diminish toil and woe."
Let halls of science be multiplied, and opened on
Sunday, free for all. Let us have lecturers dealing in
facts, rather than priests dealing in fables. Instead of
Bible societies and tract societies, let us have societies
for the distribution of knowledge on which the soul
can feed, and by which man can make the most of his
present position. Let people understand the glorious
truths of astronomy; and let telescopes be as plentiful
as Bibles. Let the truths of geology, which are destined to supplant many of the fables of theology, be
familiar to all.  Let every child be taught a knowledge
of its own body, and its relation to food, drink, air,
light, &c.; and thus will the ravages of disease be
stayed, and a foundation for long life and happiness
secured. Let the producers of the world's wealth be
secured the product of their labor, and let all idlers be




40            MAN'S TRUE SAVIORS.
compelled to work or starve. Let Fashion die, and Use
and Beauty take her place, and the true millennium
will be here.  The fever-breeding swamps will be
drained, and fruitful gardens take their place: where
the reed and the flag grow, the apple, the pear, and
the peach shall flourish; the wild woods will fall, and
stately palaces for humanity rise. The slave of capital shall stand erect, a mall, and rejoice in the fruit of
his labor; and the prison for the felon will be no longer
needed. The pope and the priest, the king and the
captain, will be loved and feared and hated noo more.
War will only be known in history, and Love shall be
at home in every bosom.




BE THYSELF.








BE THYSELF.
WE live in a universe abounding with variety.
The heavens present us with systems, suns, stars,
planets, comets, meteors, and clouds. Systems differ
from systems in shape, suns from suns in size. "One
star differeth from another star in glory." One planet
is belted, another girt with rings; comets and meteors
are as varied as their numbers. Clouds are never
twice alike: pile upon pile they lie, with rosy-topped
mountain-peaks; skip like silvery sheep across the
blue meadow of the sky, or lie like golden islands in
a silver sea.
The earth is not less varied than the heavens.
Here the mountains lift up their hoary heads in
silent majesty, white with the snows of a thousand
winters; and there lie the dusky valleys, ten thousand feet below them, where twilight holds continual
holiday. The boundless plain stretches before us,
a wide expanse without a hillock, an ocean of drifting sand unblessed by a green blade, or a grassy
prairie in its virgin green, or clad in flowery beauty;
the placid lake, the leaping rill, the dark cation, the
river, rolling forever on, and the ocean girt by low
sand-banks or frowning precipices, calm as a frozen
43




44                 BE THYSELF.
lake, or, waked to wrath by furious storms, howling to
the moaning of the winds.
Norare the organic productions of the earth less
varied,  from the cedar that rears its symmetrical
head three hundred feet above its roots, to the velvet
moss that carpets the ground at its feet. The lichen
clings to the boulder, the alga to the, wave-washed
rock; the pine's leaves are spines, while a leaf of the
talipot palm will cover a company of soldiers. The
condor scales with unwearied wing the heights of the
Andes; the katydid chirps in the meadow its evening
hymn; the whale floats, an island in the ocean; the
animalcule explores a drop.
What diversity! No two planets, no two animals,
no two things, alike. Not only does the oak differ
from the pine, and the pine from the cedar, but no
man ever saw two oak-trees alike, nor any two leaves
upon an oak. There are no two grains of sand alike:
to microscopic eyes they would be as diverse as boulders. To a stranger the sheep in a flock seem all
alike; to the shepherd they are as different as the individuals comprising it, and he can call them all by
name. Nature never casts two articles out of the
same mold: when one is cast, she cracks the mold,
and makes a new one for the next, and thus secures
endless variety.
Man is no exception to this rule. Look at the variety of races, -the blushing Caucasian, the obliqueeyed Mongolian, the dark-skinned African, the blackhaired, beardless American, the dumpy Esquimaux,
and the spindle-shanked Australian. Heads differ,
eyes differ, fingers differ, all parts differ, in every
man from every other man, the world over. That




BE THYSELF.                 45
passing from us which is invisible to all diffe:s from
the invisible aura of others, or how could the dog
track his master through the crowded street? There
are said to be from three to four thousand languages
on the globe, from the harsh and guttural Esquimaux
to the smooth and liquid Italian. Every individual
has, in fact, peculiarities of speech that distinguish
him from all others. The voice reveals the person
when we have no other clue;  and we say that is
John, Mary, or Thomas, when the persons speaking
are unseen.
This variety that we thus notice in Nature is a
continual blessing. Suppose it otherwise. Let all
the heavenly bodies be alike in size and brightness,
and placed at equal distances, and we should have a
celestial checker-board, true to the line, and pretty for
one look, but tame forever.  Make all the flowers
roses, and who would not miss the violet? The rose
itself would lose half its beauty for want of contrast
with its less fair floral sisters. If all leaves were
alike, and all trees after the same pattern, how the
dull landscape would fatigue the eye! Make all men
like pins in a paper, mold candles in a box, or shot
in a barrel, the fat thin, or the thin stout; elongate
the short, or stunt the long; give all eyes the same
expression; make all noses aquiline or Roman, - and
what a desert of faces would surround us! Let it
occur to-day, what terrible mistakes would take place
before morning   There is not an ugly sinner but
would pray for the return of his old face to rescue
him from the dead level of humanity.
Minds differ more widely than faces. "' Many men,
many minds," is a proverb as true as it is old. More




46                 BE THYSELF.
varied than flowers in the garden, leaves in the
forest, or stars in the sky, are the minds of
mankind.  Look into  our libraries and see the
products of those minds, —books on every conceive
able subject, and no two alike even on the same
subject.
This difference is seen in boys as soon as the intel.
lect is awake, and manifests itself continually. Here
is a little mechanic saving his cents and buying a
jack-knife, with which he whittles mimic waterwheels. See him in the brook, his little pants tucked
up to his brown knees, while he rejoices, as his wheel
spins round, like an angel over a new world. Give
him a chance to develop in his own peculiar line, and,
like a Watt or a Fulton, he will yoke new steeds to
the car of progress, and drive on the world at a
diviner speed.
Another little fellow is drawing horses on the barndoor with chalk, or making little dogs out of dough
in the kitchen.  An artist is he in the germ; full
blossomed and fruited, the business of his thinking
soul and obedient hand shall be to embody the
creations of his genius, that shall bless the world
for long centuries after he has gone to more than
realize his most glorious conceptions in a higher
school of art.
Here is a born orator; mounted on a stump, he
harangues the village boys. Proud ships may sail,
they attract him not; wheels may spin, what cares
he? Could he enchain an audience by his eloquence,
earth has no greater blessing, heaven itself could
grant no more. To this he devotes himself; his soul
leads, he obediently follows, till multitudes hang




BE THYSELF,                47
breathless upon his words, while he talks as a spring
leaps from the mountain-side.
This farmer cares more for his cattle than a monarch for his crown. Spring has driven winter from
the land, the birds are singing, and he rejoices as he
drives his "jocund team a-field."  Nothing could induce him to leave these incense-breathing fields for
the din and dust of the city; but the merchant despises the dull round of the farmer, and is never
happy but in the crowded mart,- a busy man among
busy men.
It is well that it should be so. Were all to become
merchants, the stock would soon be spent; the river
of commerce would dry up, for the rills of production would cease to flow. Were all producers, goods
would accumulate as water does in lakes, and there
would be no rivers to distribute the surplus to the
needy lands. If all were poets, painters, or orators,
bread and butter would be sadly deficient; and if all
were plain, prosy farmers, how much that makes life
joyous we should lose!
As men's intellectual endowments differ, so do
their moral faculties and religious sentiments. One
is a born sceptic; he must see, hear, feel, and is
hardly satisfied without tasting and smelling, what is
marvellous, in order to give it credence. He may de.
sire to believe; but the arms of his faith are so short
that they can not reach the distant object. Another
believes at once: it is only necessary to present the
statement, and he swallows it in a moment, though
"gross as a mountain."  He reads that the whale
swallowed Jonah, and he lived three days in his
belly; if he had read that Jonah swallowed the




48                 BE THYSELF.
whale, he would swallow both, and make no bones
about either. He has no need to pray, —
" Stretch our faith's capacity wider and yet wider still.'
The door of his soul is wide enough to take iin all
company; no more to be reasonably praised for the
width of his spiritual gullet, than the sceptic blamed
for the narrowness of his.
One is firm as a mountain: he feels like Fitz James
when he. exclaimed,"Come one, come all! This rock shall fly
From its firm base as soon as I."
Another is pliant as the wheat-stalk, that waves in
the June breeze.
This man is spiritual; every breath that he draws
is redolent of heaven; he mounts as naturally as the
freed bird, and carols in the sky; that man gravitates
to the earth like a thunder-cloud big with a shower.
The arms of the benevolent would all mankind embrace. If he were made of gold, his sympathy would
lead him to give himself away for the benefit of man
kind. Some such give away all that they have, and
more than they have; while the economical man's
purse-strings are twined around his heart, sometimes
with a hard-to-be-loosed knot in them, and he thinks
ten times before he gives once.
If all were credulous as some, the world would
feed on lies, and dire would be the consequence. If
all were sceptical as others, new truths and strange
facts might stand knocking at the world's heart for




BE THYSELFP.               49
centuries before they gained admission. If all were
firm and unyielding, progress would either be impossible or very slow; and, if all were equally pliant,
revolutions would be as plentiful as showers in spring,
and peace and stability would be at an end. If all
were spiritual as Swedenborg in his later days, corn
and potatoes would be sadly deficient; and if all were
"of the earth, earthy," we should be no better than
the savage in the wild.
There may be too wide deviations from a normal
standard morally, as there are intellectually; for some
are born morally asquint, as others are physically, —
deviations that require careful culture and training to
overcome. But men as naturally differ in their moral
natures as they do in their physical constitutions, and
the difference thus existing is of the greatest value
to the race. One's religion is like the sun, fervid and
intense; another's like the moon, calm and beautiful;
and another's like the stars, bright and saint-like; yet
all lovely as the varied flowers of the meadow, or the
tints of the evening skly.
Hence the importance of the exhortation of my
text, — BE THYSELF.  There is no originality, no
complete manhood, without it. It is the highest pre.
rogative of the animal kingdom, the crowning glory
of humanity. Among the coral polyps, at the base
of the animal kingdom, we have millions of animals
united in one community; what is eaten by one is as if
eaten by all; and the will of the individuaal is lost in
that of the group, harmoniously forming their stony
structures at the sea-bottom. Among the mollusks,
countless multitudes lie in one oozy bed, with little
scope, as there is little inclination, for individual
4




50                BE- THYSELF.
action. Among the fishes there is more scope; but,
living in shoals, the will of one is lost in that of
the many. Among the birds a few leaders control the
flock. Beasts possess more independence; but the
strongest horse leads the band as it sweeps over
the prairie, and the old male buffalo decides the
course of the entire herd. Ascending to man, there
i3 more individuality, and the most among the most
highly developed.
Even the savage is an individual who comes into
direct communication with Nature for himself. His
parents say, "Shift for yourself," and Nature says the
same. He learns where the fish hide, and he spears
them; he watches the beaver, and traps it, that he
may clothe himself with its skin. He knows the
ridge on which the chestnut grows; and, when the
leaves fall, he makes for the winter a secret hoard.
Hie builds his own tent, supplies his fire, communes
with Nature, and forms ideas of the world in which
he finds himself. But he must be obedient to his
chief, even to death; and his individuality is sacrificed continually. But here is the philosopher in
whom humanity blossoms, and brings forth fruit. In
him we see the highest exemplification of self-hood.
In him Nature's great endeavor is fulfilled, her work
of the ages is completed. Reason sits on the throne;
and the lawless propensities are subject to her sway.
HIe reads, hears, investigates; and what his judgment
decides upon, that he does, and hears the continual
plaudit of a good' conscience, saying, " Well done!"
The benefits that flow from the exercise of this
self-hood are inconceivable. Among men who prac.
tice it are Emerson, the most original mind on this




BE THYSELFo                51
continent, and whose private life is pure as his intellect is clear; Garrison, whose manliness no force
could bend, and whose love for the bondman was
only equaled by a fearless denunciation of his oppressors; in science, Lyell, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, Draper, independent free-thinkers, who are delivering the world from ignorance, enlarging the
domain of thought, and breaking the bonds of priestly
bigotry and intolerance. On the other side are the
tools of Popish superstition, who dare hardly call
their souls their own; with whom  the word of a
priest is potent as a law of God,; who kneel, and swal.
low the God baked but yesterday by the cook, and
dare not open their shutters to let in one ray of
hea.ven's pure light; the slaves of Episcopal domination, whose priests swear never to be wiser than the
Thirty-nine Articles, and who must perjure themselves
if they ever step beyond the narrow, creed-made pale
that the first step of an infant mind would almost
overstride; and, along with these, the millions of
abject ecclesiastical subjects, whose spiritual bond.
age is their pride, and who tremble when they hear a
free thought, lest the heavens fall, or the earth gape,
and swallow both speaker and hearers.
The world's heroes in poetry, philosophy, mechanm
ics, and reform, have been heroic by virtue of their
self-hood. Leave this out of the composition of a
man, and you have, in poetry, a verse-wright who
never dared to write an original line; in philosophy,
a peddler of defunct ideas; and in war, a poltroon.
What made Homer the prince of song, and enabled
the old "blind man of Chio "7 to chant a strain which
the hills of Greece echoed for centuries, still heard




52                BE THYSELF.
across the wild ocean, and amid the din and roar of
this nineteenth century? He wrote in his own inimi.
table style the beautiful thoughts that crowded into
his brain: from the heaven of his own creation, he
poured down those melodies which a busy world on
tiptoe stands to hear.
Who was Shakspeare's model? Whence did heo
draw the supplies of which millions have drunk and
been refreshed? With no broken pitcher did he go
to another's well, but drew from the exhaustless fountain of his own soul. IHe stands to-day like a granite
mountain, whose head is lost in the clouds, and whose
culminating point no traveler has reached: as men
ascend, untrodden hights lie still above them. Had
he been a mere imitator, the molehill of his production would have been long since trodden to the dead
level of the plain.
How did Bunyan write his "Pilgrim's Progress "?
As the brook babbles, taking no counsel of other
brooks, but telling its own story in its own way; and,
in spite of its many absurdities, the tinker's book will
live for centuries. Copernicus and Galileo, taking
counsel of their own souls, heeding not the monkish
fable-molngers who believed the world to be flat as
a table, and the stars little shining points, boldly
marched into the untrodden realm, explored its seas
of worlds, and carme back laden with glorious truths.
Columbus, advising with no Past, old and decrepit,
who had bounded the world, and inscribed on its
boundary, " No more beyond," launched his bark to
cross the unknown ocean; and for weary weeks and
months sailed steadily on, on, - the cloudy sky above,
the inky sea around,- spite of the frowns, tears, and




BE THYSELF.                53
entreaties of the cowards who accompanied him, till
a new world, like a radiant maiden, leaped into his
arms, and blessed him for his manliness. WVe are here
to-day because Columbus dared to be himself.
It was this self-hood that made Raphael the prince
of painters, and Napoleon of warriors. " He does not
fight according to the rule," said the European fogies.
No; but he had a rule of his own to fight by, and thus
he conquered. In Watts, it gave us the steam-engine,
with its hundred hands and its restless soul; and in
Fulton, the boat that heeds not wind or tide, whose
steam-arm  paddles day and night, and never tires.
By it, Socrates climbed the hights of philosophy,
from which it was but a step to the heaven into
which he entered.
Mere imitators in art never scale the hights; but,
placing their feet in the prints left by former travelers, they tire themselves out with a step that is unnatural to them, and faint and die by the way, leaving
no sign behind that they have ever been. In life's
battle, they never make heroes, but wearing another
man's armor wEhich never fits them, and wielding a
weapon never made for them, they accomplish little,
and fall an easy prey to the enemy.
Of the hundreds who have imitated Shakspeare,
how many live in remembrance?  They have gone
like the smoke of the Indian wigwam from our land,
while he shines on like a star. Books written by
these imitators are mere repositories of twaddle,
mountains of chaff, great in bulk, but small in nutriment for the hungry soul. A bonfire of them would
give more light to the world than they can give in
any other way. aMost of our theological worlks are




54                 BE THYSELF.
of this class,- embalmed hosts of dead men's foolish
thoughts  a library of them is a catacomb or a mummy pit; how useless to look.for light or life in them!
Men throw overboard their own thoughts, richer than
pearls, and load their barks with cast-off, water-worn
shells of conservatism.
Books written by thinkers-men who thought and
dared to express their thoughts - are always worth
reading. I care not whether their authors were
Atheists or Methodists, Heathen or Mohammedan; the
life's blood of the author circulates through them,
and in reading you feel its pulsations. But books
written by men who never saw through their own
eyes, who never put out their hands, and felt the
world for themselves, nor took one manly step, are
the faintest echoes from the distant hills, compared
with the heaven-shaking thunder that produced
them.
Self-hood is as necessary in religion as in art. science, and literature. The world has been cursed for
centnries by men who have sought to shape the religious element in all after the same model. Placing
the soul of man in the crucible of sect, it has been
melted down, and poured into some creed-made mould:
its beauty marred, its original proportions destroyed,
it stands a monument of man's folly, a warning to all,
and speaks in loudest tones the language of my text,
Brother, sister, BE THYSELF!
All great religious reformers have acted more or
less on this principle. The more fully they have
carried it out, all other things being equal, the wider
has been their sphere of influence, and the more
good they have accomplished. What enabled Moses




BE THYSELF.                55
to rise above the multitude, like a mountain in the
midst of a vast plain, so high, that, at the distance of
thirty-five hundred years, he stands out still in bold
relief against the horizon?  What magic was there in
his name, that Oblivion swallowed it not with the mil.
lions that have disappeared in his never-to-be-satisfied
maw? Snapping the fetters with which the priests
of Egypt sought to bind his soul, he listened to the
promptings of his heart as it taught him a better religion than he had ever before heard; and he hesitated
not to obey its requirements. Leaving behind him
the enchantments of Egypt, and the pleasure of Pharaoh's court, he became a wanderer in the desert, —an excellent place for a man to commune with himself. Thence he came, and stamped his soul upon the
Jewish nation.
He dared to think for himself on religious matters,
to face the great universe and question it; and with a
rare originality he taught his countrymen a religion
the answer, as he believed, to his questions - far in
advance of its predecessors. But every Jew had just
as much right to question for himself and cherish the
answer as he; but this Moses would by no means allow: the answer to him must be the answer for all.
Hear him! "If thou wilt obey the statutes and commanldments that I command thee this day, then blessed
shalt thou be in the city and in the field; blessed in
thy going-out, and blessed in thy coming-in; blessed
in thy basket and in thy store. But, if thou wilt not
obey them, cursed shalt thou be in the city and in the
field; cursed in thy going-out and coming-in, in thy
basket and in thy store." Liberty, spontaneity, selfhood, all must be sacrificed to rigid conformity. The




56                BE THYSELF.
Jew must be a Mosean, or destruction awaited him.
Moses regards the seventh day as holier than all others,
and consecrates it to rest for all generations; and the
independent Israelite, who gathered sticks upon that
day, is stoned to death. Moses thought an angry God
could be appeased by burning sheep, oxen, and doves;
and the man who has advanced beyond this, who does
not believe that God can be pleased with the smell of
roasting beasts, must kill and roast his cattle notwithstanding; for Moses speaks, and will be obeyed.
You tell me that MIoses received his commandments
from God; yes, from the God that is in you and me,
and in the same way that we receive ours. He talked
with him as we talk with him when we converse with
our brother; and he saw him as we see him in the
starry sky, or the grassy spear at our feet pointing
heavenward. Man three thousand years ago was no
nearer to God than we are to day; and the New-England thinker can see God on M3ount Katahdin as well
as Moses did on Sinai.
Moses thus became the model man for the whole
Jewish nation. Every child was taught, that just in
proportion as he became like Moses, was he a true
man, and sure of God's blessing; as far as he fell short
of this, so far had he departed frbm the right, and was
subject to a curse.
After the death of Moses, he was elevated by priest
and Levite, sabbath after sabbath, and feast after
feast; his holy law unrolled, and weekly read to the
assembled multitude. Moses was king, the children of
Israel his subjects. Moses was the die, and the Jews
the coin, stamped by the repeated blows of their priests
with his image and superscription. To be like Mloses




BE THYSELF,.7
was the highest ambition of the noblest and best;
greater than he could no man be; to be wiser was impossible, and to dream of being better was blasphemous.
Thus crept the nation snail-like through the dull
centuries; an oppressive ritual upon their backs like
a mountain of lead, and Moses before them, a dark
cloud shutting out the blue sky from their wistful gaze.
But Nazareth produced a man who refused to bow
any longer to the God, Moses, that had been set up.
"' One man dared to be true to what is in you and me."
In an age of slaves he was free; in an age of cowards
he was a hero. While the whole nation was crawling
in the dust, Jesus stood upon his feet, and allowed
his manhood to speak. "Ye have heard that it hath
been said by them of old time (that is, by Moses and
the Moseans), An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a
tooth: but I say unto you, Resist not evil; but who.
soever shall smite thee on the right cheek, turn to
him the other also."  "Again: ye have heard it hath
been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine
oaths; but I say unto you, Swear not at all. Let your
communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatso.
ever is more than these cometh of evil."  We find him
saying, in opposition to old Jewdom, "Why judge ye
not of yourselves what is right?" He proclaimed
himself Lord of the sabbath, as every sensible man is,
and boldly set at defiance all who attempted to fetter
his soul. What a consternation was there among the
scribes and Pharisees, the soul-mongers of JudaaI
"'Have you heard that mechanic of Galilee, who is
traveling about the country preaching heresy? He
addressed a rabble the other day, when he made him



58                BE THYSELF.
self superior to Moses, and set at naught the law given
by God himself on MIount Sinai. I understand that he
has been saying, Why judge ye not what is right your
selves? thus making men their own lawgivers, and
taking away the necessity for our services. He is a
bold blasphemer, whose mouth must be stopped; away
with hin, away with him, crucify him, crucify him, he
is not fit to live!" The multitude echo the cry, "Away
with him, crucify him!" and so they did; and doubtless thought there was an end of his doctrine, and
their craft was forever safe. Never did men make a
greater mistake.  Bury a truth and it is a seed; it
springs up, grows, and bears fruit a thousand-fold.
Kill a reformer, and his ghost does a hundred times
more than the man could ever have done if alive.
The doctrine of Jesus could not be killed, and his
death seemed to give it life; it spread far and wide;
mounted the hills, crossed the valleys, was wafted over
the seas; it mounted the throne of the Cmesars, and
conquered the conquerors of the world. Now the despised Nazarene, the young reformer of Galilee, has
become the esteemed Saviour. While he lived, he
was no better than the publicans and sinners with
whom he associated; he had a devil, and was mad;
he was a pestilent fellow, whom no Jewish aristocrat
would be seen in company with for the world. But
now he is a good man, a great man, a prophet; nay, a
greater prophet than Elias himself, then the greatest
and best man that ever lived; the Son of God, yea, the
only-begotten Son of God; and lastly, God Almighty
from heaven I Men were not satisfied until they had
unseated the Omnipotent, and set the man Jesus upon
his throne. This is the way the world serves refobrm



BE THYSELF.                59
ers; there is nothing too vile to say about them while
they are alive, and nothing too good when they are
dead, and the world has accepted their doctrine.
Moses was now dethroned, and Jesus made king;
henceforth all must be his obedient subjects. Moses
was knocked unceremoniously off the pedestal, Jesus
placed thereon, and made the model for the whole
human race. "Looking unto Jesus"' now becomes
the duty of all. The path of life bears the impressions of his feet, and it is our duty, not to make our
own impressions, but walk implicitly in his; for "' he
has left us an example, that we should tread in his
steps."
Thus have men destroyed one idol and set up another; and the business of our modern scribes and pharisees is to induce people to worship it. In the name
of Jesus the freeman, souls are robbed of their birthright, and the most terrible threatenings denounced
against those who, like him, dare to be themselves.
In the name of humanity, I protest against this. Jesus
our helper, our friend, our teacher, but never our
master or tyrant, who holds the lash of future torment
over the trembling captive.
Supposing the Jesus of the New Testament to be
the veritable God-man, who lived and died that we
might live, his example is not such as it would be well
for mankind generally to follow. Could each man be
a Jesus, it would still be infinitely better to be himself. Looking at his character, as drawn by his four
biographers, let us see what would be the consequence
of a universal attempt to imitate the example of Jesus.
Hie lived to be above thirty years of age, yet never
was married, never had a wife to call him husband,




60                 BE THYSELF.
nor a child, father. On one occasion he said, " There
are some eunuchs which were so born from their
mother's womb; and there are some e-unuchs which
were made eunuchs of men, and there be eunuchs
which have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom
of heaven's sake. He that is able to receive it, let
him receive it."  Paul, who seems to have regarded
Jesus as a perfect example, never was married, and he
advised others to imitate him, as he did his master.
Suppose men universally were to shape themselves
thus after this model, would not the consequence be
most disastrous?  The whole world a Shaker community, and in less than a hundred and fifty years a -wilderness of' wild beasts without a human inhabitant.
According to Mank, Jesus worked at the trade of a
carpenter. At the age of thirty he abandoned his
business and went out to preach the Gospel. Walking by the sea of Galilee he found Simon and Andrew,
James and John, fishing; he called them, saying, "I
will make you fishers of men;" they left their fishes
and nets, and followed him. Miatthew sat at the receipt of custom; Jesus passed by, and said, " Follow
me;" and, strange to say, although a Jew, he left his
money-gathering business, and followed Jesus. When
he had in this way taken twelve men from their avocations, and they and a multitude were assembled to.
gether, he preached to them thus: "' Take no thought
for your life, what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink;
nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not
the life more than meat and the body than raiment?
Behold the fowls of the air; for they sow not, neither
do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heaven.
ly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than




BE THYSELF,                 61
they?  Why take ye thought for raiment?  Consider
the lilies of the field, how they grow: they toil not,
neither do they spin.  Therefore take no thoughlt
saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or
wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after all these
things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly faLther
knoweth that ye have need of all these things. Seekl
first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness, and
all these things shall be added unto you. Take, therefore, no thought for the morruw, for the morrow shall
take thought for the things of itself."  Again he says,
"Sell that ye have, and give alms."  Suppose that men
were to commence imitating Jesus in this respect.
T'he tailor leaves the shopboard and cloth, the blacksrnith the hammer and anvil, the farmer the plow, and
the weaver the loom; millers cease to grind, and bakers
to bake, and each commences to preach; and as they
preach, they say, " God has given you life, will he not,
also, give you food to sustain that life? Cease working,
then, and trust in him. He has given you bodies without any effort of your own; will he not much more
clothe those bodies without any labor on your part?
Look at the sparrows and the pigeons; they neither
sow nor reap, and yet God feeds them. Consider the
wild roses; see how beautiful they are, and how well
clothed; the purple robe of a king is not equal to theirs,
and yet they neither spin nor weave. Therefore take
no thought about what you shall eat or wear, but trust
in God, who feeds the sparrows and clothes the grass,
and it will all be well."'
The consequences of generally practicing such un.
philosophical doctrine would be starvation and ruin.
it might-answer well for Jesus and his disciples to do




62                BE THYSELF.
thus, for others were sowing, reaping, baking, and fishing for them, and supplying their necessities. If it
bad not been so, their preaching and practice would
have by no means corresponded; for they would have
discovered that loaves do not grow on bushes, nor
clothes on trees, and that though birds may be fed
without sowing and reaping, it is otherwise with human beings.
On one occasion, Jesus went into the temple, and
found there money changers, and the sellers of oxen,
sheep, and doves; and after he had made a scourge of
cords he drove them out, poured out the changers'
money and overthrew the tables; this, too, after preaching non-resistance to its utmost extent. An imitation
of such conduct would hardly be tolerated, nor would
its influence be beneficial. His denunciation of the
SCtibes and Pharisees is terrible; they were surely
not all bad, all " serpents " and of the "' generation of
vipers," all "fools and blind;" yet he makes no exceptions, but fulminates his woes against them in the most
offensive manner. If they were thus bad, how much
would his denunciations do toward reforming them?
And among a large class like this, there must have been
some noble characters.
He told his disciples in the beginning of his ministry not to preach his doctrines to the Gentiles, and
states himself that he preached in parables that others
" seeing might not see, and hearing, they might not
understand." When the people ask him very reason
ably for a sign of his Messiahship, he calls them an
" evil and adulterous generation." He makes himself
the head, and teaches that all are to be subordinate to
him. "One is your master, even Christ;" "I your




BE THYSELF.                63
lord and master." If a city would not receive his dis.
ciples, nor hear their words, as they wandered round
rehearsing the gospel of the Nazarene, when they de.
parted from it they were to shake off the dust of their
feet as a testimony against it, and he informs them
that it would be more tolerable for Sodom and Gomorrah in the Day of Judgment than for that city.
He seems to have had some of the feeling that exists
in the little souls of our sectarian bigots. Their sect
is comprised of the chosen few, to whom it is the
Father's good pleasure to give the kingdom. They
are not of the world, and they will have the pleasure
of seeing the destruction of their enemies, those who
would not believe, bow down to, and support their
church. The notions of Jesus with regard to property, prayer, and non-resistance, are very far from reasonable; and though he said and did many excellent
things, taking the narratives concerning him to be
true, still it is evident that he is no model for the race.
And of this the church generally seems to be aware,
though professing continually to practice his precepts
and live his life. Jesus says," Lend, hoping for nothing
again; " but where are the Christians that do it?  Do
outsiders demand six per cent, ten per cent, or two
per cent a month, if they find any one whose necessities compel him to pay such usurious interest, then
Christians do the same; and no difference, in this re.
spect, is observable between them. Jesus said, "Resist not evil, and if any man smite thee on the one
cheek, turn the other also;" "Love your enemies."
Christians generally pay no more attention to these
commands than if they had never been uttered; in
fact, every sect has made an artificial Jesus of its own,




64                BE THYSELF.
generally less fanatical and extravagant, and more
iashionable and better suited to the times. We have
a Quaker Jesus, who wears a broad-brim, and says
"thee," who never enters a " steeple house," and looks
upon music and dancing with horror. The Methodist
Jesus believes in class-meetings where every one tells
his experience; in prayer-meetings where men and
women shout and scream as if God was afar off or
asleep, and has great faith in John Wesley's sermons
and the Methodi.st discipline. The Episcopal Jesus,
unlike the real one, thinks much of forms and ceremonies, loves the tones of a solemn organ, and the dim,
religious light that streams through a stained glass
window; believes in the thirty-nine articles, and thinks
the creed of Athanasius, "which in damning souls is
very spacious," one of the best compositions outside
of the Bible. The Shaker Jesus believes in 1 "Mother
Ann," regards marriage as a mortal sin, thinks all the
world Sodom, and Shaker communities so many Zoars
to which the righteous Lots have fled from the impending destruction.
This conduct is probably better than it would be to
follow literally the example of Jesus, for this, we have
seen, would be most disastrous. The obligation of my
text is strengthened, then, by our review of the life of
Jesus and the conduct of his so-called Church. Man,
woman, be thyself, and thou shalt be as great as Jesus,
too, or greater than he.
In obedience to this principle, Luther, singlehanded,
coped with the banded hosts of Popery, shook the
triple-crowned Pope himself, though sitting on the
throne of ages, made the Roman hierarchy tremble at
the sound of his naume, and delivered from priestly




BE THYSELF.                65
tyranny a host of noble souls. Had he been content
to shroud his manhood in the monk's cowl, and keep
down the rising aspirations of his soul, we might still
have been moping about in the dark night of priestcraft, by the pale light of the stars, nor dreaming of a
dawning day, and he, a poor Popish slave, had crept
long since to the silent grave.
Had he been more faithful to his soul, walked according to its dictates without looking to the right or the
left, we might have been much farther advanced to-day.
What a multitude of Lutherans are wearing his castoff clothes, ragged and thread-bare, fitting no one, in
place of their own natural and beautiful apparel!
George Fox was a poor shoemaker in Drayton, Lincolnshire. Feeling the fire of truth burning in his
bosom, he went out to warm the cold, dead world with
its divine influence; casting down his boots and lasts,
he went forth to preach the Gospel. What Gospel?
The Gospel of George Fox, and no other. And this
poor shoemaker, with no more than an ordinary amount
of brain and intelligence, shook every steeple in the
land.  Bold, fearing nothing when his soul led the
way, pre-eminently self-reliant, and ever turning to
" the light within," we find him entering the old vaults
of gloomy superstition, club in hand, breaking the sectarian images, opening the prison doors, flashing light
into the dark corners, and enforcing by precept and
example the sentiment of my text. When the priests
heard that the " man with the leather breeches " was
coming, they left their pulpits and fled; and George
mounted the deserted pulpits and distributed to the
famished multitude the bread of life. At one time we
find him wading through the bogs of Ireland, at another
5




66                BE THYSELF.
roaming in the wilds of America. The phlegmatic
Hollander is stirred by the indefatigable Drayton shoe.
maker, nor could the cold prisons of England quench
the fire of his zeal. Had all the Quakers been as
much themselves as George, the promised millennium
had dawned long ere this.  This, alas! they never
dreamed of being. George was good, great, and use.
fil; and they, to be so, must be like him; the nearer
the resemblance the better. He wore a broad-brim,
had no collar on his coat, said "thou " and " thee;"
and every genuine Quaker does the same to this day;
and should he depart from the faith, he is soon told
"' Thee is not following Friends' rule."  When George
went into a church, he kept on his hat, to show that
he had no faith in "holy houses; " the Quakers, imitating their model man, wear hats in their own meeting-houses, which no one regards as holy, and that to
the detriment of their health. Unfortunately George
could not sing, and had a small organ of ideality, so
that he had no taste for pictures, and little or none for
the fine arts generally. Henceforth, every Quaker
must be dumb; music is a sin, and paintings and
sculpture awful waste of time and labor.  Friends'
meeting-houses are built like barns, and their worship
is so dead and monotonous that the young gladly escape
from it to something more attractive. The spirit may
move one Friend to sing as much as it does another to
preach; but all singing spirits are "demons," and
must be exorcised. In short, every Quaker must be
a Fox, whereas to be a man, he must needs be himself.
John Wesley was somewhat manly; and his obedience to himself, despite of ecclesiastical laws, made
hin a reformer; but when he said to the members of




BE THYSELP.               67
his church, "It is your business to obey our rules,
and not to mend them," he evidently did not intend
others to be as noble as he had been.
If thou wouldst be a man, bend at the shrine of no
mortal; walk in no pathway because others tread it;
be thy cwn leader, thy own sect; when all are so, then
will come the true church. VWho was Wesley, that
thou shouldst be a Wesleyan? or Luther, that thou
shouldst be a Lutheran? or Christ that thou shouldst
be a Christian? all men; art thou not equally so?
When the priest threatens thee with damnation, and
would load thee with his gyves to secure thy soul's
salvation, say, "Hands off, sir! I am,' also, a man!
lRather let me be lost, being a free man, than be saved
to be an eternal slave! "
Sects are engines that crush the soul; priests
direct them! Keep out of their power. They are
sand-pits where ignorant or interested men pretend
to dig treasures; keep from their brink; once enter,
thou mayest lose the light of day. They are mantraps set on "'holy ground;" beware of them; let
not thy feet wander on their domain.
But, says an objector, some men's sense of right is
very defective, and when they think they are doing
right they are really doing wrong. I most willingly
grant it; but what then? Shall we tell the man that
he must do what he thinks is wrong? or shall we tell
him that we are right and he must bow to our authority?  This would make the man a slave, and that
could never be right. If a man should be so blinded
as to conscientiously believe right to be wrong and
wrong to be right, I should still say to him, "Do
what you believe to be right, but the consequence of




68                   BE THYSELF.
your ignorance will fall upon your head."  Whether
men sin ignorantly or willfully, they suffer, and this
suffering tends to make them  wiser continually, —
tends to bring their sense of right side by side with
Nature's actual right.
But, says another, must man discard all models,
cast aside all examples, refuse all guides? Destruc.
tion would assuredly be his fate. There is no neces.
sity for this; all models, all examples, all guides are
useful to enable us to form our own. A man's model
must be in his own soul, all others with which he is
conversant assisting in forming it.
Ever there floats before the real
The bright, the beautiful ideal.
And as, to guide the sculptor's hand,
The living forms of beauty stand,
Till from the rough-hewn marble starts
A thing of grace in all its parts,
So ever stand before the soul
A model, beautiful and whole:
The perfect man that we should be,
Erect in stern integrity.
Keep this, oh soul, before thy sight,
And form the inward man aright.
Be true to this model to-day, and to-morrow it is
fairer and more beautiful and perfect, always advancing as we advance, and ever before and above us
beckoning us on.  All we read, hear, and learn helps
us in the formation of this true self that must be our
model; hence we must disdain no advice, even from
a child.  We all have much to learn.  Mloses, Jesus,
and Joseph Smith may teach us something; let us
thankfully  receive all they can give.  But let no




BE THYSELF.                 69
man take us off our feet; let the officious help of
none prevent us from exercising our faculties and
unfolding ourselves in accordance with our own
law.
Religious imitators, like all others, fall short of
their original, and copy its defects, rather than its
excellences. The Pharisees imitated the sectarian
pride, the narrow-souled bigotry of Mioses, who could
see no virtue outside of the tents of Israel, rather
than the wisdom that dictated sound laws, and the
meekness that is said to have characterized their
imodel man. Of the million imitators of Jesus, we
have many that can denounce with his vehemence,
proclaim damnation to all unbelievers, and speak of
outsiders as " dogs; " but how few imitate his manliness, his contempt of riches, his active benevolence
and unswerving adherence to right? Of the thousands of Quakers who imitate the little, and in some
cases ridiculous, peculiarities of George Fox, where
will you find the man as bold and self-reliant as he,
daring to utter his thoughts though they differ from
those of every living mortal?
Absurd imitation of the past has characterized the
masses in all ages. The worship of the Greek and
Roman deities continued after all faith in them was
gone. Altars smoked and priests officiated in the
temples long after the gods had departed; for the
dead absurdities of the Past ruled the living Present;
and even the philosophers did not possess sufficient
self-hood to throw off their allegiance to the defunct
tyrants. In our own time, the foolish dictates of
ftshion are  scrupulously obeyed by millions who
know no higher law; and multitudes of intelligent




70                 BE THYSELF.
men and women become the mere playthings with
which she sports at her pleasure.
Instead of one fashion-monger dictating to the
world, how much better would it be if all developed
their natural taste and love of the beautiful, and
dressed accordingly. How much we lose from the
stupid folly of those who allow the taste of one, or it
may be the lack of taste in one, to govern and mold
the whole.
All who take the privilege of being themselves
should be equally willing to give the same privilege,
and not seek to impose their conditions upon others.
The water is very well for a fish to live in, but a poor
place for a bird; and though grass makes a good dinner for a horse, a lion would soon starve on it. The
road I travel may suit me, but what right have I,
when others are unwilling to go the same way, to
knock them down and drag them into it? Every
planet may revolve on his own orbit, so it comes into
collision with no other; and there is room in the wide
universe even for the eccentric comet.
Many reformers decry and despise those who are
operating in other fields. Their pet reform is the one
upon which the world hangs, or the central sun
around which the universe revolves. All others are
firagmentary, theirs integral. Men advocate one reform, read about it, hear every one talk about it
where they lecture, until it assumes a mountain magnitude and shuts out all else from their gaze. The
Temperance Reformer says nothing can be done to
elevate and bless the masses till they are made sober,
for drunkenness is the parent of crime and misery.
Let all become temperate and the day of the Lord is




BE THfYSEL'P                71
at band; and he is astonished that all reformers do
not lend their aid to the great work until it is accomplished.  The Antislavery Reformer assures us that
slavery is the curse of curses; the canker-worm that
is eating out the nation's heart; the sum of all villanies; a fire burning to the lowest hell. Hence the
Antislavery Reform is the most important; all others
are comprehended in it, and he who does not advocate it is recreant to truth and duty.
The Land Reformer is certain that his reform underlies all others,- the soil must be the foundation.
Let the land be equally divided, or every man have
possession of what he can cultivate, and poverty, and
the vice and misery consequent upon it, will flee, and
the golden age return. Slavery could not exist, intemperance would be no more, and the voice of rejoicing would be heard through all the land.
"This reform  all should labor for," says he.
"Hold!"  says the advocate of Woman's Rights.
"Men are what their mothers make them, and they
make bad laws because women who mold them are
robbed of their rights, and hold a degrading position
in the world. Give woman her true position, educate her for her high destiny, and every reform will
follow, as spring the flowers when summer warms
the soil."
All these are useful, all necessary; but nlo one or
two reforms include the whole. Make the world
sober to-morrow, licentiousness, tyranny, war, and
ignorance would still abound; destroy slavery, and
an army of evils would still remain for the reformer
to combat.
I" Find thy work and do it," my brother, my sister.




72                   BE THYSELF.
The business of one is to enter the, untrodden wild,
axe in hand, and with sturdy strokes bring to the
ground the giant trees; of another, to grub up the
busles and pile the brush for burning; the work of a
third, to turn up the virgin soil to the sun's bright
eye, while others follow to scatter broadcast the good
seed, attend the growing crops, and gather in the glorious harvest.  All are necessary; none can say, "I
have no need of thee;" for the final result can only
be obtained by the diversified labor of' all.
ITeed not the teachers who tell thee to deny and
crucify thyself.  Thou art thy  own law, thy own
Bible, thy own model.  There are no Scriptures so
sacred as those written in thy soul; read them carefully, and obey them faithfully, ever seeking for new
light to scan aright their pages, from the world
around thee, transcribed in books, or engraven upon
the ever-living page of Nature herself. So shalt thou
develop into a noble, sound, whole-souled being,
happy in thyself, and diffusing happiness, as the rose
its fragrance, to all around.
Be thyself; a nobler gospel
Never preached the Nazarene;
Be thyself;'tis holy Scripture,
Though no Bible lids between.
Dare to shape the thought in language
That is lying in thy brain;
Dare to launch it, banners flying,
On the bosom of the main.
What though pirate knaves surround thee;
Nail thy colors to the mast;
Flinch not, flee not; boldly sailing,
Thou shalt gain the port at last.




BE THYSELP.                      73
Be no parrot, idly prating
Thoughts the spirit never knew;
Be a prophet of the God-sent,
Telling all thy message true.
True, the coward world will scorn thee,
Friends may fail, and fiends will frown;
Heaven itself grow dark above thee,
Gods in anger thence look down.
Heed not; there's a world more potent
Carried in thy manly heart;
Be thyself, and do thy duty;
It will always take thy part.
If the God within say, "Well done  "
What are other gods to thee?
Hell's his frown; but where his smile is,
There is heaven for the free.








THE DELUGE.








THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
OF MODERN SCIENCE.
IF the Bible is God's book, we ought to know it.
If the Creator of the universe has spoken to man,
how important that we should listen to his voice and
obey his instructions! On the other hand, if the
Bible is not God's book, we ought to know it. Why
should we go through the world with a lie in our
right hand, dupes of the ignorant men who preceded
us? It can never be for our soul's benefit to cherish
a falsehood.
Science is, perhaps, the best test that we can apply
to decide the question. Science is really a knowledge of what Nature has done and is doing; and
since the upholders of the divinity of the Bible be.
lieve that it proceeded from the Author of nature, if
their faith is true, it cannot possibly disagree with
what science teaches.
Science is a fiery furnace, that has consumed a
thousand delusions, and must consume all that remain.
We cast into it astrology and alchemy, and their ashea
barely remain to tell of their existence. Old notions
of the earth and heavens went in, and vanished as
77




78          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
their dupes gazed upon them. Old religions, old
gods, have become as the incense that was burned
before their altars.
I purpose to try the Bible in its searching fire.
Fear not, my brother: it can but burn the straw and
stubble; if gold, it will shline as bright after the fiery
ordeal as before, and reflect as perfectly the image of
truth.
The Bible abounds with marvellous stories, - stories
that we should at once reject from their intrinsic improbability, not to say impossibility, if we should find
them in any other book. But, among all the stories,
there is none that equals the account of the deluge,
as given in the sixth, seventh, and eighth chapters of
Genesis. It towers above the rest as Mount Washington does above the New-England hills; and, as
travellers delight to climb the loftiest peaks, I suppose that many would be pleased to examine this
lofty story, and see how the world of truth and
actuality looks from its summit.
According to the account, in less than two thousand years after God had created all things, alld pronounced them very good, he became thoroughly
dissatisfied with every living thing, and determined
to destroy them with the earth. He thus expresses
himself: "I will destroy man, whom I have created,
from the face of the earth, — both man and beast, and
the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it
repenteth me that I have made them."  Again he
says to Noah, "The end of all flesh is come before
me; for the earth is filled with violence through
them, and behold I will destroy them with the
earth."




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             79
Why should the beasts, birds, and creeping things
be destroyed?  What had the larks, the doves, and
the bob-o-links done?  What had the squirrels and
the tortoises been guilty of, that they should be
destroyed?
He proceeds to inform Noah how he will do this:
"And behold I, even I, do bring a flood of waters
upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the
breath of life, from under heaven; and every thing
that is in the earth shall die." And wve are subsequently informed that " every thing that was in the
dry land died." -But why not every thing in the sea?
Were the dogs sinners, and the dog-fish saints? Had
the sheep been more guilty than the sharks? had the
pigeons become utterly corrupt, and the pikes remained perfectly innocent? It may be, that the
apparent impossibility of drowning them by a flood
suggested to the writer of the story the necessity of
saving them alive.
But Noah was righteous; and God determined to
save him -and his family, eight persons, and by their
instrumentality to save alive animals sufficient to
stock the world again after its destruction.
To do this, Noah was commanded to build an ark,
three hundred cubits long, fifty broad, and thirty
high. It was to be made with three stories, and furnished with one door, and one window a cubit'wide.
Into this ark were to be taken two of every sort of
living thing, and of clean beasts and of birds seven of
every sort, male and female, and food sufficient for
them all.
There are differences of opinion about the length
of the cubit: most probably it was about eighteen




80          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
inches; but taking it at twenty-two inches, the largest
estimate that I believe theologians have made, the
ark was then five hundred and fifty feet long, ninety.
one feet eight inches broad, and fifty-five feet high.
Leaving space for the floors, which would need to be
very strong, each story was about seventeen feet
high; and the total cubical contents of the ark were
about one hundred and two thousand cubic yards.
Scott, in his commentary, makes it as small as sixtynine thousand one hundred and twenty yards; but the
necessity for room was not as well understood in his
day. Each floor of the ark contained five thousand
six hundred and one square yards, and the three
floors sixteen thousand eight hundred and three
square yards, the total standing-room of the ark.
Into this were to be taken fourteen of each kind of
fowl of the air or bird. How many kinds or species
of birds are there? When Adam Clarke wrote his
commentary, two thousand three hundred and sev.
enty-two species had been recognized. Ornithology
was then but in its infancy, and man's knowledge of
living forms was very limited. Lesson, according to
Hugh Miller, enumerates the birds at six thousand
two hundred and sixty-six species; Gray, in his
"Genera of Birds," estimates the number on the globe
at eight thousand. Let us not crowd Noah, but take
the six thousand two hundred and sixty-six species oi
Lesson. Fourteen of each of these would give us eightyseven thousand seven hundred and twenty-four birds,
- from the humming-bird, the little flying jewel, to the
ostrich that fans the heated air of the desert, — or
over five for every yard of standing-room  in the
ark. If spaces were left for the attendants to pass




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             81
among them, to attend to the supply of their daily
wants, the birds alone would crowd the ark.
But, beside the birds, there were to be taken into
the ark two of every sort of unclean beast and fourteen
of every sort of clean beast. The most recent zoological authorities enumerate two thousand and sixtyseven species of mammals, or, as they are commonly
called, beasts. Of cetacea, or whale-like mammals,
sixty-five; ruminatia, or cud-chewers, one hundred and
seventy-seven; pachydermata, or thick-skinned mammals, such as the horse, hog, and elephant, forty-one;
edentata, like the sloth and ant-eater, thirty-five;
rodentia, or gnawers, such as the rat, squirrel, and
beaver, six hundred and seventeen; carnivora, or
flesh-eaters, four hundred and forty-six; cheiroptera,
or bats, three hundred and twenty-eight; quadrumana, or monkeys, two hundred and twenty-one; and
marsupialia, or pouched mammals, like the opossum
and kangaroo, one hundred and thirty-seven. If we
leave out the cetacea, that live in the water, and the
cud-chewers, which are the clean beasts, we have one
thousand eight hundred and twenty-five species; and
male and female of these, a total of three thousand
six hundred and fifty.
But, besides these, there were to be taken into the
ark fourteen of every kind of clean beast. And what
are clean beasts? The scriptural answer is, animals
that divide the hoof and chew the cud; and of these at
least one hundred and seventy-seven species are known.
Fourteen of each of these added, make a total of six
thousand one hundred and twenty-eight mammals,
from the mouse to the elephant. These beasts could not
be piled one upon another like cord-wood; they could
6




82          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
not be promiscuously crowded together. The sheep
would need careful protection from the lions, tigers,
and wolves; the elephant and other ponderous beasts
would require stalls of great thickness; much room
would be required to enable them to obtain needful
exercise, and for the attendants to supply them with
food and water; and a vessel of the size of the ark
would be taxed to provide for these beasts alone;
and to crowd in, and preserve alive, beasts and birds,
was an absolute impossibility.
But there are of reptiles six hundred and fifty-seven
species; and Noah was to take into the ark two of
every sort of creeping thing. Two hundred of these
reptiles are, however, aquatic: hence water would not
seriously affect them; but crocodiles, lizards, iguanas,
tree-frogs, horned frogs, thunder-snakes, chickensnakes, brittlesnakes, rattlesnakes, copperheads, asps,
cobra de capellos, whose bite is certain death, and
a host of others, must be provided for. It would
not do to allow these disagreeable individuals to
crawl about the ark; and nine hundred and fourteen
of them would require considerable space, whether
they could obtain it or not.
By this time, the ark is doubly crowded; but its
living cargo is not yet completed. A dense cloud of
insects, and a vast army destitute of wings, make their
appearance, and clamor fobr admission. The number
of articulates that must have been provided for is
estimated at seven hundred and fifty thousand species,- from the butterflies of Brazil, fourteen inches
from the tip of one wing to the tip of the other, to
the almost invisible gnat, that dances in the summer's
beam. Ants, beetles, flies, bugs, fleas, mosquitoes,




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             83
wasps, bees, moths, butterflies, spiders, scorpions,
grasshoppers, locusts, myriapods, canker-worms, wriggling, crawling, creeping, flying, male and females
here they come, and all must be provided for.
Nor are these the last.  The air-breathing land.
snails, of which we know four thousand six hundred
species, could never have survived a twelve months'
soaking; and they must therefore be cared for. The
nine thousand two hundred of these add no little to
the discomfort of the trebly.crowded ark.
Now let the flood come: all are lodged in the ark
of safety, and are ready for a year's voyage. But we
forget: the ark has not yet received one-half of its
cargo. The command given unto Noah was, " Take
thou unto thee of all food that is eaten, and thou
shalt gather it to thee; and it shall be for food for
thee and for them; " and we are expressly told that
"'according to all that God commanded Noah, so
did he."
Food for how long? The flood began in the " sixth
hundreth year of Noah's life, in the second month,
the seventeenth day of the month." Noah, his family,
and the animals, went in seven days before this time,
and left the ark the six hundred and first year of
Noah's life, the second month, and the twenty-seventh day of the month. They were therefore in the
ark for one year and seventeen days.
What a quantity of hay would be required, the
material most easily obtained I An elephant eats four
hundred pounds of hay in twenty-four hours. Since
there are two species of elephants, the African and
the Indian, there must have been four elephants in
the ark; and, supposing them to live upon hay, they




84          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
would require three hundred tons.  There are at
least seven species of the rhinoceros; and fourteen
of these, at sevelnty-five tons each, would consume no
less than one thousand and fifty tons. The two thousand four hundred and seventy-eight clean beasts,oxen, elk, giraffes, camels, deer, antelope, sheep,
goats, with the horses, zebras, asses, hippopotami,
rodents, and marsupials - could not have required less
than four thousand five hundred tons; making a total
of five thousand eight Ilundred and fifty tons. A
ton of hay occupies about eighteen cubic yards; and
the quantity of hay required would fill a hundred
and five thousand three hundred cubic yards of space,
or more than the entire capacity of the ark.
If these animals were fed on other substances than
hay, the extra difficulty of obtaining and preserving
those substances would counterbalance any advantage that might be gained by the economy of' space.
A vast quantity of grain would be necessary for
thousands of birds, rodents, marsupials, and other
animals; and large granaries would be required for its
storage.
What flesh would be needed for the lions, tigers,
leopards, ounces, wild-cats, wolves, bears, hyenas,
jackalls, dogs, and foxes, martens, weasels, eagles,
condors, vultures, buzzards, falcons, hawks, kites,
owls, as well as crocodiles and serpents! Not one
but would eat its weight in a month, and some much
more. A full-grown lion eats fifteen pounds of flesh
in a day: there are two species of lions; and the four
would eat twenty-two thousand pounds in a year.
There would be, at least, three thousand animals




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             85
feeding upon flesh; and, if we calculate that they
averaged two pounds of flesh a day, this would
give a total of more than two million and a quarter
pounds of flesh to be stored up and distributed.
And since dried, salted, or smoked meat would not
answer, this flesh must have been taken into the ark
alive. It would be equal to more than thirty thousand sheep at seventy-five pounds each; a great addition to the original cargo, and necessitating an
extra quantity of hay for their food, till their turn
came to be eaten.
Fish would be required for the otters, minks, pelicans, of which there are eight species, and must
therefore have been fifty-six individuals in the ark;
one hundred and five gulls, for there are fifteen
species; one hundred and twelve cormorants, fortynine gannets, one hundred and forty terns, two hundred and  eighty-seven kingfishers, beside storks,
herons, spoonbills, penguins, albatrosses, and a host
of others; mollusks for the oyster-catcher, turnstone,
and other birds.
The fish could not be preserved after death in any
way to answer for food, and must therefore have
been alive: large tanks for the purpose of keeping
them would take up considerable of the ark's space.
The water in such tanks would soon become unfitted
for the respiration of the fish, and there must have
been some provision, by air-pumps or otherwise, for
charging the water with the air essential to their
existence.
Many animals live upon insects; and this must
have been the most difficult part of the provision to
procure. There are nineteen species of goatsuckers;




86          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
and there must have been in, the ark two hundred
and sixty-six individuals.  These birds feed upon
flies, moths, beetles, and other insects.  What an innumerable multitude must have been provided for the
goatsuckers alone! But there are a hundred and
thirty-seven species of fly-catchers; and Noah must
hlave had a fly-catcher family of nineteen hundred and
eighteen individuals to supply with apprepriate food.
There are thirty-seven species of bee-eaters; and
there must have been five hundred and eighteen of
these birds to supply with bees.  A  very large
apiary would be required to supply their needs. But,
beside these, insects for swallows, swifts, martins,
shrikes, thrushes, orioles, sparrows, the beautiful
trogans and jacamars, moles, shrews, hedgehogs, and
a multitude of others, too numerous to mention, but
not too numerous to eat. Ants, also, for the ant-eaters
of America, the aard-vark of Africa, and the pangolin of Asia. The great ant-eater of South America
is an animal sometimes measuring eight feet in
length. It lives exclusively on ants, which it procures by tearing open their hills with its hooked
claws, and then drawing its long tongue, which is
covered with  glutinous saliva, over the swarms
which rush out to defend their dwelling.  Many
bushels of ants would be needed for the pair of anteaters before the ark landed on Ararat. How were
all the insects caught, and kept for the use of all these
animals for more than a year? A hundred men could
not catch a sufficient number in six months. And, if
caught, how could they be preserved, together with
the original stock of insects necessary to supply the
world after the deluge? Some insects eat only bark;




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             87
others, resinous secretions, the pith, solid wood.
leaves, sap in the veins, as the aphide, flowers, pollen, and honey. Wood, bark, resin, and honey might
have been supplied; but how could green leaves, sap,
flowers and pollen, be furnished to those insects absolutely requiring them for existence? Thirty species
of insects feed on the nettle, but not one of them
could live on dried nettles.  Risel calculates that
two hundred species subsist on the oak; but the oak
must be in a growing condition to supply them with
food. In no other way, then, could the insects have
been preserved alive than by large green-houses, the
heat so applied as to suit the plants of both temperate and tropical climates, and the insects so distributed among them, that each could obtain its
appropriate nourishment.
Fruit would be necessary for the four hundred and
forty-two monkeys, for the plantain-eaters, the fruitpigeons of the Spice Islands that feed on nutmegs,
for the toucans and the flocks of parrots, parroquets,
cockatoos, and other fruit-eating birds. As they did
not know how to can fruit in those days, and dried
fruit would be altogether unsuitable, there must have
been a large green-house for raising all manner of
fruit necessary for the frugivorous multitude.
How were the varioas animals obtained? The command given to Noah was, "Two of every sort shalt
thou bring into the ark."
Animals, as is now well known, belong to limited
centres, outside of which they are never found in a
natural state; and naturalists know that these centres were established ages before the time when the
deluge is supposed to have occurred.




88          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
Thus, Hugh Miller, in his " Testimony of the Rocks,"
says," We now know that every great continent has
its own peculiar fauna; that the original centres of
distribution must have been, not one, but many;
further, that the areas or circles around these centres
must have been occupied by their pristine animals in
ages long anterior to that of the Noachian Deluge;
nay, that in even the latter geologic ages they were
preceded in them by animals of the same general
type. There are fourteen such areas, or provinces,
enumerated by the later naturalists; " and Cuvier,
quoted by Miller, says, " The great continents contain
species peculiar to each; insomuch, that whenever
large countries, of this description, have been discovered, which their situation had kept isolated from the
rest of the world, the class of quadrupeds which they
contained has been found extrernely different from
any that had existed elsewhere. Thus, when the Spaniards first penetrated into South America, they did
not find a single species of quadruped the same as
any of Europe, Asia, or Africa."
The white bear is never found except in the arctic
regions; the great grizzly bear is only found in the
neighborhood of the Rocky Mountains. Nearly all
the species of mammals found in Australia are confined to that country, as the wingless birds of New
Zealand are confined to that, and the sloth, armadillo,
and other animals, to South America.
A journey to the polar regions would be necessary
to obtain the white bear, the musk-ox, of which seven
would be required, since it is a clean beast; seven
reindeer, likewise; the white fox, the polar hare, the
lemming, and seven of each species of cormorant,




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             89
gannet, penguin, petrel, and gull, some of which are
as1 large as eagles, as well as mergansers, geese, and
ducks, certain species of which are only found in the
frigid zone. Noah or his agents must have discov.
ered Greenland and North America thousands of
years before Columbus was born: they must have
preceded Behring, Parry, Ross, Kane, and Hayes in
exploring the Arctic regions. They searched the icefloes and numerous islands of the Arctic seas, snowshoed, over the frozen tundras of Siberia, to be certain that no living thing escaped them; then, after
catching and caging all the animals, conveyed them,
with all manner of food necessary for their sustenance,
together with ice to temper the heat of the climate
to which they were for more than a year to be exposed, returned to the nearest port, and, after a toilsome journey from the sea-coast to Armenia, arrived
at their destination. How many of these animals
would survive the journey? and, of those that did,
how many would survive the change of climate and
habits?
Another party must have visited temperate America; traversed New England in its length and breadth,
forded wide streams, made their way through unbroken wildernesses, traversed the  Great Lakes,
roamed over the Rocky Mountains, and secured the
bllack bear, cinnamon bear, wapiti or Canadian stag,
the moose, American deer, antelope, mountain sheep,
buffalo, opossum, rattlesnake, copperhead, and an
innumerable multitude of other animals - insects
birds, reptiles, and mammals, that are only to be found
in the temperate regions of America.
t voyage to South America must have been made




90          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
to obtain tapirs, pumas, peccaries, sloths, ant-eaters:
armadilloes, fourteen each of the llama, alpaca, and vi.
cuna, beside monkeys, birds, and insects innumerable.
A vessel nearly as large as "The Great Eastern"
must have been employed, or a number of smaller
ones, to accommodate the collectors, the animals, and
food for a voyage across the Atlantic.  There must
have been, at least, a thousand men, wandering
through the woods of Brazil, along the valley of the
Amazon, the Orinoco, and the La Plata; paddling up
the streams, scaling the mountains, roaming over the
pampas, climbing the tall trees, turning over every
stone and log, and exploring every nook, to discover
the snails, bugs, insects, worms, reptiles, and other
animals indigenous to South America, from the Isthmus to Terra-del-fuego.
There must have been obtained four elephants, for
there are two species, the Asiatic and the Indian;
fourteen rhinoceroses, one of which is found only in
South Africa, another in the island of Java, and a
third in Sumatra; two hippopotami, and possibly four,
for some authorities say there are two species.  Fourteen giraffes, since they are clean beasts, must have
been caught and driven from Central Africa (many
more, indeed, must have been caught, that the required number might reach the ark and be preserved);
twenty-eight camels, two hundred and eighty oxen (for
there are twenty species, and they are clean); and no
less than thirteen hundred and eighty-six deer and antelope, of which there are ninety-nine species recognized: these to be collected in various parts of Europe,
Asia., Northern and Southern Africa, and America.
New Zealand must have been visited to obtain its




OF MODERN SCIENCE.               91
wingless birds; Mauritius for its dodo, then living;
Australia for its marsupials and other peculiar animals; and every large island, and most of the small
ones, to obtain those forms of life that are only to be
found in each. From the island of Celebes, they must
have taken the eighty species of birds that are confined
to it, which would require them  to catch, cage, feed,
and convey eleven hundred and twenty specimels:
a no small job of itself.  Ten men that could accomplish that, and carry them safe to Armenia, would do
all that men could do in ten years.  From  the Philippine Islands, the seventy-three species of hawks, parrots, anrid pigeons, peculiar to them; which would require, since fourteen of every kind of bird were to be
taken into the ark, no less than one thousand and
twenty-two specimens.  From  New Guinea, and the
neighboring islands, two hundred and fifty-two of the
magnificent birds of paradise, since tlhere are eighteen
species.
A faint idea of the difficulties encountered and
overcome by Noah's agents may be gathered from
what Wallace, in his recent work on the Malay Archipelago, informs us respecting these birds of paradise.'" Five voyages to different parts of the district they
inhabit, each occupying in its preparation and execution the larger part of a year, produced me only five
species out of the fourteen known to exist in the NewGuinea district."  If it took Wallace, with all the assistance that lie had from various officials, five years to
obtain five species, represented by dead birds, how long
did it take Noah's agents to obtain eighteen species
represented by two hundred and fifty-two live birds?
Wallace could only obtain two alive, and for these lihe
had to pay five hundred dollars.




92          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
If the antediluvian sinners were any thing like the
modern ones, Noah must have been richer than the
Rothschilds, or he never could have obtained their
services; which he must have done, or it could never
be truthfully said, "according to all that God commanded him, so did he."
The collection of the land-snails alone would be no
small tax.  Seventy-four  are peculiar to  Great
Britain: hence there must have been a hundred and
fobrty-eight snails collected from  that island.  Six
hundred species are found in Southern Europe alone,
and twelve hundred must have been collected from
there; eighty in Sicily, ten in Corsica, two hundred
and sixty-four in the Madeira Islands, a hundred and
twenty in the Canary Islands, twenty-six in St.
Helena, sixty-three in Southern Africa, eighty-eight
in Madagascar, a hundred and twelve in Ceylon, a
hundred in New Zealand, and others on every large
and some of the small islands of the globe.  The
world must have been circumnavigated many times
before the vessel of Magellan was built, and every
island visited and ransacked ages before the time of
Captain Cook. But it seems surprising, since these
voyages must have been performed by the sinful antediluvians, that they did not save themselves in their
ships when the flood came; for vessels that could
perform such voyages would certainly have survived
the flood more readily than the clumsy ark.
But was it really done? A thousand men in ten
years, with all the appliances of modern art, - steam.boats, railroads, canals, coaches, and express comr
panies, - could not accomplish it in ten years; nor ten
times the number of men keep all the animals alive in




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             93
one spot for one year, if they were collected togetlier.
"' But," says the Christian, " Noah never did collect them: no intelligent person in this day ever supposes that he did."  What then?  " The Bible expressly declares that'they went in unto Noah into
the ark.' By instinct, such as leads the swallow to
take its distant flight at the approach of winter, they
came from  all parts of the globe to the ark of
safety."
It is true that one account does say that they came
in unto Noah, for there are two very different stories
of the deluge mixed up in those chapters of Genesis;
but, although flying birds might perform such a feat
as going twelve thousand miles to the ark, which
would be necessary for some, how could other animals get there? It would be impossible even for
some birds. How could the ostriches of Africa, the
emus of Australia, and the rheas of South America,
get there, - birds that never fly? There are three
species of the rhea, or South-American ostrich; and
forty-two of these would have a journey of eight
thousand miles before them, by the shortest route:
but how could they cross the Atlantic?  If they
went by land, they must have traversed the length of
the American continent, from Patagonia to Alaska,
crossed at Behring's Strait when it was frozen, and
then travelled diagonally across nearly.the whole
continent of Asia to Armenia, after a journey that
must have required many months for its completion.
The sloths, that have been confined to South America ever since the pliocene period at least, must have
taken the same route. How they crossed the moun



94          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
tain streams, and lived when passing over broad
prairies, it would be difficult to say. A mile a day
would be a rapid rate for these slow travellers, and it
would therefore require about forty years for them
to arrive at their destination. But, since the life of a
sloth is not as long as this, they must have bequeathed their journey to their posterity, and they
to their descendants, born on the way, who must
have reached the ark before the door was closed.
The land-snails must have met with still greater
difficulties. Impelled by most wonderful instinct,
they commenced their journey full a thousand years
before the time; and their posterity of the five hundredth generation must have made their appearance,
and been provided with a passage by the venerable
Noah.
Scott, who wrote a commentary on the Bible seventy or eighty years ago, must have seen some of
these difficulties, though with nothing like the clearness with which science enables us to see them now.
He says, "There must have been a very extraordinary miracle wrought, perhaps by the ministration
of angels, in bringing two of every species to Noah,
and rendering them submissive to him and peaceable
with each other; yet it seems not to have made any
impression on the hardened spectators."
Think of a troop of angels fly-catching, snail-seeking, and bug-hunting  through  all lands, lugging
through the air, horses, giraffes, elephants, and rhinoceroses, and dropping them at the door of the ark.
One has crossed the Atlantic with rattlesnakes, copperheads, and boas twined around him, almost crip.
pling his wings with their snaky folds; and another




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             95
with a brace of skunks, one under each wing, that
the renewed world may not lack the fragrance of the
old. What a subject for the pencil of a Raphael or
Dore! Had the " hardened spectators," beheld such a
scene as this, Noah and his cargo would have been
cast out of the ark, and the sinners themselves, converted by this stupendous miracle, would have taken
passage therein.
Not only must there have been a succession of most
stupendous miracles to get the animals to the ark, but
also to return them to their proper places of abode.
But few of them could have lived in the neighborhood of Ararat, had they been left there. How could
the polar bear return to his home among the icebergs, the sloths to the congenial forests of the New
World, and all the mammals, reptiles, insects, and
snails to their respective habitats, the homes of their
ancestors for ages innumerable?  To return them
was just as necessary as to obtain them, and, though
less difficult, was equally impossible.
How could eight persons, all that were saved in the
ark, attend to all these animals!  Nearly all would
require food and water once a day, and many twice.
In a menagerie, one man takes care of four cages, -
feeds, cleans, and waters the animals. In the ark,
each person, women included, must have attended
each day to ten thousandc nine hundred  and sixtyfour birds, seven hundred and sixty-six beasts, one
hundred and fourteen reptiles, one thousand one hundred and fifty land-snails, and one hundred and
eighty-seven thousand five hundred insects.
Few persons have an idea of the difficulty of keep.
ing even the common birds of a temperate climate




96          THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
alive in confinement for any length of time. Food
that is quite suitable in a wild state may be fatal to
them when they are kept in the house.  Linnets feed
on winter rape-seed in the wild state, but soon die if
fed upon it in-doors.  " They are to be fed," says
Bechstein," on summer rape-seed, moistened in water;
and their food must be varied by the addition (of
millet, radish, cabbage, lettuce and plantain-seeds,
and sometimes a few bruised melon-seeds or barberries." Nightingales, he says, should be fed on meal,
worms, and fresh ants' eggs: but, if it is not possible
to get these, a mixture of hard egg, ox-heart minced,
and white broad may be given; but this often kills the
birds. No such food would do for Noah's nightingales, then, or where would have been the nightingale's song? They must have been fed on meal,
worms, and fresh ant's eggs. How they were obtained, we have, of course, no knowledge. Bechstein
says that larks may be fed'with "' a paste made of
grated carrot, white bread soaked in water, and barley or wheat meal, all worked together in a mortar.
In addition to this paste, larks should be supplied
with poppy-seed, bruised hemp, crumb of bread,
and plenty of greens, such as lettuce, endive, cabbage, with a little lean meat or ant-eggs occasionally."
Ite says the cage should be furnished with a piece of
fresh turf, often renewed, and great attention should
be paid to cleanliness. The care of the birds in the
ark probably fell to the women. As they had not
read Bechstein, or any other author on bird-keeping,
and thousands of the birds must have been total
strangers to them, - how did they know what diet to
supply them with, and where could they get it, supposing tlhey hbad time to supply them at all?'




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             97
If the difficulty was great to keep the birds of a
temperate climate, how much greater must it have
been to keep tropical birds in a climate altogether
unsuited to them? The two birds of paradise bought
by Wallace were fed, he says, on rice, bananas, and
cockroaches: of the last, he obtained several cans
from a bake-house at Malta, and thus got his paradise
birds, by good fortune, to England. But how many
cans of cockroaches would be necessary for two hundred and fifty-two of such birds,- the number in
the ark? and where were the bake-houses from
which the supply might be obtained?
To keep this vast menagerie clean would have required a large corps of efficient workers, especially
when we remember that there was but one door in
each story, as some suppose; or one door to the
whole ark, as the story seems to teach, and this door
was closed; and but one window, and that apparently
in the roof. The Augean stable, the cleansing of
which was one of the labors of Hercules, can but
faintly indicate what must have been the condition of
the ark in less than a month, supposing the animals
to subsist as long.
Whence came the water that covered the earth to the
tops of the highest mountains?  "All the high hills
that were under the whole heaven were covered.
Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and
the mountains were covered," says the record. And
to do this, it rained for forty days and forty nights.
A fall of an inch of water in a day is considered a
very heavy rain in Great Britain. The heaviest sin.
gle rain recorded fell on the Khasia Hills in India,
and amounted to thirty inches in twenty-four hours.
7




98         THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
If this deluging rain could have continued for forty
days and nights, and had it fallen over the entire surface of the globe; the amount would only have been
one hundred feet; which, instead of covering the
mountains, would not have covered the hills. But,
of course, such a rain is only possible for a very
limited time, and on a small portion of the earth's
surface.
Sir John Leslie, in " The Encyclopedia Britannica,"
says, " Supposing the vast canopy of air, by some
sudden change of internal constitution, at once to
discharge its whole watery store, this precipitate
would form a sheet of scarcely five inches thick over
the surface of the globe." But if the water that covered the earth above the tops of the highest mountains came by rain, it must have rained seven
hundred feet a day for forty days! or there must
have fallen each day, according to Sir John Leslie's
estimate, more than fourteen hundred times as much
water on the earth as the atmosphere contained!
But the writer says, " The fountains of the great
deep were broken up." To the Jews, who supposed,
with David, that God had founded the earth upon the
seas, and established it upon the floods, this meant
something; but, in the light of geology, we see that
it only demonstrates the ignorance of the man who
wrote and the people that believed the story.
Adam Clarke, commenting on this passage, says,
"It appears that an immense quantity of water occupied the centre of the antediluvian earth; and, as this
burst forth by the order of God, the circumambient
strata must sink in order to fill up the vacuum occa.
sioned by the elevated waters." If true, it would not




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             99
have assisted in drowning the world one spoonful.
For if the strata sank anywhere to fill the hollow previously occupied by the water, it would only make
the mountains so much higher in comparison: hence
it would require just that muchl extra water to cover
them. In the, light of geology, however, the notion
is sufficiently absurd. A mile and a half deep, the
earth's interior is hot enough to convert water into
steam; there is, therefore, no chance for water to
exist in its centre, or anywhere near it.
It is as great cc diiculty to discover where the water
went when the flood was over.  We are told that the
fountains of the deep and the windows of heaven
were stopped, and the rain was restrained. But this
could do nothing towards diminishing the water. All
that it could possibly accomplish would be to prevent
the rise of the water. But we are also told that 1" God
made a wind to pass over the earth."  All that the
wind could do, however, would be to convey to the
atmosphere the moisture it tookl up in vapor; -and
this could not have lowered the water a yard. The
highest mountain, Kunchinginga, is more than twentyeight thousand feet high; the flood prevailed one
hundred and fifty days, and abated two hundred and
twenty-five; and if this abatement was done by the
wind, it must have blown an ocean of water from the
entire surface of the earth, one hundred and twentyfive deep, every day for eight months! All the hurricanes that ever blew, blowing at once, would be the
gentlest zephyr of a summer's eve, compared with
such a wind as that; and by what possibility could
such a craft as the ark survive the storm?
A question, proper to be asked is, How were the




.100        THE DELUGE IN THE L~GHT
animals supplied with light? and how did the attendants
see to wait upon them in the first and second stories
of the ark?  There was but one window, and that
only twenty-two inches in size, and it appears to have
been in the third story. it was a day when kerosene
was unknown, and tallow dips were uninvented. How
did these animals live in the darkness? and, above all,
how did Noah and his family supply their wants? It
could have been no easy or pleasant thing to wait
upon hungry lions, tigers, crocodiles, and rattlesnakes
in the dark, to say nothing of the danger.
~H ow did they breathe?  There was but one twentytwo inch window; the ark was " pitched within and
without withl pitch " " The Lord shut him in." Talk
of the Blackl Hole of Calcutta: it must have been
pure as the breath of morning compacred with the
condition of the ark in one day.
Where did they obtain water for drink? Supposing
all the additional water needed to drown the world
was fresh, when mingled with the water of the sea,
as much as one-tenth of it would be salt water, and
this would render it utterly unfit for drink. Provision must therefore have been made for water; and a
space certainly half as large as the ark must have
been taken up for the water necessary for this immense multitude.
iThe fish, mollusks, crustaceans (such as our crabs alnd
lobsters), and all corals, must have died if such a flood
had taken place, - the fresh-water fish from the salt
water at once added to their proper element, and
the salt-water fish and other marine forms from so
large an addition of fresh water. For months, there
could havo been no shore: what is now the margin




OF MBODERN SCIENCE.           101
of the sea was buried miles deep; and all the fucoidal
vegetation, upon which myriads of animals subsist,
must have perished, and the animals with it, if the
change in the constitution of the water had not killed
them. Every time a man swallows an oyster, he has
evidence that the Noachian deluge did not take
place.
The plants must have perished also. How many of
our trees, to say nothing of the grasses and feeble
plants, could endure a soaking of nearly twelve
months' duration? Some of the very hardiest seeds
might survive, but the number could not be large.
The present condition of vegetation upon the globe
is another evidence, then, that this deluge did not
take place.
When the ark landed on Mount Ararat, and the
animals went forth, how did they subsist?  As they
went down the mountains, the carnivorous animals
would have devoured a large portion of the herbivw
orous animals saved in the ark.  Beside the lions,
tigers, leopards, ounces, and other carnivorous mammals, amounting to eight hundred and ninety-two, there
were in the ark six hundred and sixty-six eagles, for
there are forty-eight species; one hundred and fortyfour buzzards, fourteen hundred and forty-two falcons,
one hundred and forty hawks, two hundred and thirtyeight vultures, and eight hundred and ninety six owls.
What chance would a few sheep, rabbits and squirrels, rats and mice, doves and chickens, have, among
this ravenous multitude? How could the ants escape,
with ant.eaters, aard-varks and pangolins on the
watch for them as soon as they made their appearance?  There were as many dogs as hares, as many




102         THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
cats as mice. How long a lease of life could the
sheep, hares, and mice, calculate upon? Before the
lerbivorous animals had multiplied, so as to furnish
the carnivorous animals with food, they must all have
been destroyed, after all the painls taken for their preservation. Noah should have given the her-bi vora, at
least a year's start, especially since the vegetation of
the globe was so deficient.
But we are told that the species of animals may
have been much fewer in the days of Noah; and,
therefore, much less room would be necessary. A
single pair of cats, say some, may have produced all
the animrals of the cat kind; a pair of' dogs, all the
animals that belong to the dog family. Such an explanation might have been given when zoology was
little known, and geology had no existence; but there
is no place for it now. Animals change, it is true,
and all species have probably been produced from a
few originals; but the process by which this is accomplished is so slow in its operation, that we have no
knowledge of the formation of a new species. We
know that lions, tigers, and cats of various species,
existed long before the time of the deluge, and dogs,
wolves and foxes; and we find mummied cats, dogs,
and other animals in Egypt, as old or older than the
deluge, so little changed from those of the present
time in the same locality, that we cannot recognize
any difference between them.
" You seem to forget that all things are possible with
God: Ihe could have packed these animals into an ark
of one-half the size, brought them altogether in the
twinkling  of an eye, and returned themr as rapidly."
And you seem to forget that the account in Gene



OF MODERN SCIENCE.             103
sis gives us no hint of any such miracle. Noah was
to take the animals to him, and to take unto him of all
food that is eaten; and, as Hugh Miller remarks,
"' the expedient of having recourse to supposititious
miracle in order to get over a difficulty insurmountable on every natural principle, is not of the nature of
an argument, but simply an evidence of the want of
it. Argument is at an end when supposititious miracle is introduced."  But, if a miracle was worked, it
was not one, but ten thousand of the most stupen.
dous miracles, and entirely unnecessary ones. This,
the Rev. Dr. Pye Smith saw, when he said, " We cannot represent to ourselves the idea of all land animals being brought into one small spot, from the polar
regions, the torrid zone, and all the other climates of
Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, Australia, and the
thousands of islands, - their preservation and provision, and the final disposal of them,-  without
bringing up the idea of miracles more stupendous
than any  that are recorded in  Scripture.  The
great decisive miracle of Christianity, - the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, - sinks down before it."
It is a favorite method with the advocates of special
revelations to show their agreement with the operations of natural law, till a difficulty is met with that
cannot- be answered, when they flee at once to miracle to save them. But, in this case, miracle itself
cannot save them.
Geology furnishes us with evidence that no such
deluge has taken place. According to Hugh Miller,
"In various parts of the world, such as Auvergne in
Central France, and along the flanks of Etna, there are
cones of long-extinct or long-slumbering volcanoes,




104         THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
which, though of at least triple the antiquity of the
Noachian deluge, and though composed of the ordinary incoherent materials, exhibit no marks of denudation. According to the calculations of Sir Charles
Lyell, no devastating flood could have passed over
the forest-zone of Etna during the last twelve thousand years."
Arcllhology enters her protest equally against it.
We have abundance of Egyptian mummies, statues,
inscriptions, paintings, and other representations of
Egyptian life belonging to a much earlier period than
the deluge. With only such modifications as time
slowly introduced, we find the people, their language,
and their habits, continuing after that time, as they
had done for centuries before. Lepsius, writing from
the pyramids of Memphis, in 1843, says, "a We are
still busy with structures, sculptures, and inscrip.
tions, which are to be classed, by means of the now
more accurately determined groups of kings, in an
epoch of highly flourishing civilization, as far back as
the fourth millennium before Christ." That is one thousand six hundred and fifty-six years before the time
of the flood. Lyell says that " Chevalier Bunsen, in
his elaborate and philosophical work on ancient Egypt,
has satisfied not a few of the learned, by an appeal to
monumental inscriptions still extant, that the succes.
sive dynasties of kings may be traced back without
a break, to Menes, and that the date of his reign
would correspond with the year 3,640 B. C.;" that is
nearly thirteen hundred years before the time of the
deluge. Strange that the whole world should have
been drowned and the Egyptians never knew it!
From the" Types of Mankind," we learn that the fact




OF MODERN SCIENCEo             105
is "asserted by Lepsins, and familiar to all Egyptolo4
gists, that negro and other races already existed in
Northern Africa, on the Upper Nile, 2,300 years
B.C."
But this is only forty-eight years after the deluge.
What kind of a family had Noah?  Was amalgamation practised by any of Noah's sons?  If all the
human occupants of the ark were Caucasians, how
did they produce negro races in forty-eight years?
The facts again compel us to announce the fabulous
character of this Genesical story of the deluge.
" No intelligent person now believes that it was a
total deluge: Buckland, Pye Smith, Miller, Hitchcock,
and all Christian geologists, agree that it was a partial
deluge, and the account can be so explained."
How strange that God should dictate an account of
the deluge that led' everybody to a false conclusion
with regard to it, till science taught them a better.
But let us read what the account says, and see
whether it can be explained to signify a partial
deluge. To save the Bible from its inevitable fate,
such men as Buckland, Smith, Miller, Hitchcock, and
other Bible apologists, it is evident from their writings, were ready to resort to any scheme, however
wild.
I read (Gen. vi. 7), "I will destroy both man and
beast, and the creeping thing."  How could a partial
deluge accomplish this? (v. 13); "The end of all flesh
is come before me. I will destroy them with the
earth." Hfow could all flesh be destroyed with the
earth by any other than a total deluge? (v. 17);
" I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to de.
stroy all flesh wherein is the breath of life, from




106         THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
under heaven; and every thing that is in the earth
shall die." Not only is man to be destroyed, but all
flesh wherein is the breath of life, from under
heaven, and every thing in the earth is to die.
Can this be tortured to mean a partial deluge? (vii.
19); "And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon
the earth; and all the high hills that were under
the whole heaven were covered; and all flesh died
that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of
cattle, and of beast, and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man. All in whose
nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the
dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both
man and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl
of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the
earth, and Noah only remained alive, and they that
were with him in the ark."  Had the man who wrote
this story been a lawyer, and had he known how
these would-be-Bible-believers, and at the same time
geologists, would seek to pervert his meaning, he
could not have more carefully worded his account.
It is not possible for any man to express the idea of a
total flood more definitely than this manl has done.
lie does not merely say the hills were covered, but
"' all" the hills were covered; and lest you should
think that he certainly did not mean the most elevated,
he is careful to say " all the high " hills were covered;
and lest some one should say he only meant the hills
in that part of the country, he says expressly'" all the
high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered."  He is even so cautious as to introduce the
phrase " whole heaven," lest some one in its absence




OF MODERN SCIENCE.            107
might still think that the deluge was a partial one.
To make its universality still more evident, he says,
" All flesh died that moved upon the earth." This
would have been sufficiently definite for most persons,
but not so for him; he particularizes so that none may
escape, -" both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast,
and of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth,
and every man." To leave no possibility of mistake,
lie adds, " all in whose nostrils was the breath of life,
of all that was in the dry land, died." Can any thing
more be needed? The writer seems to see that some
theological professor may even yet try to make this
mean a partial deluge; and he therefore says, "' Every
living substance was destroyed which was upon the
face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the
creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; they
were destroyed from  the earth."  Is it possible to
add to the strength of this? He thinks it is; and he
therefore says, " Noah only remained alive, and they
that were with him in the ark."  Could any truthful
man write this and then mean that less than a hundredth part of the earth's surface was covered. If
not a total flood, why save the animals, above all the
birds? All that Noah and his family need to have
done would have been to move out of the region till
the storm was over. If a partial flood, how could the
ark have rested on the mountains of Ararat? Ararat
itself is seventeen thousand feet high, and it rises
from a plateau that is seven thousand feet above the
sea-level. A flood that enabled the ark to float on to
that mountain could not have been far from uni



108         THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
versal; and, when such a flood is accounted for on
scientific principles, it will be just as easy to account
for a total flood.
" The flood was only intended to destroy man, and
therefore only covered those parts of the earth that
were occupied by him."  The Bible states, however,
that it was intended to destroy every thing wherein
was the breath of life; and your account and the Bible
account do not at all agree. But, if man was intended
to be destroyed, the flood must have been widespread. We know that Africa was occupied before
that time, and had been for thousands of years, by
various races. We learn, from the recent discoveries
in the Swiss Lakes, that man was in Switzerland before that time; in France, as Boucher's and Rigollet's
discoveries prove; in Great Britain, as the caves in
Devonshire show; in North America, as the fossil
human skull beneath Table Mountain demonstrates.
Hence, for the flood to destroy man alone at so recent
a period, it must have been as wide spread as the
earth.
Even according to the Bible account, the garden of
Eden, where man was first placed, was somewhere
near the Euphrates; and in sixteen hundred years
the race must have rambled over a large part of the
earth's surface. The highest mountains in the world,
the Himalayas, are within two thousand miles of the
Euphrates.  That splendid  country, India, would
have been occupied long before the time of the
deluge; and, on the flanks of the Himalayas, man
could have laughed at any flood that natural causes
could possibly produce.




OF MODERN SCIENCE.             109':How do you account, then, for these traditions of
a deluge that we find all over the globe?"
Nothing more easy. In all times floods have occurred; some by heavy and long-continued rains,
others by the bursting of lake-barriers or the irruption of the sea; and wherever traditions of these
have been met with, men with the Bible story in their
minds have at once attributed their origin to the
Noachian deluge.
"But Jesus and the apostles endorse thee account of
the deluge."
Granted; but does that transform  a fable into a
fact?  They believed the story just as our modern
theologians believe it; because they were taught it
when they were children, and had not learned better.
Jesus says (Matt. xxv. 37-39), " But as the days of Noe
were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be.
For, as in the days that were before the flood they
were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in
marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,
and knew not until the flood came and took them all
away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be."
If the man had regarded the story as false, he never
would have referred to it in such a manner. And, in
this manifestation of credulity on the part of Jesus,
we can see the very false estimate placed upon hiim
by so. large a portion of the people of this country.
Let the truth be spoken, though Jesus and all other
idols be overthrown. So he would say, if alive, or
he was not as good and intelligent a man as I think
he was.
By this story the Bible stands or falls as a divine




110        THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT
book. It falls, as we see, and takes its place with
all other human fallible productions. For knowledge,
we go to Nature, our universal mother, who gives her
Bible to every soul, and preaches her everlasting
gospel to all people.




[S SPIRITUALISM[  TRUE?








IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
IT is useless to tell us that a doctrine is popular.
Paganism was once more popular than Presbyterianism; the world to-day would have been flat as a table,
if the belief of a majority could have made it so. "But
our doctrines are old: they have stood for eighteen hundred years."  If such an argument is good for any
thing, it overturns all Protestantism, and establishes
Catholicism  in its place; for Protestantism  is only a
protest against Catholicism, which must, therefore, be
the older.  But Buddhism, which was established
twenty-five hundred years ago, says to Catholicism,
" Out, you baby of yesterday!" but, scarcely seats
itself in the temple, before it is unceremoniously ejected by hoary Paganism, the son of the ages.
For a doctrine to commend itself to the thinkers of
the nineteenth century it must be true.  It matters
not whether one or one million believe it; whether it
is declared by the beggar, whose shivering body the
rags but miserably protect, or comes from heaven with
a voice of thunder and the answering response of
archangels. The only significant'question that we can
ask is, Is it true? If not, God himself cannot save it
from the perdition that awaits it.
8.113




1-14         IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
Is Spiritualism true? What is Spiritualism? It is
not a belief in the writings of Andrew Jackson Davis.
It is not an indorsement of the manifestations that are
said to occur through the Davenports, or Eddys, Miss
Ellis, or Mrs. Blair; nor is it to believe all that is published in " The Banner of Light," or declared by the
thousands of mediums who speak in the name of the
departed throughout the land. Whatever truth there
may be in them, I object to making Spiritualism  responsible for all these things, many of which can only
be known to be true by examinations that one may
have, neither time nor ability to make, and that the
parties concerned are sometimes unable, and sometimes
unwilling, to permit.
What is Spiritualism, then?  Webster gives the
following definition of it: "' Spiritualism is a belief ill
the frequent communication of intelligence from the
world of spirits, by means of physical phenomena commonly manifested through a person of susceptibility,
called a' medium.' "  A better, because a more accurate definition is, " Spiritualism is a belief in the communication of intelligence from the spirits of the departed, commonly obtained through a person of susceptibility, called a' medium.' "
The spirit is something that exists when the body
dies; but, since we see nothing depart, it is invisible;
it communicates, according to our definition, with the
living; it has, then, organs by which its communications are made: hence Spiritualism  is first a belief
that manl possesses a spirit (the unseen man) that is
not bound by the limitation of the senses, but can see
without using the bodily eye, hear when no sound is
conveyed to the outward ear, and can travel without




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             115
the body's organs of locomotion.  Does man possess
such a spirit? If lie does, we may reasonably expect
to find some evidence of it in the present condition of
existence, as we see in the egg before it is hatched the
undeveloped wings that are eventually to be used in
flying.  If man is to see in the future, when the eye
has become dust, we may expect to find some indication of it while he is still in the body; and this we do.
The writers of the famous Atkinson and Martineau
Letters (Dr. Atkinson and Harriet Martineau) fearlessly announce in them (and I admire their honesty
and boldness), that they are atheists, and have no faith
in man's existence after death; * and yet they present
us with facts that establish, I think, the existence in
man of something altogether distinct from  the body,
and that can obtain knowledge without using the ordinary senses.  I quote from  them, because testimony
in reference to this question coming from such a source
is particularly valuable; their opinions giving them no
bias in the direction of belief in such facts, but rathler
the contrary.
Dr. Atkinson says, " I had once a very remarkable
patient, a somn-ambule, who, with the eyes closed, could
easily read any writing I gave her.  She read it from
the top of her head, or when placed in her hand, or, in
fact, from any part of her body; and it was to be noticed,
in this case, that, the more tightly you pressed upon her
eyes, the more clearly she could see."  Dr. Atkinson
adds, " This was a young lady staying with my mother
and sisters; and I may say, that no one, however sceptia I am glad to learn, since this was written, that Harriet Martineau hma
become convinced of man's future existence.




116          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
cal, doubted clairvoyance after seeing this case. The
clear evidence and daylight facts were too strong for
scepticism itself." *
Instead of seeing with her eyes, then, the more unfavorably her eyes were situated for seeing, and the
more readily she could see.
So satisfied of clairvoyance had he become, that he
says,'" I have heard men say,' We are men of facts,
and do not believe in clairvoyance.' I have replied,' You are not men of facts, or, at least, not of these facts.
You are like machines which spin out only one kind
of fabric.  You are men of one language and one
country; prisoners with a window to the north, and
declare there is no moon.'" t  A class of prisoners of
which there are not a few in our own country.
This making the circle of a man's knowledge the
boundary of the universe has been altogether too common; and even Carlyle and Emerson, men of uncommon ability in many directions, have shown themselves
very circumscribed in this respect, sneering at that
which they have never or very slightly investigated.
It is no wonder that Dr. Atkinson speaks so confidently on the subject of clairvoyance; for he is a clairvoyant himself.  He says, " One evening, I saw very
distinctly, when a few steps from my door, two letters
on my table, and from  the same person.'Now,' I
thought,' this will show me that these perceptions are
crude fancies;' for I had received a letter from  the
same person the day before, and it was out of all probability that there should be two more letters from  the
same person, by the same post. On entering the room,
* Atkinson and Martineau Letters, p. 104.   f Ibid. p. p. 153.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             117
there were the two letters, sure enough, and lying
precisely as I had seen them; and I must say it made
me start, for this I could not suppose to be a coincidenlce." X
What was this which saw the two letters on his table,
when lie was several steps from the door, so that he
knew how they lay, and whom they were from? Certainly we have no knowledge of the bodily senses possessing such power. I think we shall see, in the light
of accumulated facts, that, in this case, the spirit-eyes
belleld the letters, - these eyes that can see through a
brick wall as readily as through air, and a hundred
miles off as distinctly as at twelve inches.
However unlikely that it should be, some would account for this by coincidence: " He happened to think
of two letters from that person at that time, and
it happened to be so; that is all." Such an explanation cannot, however, be given in the following cases:' Dr. Gregory, professor of chemistry in the University of Edinburgh, tells us that Major Buckley has produced conscious clairvoyance in eighty-nine persons;
of whom forty-four have been able to read mottoes
contained in nut-shells purchased by other parties for
the experiment.  The longest motto thus read contained ninety-eight words.  Many subjects will read
motto after motto without one mistake.  In this way,
the mottoes contained in four thousand eight hundred
and sixty nut-shells lhave been read, some of them, indeed, by persons in the mesmeric sleep, but most of
them  by persons in the conscious state, many of
whom have never been put to sleep. In boxes, upward
o Atkinson and Martineau Letters, p. 110.




118          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
of thirty-six thousand words have been read; in one
paper, three hundred and seventy-one words. Including those who have read words contained in boxes
when in the sleep, one hundred and forty-eight persons have thus read. In a few cases, the words may
have been read by thought-reading, as the persons who
put them in the boxes were present; but, in most cases,
no one who knew the words has been present, and they
must, therefore, have been read by direct clairvoyance.
Thie nuts enclosing mottoes, for example, have been
purchased of forty different confectioners, and have
been sealed up till read." *
Dr. Ashburner of London, not trusting to the nutshells furnished by the major, purchased some himself,
and these were read by the clairvoyants with accuracy. t
He also says, " Delicately sensitive persons have, in my
presence, read printed words and sentences on slips of
paper, previously concealed from them carefully in
another apartment, in the innermost of a nest of four
silver boxes, all enclosed in a morocco case, or folded
up in nutshells."
" All that is done by mind-reading," says one. But,
where the mottoes were sealed up till read, this appears to be impossible; and, in the following case given
by Dr. Gregory, it was manifestly impossible, for the
individual who supposed he, knew the word was mistaken, and the clairvoyant right.
"On one occasion, Sir T. Willshire took home a nest
of boxes belonging to the major, and placed in the
inner box a paper on which he had written a word.
He sealed up the boxes in paper, and asked one of the
* Gregory's Letters on Animal Magnetism, p. 302.
t Ashburner's Animal Magnetism and Spiritualism, p. 271




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             119
clairvoyants to read it.  She said she saw the word'concert.' He declared that she was wrong, though
right with regard to the first and last letters. She persisted that it was' concert;' and, opening the boxes, it
was found that she was correct, the baronet having
forgotten the word." *
Rev. Chauncey H. Townshend tells us of a young
man, E. A ——, whom he mesmerized, and took into a
perfectly dark closet, when, lie says, " I drew a card at
hazard from a pack with which I had provided myself,
and presented to him. He said it was so and so. The
admission of light established his correctness: it was
the card he had named.  The experiment repeated
four times gave the same satisfactory result. He used
to declare, that, the more complete the darkness was,
the better he could exercise his new mode of perception." t
Such evidence as this might be considered sufficient
to establish the fact of clairvoyance; but extraordinary evidence is needed to establish extraordinary
facts.
In 1825, Dr. Foissac demanded of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Paris, that a commission should be
appointed to examine the claims of animal magnetism.
Nine men of learning, several of whom had European
reputations, were appointed, and after five years published their report.  In this report they state that
animal magnetism may produce somnambulic sleep;
that some sleepers can see with their eyes closed, can
foretell accurately, even months in advance, the time
of the access of epileptic fits, or the time of their cure;
* Gregory's Letters on Animal Magnetism, p. 272.
t Townshend's Facts in Animal Magnetism, p. 244.




120           IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
and can discover the diseases of persons with whom
they are placed in magnetic connection.*
Baron Reichenbach, the well-known chemist, and
author of the " Dynamics of Magnetism," says that
high sensitives in the somnambulic condition, when
they have their eyes closed, perceive the forms and
colors of the external world, and in the same manner
they can look into the human body.
Dr. Colby of Stanstead, Canada, informed me that
he had a patient who was so good a clairvoyant, that
she read for him  a paper just taken from the press,
with her eyes bandaged, and a tea-tray between her
eyes and the paper.
There are but few who have investigated mesmeric
or psychometric phenomena, who have not had opportunities of seeing clairvoyant phenomena.  " Vision,"
says M. Teste, " through the closed eyelids, and through
opaque bodies, is not only a real fact, but a very frequent fact.  There is no magnetizer who lias not observed it twenty times; and I know at the present
day, in Paris alone, a very great number of somnambulists who might futrnish proofs of it."'  I have had
very frequent opportunities of observing the exercise
of this power, both in mesmeric and psychometric
subjects.
It is evident that the eye is not necessary to enable
some persons to see; and the reason appears to be,
that the indwelling spirit, although ordinarily dependent upon the senses for its knowledge of the exterior
world, is not confined to them. It can see by other portions of the body as well as by the eyes, hear by the
* New American Cyclopedia, art. "Animal Magnetism."
t Quoted by Bush in Mesmer and Swedenborg, p. 107.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             121
fingers as well as by the ears, and can both see and
hear when it appears impossible that any portion of
tlhe body can be influenced by what is seen and heard.
Dr. Mayo, professor of comparative anatomy in the
Royal College of Surgeons, London, relates several
instances of such phenomena. He says, " The psychical phenomena exhibited by the patient when thus entranced are the following:  The organs of sensation
are deserted by their natural sensibility. The patient
neither feels with the skin, nor sees with the eyes, nor
hears with the ears, nor tastes with the mouth.  All
these senses, however, are not lost.  Sight and hearing, if not smell and taste, re-appear in some other
part, - at the pit of the stomach, for instance, or the
tips of the fingers.
"The patient manifests new perceptive powers. She
discerns objects all around her, and througoh any obstructions, partitions, walls, or houses, and at an indefinite distance.  She sees her own inside, as it were,
illuminated, and can tell what is wrong in the health
of others." *
Dr. Gregory says, "The clairvoyant power has been
observed to be located in the pit of the stomach, inll the
tips of the fingers, in the occiput as well as in the
forehead, or on the top of the head..... In one form
or other, the power of dispensing with the eyes, and
yet perceiving color, &c., quite plainly, is found in every
good subject.
"TLThe same thing frequently happens in hearing.
Thus E., when on her travelling state or stage, is utterly deaf to all sounds save those which are addressed
* Popular Superstitions, p. 121.




122           IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
to her by speaking with the mouth in contact with the
tips of her fingers. This fact I have myself verified." *
Dr. Mayo relates the following on the authority of
Baron de Fortis. The patient had epilepsy, for the
cure of which she went to Aix.  "Thiere she had all
sorts of fits and day-somnambulism, during which
she waited at table, with her eyes shut perfectly. She
likewise saw alternately with her fingers, the palm of
her hand, and her elbow, and would write with precision with the right hand, superintending the process
with her left elbow." In explanation of such phenomena, Dr. Mayo says, " The possibility of an abnormal relation of the mind and body, allowing the former either to shift the place of its manifestations in the
nervous system, or partially to energize as free spirit,
is the only principle which at present offers any solution of the new powers displayed in catalepsy." t
And I think this explanation is the true one.
" But is it not possible that the brain has the power
of receiving sensations by other than  the ordinary
channels, and that it is the brain', after all, by which
this is accomplished, and not a spirit behind or within
the man?"
It is well that this question should be asked, and the
reasons given for regarding the spirit as the agent, and
not the brain.  "' During sleep," says Dr. Hammond,' the brain is in a comparatively bloodless condition,
and the blood in the encephalic vessels is not only
diminished in quantity, but moves with diminished
rapidity." $  If the brain is the agent concerned in
* Gregory's Letters on Animal Magnetism, p. 148.
t Popular Superstitions, p. 130.
I Sleep and its Derangements, p. 35.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            123
clairvoyant and clairaudient phenomena, its power being very much reduced by sleep, we should naturally
expect that sleep would decrease or destroy its ability
in this direction: but the very opposite seems to be
the case; for many who possess no clairvoyant power
in the waking condition have, in sleep, a remarkable
development of it.
William Howitt relates the following case, which is
also given by Mayo.  In December, 1848, Mr. Smith,
gardener to Sir Clifford Constable, disappeared; but
his hat and stick were found near the River Tees.
The river was dragged daily, but to no purpose. One
nlight, a person named Awde, living at Little Newsham,
dreamed that Smith was laid under the ledge of a certain rock about three hundred yards below Whorltonl
Bridge, and that his right arm was broken. He got tup
early the next morning, and determined to search the
river. On arriving at the boat-house, he told the boatman his object, on being asked for what purpose he
wished the boat. He rowed to the spot he had seen
in his dream, and pulled up the body of the man with
the boat-hook, on the first trial, with his right arm actually broken.*  There is no intimation given, that
iMr. Awde possessed any clairvoyant power in his waking state.
Similar instances might be given, for they are by no
means rare (some I shall give in another connection),
that seem to prove that the brain, which, as is now
well known, is contracted in sleep, and therefore less
fitted for obtaining ideas, cannot be the agent in clairvoyance, but it must be the all-seeing spirit.
* Ennenoser's History of Magic, p. 417.




124           IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
Mesmerism induces, generally, a state of still deeper
sleep than the ordinary, and therefore less fitted for
the action of the brain; and yet in just that proportion
does it seem to be favorable for the exercise of clairvoyance and its accompanying phenomena; and when
the deepest sleep is secured by magnetism, and the
eye is no longer sensitive to light, the ear to sound,
and the skin to touch, it is then that these peculiar
powers are most frequently and clearly manifested, as
nearly all writers on mesmerism testify.
When approaching death enfeebles all the body's
powers, then the permeating spirit asserts its true nature, most strong when the body is most weak.
The Rev. Hare Townshend gives us an instance of
this.  Chevalier Filippi of Milan informed him of a
patient of his who had an abscess, and whom, on visiting,
he found had but a few hours to live.  Leaving the
sick-chamber, he shut the door, and passed through
two other rooms, the doors of which he also carefully
shut, and entered an apartment where some friends of
the patient were assembled. To these he said, speaking in a low tone, " The Signor Valdrighi is much
worse.  H[e cannot possibly survive till morning."
Scarcely had he uttered the words, whenl the patient's
bell was heard to ring violently, and soon after a
servant summoned the doctor back again. " Why did
you deceive me? " exclaimed the dying man: "' I heard
every word you said just now in the farther apartment."  He then repeated to the astonished physician
the very words he had made use of.* How, otherwise,
can such facts be explained, than as evidences of man's
* Townshenll's Facts in Animal Magnetism, p. 321.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             125
possession of a spirit whose powers are altogether superior to those of the body?
The fact that one person can read the thoughts of
another, no word being spoken, and no communication
given, most persons conversant with mesmerism are
familiar with.  I have sometimes heard people say,
when attempting to explain remarkable mesmeric or
spiritual phenomena, " Oh, well! that is thought-reading."  But what, pray, is thought-reading?  Can we
imagine any thing more remarkable?  In ordinary
clairvoyance, objects that the eye might behold are
seen; but in thought-reading that is done which no
bodily sense can accomplish, unless it is some sense of
which as yet we know nothing.
Dr. Mayo says, "Presently, if his trance-faculties
continue to be developed, the entranced person enters
into communication with the entire mind of the mesmerizer.  His apprehension seems to penetrate the
brain of the latter, and is capable of reading all his
thoughts." *
Dr. Gregory says, "1 The sleeper, being placed en rapport with any person, can often describe with the greatest accuracy the subject that occupies the thoughts of
that person. It may be an absent friend, or his own
house, or that of another, or his drawing-room, bedroom, study, &c., —all these things the sleeper perceives as they pass through the mind of the experimenter, and describes with great minuteness and accuracy.... He perceives things once known to, and now
forgotten by, the experimenter." t
Townshend relates that a lady, wishing to test a mesPopular Superstitions, p. 177.
t Letters on Animal Magnetism, pp. 108, 109.




126          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
meric subject of his, was about to choose two cards
from a number lying upon the table, and then ask him
to discover which they were.  She had chosen the
cards by her eye only, in perfect silence, and standing
behind the subject, when he exclaimed, " Wilhy should
I go through this farce?  I know already the two
cards which the lady thought of: they were so and so."
He was perfectly right. *
But what is this that reads thoughts?  Certainly
not the eye, and assuredly no other known sense. Can
it be the brain, destitute of all organs for that purpose?
Can it be other than the spirit, exercising those powers
which it will constantly employ when released from
the body? Within us all these wondrous powers lie as
" The wings that form
The butterfly lie folded in the worm."
Were it not, however, for other and more convincing
evidence of the spirit's existence and operation, we
might still refer all these cases to the operation of some
occult power in the body yet to be discovered.  But
the persons through whom such phenomena are manifested, frequently have the sensation of being distinct
from the body, of even looking down upon it, of travelling to distant localities, and returning again to the
body. All who have experimented much in mesmerism are familiar with this; and evidence on this subject
is quite voluminous.  Dr. Mayo says, " These more
complicated cases prove that the clairvoyant actually
pays a mental visit to the scene.  But she can do
more: she can pass on to other and remoter scenes
~ Townshend's Facts in Animal Magnetism, p. 447.




IS SPIPITTUALISM TRUE.?           127
and places of which her fellow-traveller has no cognizance." *
Thomas C. Hartshorn,  a well-known  magnetizer,
writilng many years ago for " The Providence Journal,"
says of a friend whom he had magnetized, " I can send
him fort~h instantly through the thick darkness of night
into distant lands, and cause him  to bring us tidings
of our absent friends.  His spirit seems to delight in
this activity: his intellectual countenance brightens
up with various emotions.  Hie glides along the surface of the earth and ocean as rapid as the lambent
borealis; and ever and anon, as different scenes arrest
his attention, he bursts out into involuntary exclamations of pleasure or surprise, of joy or sorrow."  This
is no exaggeration, as my own experience with clairvoyants has repeatedly demonstrated.  Before the advent of modern Spiritualism, I had, on numerous occasions, sent mesmeric subjects oil distant journeys, and
obtained from them knowledge of events then transpirinlg, as subsequent inquiries proved, - events absolutely unknown to all others present, and of such a
character that they could not be guessed.
Mr. Heartshorn again says, "' That the human spirit
hath power to leave the body, and take cognizance of
things distant in space, is but an elementary truth in
this branch of psychology."
Dr. Cleaveland of Providence gives the following
statement, made to him by a carpenter, who fell from
the staging of a building to the ground. "~ As I struck
the ground," said he, " I suddenly bounded up, seeming to have a new body, and to be stanlding among the
* Popular Superstitions, p. 191.




128          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
spectators, looking at my old one.  I saw them trying
to bring it to. I made several fruitless efforts to reenter my body, and finally succeeded."
Mr. Moore of Malden, an officer in the Charlestown
navy-yard, informed me, that, when fifteen years of age,
lhe fell in climbing a lamp-post; and his head struck
tlhe curb-stone of the street with such violence as to
fracture his skull.  He instantly found himself out of
Ihis body, and looking down upon it; but in a few minutes, with a struggle, was able to return to ordinary
consciousness.
Sensations similar to these have been frequently experienced by intelligent and  reliable persons with
whom I have conversed; and I know of no way in
which they can be accounted for save by ackl;nowledging that man does possess a spirit having organs of
sensation.
John 0. Wattles of Kansas, well known in the West
as one of the most eloquent and earnest laborers in
the antislavery cause at a time when to be such was
to be ostracised, informed me, that, on one occasion, he
accidentally discovered that his spirit could leave the
body, and return. He found, afterward, that this could
be done at will; and he frequently looked down as a
spectator upon his body lying in a death-like trance,
and then roamed at pleasure over' the earth, and returned again.
Psychometers have frequently the power to do this;
yet the body, in their case, presents no apparent difference from its ordinary condition.  Mrs. Cridge, AMrs.
Denton, and my son Sherman, travel spiritually with
great ease, and describe with great accuracy distant
localities never visited by them, and sometimes tn



IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            129
known to all persons present. They describe themselves as being there, to all appearance, in the body, so
that they can see its different parts; the spiritual body
being as real to spiritual sight as the physical body is
to the physical eye, and quite as much so to the touch.
They can hear, see, feel, taste, smell, and, in short,
exercise every sense, much more perfectly than if present in the body: and this I have known psychometers
to express hundreds of times; several independent
psychometers, knowing nothing of the experience of
others, giving exactly similar statements.
Lydia -Maria Child has just published the following
statement regarding her deceased friend  Henrietta
Sargent.  " One morning, she spoke of not feeling as
well as usual; but it was regarded by herself and others as merely a slight deviation from lher customary
good health.  But in the course of the day she suddeonly fainted away. As the usual restoratives produced no effect, the family physician was summoned.
No better success attended his efforts.  The breath
appeared to be entirely suspended, and the limbs remained rigid and cold. Her daughters feared she
must be dead; and tlie doctor began to be doubtful
whether animation would ever be restored. How long
she continued in this state, I do not remember. But,
while they were watching her with ever-deepening
anxiety, she gasped feebly, and, after a while, opened
lier eyes.  When she had completely recovered, she
told her daughters she had been standing by them all
the time, looking upon her lifeless body, and seeing
all they did to resuscitate it; and she astonished them
by repeating the minutest details of all that had been
said or done by them and the doctor during her prolonged state of utter insensibility."
91




130          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
Dr. Kerner relates of the Seeress of Prevorst: "; Onl
the 28th of May, 1827, at midnight, when I was with
her, she again saw herself sitting on a stool.... She
tried to cry out, but could neither speak nor move...
The image ran towards her; and, just as it reached
her, a sort of electric shock passed over her which I
saw: she then uttered a scream, and related to me
what she had seen."  In this case, the body appears
to have seen the spirit; in all cases with which I have
been conversant, the spirit has seen the body or seen
itself. All these facts, however, like converging rays,
point to the grand luminous truth from which they
proceed, - the possession by man of a spirit.
I have noticed that whenu persons in their ordinary
condition have no belief in future existence, yet, when
their spiritual faculties are awakened, they realize its
truth, and rejoice in the satisfaction that it brings to
the soul; and the more highly-developed mesmeric
subjects frequently manifest this.
Townshend tells us of a materialistic young Frenchman whom he frequently mesmerized.  In his waking
condition, he had no faith in future existence, and was
not at all backward in declarinig it; but,'" in sleepwalking," says Townshend, "' all this was changed. His
ideas of the mind were correct, and singularly opposed
to the material views he took of all questions when in
the waking state.... Beautiful are the things he has
said to me respecting the soul's recognition of those it
loved on earth, and of the privilege of departed friends
to watch over the objects of their solicitude while toiling through the pilgrimage of life." *
* Townshend's Facts in Animal Magnetism, p. 163.




IS SPIRITUALISM  TRUE?            131
These facts are in no other way related to modern
Spiritualism than as evidencesof the existence in Nature of that of which the facts of modern Spiritualism
are more recent and fuller illustrations; most of them
belong to a time previous to the first Rocliester rap.
One or two such facts might be considered of little
importance; but together they form a body of evidence
that seems to me absolutely irresistible.  And, if thii
is true, the foundation of Spiritualism is true. Man is
not merely an animated clod, to lie down with his fellow-clods, and know no more than they.  We do not
see all there is of him: lie has a wondrous body, but
a vastly more wondrous spirit, to which no night is
dark, no body opaque; no distance can baffle its gaze,
no bodily sense limit its knowledge.  It is the true
man, and the body but its incasement, — the shell,
oilny useful till the spirit is plumed for its flight.
Then the materialist and the adventist are alike
wrong. The materialist sees but the surface of things,
knows nothing of the all-controlling spirit within,
yet makes his knowledge the boundary of the universe.
Tlhe adventist calls in miracle where it is altogether
unnecessary.  Man is a spirit: he is not to become
onle.  Nature knows no favored saints, who are to be
spiritually created for the barbarous heaven of a halfJewish, half-Christiai mythology, while the rest are
left to sink into nonentity; but she has given to all
freely as life, light, and air, that spirit which can smile
at death, and soar triumphant when the lifeless body
sinks to the dust.
Spiritualism  also includes the belief that  this
spirit lives when the body dies.  Accept the first, and
there is little difficulty in believing the second. If




132          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
manl has a spirit that can see without using the eyes
of the body; see even when these eyes do not exist, or
are incapable of vision, as in the case of blind somnambulists and clairvoyants, -it is not unreasonable to
suppose that it may see when its connection with the
body is entirely destroyed by death. If he has a spirit
that canll hear sounds that are made hundreds of miles
away from the body, and thus independent of the body's
ears, it is not unreasonable to suppose that it may continue to hear when the body and all its organs are
abandoned by the spirit, and the dust claims its kindred dust.  And why may not the spirit, which has
demonstrated its independence so clearly of all the
body's faculties, continue to manifest its powers, though
the body be no more?  Why should we possess faculties all but unused, or used by but one in ten thousand?
Why these spiritual eyes, if we are never to use them?
Why these ears that hear so little, and yet have such
wonderful capacity?  Why this ability to travel more
rapidly than light, if death is to destroy it when it
has so seldom been employed?  There is a physical
body, and there is a spiritual body; and, in the light of
facts, it is most reasonable to believe that the spiritual
body will live when the physical body dies.
I can imagine two worms just folded inll their cocoon.
arguing the question whether there is to be any future
life for them.  " I have anll idea," says one, " that I
slall fly when I have eaten my way out of this case in
which I am enclosed." - " You fly! " says the other:
"' that is all nonsense. You are a worm; and your life
has been spent in crawling on the ground, for which
alone all your faculties are fitted. - Whoever saw worms
fly? Worms we are, and worms we must ever be, and




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             133
are now shut up in what must, in the nature of things,
be our grave." --  But what are these wings for?  I
can feel wings that are growing oil my sides; and I am
persuaded that they are to be used.  I shall fly, and,
in the summer's sun of another year, flit from  flower
to flower, and enjoy the beauty of the bright world."
And the hopeful worm is right.  And we say, "What
are these spiritual faculties for? They are our wings;
and there is a realm where they are to be exercised
during a life that only truly commences after what we
call death."
As an evidence of this, let us again refer to sleep.
If the spirit ceases to exist when the body dies, it is but
reasonable to suppose that it will be influenced by the
condition of the body in life; so that, when the body is in
the most unfavorable condition for receiving knowledge
through the senses, the spirit will likewise be in an
equally unfavorable condition for receiving knowledge:
but if the spirit is to survive death, and exercise its
powers when it is separated from the body, we may
reasonably expect that it will be able to manifest these
powers when the ordinary senses are locked in sleep;
and this we find to be the case.  Sleep closes the eye
and prevents vision, contracts the brain, reduces the
circulation, and deadens the general sensibility: and yet
the spirit in this condition can see what the open eye
could not perceive; it reveals what it has tortured the
brain for days in vain to discover; it visits distant lands,
and beholds the succession of passing events inl which
the individual is interested, and sometimes even those
in which lie takes no special interest.
Dr. Carpenter relates, that Condorcet saw in his
dreams the final steps of a difficult calculation which




I]t 34       IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
rad puzzled him during the day; and Condillac states,
that, when engaged with his " Course  of Study,"
hoe frequently developed and finished a subject in his
dreams which he had broken off before retiring to rest.
Call it be the brain that does this ill sleep, when it has
been unable to accomplish it in the waking state? We
mlight as well suppose a man could run eight miles an
hour with his feet shackled, while he could only run
four when they were free.
Chambers, in an essay on sleep, says, "A  distinguislied divine of the present day, who in his collegedays, was devoted to mathematical studies, was once
baffled for several days by a difficult problem, which
he finally solved in his sleep."  If you say, all this,
hlowever, the brain might do, stimulated into unusual
activity by the waking desires, there are numerous
cases that cannot be so explained.
Ini " The Penny Encyclopsedia," article " Dreams,"
I find the following, " In the night of the 11th of May,
1812, Mr. Williams of Scorrior House, near Redruth
in Cornwall, awoke his wife, and, exceedingly agitated,
told her that lie had dreamed that he was in the lobby
of the House of Commons, and saw a man shoot with
a pistol a gentleman who had just entered the lobby,
who was said to be the chancellor; to whlich Mirs. Williams replied, that it was only a dream, and recozmmlended him to go to sleep as soon as he could. IHe
did so; but, shortly after, lie again awoke her, and said
that he had a second time had the same dream. The
same vision was repeated a third time; on which, notwithstanding his wife's entreaties that he would lie
quiet, and endeavor to forget it, he arose (then between
one and two o'clock) and dressed himself. At break



IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            135
fast, the dreams were the sole subject of conversation;
and in thle forenoon Mr. Williams went to Falmouth,
where he related the particulars of them to all of his
acquaintances that he met. On the following day, Mr.
Tucker of Trematon Castle, accompanied by his wife,
(a daughter of Mr. Williams), went to Scorrior House
on a visit. Mr. Williams related to Mr. Tucker the
circumstance of his dreams; oil which Mr. Tucker
observed, that it would do very well for a dream to
have thle chancellor in the lobby of the House of Commons, but that he would not be found there in reality.
Mr. Tucker then asked what sort of a man lie appeared
to be, when Mr. Williams described him  minutely.
Mr. Tucker replied,' Your description is not at all
that of the chancellor, but is very exactly that of Mr.
Perceval, the chancellor of the exchequer.' Hle then
inquired whether Mr. Williams had ever seen Mr. Perceval, and was told that lhe had never seen him, nor
had he ever had any thing to do with him; and, further,
that he had never been in the House of Commons in
his life. At this moment they heard a horse gallop to
the door of the house; and immediately after a son
of Mr. Williams entered the room, and said that lie had
galloped out from Truro, having seen a gentleman
there who had come by that evening's mail from town,
and who had been in the lobby of the House of Commons on the evening of the 11th, when a mall called
Bellinglham had shot Mr. Perceval (tfie chancellor of
the exchequer). After the astolishment which this intclligence created had a little subsided, Mr. Williams
described most minutely the appearance and dress of
the man that he saw in his dream fire the pistol at
the chancellor, as also of the chancellor. About six




136         IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
weeks after, Mr. Williams, having business in town,
went, accompanied by a friend, to the House of Comz
mons, where, as has been already observed, he had
never before been. Immediately that he came to the
steps at the entrance of the lobby, he said,.' This place
is as distinctly within my recollection as any room  in
my house;' and he made the same observation when lihe
entered the lobby. He then pointed out the exact
spot where Bellingham stood when he fired, and which
Mir. Perceval had reached when he was struck by the
ball when he fell. Tile dress both of Mr. Perceval and
Bellingham agreed with the description given by Mr.
Williams, even to the minutest particulars. The dream
is related by Dr. Abercrombie with some additional
circumstances."
Mr. Williams obtained in sleep knowledge, that, even
in the waking state, lie could not have obtained; and
sleep, instead of diminishing the spirit's power, vastly
increased it, showing its independence of the body's
condition.
" A respected correspondent of Mr. F.," says Chambers in his " Essay on Dreams," " was a man of exemplary piety and the strictest veracity. He was in the
East-India Company's service, and, having served one
and twenty years, was about to return to his native
counitry on leave of absence for three years. Some
nights before his departure from Calcutta, he had a
dream that his father died. It was so vivid, and so minutely circumstantial, that it made a very deep impres
sion on llim; and lie entered all the particulars and
the date into his pocket-book. In about six months
after, on his arrival in London, he found letters from
Ireland, where his family. resided, waiting for him.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             137
They announced the death of his father, which had
occurred on the very night of his dream.  This was so
singular, that, when he joined his sister a few days
after, he desired her to enter into no particulars relative to his father's death till she should hear him.' Sarah,' said lie,'I believe that my father did not die
in his own room: his bed was in the parlor.'-' It
was, it was, indeed,' replied she:' he had it brought
down a short time after he was taken ill, to save him.
the fatigue of going up and down stairs.' -' I will
show you the spot where it was placed,' said Capt. F.
He immediately pointed out the situation of the bed,
exactly where it had been.  He showed where the
coffin had been laid. There was nothing connected with
the melancholy event which he could not detail as minutely as those who had actually been present. Strange
as all this may appear, it is nevertheless perfectly true.
I have frequently heard it from Capt. F. himself, and
from his wife and sister."
The Pacific Hotel in St. Louis was destroyed by fire
in February, 1858, and twenty-one lives were lost. On
the night of the fire, a little brother of Mr. Henry
Rochester, living at home with his parents, near Avon,
N.Y., awoke some time after midnight with screaming
and tears, saying that the hotel in St. Louis was on
fire, and that his brother Henry was burning to death.
At noon oil the following day, his parents received a telegram from St. Louis confirming his dream in every
particular.*
There is no evidence that these individuals possessed
ally clairvoyant power in their waking state; but, as
the bodily eye closes, the spiritual eye opens, and when
* Planchette; or, The Despair of Science, p. 168.




138          IS SPIRITUALISM  TRUE?
the brain and senses are in an eminently unfavorable
condition for obtaining knowledge, then knowledge of
even distant events is easily and readily obtained by
the spirit.
In death-trance, when even the circulation is stopped,
and respiration can no longer be perceived, when the
pallor of death overspreads the countenance, and death
itself is so well counterfeited that it is hardly possible
to distinguish the one from the other, the spirit asserts
its superiority and independence; it hears, sees, feels,
and obtains knowledge, that, out of this trance-state,
the individual is unable to obtain.
In " The American Phrenological Journal," I find
the following. " A daughter of Mr. Hlangley of Bangor,
seven years of age, was taken sick of cholera, and, to
all appearance, died, but in a few hours stretched forth
her arms, and exclaimed,'0 father! I have been to
heaven, and it is a beautiful place.'  She stated that
she saw her mother tl-ere, who had died but a few days
before, and she was taking care of little children,
among whom, she said, were' four children of Uncle
Hangley, and three children of Uncle Casey.' -' But,'
said an older sister,' it cannot be so; for there are but
two of Uncle Casey's children dead.' -' Yes,' she replied,' I saw three of them in heaven. All were dressed
in white, and all were very happy, and the children
playing.' Shortly after, a message came from Mr. Casey
in Carmel, giving information of the death of another
child, and inviting them to attend tile funeral."
The spirit's powers are not weakened by sleep nor
death-trance, but vastly increased; just what we
should expect if the spirit is to survive death, but altogether inexplicable if death is to extinguish us.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            139
What effect has the approach of death itself?  In
drovwning, when the thread of life has. been all but
severed, and with the greatest difficulty animation has
been restored to the apparently lifeless body, it is well
known that the activity of the spirit has been by no
means decreased, but often vastly increased.
From a letter by F. Beaufort to Dr. W. Hyde, published inll " Tile American Phrenological Journal,"  I extract the following. He fell into the water, and says,
"' From the moment that all exertion had ceased, which,
I imagine, was the immediate consequence of complete
suffocation, a calm feeling of the most perfect tranquillity superseded the previous tumultuous sensations: it
might be called apathy, certainly not resignation; for
drowning no longer appeared to be an evil. I no
longer thought of being rescued; nor was I in any
bodily pain. The senses were deadened; but not so
the mind. Its activity seemed to be invigorated in a
ratio which defies all description; for thought rose after
thought with a rapidity of succession that is not only
indescribable, but probably inconceivable by any one
who has not been himself in a similar situation....
Travelling backward, every past incident of my life
seemed to glance at my recollection in retrograde succession; not, however, in mere outline, as here stated,
but the picture filled up with every minute and collateral feature: in short, the whole period of my existence seemed to be placed before me in a kind of panoramic review, and each act of it seemed to be accompanied by a consciousness of right or wrong, or by
some reflection oil its cause or consequences; indeed,
many trifling events that had long been forgotten then




140         IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
crowded into my imagination, and with the character
of recent familiarity."
Could the man's body have been examined while
this was going on, the surface would have been found
cold, the whole of the arterial blood converted into
black venous blood, and this distending the heart, the
lungs, and the brain, rendering the whole physical man
as unfit for action as a locomotive with the fire out,
and the water in the boiler changed to ice. If we
found a locomotive going at the rate of a thousand
miles an hour under such circumstances, we should
conclude that it ran by some other motive-power than
steam. What remembered, thought, imagined, when
the body was in this condition? That which will remember, think, and imagine when the body has returned to dust.
As an evidence of this extraordinary memory in
drowning, I present the following, taken from "The
Rome Daily Sentinel."  A held a bond of B for several hundred dollars, having some time to run. At its
maturity, he found that he had put it away so carefully that he could not find it. He called on B, related the circumstance, and proposed to give him a
receipt; but B denied owing him any thing, and intimated that A wished to cheat him. Several years
passed, when A, bathing in Charles River, sunk' and
was completely unconscious before he was rescued.' On the first return of strength to walk, lie left his
bed, wenit to his book-case, took out a book, opened it,
and handed his long-lost bond to a friend who was present. He then informed him, that when drowning and
sinking, as he supposed, to rise no more, in a moment
there stood out distinctly before him as a picture every




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            141
act of his life, from the hour of childhood to the hour
of sinking beneath the water; and among themn the
circumstance of putting the bond in the book, the
book itself, and the place in which he had put it in
the book-case."
The spirit apparently forgets nothing, and when released from the body all our past is present to us,
ours forever.
How exceedingly common it is for the dying to see
and hear what those present are utterly unconscious
of! It is easy to say that they are idle fancies clustering around the dying man, that reason is too weak to
dispel. They should at least be in harmony with his
previous ideas if this theory of their origin be granted.
A Methodist minister, Purcell P. HaLailtol of Litchfield, Ill., near the close of a lingering illness, was entranced. His friends thought him gone; but he unexpectedly revived, and said to his wife, " I have not left
you yet. I have been to see my heavenly home; but
they told me I could not go until I came back and
told you that the teachings of all these years from my
pulpit are false. Our ideas of heaven are all wrong.
I have taught and thought we would die and' go
straight to God and glory. All wrong. Tell all you
meet my last words to them, - all wrong. The spirithome is a beautiful land; but we must go up step by
step, and work out our own salvation."
It is so common for the dying to be clairvoyant, that,
in every age, it has been noticed by the intelligent.
Plutarch says in reference to it, "' It is not probable,
that, in death, the soul gains new powers which it
was not before possessed of when the heart was confined with the chains of the body: but it is much more




142          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
probable that these powers were always in being, thoughl
dimmed and clogged by the body; and the soul is only
then able to practise them when the corporeal bonds
are loosened, and the drooping limbs and stagnant
juices no longer oppress it."
Schiller's last words when dying were, "' Many things
are growing plain and clear to me."  Is this the talk
of anl expiring soul going down to the grave to come
up no more, the night of annihilation closing around
it? It is the joyous exclamation of one long living in
obscurity, who for the first time finds the windows ajar,
and the light of a deathless morn looking in. We
dwell in the twilight, and we pine for the glory of a
day that must shine.
So far, then, from the approach of death weakening
the soul as it does the body, and thus rendering probable its dissolution with the body, it develops its peculiar powers, and prepares the way for their manifestation, and thus gives us the assurance, that, when it is
consummlated, the spirit will be free to exercise those
faculties untrammelled, which are manifested here in
their greatest strength when the body is most weak.
If the spirit exists after death, what can be more
reasonable than that it should desire to communicate
with its friends still in the body? Canl the mnother
forget the family from which death has torn her? the
patriot the country for which his life has been spent?
the youth the home around which all his associations
are clustered? If the emigrant thinks of his country
over the sea, and sends messages to those whom lie never
again expects to see, how much more shall those who
have gone to the land of souls remember the loved
ones remaining, and desire to give them  tidings of
their welfare!




IS SPImrTUALISM TRUE?            143
Can it be done? Dr. Gregory says,'" I can vouch
for this fact, - that a magnetizer can strongly affect a
person who is not only in another room, or another
house, or many hundred yards off, but who is utterly
unaware that any thing is to be done."
Dr. Foissac magnetized Paul Villagrand at the distance of three hundred miles. The doctor gave a note
to his father, which he desired him to hand to Paul at
half-past five, P.M. It read thus, " I am magnetizing
you at this moment: I will awake you when you have
had a quarter of an hour's sleep."  But the father, to
make the experiment decisive, never gave the letter to
his son.'Nevertheless, at tenll minutes before six,
Paul, being in the midst of his family, experienced a
sensation of heat, and considerable uneasiness. IIis
shirt was wet through with perspiration; he wished to
retire to his room: but they detained him. In a few
minutes, he was entranced. In this state, he astonished
the persons present, by reading, with his eyes shut, several lines of a book taken at hazard from  the library,
and by telling the hour upon a watch they held to him.
He awoke in a quarter of an hour."
If the spirit while in the body can influence the
spirits of others in the body, at a distance of hundreds
of miles, it is surely not unreasonable to suppose, that,
when the spirit has dropped the body, it can still influence them, and thus reveal its existence. Besides this,
we have abundant evidence that the spirit does communicate with the living, thus establishing the third
fundamental principle of Spiritualism.
On this subject we have the testimony of all ages.
The sacred books of the Jews and Christians contain
such accounts, and, although the fabulous clharacter of




144         Is SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
portions of the Bible leads to suspicion of all its marvellous statements, yet many of its accounts of spiritual manifestations are in harmony with those of other
peoples and all time.
It is noticeable, that, as people have become more
intelligent, spiritual manifestations have increased in
the same proportion. As chemistry became established, alchemy died out; as astronomy advanced, astrology retreated, and hides to-day only in the obscurest corners: but as a knowledge of man's true nature
increases, so do the evidences of communication between the spirit-world and our own multiply around
us. In the early history of the Jews, we find but few
of them; they were more common in the time of Jesus
and his immediate followers, and are most common in
this the most intelligent age the world has seen.
In bringing forward testimony on this subject, the
only difficulty is to choose out of the abundance presented. Do we desire the testimony of a scientific
man, let us take that of Prof. Hare, the well-known
chemist, who at one time maintained most earnestly
the mechanical theory of Faraday, but abandoned it
in consequence of the experiments undertaken to
demonstrate it. He visited a medium, through whom
communications were received by the tipping of a
table. The alphabet was placed upon a table, and,
when a pencil held by a gentleman at the foot of the
table passed over it, the table tipped when the right
letter was indicated. In this'way, this message was
spelled out, "Light is dawning on the mind of your
friend; soon he will speak trumpet-tongued to the scientific world, and add a new link to that chain of evidence on which our hope of man's salvation is founded."




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            145
This appeared to him almost unaccountable; but he
was resolved to prevent the possibility of deception.
He made a disk of pasteboard about a foot in diameter,
around which the letters of the alphabet were placed
as much as possible out of their regular order. The
disk was made to revolve upon an axis by a string
which passed over a groove in the hub of the wheel;
a weight being attached to each end of the string, - a
large one on the ground, and a smaller suspended on
the other side of the wheel. The medium was seated
at the table with a screen between her eyes and the
disk. The table was tilted, and tllus the disk, which
was on the axle attached to it, was made to revolve,
and the letters of the alphabet were brought under a
stationary index before it. Prof. Hare sat in front of
it, and said, " If there be a spirit present, let the letter
y be brought under the index."  The disk revolved
to the letter y. But I will let him tell the story in
his own words.  "'Will the spirit be so kind as to give
his initials?' It revolved immediately to R. and to H.' What,' said I, my father?' It revolved again to the
letter y, indicating the affirmative.' Will you arrange
these letters in alphabetical order?' The disk again
moved; and the letters were arranged as requested.' Will you now spell the name of Washlington?' It
was spelled.' Now,' said a bystander,' you must give
up. You made this instrument to disprove Spiritualism, and you see it confirms it.' I remarked that this
was the most important experiment which I had ever
performed, if viewed as proving that the shade of my
honored father was there. I said,'You must allow
me time to deliberate, and to repeat the experiment,
before ultimately deciding.' "
10




146         IS SPIRITUALISMI TRUE?
Subsequently he obtained analogous results by another medium, who had not previously seen his apparatls, and whom he had never seen before.
It was suggested that the medium might be clairvoyant, and thus see through the disk. To obviate this
objection, Prof. Hare procured a brass ball, something
like a billiard-ball, and placed upon it a smooth plate
of metal on which the hands of the medium rested, so
that she could not possibly control the movements of
the table. His father communicating with him under
these circumstances, the name of an uncle of his, who
was killed by the Arabs seventy years ago, was spelled
out. " Also the name of a partner who came out and
took care of his affairs during the Revolution," nobody
present knowing the name but himself.  Then the
names of some Englishl relatives were given, the name
of an aunt who died forty years ago, and the name of
his English grandfather's partner.  Cards were held
up; and the spirits accurately described them when
nieither the medium nor himself knew what they were.
Sitting withl a medium who was not a Latin scholar,
he asked his father to point out the words in Virgil
which he admired as describing tlhe beating wlhich
Entellus gave Dares; and he spelled out the words,
" pulsatque versatque."
No wonder that Prof. iare became a Spiritualist,
and announced it to the world, after such demonstrative tests as these; and so, I think, would every other
scientist, had he an equal determination to know the
truth, and as much courage to avow it.
Do we desire the testimony of a literary man, here is
that of William Howitt, whose reputation is worldwide.




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            147
M' ore than six years ago, I began to examine the
phenomena of Spiritualism. I did not go to paid or even
to public mediums. I sat down at my own table with
members of my own family, or with friends, —persons
of higl character, and serious as myself in thle inquiry.
I saw tables moved, rocked to and fro, and raised repeatedly into the air. I heard the raps, sometimes a
hundred at once, in every imaginable part of the table,
in all keys, anid of various degrees of loudness. I exami-led the phenomena thoroughly.  Silly but playful
spirits came freqUently. I heard accordions play wonderful music as they were held in one hand, often by a
person who could not play at all. I heard and saw
hand-bells carried about the room in the air; put first
into one person's hand, and thenr into another's; taken
away again by a strong pull, though you could not see
the hand ftouching them..... As for communications
professedly fromn spirits, they were of daily occurrence,
and often wonderful.  Our previous theological opinions were resisted and condemned when I and my wife
were alone.
" I have seen spirit-hands moving about; I have felt
them again and again. I have seen writing done by
spirits, by laying a pencil and paper in the middle of
the floor, and very good sense written too.
"I could give you a whole volume of the remarkable and even startling revelations made by our own departed friends at our own evening table; those friends
coming at wholly unexpected times, and bringing messages of the most vital importance; carrying them on
from period to period, sometimes at intervals of years,
into a perfect history. But these things are too sacred
for the public eye."




148          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
The testimony of Dr. Ashburner, a well-known London physician, is very satisfactory.  " I have myself
so often witnessed spiritual manifestations, that I could
not, if I were inclined, put aside the evidences which
have come before me.  When Mr. Charles Foster was
in London in 1863, lie was often in my honuse;  and
numerous friends had opportunities of witnessing the
phenomena which occurred in his presence.  The second morning that lie called on me was about two weeks
after his arrival in Engcland. Accidentally, at the same
time arrived at my door, Lady C. H. anldd her aunt, wife
of the Rev. A. E. I urged them  to come in, and
placed them on chairs at the sides of my dining-table.
Their names had not been mentioned; Mr. Foster having retired to the farther extremity of the room, so as
not to be able to see what the ladies wrote, I induced
them each to write, upon separate slips of paper, six
names of friends who had departed this world. These
they folded into pellets, which were placed together.
"' Mr. Foster, coming back to the table, immediately
picked up a pellet, and addressing himself to Mrs. A. E.,'Alice,' he said, which made the lady start, and ask
how he knew her name. He replied,'Your cousin,
John Whitney, whose name you wrote in that little
piece of paper, stands by your side, and desires me to
say, that he often watches over you, and reads your
tlhoughts, which are always pure and good. He is delighted at the tenderness and care which you exhibit
in the education of your children.' Then he turned
towards me, and said,' Alice's uncle is smiling benignantly as he is looking towards you. He says you
and lie were very intimate friends.' I said,' I should
like to know the naame of my friend;' and Mr. Fuster




IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?            149
instantly replied,' Gaven. His Christian name will
appear on my right arm.''LThe arm was bared; and there appeared in red
letters, fully one inch and a quarter long, the name
William, raised on the skill of his arm.  Certainly,
William Gaven was my dear old friend, and the uncle
of the lady whose namn3 is Alice.
"'Mr. Foster next addressed himself to Lady C.,
whom he had never seen before in his life.' Your
mothler,' said lie,' the Marchioness of, stands by
your side, and desires to give you her fond blessing
and very affectionate love.' He added,' Lady C., you
wrote on a piece of paper I hold here the name of
Miss Stuart.  She stands by the side of your mother,
and is beaming with delight at the sight of her pupil.
She was your governess, and was much attached to
you.' He added,'That charming person, the marchioness, was a great friend of the doctor's.  She is so
pleased to find you all here! Her Christian name is
to appear on my arm.' Mr. Foster drew up his sleeve,
and there appeared in raised, red letters on the skin,
the name Barbara."  Dr. Ashburner adds, " Here were
cases in which it was quite impossible that the medium
could have known any single fact relating to the families, or to the intimacies, of any of the persons present.
I had myself formed his acquaintance only two days
before; and the ladies had arrived from a part of the
country with which he could not possibly be acquainted."
If it is said that this might be accomplished by
milnd-readinlg, then- the question arises, How does it
lappen that the medium has no knowledge of this?
CaI thlis, the most wonderful of all powers, be CXuI



150          IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?
cised unconsciously? And why are such manifestations invariably attributed to spirits by the manifestations themselves? Do mediums not only unconsciously read mind, move physical bodies, and write messages, but at the same time unconsciously lie regarding the cause of these varied phenomena?
My own spiritual experience has been much like that
of William Howitt.  I commenced the investigation
of Spiritualism at home, with the members of our own
family; when we had raps, movement of tables, and,
by these means, communications from unseen intelligences professing to be our departed friends, and giving us satisfactory evidence of this. After this, I saw
remarkable physical manifestations tlhroughl  mediums
in Ohio, Indiana, New York, and Canada,- such as the
elevation of heavy tables and other bodies when no
person was in contact with them, the rooms in which
these took place being at the time well lighted. I have
seen hands repeatedly, and felt them still more often,
when the hands of the only person in the room beside
myself lay upon the table before men; and this frequently in the broad daylight also. I have induced
spirits to make for me impressions of their hands on
plastic substances, such as putty and clay, and to draw
their outlines with pencil on paper, which they have
done repeatedly in my presence in a well-lighted room.
Onl one occasion, I received ill this way the outline of
a hand larger than I ever saw; when the only person
present beside myself was a lady of average size, and
both her hands at the time were on the table before
me.
I have frequently received communications in writing both on slate and paper; and in all cases this took




IS SPIRITUALISMI TRUE?           151
place in the daytime, or in a lighted room, and under
circumstances that rendered it utterly impossible for
any person in the body to produce them.  I desire no
more evidence than I have had on this subject; for it
leaves no room for question or doubt.
Those who can be satisfied by testimony upon this
subject may certainly obtain all that is needed. If
they desire personal experience, they need not go far to
obtain that also, and know for themselves that Spiritualism is true, and rejoice in a knowledge of the most
glorious gospel that was ever preached to mankind.
Our graveyards are not the dwelling-places of the
departed; nor are their coffins the bedrooms in which
they are to sleep till a trumpet-blast shall wake the
dust, and call it forth to life again.  There we lay
away the shards, the cast-off cases of humanity, while
the friends we mourn are sadly smiling at our sorrow,
and longing to enlighten us, and bear up the load that
presses the mourner's spirit down.
What we call death is but an epoch in the soul's
history.  Life here is the first act in the great drama
of existence; and the curtain only falls to rise again,
and show us a fairer scene, and introduce us to a better
life.  We mourn not the departure of our friends as
those who are agonized with doubt as to whether they
have gone to a heaven of pious bliss or a hell of abysmal despair; nor do we mourn as those who believe
they are asleep, and that only a miracle can awake
them. Tlhere is no gulf between us and them, that
needs to be bridged; no wall that needs to be scaled; no
vigilant gate-keepers to be eluded.  In sorrow they
are near to cheer us, in danger to warn, iil temptation
to strengthen.  No selfish enjoyme::t eclipses their




152          IS SPIRITUALISMI TRUE?
love or weakens their affection, and as surely as we
part we shall meet again.
Tell it to the ocean, and let his deep voice repeat it
to the thousand islands that lie upon his broad breast;
tell it to the winds, and let its glad tidings be carried
on their wings over the wide continents, and let earth's
millions join in one grand hymn of praise.
Let the mourner's tears be dried, and bid the orphan
smile: death is no longer man's enemy; by the angel
of Spiritualism he swears eternal friendship to mankind.
Do I, then, indorse all that professes to come from
the spirit-world? By no means. Some things attributed to this source are doubtless produced by fraud;
though by no means as much as some would have us
believe. The charge of fraud has been made against
some of the best people that ever lived; and some timid
ones have been broken down by it, who were as true
and pure as Nature herself.  Some phenomena attributed to spirits outside of the body are in reality
produced by spirits still remaining in the body. These
spirits, that are to do such wonderful things when they
have left the body, possess the power, to a certain extent, now, and frequently exercise it; and multitudes
innocently, because ignorantly, attribute to spirits what
has no other source than themselves, it may be, in a
peculiar condition.
Nor do I indorse as good or true all that in reality
comes from the spirit-world.  We are spirits incased
in clay: they are spirits who have dropped the case,
but, in other respects, are identically the same. Every
second a human being becomes a spirit; and the spiritworld canaot but abound with ignorant, vicious, uln



IS SPIRITUALISM TRUE?             153
developed spirits. Shall we submit to their dictation?
Shall we give ourselves up to their influence regardless
of their character?  The consequences mnilght be, as
they have frequently been, most disastrous. We must
stand by our own sense of what is true, right, and
pure, and never move a step without good reason.
Prove to us that you are in communication with
Franklin, Channing, Parker, George Fox, or Jesus,
what then?  We must still talke what tlhey say for
what it seems to us to be worth when weighed in the
scale of our judgment; for, if God spoke, we could do
no other.  Herein differs modern from ancient Spiritualism. Ancient Spiritualism —that which the Christian Church believes in and indorses to-day - overpowers the individual soul, robs it of its heritage, sets a
master over it who graciously permits it to echo his
voice.  But we have learned that a man's soul is to
him the highest tribunal in the universe; by tlat hle
must stand first, last, and always.  All revelations
must appeal to that, and nothing be accepted that it
rejects; each for himself, making daily the heaven
thlat he desires, an-ld bearingr it with him to the laud of
souls, whithler Time bears us with rapid strides.








ORTHODOXY FALSE,








ORTHODOXY FALSE SINCE SPIRITUALISM
IS TRUE.
EVERYBODY has heard of the witty saying of Sydney
Smith, " Orthodoxy is my doxy, and heterodoxy the
other man's doxy." But this is not what I mean by
orthodoxy, when I say orthodoxy is false since spiritualism is true. I mean the peculiar religious doctrines
taught by what are called the evangelical churches, —
those who take the ground that the Bible is the inspired
word of God; that man is totally depraved, and born
to do evil continually, in consequence of Adam's transgression; who believe in the eternity of torment to
which he thus became liable, and from which he can
only be saved by belief in Jesus, the second person of
the Trinity, through whose merits the true believer
escapes the pit of woe, and passes through the pearly
gates into the New Jerusalem, there to sing the praises
of his Redeemer forever. The orthodox, therefore, include Catholics, Orthodox Quakers, Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and a host of others.
We are in daily communication with the spirits of
the departed, some of whom never belonged to any
religious organization, never attended church, believed
not in Jesus as a Son of God, and the Saviour, never
professed to be born more than once, and were there15.7




158    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM  TRUE.
fore orthodoxically wicked; yet we find they are in no
hopeless prison, -
"Where sinners must with devils dwell,
In darkness, fire, and chains."
They are swimming in no shoreless brimstone lake,
with waves of damnation rolling over their guilty
souls; they are not crying for a drop of water to cool
their scorched tongues; they are not even advising
their friends who are still on earth to believe the
doctrines of orthodoxy, and obey its requirements, that
they may improve their condition when they pass to
the land of souls.
But some of our departed friends were members of
orthodox churches: they did believe in Jesus as their
Saviour; they were baptized in his name; they believed
themselves mysteriously born again, and died in the
faith, with the full prospect of the heaven that had been
preached to them, as a reward of the righteous, from
their infancy. We now converse with them, and find
them to be just such persons as we knew upon earth,
save that their orthodoxy has been terribly shattered.
They confess to us that the religious views that they
held here were altogether contrary to the facts as thev
find them there, and that orthodoxy is as wrong as its
name is right. They find no golden city with gates
of pearl, no God seated upon a great white throne, no
Jesus at his right hand, no twelve subordinate thrones
upon which his fishermen disciples sit, judging the
twelve tribes of Israel. There are no eye-full beasts
guarding the throne, and crying, "Holy, holy, holy! "
day and night; nor elders forever throwing down their
crowns, while the crowd look on in holy admiration.




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM  TRUE.    159
Thus we find that hell and heaven alike depart; and
orthodoxy, dressed in crape, goes weeping after them.
No more can the orthodox poet picture, as did Pollok in his " Course of Time," the sinners' abode:" Wide was the place,
And deep as wide, and ruinous as deep.
Beneath, I saw a lake of burning fire,
With tempest tossed perpetually; and still
The waves of fiery darkness [strange darkness that]'gainst the
rocks
Of dark damnation broke, and music made
Of melancholy sort; and overhead,
And all around, wind warred with wind, storm howled
To storm, and lightnino, forked lightning, crossed,
And thunder answered thunder, muttering sounds
Of sullen wrath. And, far as sight could pierce,
Or down descend in caves of hopeless depth,
Through all that dungeon of unfading fire,
I saw most miserable beings walk;
Burning continually, yet unconsumed;
Forever wastincr, yet enduring still;
Dying perpetually, yet never dead.
Some wandered lonely in the desert flames:
And some in fell encounter fiercely met,
With curses loud, and blasphemies that made
The cheek of darkness pale; and as they fought,
And cursed, and gnashed their teeth, and wished to die,
Their hollow eyes did utter streams of woe.
And there were groans that ended not, and sighs
That always sighed, and tears that ever wept
And ever fell, but not in mercy's sight."
This was the hell of orthodoxy.  It has cooled down
considerably since this was written. It was once as
fiery as the primeval earth, when white-hot billows
rolled. along its breast; but it cools so much more
rapidly, that our children may expect to find it a very




160    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
comfortable place of abode. All will yet learn that
no worse hell exists than earth makes: the soul's con.
dition, wherever that s6ul may be, produces hell or
heaven, if we still make use of the names. If any
thing has been demonstrated by the unnumbered
communications received from the spirit-world within
the last twenty years, it is this.
Since the hell of orthodoxy is false, man was never
in danger of it, and he never needed any Jesus to
save him from what never had an existence. Jesus,
then, is no Saviour in the orthodox sense: no salvation
came by him. HEe was no more sent of God than
Patrick's baby, born yesterday; for the necessity of his
being sent did not exist. He was no more the Son of
God than Socrates who preceded him, John Brown
who came after him, or we who criticise him; no more
a Saviour than Socrates and Plato who shine like stars
in the pagan heavens, or Garrison and Phillips who
shine in ours to-day,- all of these men far in advance
of Jesus in many respects.
The whole plan of salvation indeed, as taught by
orthodoxy, is essentially unreasonable, mean, and unmanly: it will not bear the light of rational illvestigation for a moment. Tile whole humanl race had
become, by the sin of the first pair, exposed to eternal
torments, and were of themselves utterly unable to do
one good deed, or think one good thought. They had
no power to elevate themselves firom the horrible pit
in which they are born, none to save themselves from
the terrible consequences of their crimes. Ill this lost
condition, God, in his great mercy, formed the plana t )
save us through the merits of his well-beloved Soni,
who knew no sin, but became a sill-offering for us,




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   161
that we might be made the righteousness of God in
him. He suffered in our room and stead. Our cllastisement was laid upon him, God treating him as if he
had been guilty of all human crime; and we, by faith
in him, are treated by God as if we had lived his life
of perfect goodness.  We have no virtue; but the
virtue of Jesus is attributed to us. We deserve
nothling but hell, - even the best of us; but, by some
godly hocus-pocus, we are to be conjured into heaven.
We are filthy, vile, abominable; but, as the old
Orthodox hymn says," Jesus, thy blood and righteousness
My beauty are, my glorious dress:
Midst flaming worlds, in these arrayed,
With joy shall I lift up my head."
What a contemptible piece of business is this!
Where is he, possessing the soul of a man, that would
wish to sneak into heaven under the cloak of Jesus
(and such a cloak!) when he knew in his own soul
that he had no right to be there?  Instead of lifting
up his head with joy, a decent man would hang his
hlead, and blush for shame. Suppose that robe of
"blood  and  righteousness " should be torn from
his back, and he revealed in his hideous nakedness!
The heaven of orthodoxy must be one of poltroons,
and spiritless, fawning sycophants, who chant forever
the praises of Him who cheated the Prince of Darkness
of his due, and opened a palace of bliss for helldeserving sinners, who, for the privilege of entering,
must bow and sing glory to him who redeemed them
forever. Such a scheme could never have been devised
in America: it smacks of the despotism, the servility,




162    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
and the meanness of the Old World of kings, my lords:
serene highnesses, and grand seigniors. The true, unbiassed soul intuitively scorns it. It says, " If I have
done deeds worthy of hell, then to hell I will go, and
bear its penalties like a man, asking no odds of the
torturing gods. Let me pass for what I am (cloaks
for hypocrites and cowards): I desire no heaven that I
have not won, and I fear no hell that I do not
deserve." The man who deserves heaven will have it.
He carries the key to its gate in his soul, and needs
no Jesus to indorse him.  Give us justice, and what
more do we need in the universe? All the sin of all
the men that ever lived never deserved the pain of an
orthodox hell for a single day; and any being that
could be unjust enough to make it should be the first
to suffer in it.
Reason cannot but reject this whole " scheme " of
salvation. Finite man is guilty of an infinite offence
against God. He incurs by this means a debt that ilfilnity alone can pay. All earth's treasures cast into
the balance weigh not the millionth of a feather; the
brightest jewels of heaven move not the balance one
jot: only the exchequer of a God call furnish the
means to pay the mighty debt we owe. What shall
be done? If tile debt is not paid, hell and its eternal
torments await every sinful soul. At length, Jehovah
plans the wondrous scheme: Jesus, one with the
Father, " very God of very God," as the Athanasianl
Creed calls him, comes down to this abode of guilty
wretches. He is born of a woman, — a pure and spotless virgin, lives a perfect life, preaches the gospel of
the kingdom, works the most wonderful miracles, is
despised and rejected of men, spat upon, buffeted, and




ORTTIODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   163
is crucified, the just for the unjust. He bore man's
sins, suffered il his stead, washed out with the blood
of a God the damning spot of guilt in God's book of
justice, paid the infinite debt we owed; and God can
now be just, and the justifier of him that believetlh in
Jesus.
What a medley! - God is the creditor; yet God, in
the person of his Son, pays the debt.  Man is the
debtor: the debtor is poor, and cannot pay one cent of
the infinite amount he owes. God, in a voice of thander, and with a look that strikes terror to the guilty
sinner's heart, demands payment of the debt, and
holds his glittering sword ready to cut him down unless the sum is paid. Man, in an agony, looks up, expecting the blow to descend. But now God's pity is
moved for the trembling wretch.  " You cannot pay,
I know," says he;'" but the debt murst be paid to the
uttermost farthing. How else can my justice be satis.
fied? Now I think of a plan;" and, taking a full purse
from his pocket, lie hands it to the sinner, who returns
it to his creditor. God pockets it with a satisfied air.
The debt is paid; justice is satisfied; and the sinner
may now be justified. And this is the wonderful plan
of salvation that angels desire to see into.  Blind
must that soul be that cannot see through it   Maln
was so wicked before Jesus came, that God could by
no means pardon him; but he kills God, and thus
crowns his wickedness, and God is graciously pleased,
when lie pleads the merits of Jesus, to forgive him,
receives him into his house, and calls him  his sol 
Yet, now that the debt is paid, and full satisfaction
given, not one in ten receives the benefit: the great
body of the human race must languish forever iiu
hell, eternal prisoners for debt.




164    O0IRHODOXY FALSER SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
The God whom we are told declares that he will by
no means clear the guilty, and that every man shall
be rewarded according to his works, is, by this salvation, represented, not only as clearing the guilty, but
predicating this clearance upon the sufferings of the
innocent, and rewarding them, not according to their
works, but their belief in the works of another.
The cruelty of God cannot be surpassed: he is, according to this salvation, the veriest Shylock: " I will
have the due and forfeit of my bond, though every
soul that I have made in deep damnation endless
sink."  At the same time, he has made them  so beggarly poor, that they cannot pay.  The sword of his
justice, red-hot, can only be cooled in the blood of his
innocent Son; and he is even yet to wreak his vengeance upon the great mass of mankind, who with good
sense refuse to accept such a useless, contradictory,
irrational, and unmanly system.
The God who made this plan must have less judgament than an intelligent school-boy, less conscience
than a pettifogger, and less mercy than a Confederate
prison-keeper.  Hear what Watts, the orthodox poet,
says of him,"Our God appeared consuming fire;
And Vengeance was his name.
Rich were the drops of Jesus' blood
That calmed his frowning face,
That sprinkled o'er his burning throne,
And turned the wrath to grace."
What a monster!
No wonder that men and women love Jesus, pray to
Jesus, and sing, -
"Jesus, lover of my soul,
Let me to thy bosom fly."




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   165
God is furious as a chafed lion; Jesus, gentle as a turtledove: God is the jailer; Jesus, the deliverer of those
that are bound: God is the heartless Jew, saying, " I
stay here on my bond;" Jesus, the gentle Portia, suggesting to hlm,n " Mercy is twice blessed: it blesseth
him that gives, and him that takes."  Yet both are,
after all, the same individual.  It would seem  as if
such a story could only have been received on the
principle that it is right for God to do what would be
infamous in a man; and that what in us would be utter
folly may be in him superlative wisdom.  And, when
a man comes to that conclusion to-day, he will be
prepared to kiss the pope's toe to-morrow.  It needs
but the fearless exercise of reason, and such gods will
be speedily cast into the limbo where lie the defunct
deities of Greece and Rome.
But, if Jesus is no Saviour, there is no forgiveness
of sin to those who trust ill him or pray to him. Put
as much faith and trust in a rubber doll, and there is no
doubt it would be equally efficacious in removing guilt,
and  sending the repenting sinner home rejoicing.' But I have felt it here," replies the Chiristian, placing
his hand upon his breast. Yes, I have no doubt:
that is just where I supposed you felt it. But the
Mohammedan feels it here; and who saves him?  The
Catholic after confession, the Mormon, and the Buddhist, feel it here; and who saves all these?  You ought
to know it in your brain..- The judgment is of infiiitely miore importance than the feelings ill such matters,
and, when properly cultivated and unbiassed, will lead
you into truth.
The believer in Jesus is not saved from  sin: he is
not even saved from the filthy habit of tobacco-chew



166    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITJALISM TRUE
illg, as any church-sexton will tell you; and, on coran
munion-days, you may see those who  have  been
cleansed in the blood of the Lamb take the quid out
of their mouths, that they may put the body of Jesus
in; and he then suffers a worse fate than he did on
Calvary. The Christian believer is not saved from
ignorance, bigotry, sickness, poverty, or, indeed, ally
evil; and all professions of this character result either
from ignorance, or an intention to deceive.  Salvation
by Jesus is a delusion; and the sooner we see it and
proclaim it, the better for mankind.
But if these orthodox doctrines are untrue, then
the Bible, on which they rest, is untrue.  It teaches the
existence of an "everlasting fire prepared for the
devil and his angyels," — a   lake that burns with fire
and brimstone;" and, if the Bible-writers had been
acquainted with the article, it had doubtless burned
with petroleum  also. The orthodox heaven is the
heaven of the Bible: its God-man is he who says,
"Before Abraham was, I am," and, "He that hath
seen ine hath seen the Father."  It is the Bible that
represents Jesus as the Saviour; and by its texts, hammered like nails, every Sunday, into rickety souls,
orthodoxy is still supported, and scares its victims from
the exercise of their reason, or cajoles them into the
support of its delusions.
Man does not go down to the grave at death to come
up no more, as the Bible declares; neither does lihe
sleep in the dust till awakened by a great trumpetblast, as the Bible also declares. There will be no
judgment-day, with a great king reviewing all nations,
divided into the two classes, righteous and wicked; for
there are no such persons, all people being partly good,




ORTHODOXY- FALSE. SPIRI2UALISM TRUE.   167
and partly bad. Our friends that departed are neither
dead nor asleep: they live and love, and come to us,
teaching us that the life of the future is but a continuation of that of the present, and altogether different
from the gloomy and unnatural views of it given in the
Bible, which must cease, before long, to be regarded as
authority by a single thinking soul.
You tell me that the Bible is the text-book of our
churches; it is read in our schools, recognized in our
courts of justice, and reverenced even by our men of
science. Yes; and it was the text-book of all slaveholders from New Jersey to Texas; it was reverenced
by Constantine, the bloody tyrant of the fourth century, and is reverenced to-day by nearly every criminal
that our prisons hold. The less that is said about the
reverence that men of science have for it, the better.
The reverence that such men as Agassiz, Dana, Daw.
son, and others, have for it, is the fraternal greeting of
Joab, who speaks peaceably to Abner, but smites him
under the fifth rib, so that he dies: a kiss is on their
lips, but a dagger in their hands.
We cannot do otherwise than discard the Bible as
authority; and, should it be retranslated and amended
a thousand times, it would still be the same. It
aboulnds with the grossest fables; it tells the filthiest
and bloodiest stories; it contains bad grammar, bad
logic, innumerable contradictions, bad science, and,
what is worse, bad morality. It has been the bulwark of slavery, woman's degradation, bigotry, and religious persecution, in every age, and blasts every soul
that submits with unquestioning reverence to its
teachings. Under the direction of orthodoxy, it has
made Jesus a highwayman, who clutches men by the




168   ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
throat, and demands, "' Your soul's life, or belief in
my doctrine."  And we have been so cowardly as to
allow him to parade our highways, and throttle our
citizens, almost without expostulation, because he lets
loose the hound of public opinion upon those who
refuse to yield to his outrageous demand.
Jesus must come to us as a philosopher does, andl
present his reasons for the faith that he demands; he
must place his doctrine before us as a merchant does
his wares, and we must judge for ourselves whether
they are worthy of our acceptance.  What should we
think of the merchant who demanded that we should
close our eyes before we purchased his goods?  We
should naturally conclude that they would not bear
examination, and that he wished to cheat us. When
a man says to us, " He that believeth not what I teach
shall be damned," he is attempting to close the eyes
of our reason; and we need to be doubly cautious in
receiving what he presents. 1" So much of your doctrine as appears to us to be reasonable, Jesus, we will
accept; and, if you are a sensible man, this is all you
can desire: if you are otherwise, we are not to be
troubled by you."
The day of unquestioning acceptance, of childish,
gaping belief, is forever over. We say to Moses,
"Come with your old stories of God-planted gardens;
of God-created innocent people, who did not know
good or evil till they had partaken of a mysterions
and forbidden fruit; of wonderful walking and talking
snakes; of the ark that saved ten times as many as
could get into it: we will receive you as we do the
Arab with his " Nights' Entertainments," and Swift
with his stories of the Liliputians and Brobdingnagians.




ORTLHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   169
O;le is as reasonable as the other. Men are as likely
to be forty feet high as to be nine hundred and sixtynine years old. You are just as welcome as they.
Your tales can go with those of " Sinbad the Sailor,"
the " Wonderful Lamp," and the "Forty Thieves," —
no worse thieves than the Israelites after they had been
forty years under your tuition. You saw God as
Aladdin saw the enchanted garden. You talked with
him as really as Aladdin with the geni, and received
the tables of stone from him just as truly as Sinbad
picked up the precious stones in the Valley of Diamonds. But you must not expect of us any more
than this. You cannot make us believe that you talked
with the Universal Soul; that he engaged you to
make the fantastic fooleries for your tabernacle, and
sat upon a shittim-wood box, and chatted with you by
the hour,* and permitted impertinences from you that
a king would not permit from his prime-minister.
We tell you plainly that you state, what, in the nature
of things, must be false, and what, if any man should
declare to-day, his neighbors would consider him in
consequence deranged or an infamous liar."
We will give the Bible a place with the Koran, the
Talmud, the Book of Mormon, the Vedas and Shasters,
Swedenborg's works, and Davis's Divine Revelations,no more fromi God than they, and no more to be taken
as authority than they.
But if the Bible of orthodoxy is false, so is the God
that it reveals, —Jehovah, the great object of religious
worship in the churches all over this broad land. The
Jewish Jehovah is no less an idol than the Beelzebub
of the Philistine, or the Jove of the Roman. The one
* Exodus xxv. 10, 22.




170    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
is just as blessed as the other; the one is just as much
our Maker as the other. If the man who worships
Jupiter is an idolater, the man who worships Jehovah
is equally so. If the temples of Jupiter were the
fanes of an idolatrous people, then the steeple-crowned
churches of orthodoxy are the temples of idolatrous worship;" and the ministers who officiate in their
pulpits are but priests at the altar of the one great idol.
A prayer offered to Jupiter is just as good as a prayer
offered to Jehovah: " O Jupiter! father of the gods,
and lord of lords; thou who created the heavens and
the earth, and man to dwell upon it: we beseech thee
to hear our prayer, and give ileed to the voice of our
supplication.  Thou wert the god of Remus and Romulus, the god of Csesar and Seneca, and thou art our
god, and we will worship thee. Thou wert with thy
people, the Romans, and subdued all nations upon
earth to their sway; thou gavest them dominion from
sea to sea, and from Romne to the enlds of the earth.
O Jupiter! be with us as thou wert with them; subdue
our enemies before us; let thy spirit, and the spirit of
thy wife Juno, descend, and dwell in our hearts, and
abide withl us forever.  Hear us and help us.  Give us
of thy light, thy wisdom, and thy power, that we may
serve thee with our whole souls while here, and be fitted to enjoy the heaven of the gods hereafter."  Why
is not that as good as ninety-nine hundredths of the
prayers offered in our orithodox churches?  It will ascend just as high, and be just as effectual in bringing
a ble-sing dowil. Jove is as nilgh1 to thein that call
upon him as Jehovah; and we are as much his offspring as we are the children of fHim  whom Paul
calls the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   171
What has the Soul of the universe to do with that
being who cursed Adam and Eve, and Eve more than
Adam, for doing what, with the nature he had given
them, they could lnot help doing? - a being who curses
on account of them every child born inlto the world.
Is the Soul of the universe related to Him who walked
about in a garden, and, like children playing at hideand-seek, called out, " Adam, where art thou?  To
Him who wrestled with a tricky Jewish stock-breeder
for a whole night, and only escaped from his hands by
putting his thigh out of joint?
What have we to do with a being that turned water
into blood, made lice out of dust, filled the land of Egypt
with flies and frogs, and at length murdered more
than a million people, because Pharaoli did what lhe
had predetermined that lie should do, and so hardened
his heart that hle could not avoid doing? - a being
who gave a country already occupied to a nation who
had no right to a foot of it, and made every man in
that nation a murderer that they might conquer and
possess it?
Was it the Soul of the universe that tempted Abrahanl to slay his cherished son, and, when the infatuated
patriarch took up the knife to perform  the dreadful
deed, sent his angel to stay the murderous hand, and
saiid, "In blessilng I will bless thee, and in multiplyingl  I will multiply thy seed as the stars of heaven,
and as the sand whichi is upon the seashore.... And
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed
because thou hlast obeyed my voice "?
Whlat a pious old saint to be sure! - ready to commit
a murder because a voice commanded hii-. Human
nature, and the God within, should have led him  to




172   ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
reply,' I won't touch the lad for you nor the universe; and I despise you for asking me to do such an
infamous deed."  When men set up such a great
bloody idol as this for a God, it is our duty, as recipients of clearer light, to overthrow it, and deliver the
world from its curse.
Neither Elohim nor Jehovah created the earth and
the heavens in six days, nor'in sixty millions. He did
not make man about six thousand years ago; for man
has been here a hundred times as long.  He did not
curse man with death; for death was in the world ages
before man made his appearance.  In short, he never
did any thing, for he is not; and his worshippers are
as truly idolaters as those whose condition they deplore.
But I am  asked,' How  is it that men of welldeveloped minds and cultivated intellects have bowed
down to this God, and accepted the religion that inculcates his worship?  Wily is it, that, among the
most intelligent people of this planet, Jesus is regarded as the Saviour, and Jehovah as the God and
Father, of all?'?
The mass of the people ask only that a thing shall
be popular.  If they find a faith in existence in their
country when they arrive, - and where is the country
destitute of one?- ninety-nine out of every hundred
draw it in as they do their mother's milk.  When
grown to the age of understanding, how difficult to
deliver ourselves from the influence of early training,
and still more, perhaps, to resist the psychologic influence of the masses surrounding us! As the magnetism of the earth causes every poised needle to point to
the north; so the influence of a people's faith bears on
every individual, and tends to bring each to the same




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   173
opinion. But few are able to withstand its power.
Of a thousand born in Arabia, there is not, probably,
more than one who thinks of questioning the popular
faith, —"  There is one God, and Mohammed is his
prophet."  Tell them that Mohammed was like other
men, except that he was more shrewd and more
fanatical, and they exclaim  at once, "You infidel
dog!"  The more intelligent say, "If you have no
respect for our prophet, have some for these indisputable facts: Mohammedans number to-day one hundred and thirty millions. Established six hundred
years after Christianity, our religion has supplanted it
in its original home. It has overspread, not only
Arabia, but Persia, Turkey, Palestine, a large portion
of South-eastern Asia, and half of Africa. When all
Christian countries were buried in the ignorance of the
dark ages, then science flourished only where our
religion fostered it. Can you not see the hand of God
in such a career? and is it not evident that Mohammed was indeed what he proclaimed, - the prophet of
God? "  We cannot see this, of course. Neither can
I see the hand of God in the career of Jesus, nor in
Christianity since his death. When Christianity was
first taught, Jesus was expected to be seen " coining
in the clouds" every day, to reward those who believed
in him, and punish all who rejected his gospel. What
more natural than for the multitude, who desire to be
on what seems the safe side, to accept this simple faith
in Jesus, which promises such unspeakable blessings
here and hereafter, and deliverance from the terrible
woes denounced against the unbeliever?  When the
multitude have accepted a certain religion, how few,
even of men of science, have backbone enouglh to




1174    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
reject it, when at heart they despise the creed that
cramps them! Humboldt is content privately to sneer
at orthodoxy, but never publicly attacks it.  Agassiz
states what falsifies the Mosaic story, and evidently
disbelieves it, and yet so writes as to lead people to
think that he credits its fables. Mhiller, the linguist,
shows conclusively, that lie has outgrown all faith in
the miraculous inspiration of the Bible; but his position keeps him from boldly declaring the fact. It is
not bearing false witness to say, that at least threefourths of the scientific professors in England and
America have no faith ill Christianity as a miraculous
religion; but their position is such, that veryfew dare
to be true to their inward convictions.
But I am asked, " How could Jesus have attained
the lofty position that he at present occupies, how
could he have commanded the veneration  of the
wisest and the best for nearly two thousand years, if
he was not indeed the Son of God, and the Saviour
of mankind? "
The time in which he was born was one of ignorance and superstition; faith in miracles was almost
universal; and but little knowledge existed of the
operations of natural law. The whole Jewish nation
was looking for the Messiah; and this was just the soil
in which he might be expected to spring up. How
many who believe in Jesus in America would accept
as a Son of God, and a miraculous Saviour, the man
who could present no better credentials than Jesus
did?- his mother denying that he was his reputed
father's son, the only evidence to show that he was
not illegitimate beinr such as dreams furnish.  He
lives for thirty years, but does scarcely any thing




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   175
worthy of record: he picks out for his disciples
twelve illiterate and superstitious fishermen, who ap.
pear, from the record, to have been ready to believe
alny thing that their master told them. When the
sceptical very properly ask him for a sign, he abuses
them by calling them an. evil and adulterous generation. Should a man,perform all the miracles that
Jesus is said to have performed, how many believers
would he have now?- not one-half of those who saw
him do them. Circumstances favored the claim of
Jesus, just as they favored Mohammed, and as they
favored Gautama. Jesus was not the first, by a hundred, who had called himself the Christ, or was so
considered by others; and, after his time, there were
"Chllrists many."  How could Gautama be the centre
of attraction to thousands of millions (four hundred
millions now living), if he was not what the Buddhists
believe him to have been, -a god, and the savior of
mankind? How came such gods as Zeus, Jove, Hercules, Bacchus, and Esculapius, to be worshipped by
the master-intellects of Greece and Rome for ages? -
beings that never existed at all, yet commanded the
heart's adoration of thousands of millions of the wisest
and best of their time. Do you, Protestant, suppose
that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was any more than a
dark-eyed, chatty Jewish maiden, who, going barefoot
to the well at Nazareth, captivated the mechanic,
Joseph, as he worked on the roof of a neighboring
house?  Yet read the Catholic prayer-book, and see
the adoration paid to their queen of heaven, the
mother of God, whom millions beg to intercede for
them.
When a man asks me to accept Cllristianity because




176    ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
of its widespread power and influence, I say to him,
Why not turn Buddhist? Christianity numbers two
hundred millions of believers; but Buddhism has a list
of four hundred millions. If the fact contained in tlhe
first figures makes Christianity the true religion, and
Jesus the Son of God, then Buddhisml must be doubly
true, and Gautama twice as much God's son.
Jesus was a man who taught many beautiful and
excellent lessons; a man who sympathized with the
poor, and denounced their tyrants, but at the same time
taught many lessons that were neither true nor beautiful; a man who displayed overweening self-esteem,
and who was much more desirous that men should believe in him than that they should be true to themselves. He is no more our master than George Fox,
John Wesley, or Joseph Smith. We do not therefore
exhort men to "' stand up for Jesus," but to stand up
for humanity that needs it. Man has been trampled
upon, his reason denounced, his selfhood cast down,
that an idol might be elevated upon it. Jesus is the
Christian' Juggernaut. In India, the devotees throw
their bodies before the idol: in Christian countries,
they prostrate their souls before theirs; and Jesus in
ihis triumphal car, drawn by his blinded followers,
encouraged by his priests, rides ever over them.  Let
a man offer his reasonable protest against this idolatry,
and he is at once denounced as the vilest criminal; the
orthodox bloodhounds are put upon his track, and their
bayiugs tell how gladly they would hunt the heretic to
death if they only had the power, as they had before
intelligence muzzled them.
All these false, then is orthodoxy false. These
churches of the living God, so called, are shams every




ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   177
one; and the ceremonies performed in them the veriest
child's play. What has the Soul of the universe to
do with their pompous prayQrs, their silly rituals, their
s]rinklings, dippings, and port-wine sippings, called
holy sacraments? what to do with their begging, beseeching, sometimes howling prayer-meetings? their
mesmeric revivals, in which the hallucination of one
is communicated to the many, and a foolish consistency
leads men to cling to it for life? God has no more to
do with all this than he has with the shoe-shops of
Massachusetts, or the printing-offices; and it would
be just as proper to call a ball-club the club of God as
a hundred ignorant orthodox believers God's church.
It is high time that the pretensions of the high priests
of a no better than pagan mythology were scouted, and
a true estimate made of their sanctity, knowledge, and
power. Professing to know God, they are the most
ignorant of him, for they do not study Nature by science, which alone reveals him; pretending to teach men
the way to heaven, they close the door against the very
angels who come to reveal it.
Spiritualism is to aid greatly in delivering us from
orthodox tyranny and idolatrous man-worship, leading
men to the God and Saviour within that each possesses,
to the salvation that comes by the exercise of our own
powers, and to the heaven for all, of which no Peter
keeps the key, and to which the name of Jesus is no
"' Oen, sesame."  Think of the time and energy wasted
in praising Jesus, praying to Jesus, preaching Jesus,
and the labor and money squandered in spreading
abroad fantastic statements concerning this man, over
the world, instead of giving people a knowledge of
themselves and the laws of the universe, -knowledge
that concerns us every day.
12




178   ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
But orthodoxy has seen its greatest triumphs; and its
day of prosperity is over. Its feeble stars are paling
in the light of the new,morn that greets humanity.
It is already ashamed of its hell, - a phantom conjured
up in the days of ignorance by some undeveloped soul,
who, in deep malignity, wished that those who had offended him here might be infinitely tortured hereafter.
The brimstone and the smoke are indeed gone; the
Devil, the dusky jailer of the pit, is dead. And what
becomes of orthodoxy then? Hell has been the fire
whose heat created nine-tenths of the steam that ran
the machinery. Take the fire of hell out of a revival,
and then try to keep it up! You might as well think
of running a locomotive by crowding the fire-box
with ice-blocks. No fire, no steam; no steam, no motion; the orthodox train at a dead stand-still. How
many missionaries would wander into foreign lands to
preach the story of the cross, if Jesus does not save his
believers from hell? How long would Christian
churches be crowded to listen to dry-as-dust sermons,
and nod over mile-long prayers, if the hearers did not
imagine, that, in some way, this helps them "to escape
the jaws of hell "?
Orthodoxy is doomed, and is powerless as its God to
avert its doom. And why should we mourn? It scatters its hymn-books, pious tracts, and Bibles, but stands
at the door of our public library, and refuses on its
market-day (Sunday) to open, and admit the hungry
souls; for that might diminish the attendance at its
temples. It would thus stand at the door of heaven,
if it had the power, and admit none but the bigots
who can pronounce its shibboleth. It would " circumnavigate tile globe to disturb the creed of a single beg



ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.   179
gar;" but it would not stir a step to break the chains
of four million slaves, and cursed, in the name of Jehovah, all who did: but, when infidel abolitionists made
antislavery popular, it joined in the cry for freedom,
and now demands that all the credit of the slave's freedom shall be given to the " church of the Lord Jesus
Christ."  It imprisoiied Galileo; it murdered Bruno;
it slandered and belied Thomas Paine, and still repeats
its calumnies and lies; it burned Michael Servetus;
it hung the Quakers, who were less orthodox than its
creed; it imprisoned Abner Kneeland, and compels our
children to listen daily to the reading of its Jewish
story-book, that it claims contains the will of" God
Most High."  If its prayers had been of any avail, it
would have murdered Theodore Parker: it did its best,
and now sits, and gnashes its teeth at those it is no
longer able to tear. It dooms Dickens to damnation,
because his heart was too large, and his intellect too
clear, to accept its dogmas, and by his presence there
makes its hell so much more attractive than its heaven.
IEe had his faults, who is without them? but none
one-half as bad as the bigotry of the reverend Maw
worms that anathematize him. "He was no Christian," say the bigots. Let us hope that he was not.
Ile was something very much superior, — a man of surpassing genius and world-wide humanity, whose name
will be blessed when orthodoxy will be a by-word
among all people.
What, then, have we to do with orthodoxy? Shall we
give our money to raise its proud steeples? shall we
send our children to its Sunday schools to have fetters
fastened upon their limbs that it will take years to
break? slhall we p'iy forx pews in its hleathcn temples,




180   ORTHODOXY FALSE, SPIRITUALISM TRUE.
and reverence its false gods? If all who are reformers at heart would assert their individuality, we should
soon see the good time that we hope for. Don't go
ducking and bowing, cringing and crawling, through
the world; believing in Nature, and sacrificing to Jehovah; believing in individuality, and yet paying
priests, and building their' joss-houses "  We can
do infinitely better.
Our God is Nature- father, mother. As near to thy
child, hard-handed mechanic, and thy child as dear to
God, as the infant Jesus was when he lay on the breast
of Mary. On his broad bosom we shall be borne beyond death to the glorious world of the hereafter, -
life there a continuance of life here, a spiritual blossoming of what this life has been but the bud.
We can make no compromise with orthodoxy henceforth and forever. Ours is a new religion, a new God,
a new heaven, and a gospel which is destined to make
a new earth. We do not blame the people who have
accepted the old (they probably did the best they
could); but these old skeletons shall not reach their
bony hands out of their mouldy sepulchres, and drag
us in to chatter with them. Ours the living present>i
ours the sunshine and the song of birds, the sound of
purling brooks, the joy of the living world ripening in
God's smile, - the vestibule of heaven.




WHAT IS RIGHT?








WHAT IS RIGHT?
IT is Friday, the Mussulman's holy day. The cry
of the muezzin has stirred the sultry air, and thousands are flowing through the streets to the stately
mosque. Let us follow. The swelling dome is over
our heads, the marble pavement beneath our feet, and
around us a host of bended worshippers, their hands
clasped in the fervor of devotion. Listen to the
voice of this kneeling supplicant by our side: "O
Allah! I am weak, but thou art all-strong; strengthen
me to do the right, that I may enjoy hereafter the
bliss of Paradise."
As he rises from his knees, we accost him, and say,
"Friend, you have been praying to Allah, or God, to
strengthen you to do right: will you please to tell us
what you mean by right?"  " Certainly," replies the
Mussulman, with a look of sorrow for our ignorance
of so simple yet important a subject. "There is one
God, and Mohammed is his prophet. This God has
graciously revealed his will to us, by his prophet, in
his holy word the Koran,- a book superior to every
other book in the world. To obey the commands of
183




184             WHAT IS RIGHT?
God, as given in this book, is to do right; and to dis
obey them is to do wrong. Cast away this precious
volume, and we have no guiding star by which to
regulate our wanderings: we cannot tell what is
right, or what is wrong, and are the slaves of ignorance and vice."
It is Saturday, the Jewish holy day. There stands
the gorgeous temple, little less beautiful than the
pride of Jerusalem  on Mount Moriah, so silently
erected in the days of Solomon. In the pulpit behold the venerable rabbi, his white beard resting
upon his breast. Around him are the sons of Israel,
and above in the gallery the daughters, assembled to
worship the God of their fathers. From the ark he
has taken the sacred parchment; and, reverentially
unrolling it, he reads a portion of the law of Moses,
and then addresses the assembled congregation:' "Men and brethren, children of our father Jacob, I
beseech you, do right; then shall ye be blessed in
your basket and in your store, in your going-out, and
in your coming-in.  Do right at all times, and the
blessing of Jehovah out of Zion will descend and
rest upon you."
As the aged rabbi descends from the pulpit, we
accost him, " You have been advising your brethren
to do right: will you please to tell us what you mean
by right? "- " Certainly, my son," replies the rabbi.
" The Almighty God, who made the heavens and the
earth, has revealed himself to mankind by his ser.
vant Moses, and the prophets: they have written his
holy law; and that law is contained in a book that
Christians call the Old Testament (the New Testa.
ment is but a record of fables, and unworthy of cre



WHAT IS RIGHT?                185
deuce from any rational mind). To obey God's law
as thus revealed, is to do right; to violate it is to do
wrong: and under heaven there is no other way by
which a man can tell what is right or what is wrong,
but by studying this word of Jehovah."
It is Sunday, the Christian's holy day; and from a
hundred steeples floats the music of a thousand bells;
and through the streets of the city pass multitudes,
dressed in their gayest attire, to their respective
places of worship. There stands the grand cathedral,
with its cloud-reaching spire. We enter, and admire
the stateliness and beauty of this " God's house."
The organ's peal sweeps through the aisle
In tones would make an angel smile;
Now soft, as is a fairy strain,
Then " groaning like a god in pain."
Slowly a bead rises from behind a tasselled desk,
and the  minister reads, "He that doeth righteous.
ness is righteous, even as he is righteous;" and from
this text he preaches. " Friends," he exclaims, as he
proceeds with his discourse, " to be happy here and
hereafter, we must obey the will of God; in other
words, do right. He who does the right has God for
his father, Jesus for his friend, and heaven for his
home; but to the wrong-doer there is misery in this
world, and a fearful looking-for of fiery indignation
in the next."
When the congregation is dismissed, we approach
the minister, and inquire what he means by the word
"' right," which he has so frequently used in his discourse. "To do right, sir," he replies, " is to do as
Cod commands us. He has revealed his will to us by




186            WHAT IS RIGHT?
his word, contained in the Old and New Testaments,
where we find' truth without any mixture of error.'
To obey his will, as thus revealed, is to do right: to
violate that will is to do wrong; and the wrong-doer,
unless he applies to the Friend of sinners for pardon,
will be cast into outer darkness, where there is weep.
ing and wailing, and gnashing of teeth."
We have, then, already three rules of right, - the
Mohammedan, Jewish, and Christian. "How do you
know," we say to the Mohammedan, " that yours is the
rule of right? "-" There can be no doubt of it," he
replies. " Did not the angel Gabriel appear to our
prophet, and cause the Koran, that holy volume writ,
ten on a table, by the throne of God himself, to descend on his heart for a direction and good-tidings to
the faithful? No unassisted human being could ever
have written such a wonderful book, every page of
which bears the impress of a hand divine. See the
rapid advance of our religion, which, in a few years,
overspread the world, and now comprises so large a
portion of its population. Besides, I know that the
Koran is divine, and the only rule of right. Obeying
its precepts, I have fasted and prayed, with my face
towards Mecca, groaning under the weight of my sins,
when the prophet (glory to his name!) has taken
away my guilt, revealed himself to my soul, and I
have gone on my way rejoicing."
To the Jew we say," How do you know that you
are right? "-" Nothing can be more certain," replies
the Jew. " God appeared to Moses, our lawgiver, on
Mount Sinai, and amid thunders and lightnings deliv.
ered to him our holy law, and instituted his everlast.
ing ordinances. Through the Red Sea he brought




WHAT IS RIGHT?               187
our fathers by the strength of his own right arm, fed
them with angels' food, and delivered their enemies
into their hands. And in the day of atonement have
I gone to our synagogue, bowed down with guilt,
where the rabbi has interceded for us, and I have re.
turned rejoicing in the God of my salvation; for my
sins, which were heavy as a mountain, he lifted off,
and removed far from me."
To the Christian we say, " Are you sure that yours
is the rule of right?  May you not be mistaken?"
"Never," he replies: "it is impossible. The Bible
is God's holy word, confirmed by miracles, prophecies,
and a morality pure as the light of day. It is a sun
without a spot, a fountain of eternal truth, of which
he that drinks shall live forever. Besides, I know that
it is true. Burdened with guilt, I came to the foot of
the cross, as this book teaches; I cast my sins on my
Saviour, and rose a new creature in Christ Jesus. I
carry about with me, therefore, continually the evidence, - God's seal set to his own word..'
Which of these is right? Each seems to be satisfied with his own side, says he knows he is right;
and, of course, if one is right, the rest are wrong.
Suppose we take up some practical questions that
are likely to come before us in daily life, and observe
how these various rules of right deal with them. " Is
it right to drink intoxicating drinks?"' we say to the
3iohammedan. " No, certainly not," he replies,turning
over the leaves of the Koran, and reading to us the
following passage:'O true believers! surely wine
and lots and images and divining arrows are an abomr
ination, and of the work of Satan; therefore avoid
them that ye may prosper.'




188             WHAT IS RIGHT?
"That is sufficient," he says. "God, by his holy
prophet, has forbidden wine, which includes every
thing that intoxicates; and no true believer can use
it."
" What do you think on that subject, Jew? "-" I
cannot learn- that there is any thing wrong in the
moderate use of intoxicating drinks, though drunkenl
ness is of course a great crime, and forbidden by our
holy law."
" What is your opinion upon that subject?" we say
to the Christian. "Wrong, sir, wrong decidedly, and
contrary to the uniform tenor of God's word, from
Genesis to Revelations, which expressly declares that
we must touch not, taste not, handle not, the unclean
thing."
"That is not so," says a gentleman standing by his
side, who overhears our conversation. "Pray, what
are you, sir? "-" I am a believer in the Bible: and I
say that the whole Bible, from Genesis to Revelations,
sanctions the moderate use of intoxicating drinks; and
it is only their abuse that is forbidden." -" What
shall we do in this case?" I say. " Go to the Bible,"
replies the abstaining Christian. "To the law and to
the testimony," says the little-drop brother: "' if they
speak not according to this rule, it is because there is
no light in them."  So to the Bible we go; and, after
turning over several of its pages, we at length come
to a passage referring to the subject that we are considering: " And Noah began to be a husbandman; and
he planted a vineyard; and he drank of the wine,
and was drunken." (Gen. ix. 20.) Within his tent
the old man lay uncovered; while in this condition,
his younger son found him, and, as it appears, made




WHAT IS RIGHT?              189
sport of his father, who, learning the fact, on awak.
ing, cursed his offspring most bitterly. And some
pious divines see in the dark faces of the negroes,
"the servile progeny of Ham," the consequence of
this black curse of Noah to this day. The Bible does
not, however, inform us whether Noah did right or
wrong in getting drunk or in drinking; and the question is left very much as we found it.
We proceed, and our little-drop friend points significantly to the case of Lot as one having some bearing upon the question. We find, on reading, that,
before the "fire-shower of ruin" descended oil the
doomed cities of the plain, Lot and his family fled
from Sodom, his wife being turned into a statue of
salt on the way; and he and his two daughters dwelt
in a cave in the mountain. Having made their father drunk with wine, he committed incest with one of
his daughters, and on the next evening did the same
thing with the other. (Gen. xix. 30-38.)  Yet not
a word of condemnation is uttered, either of the man,
or the liquor that was the means of placing him in
such a disgraceful position: he is styled emphatically
"just Lot," and a " righteous man." (2 Pet. ii. 7, 8.)
If," says the moderate-drinking Christian, " God
had not intended man to use the article, this was just
the very time to forbid its use, and preach your temperance doctrine. Before you reply to my remarks,"
turning to his temperance brother, " let me refer you
to one express passage upon the subject, that ought
to set the question at rest forever. It reads thus:'Thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy
soul lusteth after: for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine,
or for strong drink.' (Deut. xiv. 26.) Now, if a man




190             WHAT IS RIGIHT?
may spend his money for these articles, he certainly
would be at liberty to drink them after so doing; it
is absurd to think otherwise."
"My dear sir," replies the temperance man, "'you
must never build up a doctrine on an isolated passage
of Scripture: after that fashion, a man may prove
any thing from the Bible. You must take the whole
tenor of the Scriptures, from one end to the other,
and, comparing passage with passage, thus learn what
the will of the Lord is. Let me refer you to some
parts of the Bible having an important bearing on
this question. Take, for instance, the case of Samson, recorded in the 13th chapter of Judges.  The
children of Israel had been in bondage to the Philistines for forty years, and the Lord sought a deliverer for them. For this purpose he needed a
strong man, -for God works, you know, by instruments: he desired to put the strength of a hundred
men's arms into one man's arm, - a shepherd of might,
that could rescue his sheep firom the jaws of the
devouring lion. Now, mark how he does this: the
angel of the Lord -that is, the Lord's messenger -
appears to Samson's mother, and says to her,' Thou
shalt conceive and bear a son. Now, therefore, beware. I pray thee, and drink not wine nor strong
drink.' And to her husband he says,'She may not
eat of any thing that cometh of the vine; neither let
her drink wine nor strong drink.' Why these stringent prohibitions? Evidently that the child might
be free from alcoholic taint, he being also a Nazarite
from the womb to the day of his death. Thus did
God accomplish his purposes by the strength of this
mighty abstainer, and deliver the Israelites from the




WHAT IS  IGHT?              191
hand of their oppressors. Nor is this all: God's word
abounds with passages condemning the use of intoxicating drinks. Let us hear what Solomon, the king
ot wise men, says,'IWho hath woe? who hath sorrow? who hath contentions? who hath babbling?
who hath wounds without cause? who hath redness of
eyes?  They that tarry long at the wine, they that
go to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the
wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the
cup. when it moveth itself aright: at the last, it
biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.'
(Prov. xxiii. 29.)  What can be plainer than this?
No abstainer could write a passage more strongly forbidding the use of intoxicating drinks. You must
not even look at the tempter, lest you be poisoned by
its deadly venom."
"Stop, stop! " says the moderate drinker. "I cannot allow you to rattle along in that way. You must
remember it will never do to build up a doctrine on
an isolated passage of Scripture; you must take the
whole tenor of God's Word, from one end to the
other: that's the way to arrive at truth. Solomon
certainly never meant what you want to wrest from
his words; for, turn to the last chapter of Proverbs
and read:'It is not for kings, 0 Lemuel I it is not
for kings, to drink wine; nor for princes strong drink.
Give strong drink unto him that~ is ready to perish,
and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let
him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his
misery no more.' (Prov. xxxi. 4-7.) That is the
doctrine. You see it is kings and princes that are
not to look on the wine; those are the men that are
not to drink: but, for such men as we, there is no




192             WHAT IS RIGHT?
such command. When our hearts are heavy, we may
drink, and forget our poverty, and remember our mis.
ery no more. When you come to read the Bible
understandingly, you will find this to be its tenor
throughout."
"The passage that you appeal to," says his oppo.
nent, "only refers to criminals condemned to die,
who drank till they were stupid, in order to drown
the sense of thleir miseries.  God's holy word is guilty
of no such contradictions as you seem to make it.
Allow me to refer you to the case of Daniel and the
three Hebrew children, as one bearing out the glorious doctrine of abstinence from all intoxicating drinks.
T'he children of Israel were carried off captives to
Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar, desirous of having the
most beautiful and intelligent of them instructed in
the language and learning of the Chaldeans, commands the master of the eunuchs to search them out..He does so, and Daniel and the three Hebrew children are chosen. The king appoints them a certain
portion of meat from his table, and of the wine that
he drank; but they refuse the king's wine, and eat
not his meat: but pulse had they for food, and water
for drink.'Yet they were fatter and far more fair
Than any among their fellows there,
And surpassed in learning and wisdom, too,
Each proud Chaldwean and boastful Jew.'
"See how the blessing of God followed these temrn.
perate young men i  Daniel is saved from the hungry
lions; for God shut their mouths. The Hebrew chil.
dren walk unhurt in the fiery furnace heated seven




WHAT IS LIGHT?               193
times hotter than it was wont to be; not even the
smell of fire upon their garments. What better evidence can we have of God's blessing crowning the
temperance cause? "'"Allow me to ask you a question," says the drinking Christian. "Was not Jesus Christ a greater
person than Daniel? " -" Oh, certainly! he was God
Almighty, who came down from heaven." -" Very
well, then, the example of Jesus must be as much
more important than Daniel's as God is greater than
man.  Now, let us look at his example (John ii.
1-10.) There was a marriage in Cana of Galilee, and
Jesus and his disciples were invited to the wedding.
The tables are spread for the feast, and the guests sit
down to partake: the wine is handed round, and, before the feast is over, it is all gone (not many of your
kind of people there, you see). The mother of Jesus
whispers to him,'They have no wine.' There were
set there six water-pots, holding, say the commentators, about a hundred and twenty gallons. Jesus
says,'Fill them with water.' They fill them to the
brim.' Now bear out to the governor of the feast.'
They do so, and the governor proclaims it good wine.'The conscious water saw its God,
And, blushing, turned to generous wine.'
lad you temperance men had his power, you would
have turned all the wine provided for the feast to
water; but "he, the gracious Lord divine, turns simple water into wine," and by so doing places the force
of his holy example on the side of those who believe
in using with moderation the gifts of God's bounty.
When about to leave his disciples, they took a last
13




194             WHAT IS RIGIT?
supper together; at that supper they had bread and
wine. Taking the cup in his hand, and offering it to
them, he said,' Drink ye all of it.' (Matt. xxvi. 27.)'And as oft as ye do it, do it in remembrance of me.'
(1 Cor. xi. 25.) And I never take a glass of wine
without remembering the dying Saviour. But you
temperance men, by your doctrines, cast discredit on
the Saviour of the world; and, if he were here now,
you would look down upon him with scorn and contempt: and how must he look upon you in the last
great day? Paul, who followed in the footsteps of
his Master, when writing to Timothy, one of your
cold-water men, says (1 Tim. v. 23),' Drink no longer
water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake
and thine often infirmities.'"
After these two Christians have thus fought their
way through the Bible, can any man tell on which
side of the question the Bible stands? Is it not on
both sides? It is a witness as ready to swear for
plaintiff as defendant; a guide pointing east and west
at the same time, to the great astonishment of the bewildered traveller. Right and wrong are alternately
on the sides of drinking and abstaining; and a man
who seeks for information in the Bible on this subject
is farther off when done than when he began. And
what is true in reference to the use of intoxicating
drinks is equally true in reference to every other
practical question that can come before us.
" Is there any day holier than another?" I say to
the Mohammedan.  "Most assuredly," he replies
" What day is it? "- " Friday, of course: every child
knows that." -" What makes Friday so much better
than other days? "-" What a question, 0 infidel, to




WHAT IS RIGHT?             195
ask! I Friday is the day on which God ended his la
bors, and rested after he had made the heavens and
the earth.  Friday is the day on which our holy
prophet (blessed be his name! ) fled from Mecca to
Medina; it is the day set apart by the Koran as the
sabbath, and has been observed by our Church from
the earliest times: the man who labors on that day
is accursed of God."
I turn to the Jew. " What do you think upon that
subject? " — " There is no holy day," he replies, "but
Saturday. Fridays are no better than Sundays; but
Saturday, the seventh day, is the sabbath of the Lord
our God, on which no manner of work may be done."
"What makes Saturday so much better than other
days? "-" Do you not know that in six days the Lord
made heaven and earth, and rested on the seventh,
wherefore he blessed and hallowed it?  In his law,
delivered to Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave the command to observe this day as a holy day forever. (Ex.
xxxi. 13-16.) And what God commands, man must
do."
"What do you think about that, Christian? "-"' Well,
sir, of keeping Fridays and Saturdays I know nothing.
They are no better than other days of the week; but
Sunday is the Lord's Day: and whoever breaks the
sabbath, by work or play, does it at the peril of his
soul; for all sabbath-breakers shall have their portion
in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone." -"  But
wherein lies the peculiar sanctity of the Sunday?"
- Have you not read the Bible, sir, God's holy word
of truth?'Remember the sabbath day to keep it
holy.' "-' Yes; but that is Saturday." -   No, it is
Sunday; for the day has been changed by the resur



196             WHAT IS RGIGHT?
rection of Jesus Christ from the dead, on the first
day of the week."-'  But, as he rested in the grave
on Saturday, the Jewish sabbath mighlt very well
have been retained." —" The Church, sir, from the
earliest times, observed the first day of the week.
On that day the disciples met to break bread; and,
from those earliest times to the present, the Sunday
has been observed as a day of rest, and a peculiarly
holy day, by all classes of Christians everywhere.
John, in the Revelation, evidently refers to it when
he speaks of'the Lord's Day.' "
"Is thee not somewhat mistaken there?" says an
old gentleman with a broad-brimmned hat, who had
entered during our conversation.  I'  am a Christian,
and a believer in that book to which thee has been
appealing, and I find no such doctrine in it as thee
sets forth. I find Jesus setting at noughlt the sab.
bath by selecting it for the performance of his most
notable miracles; and, when chicled by the Pharisees,
he says,' The sabbath was m.ade for man, and not
man for the sabbath.  The Son of man is Lord also of
the sabbath -day.' (Mark ii. 27.)  I-Ie never coinmmanded his followers to observe holy days, but nailed
all their ceremonial observances to his cross; for they
were only a shadow of good things to come. Paul
says,'One man esteemeth one day above another;
another regardeth every day alike: let every man
be fully persuaded in his own mind.' (Iom. xiv. 5.)
&nd, writing to the Colossians, in the spirit of his
Master, he says, s Let no man, therefore, judge you in
meat or in drink, or in respect of an holy day, or of
the now moon, or of the sabbath, which are a shadow
of things to come; but the body is of Christ.' (Col.




WHAT IS RPIGHT?             197
ii. 16.)  Now, when a man has his body, he never
troubles himself to look after 1his shadow; and when
Jesus, the body, came in his light and glory, the Jewish types and shadows disappeared, lost in his resplendent brightness. In writing to the Galatians,
Paul says,' Ye observe days and months and times:
I am aftaid of you lest I have bestowed upon you lab)or in vain.' (Gal. iv. 10-11.) There are multitudes
living now that Paul would be afraid of if he were
here; for they have departed from the simplicity of
the gospel of Jesus, and are bowing to the idols that
men have set up." So says this Quaker of the old
school.
If these men are to be believed, the Bible is a
guide-board pointing in three different directions, for
the same place, at the same time. Saturday is the
holy day, and no other; Sunday is the holy day, and
must be observed; and no day is holier than another,
but all are alike good. What shall the traveller do
who finds these contradictory directions?  Is this the
road that is so plain that a wayfaring man, though a
fool, need not err therein?
If we take any other practical question, we find
the same difficulty in deciding what is right or wrong
by any sacred book that may have been adopted
as a standard.  Should a man  have more wives than
one?  The Mohammedan replies yes, at once: his
prophet had, and his holy book permits polygamy.
The Jew says it was allowed by God at one time, but
is no longer permitted. We ask the Christian; but he
stares with astonishment that we should ask him such
a question. "'One man and one woman united together for life is the doctrine of the Bibles, taught




198             WHA.T IS RIGHT?
most explicitly throughout the pages of that blessed
book; and no Christian for a moment doubts it."
"'You are mistaken, sir," exclaims the Mormon:
" on the contrary, polygamy is plainly taught in the
Scriptures, as practised in our Church at the present
time." -   How can you say so? " replies the Monoga.
mist.  "The Bible is opposed to such a doctrine
from  Genesis to Revelation.  Just turn to the ac.
count of creation as given in Genesis, and what can
be plainer than the dual relation between the sexes
there declared, as established by God himself? Adam
being created, and placed in Eden's flowery garden,
the beasts were brought to him to name; and, as they
marched before him, from the mouse to the monkey,
he gave them appropriate names, but sought in vain
for a companion. God, compassionating Adam in his
lonely condition, cast him into a deep sleep, extracted
one of his ribs, and of this made a woman, and brought
her unto Adam. Had polygamy been right for man,
then was the time for it to be made manifest. God
could just as easily have taken out two or three ribs,
and made as many women of them, as to take one;
but, in his infinite wisdom and goodness, he makes of
one rib one woman, a companion for Adam for life.
By what sophistries can you set aside these explicit
revelations? 
"You don't understand the Bible, sir: you are
blind to the beauty of its glorious teachings. Do you
not know, sir, that, through all Nature, every thing has
a small beginning, however mighty it may become?
First we have the germ peeping above the ground,
then the sapling, and in the end the giant oak. First
the spring, then the rill, the streamlet, and the river.




WHAT IS RIGHT?             199
This is God's method of working; and it is not surprising that the statements of the Bible, God's holy
word, should harmonize with it. Adam had one wife
by God's appointment: that is true, and what we
should reasonably expect. God could not have given
him less, and, in accordance with his natural law, we
could not expect him to give more. But mark, as we
advance along the line of the eminent worthies whom
God has chosen to honor in his sacred word, how the
stream widens and deepens. Abraham, who was' the
father of the faithful, and the friend of God,' had one
wife Sarah, and another Hagar. (Gen. xvi. 3.) And,
when Sarah died, he took another (Keturab), so as
to keep up his number, two. (Gen. xxv. 1.) Jacob,
farther along the line, married two wives, his own
first cousins, daughters of his Uncle Laban; and then
had children by their two handmaids, making his num.
ber four. Gideon, a man of the Lord, by whom he
delivered Israel, and one of Paul's cloud of witnesses,
must have had at least ten wives; for the Bible informs
us that he had many wives and seventy sons. (Judg.
viii. 30.)  Then David, the'man after God's own
heart,'. the man who, we are told by God himself, never did wrong in his life but once (and that
was in the matter of Uriah), takes to himself a number of wives; and, when Saul dies, the blessed Bible
declares that' God gave to him  the wives of his
master Saul into his bosom.' (2 Sam. xii. 8.)  Do
not you begin to see how naturally and beautifully
this blessed system of polygamy grows? - Adam one,
Abraham two, Jacob four, Gideon ten, David twenty
or thirty, and, lastly, Solomon, the wisest man that
ever lived or ever shall live, with his seven hundred




200             WHAT IS RIGHT?
wives and three hundred concubines. In him hnu
minanity culminated; and from that time men went
downward and backward, till Joseph Smith, the
prophet of the Lord, arose and brought in the glory
of the latter day. The Bible is full of beauty when
properly understood, but in the hands of the wilful
and ignorant is like a sharp sword, that cuts the hand
of him who knows not how to wield it."
a' Filthy wretches! to pervert the word of God in
order to pander to your depraved appetites," says a
tall, pale, overcoated, broad-brimmed-hatted gentleman,
who has been listening attentively to the discussion.
" Who are you? " exclaim both with one breath. " I
am a Shaker, gentlemen, and a devout believer in the
truths of that blessed volume that you wrest to your
own destruction: and I say that the Bible teaches, by
example and precept, that marriage is one of the most
prolific sources of evil; and that, as God's children,
we should abstain from it.' Go to the garden of Eden,
and what do you find? A paradise of delights. Every
thing that is pleasant to the eye and useful for food is
there. No earthquake heaves the ground, no volcano
opens its fiery mouth; but the angel of peace holds
dominion over the world. The lion and the tiger, the
lamb and the kid, lie side by side togoether, and there
is nothing to hurt or destroy. But mark the change!
Adam, dissatisfied, desires a helpmeet; and no sooner
does she come than misery comes as her companion.
When woman camle, the Devil came; and thesn came
death and all our woe. The fair face of Nature be.
came seamed with yawning chasms, earthquakes shookl
the world, and volcanoes poured out desolating floods;
the lion fleshed his teeth in the innocent lamb, and the




WHAT IS RIGHT?               201
tiger, seizing the kid, rent it in pieces; the soul
of mal was dyed by sin as black as hell, and nothing
but the blood of God could wash it out. Abraham
has two wives; but their quarrels imbitter his exist
ence: and, for the sake of peace, he is compelled to
turn one of them with her child out of' doors into the
wilderness.  Jacob the shepherd, keeping tlhe sheep
of his uncle Laban, is a lovely character, dreaming of
heaven and angels, and communing with God; but
with his marriage commences his misery. His wives
quarrel; iiis children are robbers and murderers, and
even conspire against the life of their brot'her, till the
old man, in the anguish of his heart, exclaims,' Ye
will bring clown my gray hairs with sorrow to the
grave.' David's wives vex his righteous soul, and
Bathsheba leads him to the commission of that terrible crime that blots his whole life. His beloved son
mak-es war against his father, and is slain; David, in
his soul's agony, exclaiming,' 0 Absalom! my son,
my son! Would God I had died for thee, 0 Absalom, my son!' Even Solomon, the wisest man, is
dragged down from the throne of his glory by his
wives and concubines, who turned his heart from the
Lord; and he gives us the result of his wide experience in the mournful words,' A man in a thousand
have I found, but a woman in a thousand have I not
ftund.''Vanity of vanities; all is vanity, and vexation of spirit.' Come down to the New Testament;
and Jesus our Lord and 1Master, who set us an exampie that we should tread in his steps, was never mar.
ried; and lie says, (oh thlat mankind would read and
understand!) IH-ie that looketh on a woman to lust
after her hath committed adultery with her already in




202             WHAT IS RIGHT?
his heart.' Paul, who trod in the footsteps of his
divine Master, was no husband to any woman, no
father to any child, and desired others to follow him,
as he followed Jesus. When John the revelator had
those sublime visions in the Isle of Patmos, he saw a
hundred and forty-four thousand around the throne of
God, who were singing day and night unto him.
John inquires who these favored few are, who thus
approach the throne, and on whom God's smile rests
continually; and the answer is, - mark it, -' These are
they that were not defiled with women.' (Rev. xvi.
4.) In other words, they were Shakers; and we shall
bask in the sunshine of God's glory, when filthy sinners like you will be compelled to stand afar off."
So argue Bible believers; and no wonder, while
they follow such a guide, who stands at life's crossroads, with as many hands as a lHindoo god; his fingers directing to every point of the compass, while he
exclaims;' " That is the way to life! "
Does it point slavery-ward? " No such thing," said
the North, and shouted itself hoarse in repeating, "' Do
unto another as ye would that another should do unto
you.''Call no man master; for one is your master,
even Christ, and all ye are brethren.''Woe unto
him that useth his neighbor's service without wages,
and giveth him not for his work.''The stranger
that dxvelleth with you shall be unto you as one born
among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself.'" "  How
plain!" said the antislavery minister. "None but
those blinded. by avarice can help seeing how God
frowns upon the damnable traffic in the souls of human
beings, and how his Word is laid like an axe at the
root of this tree of misery."




WHAT IS RIGHT?              203' The Almighty Maker of the universe," said the
Southern slaveholder, " is ever the same. He never
commands in one age what he forbids in another, nor
blesses at one time what he curses and denounces at
other times; and he has said in his Word,'Both thy
bondmen and bondmaids which thou shalt have shall be
of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall
ye buy bondmen and bondmaids, and ye shall take
them as an inheritance for your children after you, to
inherit them for a possession: they shall be your
bondmen forever.' (Lev. xxv. 44-46.)  None of your
antislavery and abolition in the Bible, but there we
have God's charter, signed, sealed, and delivered;
our rights guaranteed by the great I Am forever.
Abraham the friend of God, Jacob his intimate cornpanion, and David his beloved, all held slaves; and
Jesus, finding the institution of slavery everywhere
through Palestine, never said one word against its
continuance. Paul not only recognizes slavery, but
regulates it, when he says,' Servants, obey in all
things your masters, according to the flesh; not with
eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of
heart, fearing God.' Masters are to give unto their
servants what is just and equal. No word of denunciation of the institution, nothing of abolition; but
the right of the master is recognized, and the duty
of the servant prescribed."
On this, as on all practical questions, the Bible is
double-tongued, and is therefore no true moral guide.
What, then, shall the traveller do? Is there no
pole-star in the heavens, fixed immovably, while
around the shifting lights revolve?  Is man left to
tread the wilderness in midnight darkness, with noth



204             WHAT IS RIGHT?
ing to dispel the gloom around his tortuous pathway
but the flash of a meteor, or the uncertain light of the
ignisfatuis?  There is a pole-star for the mariner, a
highway for the traveller, with daylight to guide him,
and men need not drive on shoals, flounder in bogs, or
move slowly in darkness with fear and trembling.
THAT IS RIGHT WHICH IS FOR HIUMANITY'S BENEFIT; THAT
IS WRONG WHICH IS OPPOSED TO THE WELFARE OF THE
HUMAN RACE. It is not presumable that we can add
to the happiness or diminish the enjoyment of God;
but our deeds constantly influence ourselves and our
fellows for good and evil. To know what actions
are productive of good or evil, we need to use our
judgment, aided by all the light that science can
bestow.
Let us try by this rule the various questions that
have come before us. Is it right or wrong to use intoxicating drinks? The basis of all intoxicating drinks
is alcohol: it is this in them that makes them intoxicating. Rum and brandy contain a large quantity,
while beer and hard cider contain but little. What is
this alcohol? we inquire of science; and the answer
is, an acrid poison. Then intoxicating liquors are
poisonous in proportion to the alcohol that they con.
thin, and as such are at war with the healthy operations'of the human system.'The man in health who
uses them -violates the law that governs his physi.
cal organism; and no amount of prayer or Bible reading can absolve the sinner from the consequences of
his deeds. The headache that admonishes the mod.
erate drinker, the diseased body that the drunkard
carries with him continually, are much more effectual
texts than " Thus saith the Lord," in Bible or in Koran.




WHAT IS RIGHT?               205
Texts are they written in an ever-living language,
understood by men of every tongue.
Intoxicating drinks are injurious to those who use
them; at war with the health of the body and strength
of the mind; stimulating to physical and mental ac
tivity for a time, it is true, but using the strength of
to-morrow to-day, and demanding for its use a fearful
interest, that soon bankrupts the foolish borrower.
Hence we apply our rule, and decide that it is nlot
right to use intoxicating drinks. "But your rule,"
says an objector,'"leads no more to unanimity of
opinion than the Bible. Men who do not make the
Bible their guide differ in opinion on tlhis subject as
much as those who do."  To those who are governed
by it, it does. AMultitudes never investigate the sub.
ject: some who do have a strong appetite for intoxi.
cating drinks that hinders clear vision.  As people
become intelligent, opinion on this subject becomes
more unanimous, and there is no doubt, that, eventually, the use of these drinks will be abandoned.
Is one day holier than another?  The conflicting
testimony of so-called holy books can never give a
reasonable answver to this question; but Nature's am.
ple and consistent page contains a satisfactory reply.
I work for six or eigllt hours daily on my farm, alnd
note carefully the condition of my system on the va'ious days of' thle wveek. I do this for a whole yearw
tlnd I find tlhat labor agrees with my physical and
mental constitution on every clay of the week.  Fridays are no more consecrated to rest by Nature than
Saturdays; Sundays than Mondays. The corn I plant
on Sunday grows as well as that planted on MIonday;
the rains refuse not to fall upon it, nor the sun to




206             WHAT IS RIGHT?
shine upon it. On every day the grass grows, the
water flows, gayly blows the breeze, the sap climbs up
the trees. Sunday puts no brake on the world's
wheels; but the sound of the rushing sphere comes
humming into the church on Sunday, as into the
synagogue on Saturday. Nature knows no red-letter
days.
The man who invented the sabbath evidently sup.
posed the world to be flat. When the sun went down,
it was night all over the world; and, when he roses day
was everywhere. Not otherwise could all the people
of the world observe the same portion of time. At
six o'clock on Sunday evening, the Christian minister
in this country gives out his text, " Remember the
sabbath day to keep it holy," and solemnly denounces
the violators of the holy day who do their own work,
and obey not the divine record; and at the very same
time his Christian brethren in China are swinging
their axes, driving their planes, and wielding their
hammers, for it is Monday morning with them. If we
would but climb the mountain, sun ourselves in the
daylight, and let the wind blow the cobwebs out of
our eyes, we might read this truthful Scripture, "All
days are thine, man: use them for thy good."  No
tyrannical monarch sits in state, watching with scowl.
ing brow the little boys who play on Sunday, striking
one with lightning, and drowning another.
There is a time of rest marked by Nature, which
none can disregard with impunity. It is when the
sun sinks, and the curtain of night is drawn around
the world; when
"The daisies have shut up their sleepy red eyes,
And the bees and the birds are at rest."




WHAT IS RIGHT?              207
Then sleep, like an angel, closes the laborer's eyes,
and his soul wanders off into heaven. Abstain from
sleep to-night, and to-morrow you feel faint and languid. Try it to-morrow night, and the pain you will
suffer will teach you the necessity of obeying the laws
that Nature makes. It is said that Napoleon's soldiers, in the retreat from Mioscow, slept on the march.
So well does Nature provide for obedience to her
commands, that disobedience is almost impossible.
This is the only sabbath that Nature imposes: all
others are of man's manufacture.
Indiscriminate intercourse between the sexes produces the foulest diseases, and its mental and moral
effects are most disastrous. Polygamy debases woman, and degrades and brutalizes man. If one man
appropriates to himself a dozen wives, he is a tyrant,
and they his slaves. If many men were to do it,
many of their brethren would be robbed of the happiness that flows from congenial companionship with
woman. Monogamy is evidently the law of Nature;
and when two congenial souls are truly united theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.
What are the effects of slavery? Does it elevate
mankind?  Is it a blessing to the race? Its very
defenders acknowledge that it is a curse. In consequence of it, comes to the white man idleness, that
eats away his manhood like a canker-worm; cruelty,
that enthrones the beast in his soul; and fear, that
holds a dagger before his eyes continually: to the
colored man, a prison-house for his mind, from which
the light of knowledge is carefully excluded; a stag.
nation of soul that breeds pestilence and crime. It
is accursed, let it die, says Nature; and die it will.




208             WHAT IS RIGHT?
For want of this principle by which to distinguish
right from wrong, the world is most sadly cursed.
We have artificial virtues and artificial vices without
number. [Men are trained to believe that certain actions are right, nay, imperative, that have no tenden.
cy to benefit the doer or his neighbors; while they are
trained to carefully abstain from doing what would be
of decided benefit.
The faculty of conscience is blind, and never enables a man to know whether actions are right or
wrong: it only induces us to do that which the judg.
ment has decided to be right. The Hindcoo devotee
holds his closed hand above his head in a fixed position till the nails grow through his hand, and the muscles of his arm become so rigid that it is impossible
to bend it. The torture thus inflicted upon the body
he is taught to believe is so much virtue placed to
tiae account of' his soul; and his conscience assists
him in bearing the pain. The Mohammedan dervise
dances and howls by the hour, not because his dan.
cing and howling benefit either himself or others, but
to propitiate God, and obtain favors from him. We
need not travel far to find instances of a somewhat
similar kind in xwhat we are pleased to call an " enlightened land."
IHere is a baby held in the arms of a gentleman,
who utters some words over it, as if for a charm, and
then sprinkles water in its face till it cries; all parties
looking on with the greatest seriousness.
It is winter, and cold in the extreme. A hole has
been cut in the ice, and in the water stands another
gentleman, a crowd of lookers-on surrounding the
spot, attracted by the singular spectacle. He dips




WHAT IS RIGHT?              209
overhead twenty or thirty people, two-thirds of them
women or girls; and with stiffened clothes and chatter.
ing teeth they make their way to some neighboring
house. Who is benefited?  The water is no purer,
the people no cleaner, the gentleman no warmer, the
world no wiser.
A hundred people are gathered in a Christian place
of worship.  It is communion-day.  The minister
discourses about a young man who was put to death
more than eighteen centuries ago, who, he says, was
God. lHe then hands to them cups filled with wine,
and plates containing pieces of bread, and tells them to
eat and drink; assuring them, as they do, that they
are eating the flesh and drinking the blood of this
young man who died so long ago, though the bread
was made by the baker, and the wine is generally
some villanous compound concocted by the wine-merchant.
Artificial virtues that are no virtues, that make no
soul wiser or better, purer or happier, take the place
of manliness, intelligence, and use.  Human beings
meet by thousands, and cry to deaf gods; they build
sumptuous temples, and employ men to retail to them
ancient fables, while they sternly reject living and
important facts.
Artificial vices go side by side with artificial virtiles. Your hired man is a Catholic. It is Fridav, and
the church says no meat shall be eaten. A round
of beef is on the table; Patrick has been laboring
hard, and hunger has shortened his memory; cut
after cut disappears, till the thought flashes like light.
ning into his mind, — it is Friday! Down drop lknife
and fork, and remorse of conscience supplies the re14




210             WHAT IS RIGHT?
mainder of the meal. On Sunday he is off to confessional. He kneels, "0 father, I have committed a
great sin.'" --  What is it, my son? " says the priest,
who thinks of nothing less than mnurder. " I ate some
beef on Friday." The priest prescribes a light pen.
ance, and away goes Patrick rejoicing, while he rolls
over a large quid of tobacco, and chews with double
force for joy. It is all right to chew tobacco; but to
eat meat on Friday - what a deadly sin I
A company of Methodists have met in the basement of the church at class-meeting.  The leader
asks them one by one how it is with their souls, till
he arrives at a poor widow, left with four young children and a heritage of woe.  She tells with trembling voice of her many shortcomings: she does the
things she ought not to do, and leaves undone the
things she ought to do; she begs an interest in their
prayers, that she may grieve her God no more by
wandering from him, but move steadily on to Zion
with her face thitherward.  What has this poor soul
done?  What are the sins that she has committed,
the remembrance of which overwhelms her like a
flood?  Fatigued with hard labor fbr herself and
darlings, she slept without first praying, and thought
of her children in the morning before she thought of
her God.  She heard a dull, prosy sermon last Sunday, and went to sleep (the best possible thing she
could do under the circumstances); and, bearing the
burden of such artificial sins as these, she goes mourning all her days.
Thousands are made miserable by their violation
of commands that they were never under any obligation to obey, and, on the other hand, are ruined by




WrAT I RIaGHT?               211
disobeying what Nature commands, of which they are
generally ignorant.
Let us study the effect of our actions upon our.
selves and our neighbors; and what conduces to true
permanent happiness let us perform. Here are the
ignorant; let us enlighten them by all the means in
our power. Here are our neighbors, suffering, dying; let us assist and relieve them. Man needs our
assistance, and all that we can give. Blessed is he
that applies his life to this work! In this world he
has peace and joy, and in the world to come the happi.
ness that legitimately springs from well-doing, and that
cannot be separated from it.








WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?








WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
IF Christianity, as taught in our evangelical churches,
is true, the most important question that one man can
ask another is, Are you a Christian? Next to this in
importance must be the question, What constitutes
a Christian?
Noah Webster says that a Cl0histian is one who
believes in Christ, and " especially one whose inward
and outward life is conformed to the doctrines of
Christ."  According to this, there are two classes of
Christians, —a general class who believe, and a special class who believe, and whose life accords with, the
doctrines or teachings of Jesus. To the first class
belong, probably, three-fourths of all the people of Christian countries — England, France, Germany, Spain,
Italy, indeed, of Europe generally, and the United
States. They regard Jesus as the Messiah, the sent
of God, the Christ, and think that salvation can only
come by him. They are Christians, as Turks are
Mohammedans.
Christians, then, fill our prisons, almshouses, lunatic-asylums, and houses of prostitution. Our thieves
are Christian thieves; and our murderers Christian
215




21]6         WHO ARE CHRIISTTANS?
imurderers.  How rare it is for infidels to be convicted
of theft, or hung for murder! On the gallows it is the
name of Jesus the Christ that gives consolation to
the dying criminal; and he expects, with tile repentant thief, to be with him in Paradise. The late riots
in New  York were Christian riots.  Our rowdies
swear Christian oaths; and, when the death-angel
appears to call them, they send for a Christian priest
to prepare them for their departure.
Constantine the Great was a Christian, — he who
murdered his son Crispus and his nephew Licinus, and
suffocated his wife Faustus in a bath: he may be,
regarded, indeed, as the founder of our present Christian sabbath. Theodosius I., another Roman emperor,
who murdered in cold blood seven thousand of the
inhabitants of Thessalonica, without distinction of age,
was a zealous and orthodox Christian; and so was
Leo III., who commanded every person in his dominions to be baptized, under pain of banishment, and
sentenced those to death who relapsed into idolatry
after the ceremony.
Those men of Alexandria who murdered Hypatia
were Christians to a man. Though she gave public
lectures on philosophy, and proved herself to be one
of the most noble women of her time, yet the Christian
monks and rowdies, headed by a Christian priest,
seized her in the street, dragged her into a Christian
Church, stripped her naked, whipped her, cut her in
pieces, and burned her mangled remains in the marketplace.
Peter the Hermit was a famous Christian: clad in
rags, and bare-footed, he wandered up and down




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?               2t7
E]urope, stirring up his fellow-Christians to rescue the
Holy Land from the hands of the infidel Turks.  Millions rallied to his call. " Their track," says Draper,
" was marked by robbery, bloodshed, and fire."  When
they captured Jerusalem, " the brains of young children were dashed out against the walls; infants were
pitched over the battlements; every woman that could
be seized was violated; men were roasted at fires; some
ripped up to see if they had swallowed gold. The
Jews were driven into their synagogues, and burned;
and nearly seventy thousand persons were massacred."
Father Dominic, who founded the Spanish Inquisition, was a Christian; and so were the wretches who
applied its tortures.  Torquemada, during his tenure
of office as inquisitor-general, burned thousands, most
of them fellow-Christians, who differed from him on
some unimportant trifles.  In less than three hundred
years, the Spanish and Christian Inquisition burned
alive more than thirty thousand persons, and condemned to various terms of imprisonment nearly three
hundred thousand.
The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, in which sixtysix thousand persons were murdered for daring to be
Protestants, was performed by Christians.  In Rome,
the papal Christians fired cannon and kindled bonfires, and Pope Gregory assisted at the, celebration of
a solemn mass, as a thanksgiving to God for his help
in butchering their fellow-Christians. Indeed, to-day
Christian Germans and Christian French are fighting;
and the victories are duly celebrated by thanks to the
Christian's God in the name of Jesus, the object of
the Christian's faith.
19




218          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
"I deny that these were Christians,"  says one.
" Think of Christian thieves, murderers, and prostitutes I Why, the statement is its own sufficient refutation." -.     WVho, then, are Christians? " I inquire.
" Those only who obey the doctrines of Christ, and
live the life of which he set a perfect example."  This
must be the second class of Christians to whom
Webster refers.  Where are we to find the doctrines
of Jesus? In the New Testament, and especially in
the Gospels, which are supposed to contain the commands that he gave in the very words in which they
were uttered, infallibly reported by the inspired evangelists.  Let us examine these, and compare them
with the conduct of those who claim  the Christian
name, that we may discover who are the genuine
Christians, and separate them from the miserable pretenders whom we have been considering.
Commencing with Matthew, who gives us a report
of a famous sermon by Jesus himself, we find one
of his cormmands to be,' Swear not at all... let
your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for
whatsoever is more than these cometll of evil " (Matt.
v. 34).  And James, one of his disciples, who is supposed to have heard the discourse, reiterates the coimmand, and even strengthens it: "Above all things,
my brethren, swear not, neither by heaven, neither
by the earth, neither by any other oath: but let your
yea be yea; and your nay nay; lest ye fall into condemnation" (James v. 12).  " Above all things," -
above lying, then, above stealing, drunkenness, and
even murder; and he who swears must, according to
this, be thie most guilty of all criminalso




WIHO ARE CItIISTIANS?             219
Now, walk into one of our courts of justice.  Hear
what the judge says to a nlumber ]of men w ho stand
before him: " You solemnly swear, in the presence
of Almighty God, that you will speak the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth  so help you.
God."  And the men,hold up their right hands, and
swear.  Who can thfose men be?  Are they Iohammedans, or ignorant pagans?  One is a Catholic,
another a Methodist, a third a Presbyterian, and all
professing Christians; and there are none out of the
millions professing the Chtristian name who regard
these commands, except a handful  of Quakers and
Moravians. Can we consider those men Christians of
the second class, who so grossly neglect such a plain
and positive command of -Christ as this?
In the same sermon, Jesus said, " Resist not evil;
but whosoever shall smite thee on thy riglit cheek,
turn to him the other also.  And if any man will sue
thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have
thy cloak also.  And whosoever shall compel thee to
go a mile, go with him twain "9 (Matt. v. 89-41).  In a
report by Lulke of the same discourse, we lhave these
commands in a still stronger form: " Unto him  that
smiteth. thee on the one cheek, o-fer also the other;
and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not to take
thy coat also " (Luke vi. 29).  Again he says,'" Love
your enemies; do good to them which hate you."
These commands are plain; their mzeaning is evident:
but who obeys them?  Not the policeman who knocks
down the man that strikes lim, and takes him off to
jail.  Not the member of a Chllristian chrch who
employs the policeman to resist the man whllom  he is




220          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
ullable or unwilling to resist himself.  No policemail
can be a true Christian: his business is to resist evil;
and, when he ceases to do that, his work as a policeman is at an end. If a policeman could be a Christian, a man who lives by stealing could be an honest
man. Our jailers, magistrates, judges, and attorneys,
are constantly engaged in resisting evil, and even
boast of what they accomplish in this way. They
seem to have agreed to treat Jesus as we treat the
insane, saying, Yes, yes, to all he utters, but never for
a moment intending to obey his commands. From
the decreasing ranks of our genuine Christians we
must then take jailers, magistrates, judges, attorneys
and justices: they not only disobey these commands
of Jesus, but they live by their disobedience of them,
and are constantly engaged in encouraging others to
disobey them.  Soldiers, from the man in the ranks
to the general, must be counted out. They may
plunder their enemies, shoot them, stab them; but, if
they love them, they are spoiled for soldiers. What
would a captain say to the man in his company who
allowed the enemy to strike him, and never attempted
to return the bIow, but allowed him  to strike the
second time, and still made no resistance? A Christian soldier would be more useless than an idiotic
school-teacher; and a musket is as much out of place
in a Christian's hands as a telescope is at the eye of a
blind man.
But the whole frame-work of our government rests
on the soldier. Disobey the law, and the constable
serves a warrant on you; resist the constable, and tile
general police are called out, or special constables sworn




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?              221
in; successfully resist these, and the State militia are
employed; and if they should be too feeble to overcome the resistance, then the soldiers employed by the
general government become the last resort: if they
fail, the government is gone, and the successful resisters establish theirs in its place. Since soldiers cannot
be Christians, all government officers who hold their
situations by the soldiers' resistance share in their
guilt, and must be counted unworthy of the Christian
name.
But Christians everywhere act as if these commands
of Jesus had never been given, or, being given, that
they mean the very contrary of what they say. Joseph
Smith, the Mormon prophet, was once asked what he
thought of that passage of Scripture which says,
"Whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn
to him the other also." - "Ah! " said Joseph, " Jesus
Christ was a smart man, the wisest of men: he knew
that a man might hit you accidentally or playfully, and,
before resisting it, he wished you to make sure that he
was in earnest, and that he meant you, by turning to
him the other; but, if he hits you then, go into him
like a thousand of brick."  By the way that Christians
generally act, one might suppose that they held a
similar opinion with regard to its meaning.
Again Jesus says, "' When thou prayest, enter into
thy closet; and, when thou hast shut thy door, pray
to thy Father which is in secret."  Some Christians'
praying is doubtless done after this fashion; but a large
proportion of it is done in a very different way. Christian closets are very large in these days, and are generally furnished with steeples. The pompous clergyman




222 TiWHO ARE CHIRISTIANS?
in his sable robe, prayer-book before him, in stereotyped
phrases offers his supplications in the presence of the
assembled congregation.  Another, before five hundred
people, closes his eyes, lifts up his hands, and proceeds
to inform God what he is, what he has done, and advise him for half an hour as to what he had better do.
Not content with setting the commandments of Jesus
at defiance themselves, these professed Christians
establish meetings for public prayer, where men, and
recently women, are encouraged to set the teachings
of Jesus at defiance; and that is actually called a'" Christian duty," which is in direct opposition to the
teaching and practice of Jesus.
What sermon did he ever commence with a prayer?
How many prayer-meetings did he establish or attend?
Had he been like our modern Christians, we should
have-had some such record as this in the New Testament: " Now there was a prayer-meeting in Cania of
Galilee, and Jesus and his disciples were there.' Jesus
opened the meeting by giving out one of the Psalms
of David, and then called upon_Lbrother Simon Peter to
pray, which he did in a voice of tllunder, and with
the unction of the Holy One   he was followed by
brothers Jaimes"-andl Jolhn, and all the disciples; and
the power of -thie Lord was felt in their midst, so that
the scribes and Pharisees marvelled, and a revival broke
out, and many hundred souls were soundly converted
to God.'"< —V.The difference between this and the statements made in the Gospels respecting the methods of
Jesus represents the difference between Christianity
and what passes for it at the present day. Had Jesus
been like our present Christian ministers, he would




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?              223
have paid but little attention to men's bodies, he would
have wasted but little time in curing their diseases: he
would have established prayer-meetings, and formed
societies from Nazareth to Jericho, and got up campmeetings on the shores of Gennesaret, where he and
his disciples would have prayed, and preached damna,
tion to all unrepenting sinners, and salvation to all who
should believe on a to-be-crucified Redeemer.
In the famous Sermon on the IMount, Jesus also says,
": Give to him that asketh of thee, and from him that
would borrow of thee turn not thou away" (Matt. v.
42).  Luke's report also adds, " Of him that taketh
away thy goods, ask them not again; " for, he says, c" if
ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank
have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as
much again. But love your enemies, and do good, and
lend, hoping for nothing again, and your reward shall
be great " (Luke vi. 30-34).  This is also very plain:
the disciples of Jesus are to be as widely different from
sinners, and as easily distinguished, as sheep are from
goats. But is this the case?  Where are the men or
women who obey these commands, or even try to obey
them? It would only be necessary for the beggars to
stand at the& doors of our churches, to render themselves
independently rich in a twelvemonth, if the professed
Christians who worship in them were obedient to the
commands of their Master.  Where are the Christians,
if those only are such who obey these commands?
Are there any among the brokers of Wall Street or
State Street?  Hlow many can Beacon Street show, or
even Washington or Tremont Streets?  It would require somethling brighter than Diogenes' lantern to find




224          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
them. How do Christians lend? I find they are not
averse to six per cent; nor do they often object to eight,
even when the usury laws forbid it. Nor will they lend
then without the best of security. They do not consider two per cent a month extravagant, if a man's
necessities compel him to pay it; and they have no
compunctions of conscience when they foreclose a mortgage, turn a man's family out, and take from them a
five-thousand-dollar house on which they had lent but
five hundred. A poor Christian wants to save his home
from the clutches of some legal freebooter. Will his
brother Christian lend him the money without interest,
even if he has a million, and could do it as well as not?
So seldom is it done, that such cases are almost unknown.
Had these commands of Jesus been the very opposite of what they are, the conduct of professing Christians would be almost in exact harmony with them.
" Give nothing to him that asketh of thee, and from him
that would borrow of thee turn thou away." ~' If any
man take away thy goods, place him where there will
be no opportunity to do it again."  " Lend only to
those of whom ye hope to receive, and where principal and interest are secured, then your reward shall
be great." Read the passages thus, and I will find
you obedient disciples in every church of the land.
I read also in this mountain sermon, " Lay not up
for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and
rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through
and steal."  How many Christians obey this command? Few besides those who are so poor that they
have nothing to lay up. If those only are Christians




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?              225
who obey the teachings of Jesus, all depositors in
banks must be counted out, all holders of stocks
and bonds. No free-mason can be a Christian, no
odd-fellow, or son of temperance. All these have laid
up for themselves treasures on earth, and have thereby
forfeited all right to the treasures of heaven.
"But Jesus never meant what you suppose."  Who
informed thee that Jesus did not mean what he said?
Dost thou know better how to embody his meaning in
words than He whom thou believest to be Lord of all
the earth? It is passing strange, if he did not mean
what he said, that he did not say what he- meant.
"But to obey such commands would make all Christians poor."   Certainly; and this is just what is
needed: Jesus evidently intended his disciples to be
poor, and very poor. Nothing shows more clearly
how the Christian standard has been lowered thaii the
fact that rich men frequently claim  to be Christians.
The very first sentence that Jesus uttered in his Sermonl on the Mount, according to Luke, was, " Blessed
be ye poor; for yours is the kingdom  of God."
" Wha!" I hear some poverty-stricken wretch say,
"is there any such passage as that in the Bible?  Did
the dear Jesus say that we the poor are blessed, and that
ours is the kingdom  of God?"  I don't wonder
that you ask tile question. It is one of those passages
that no milnister chooses for a text, and that one never
lhears quoted from the pulpit; but here it is (Luke vi.
20): "Blessed be ye poor," - p-o-o-r, poor.  More
than that, he says,'" Woe unto you that are rich, for
ye have received your consolation " (Luke vi. 24).
He declares that "it is easier for a camel to go
15




226           WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to
enter into the kingdomn of God."  Either the needle
must be larger than needle ever was, or the camel
smaller than camel ever call be; or no rich man can
be a Christiain, if this statement of Jesus is correct.
Of course, Christians must be poor; and Jesus, in
insisting upon poverty, did the greatest service to mankind, if his fearfill statements are true.  I am here
this afternoon to preach - what has never before been
heard in Boston -- the genuine gospel of Jesus; not
the emasculated gospel of the fashionable churches,
but that of the homeless, bedless wanderer of Nazareth.  You never heard it before, and never would
hear it in any ecclesiastical edifice; for they are built
by the very men whom  that gospel declares woe
against, and for whomi the fire of its hell is prepared.
Read the parable of the rich man and Lazarus
(Luke xvi. 19):'" There was a certain rich man,
which was clotlhed in purple and fine linen, and fared
sumptuously every day." No intimation that lihe was
either a drunlkard, or licentious, dishonest, or even
niggardly; but lie was rich.  And there was a beggar
laid at his gate, so poor that he desired to be fed with
the crumbs that fell from  the rich man's table.  No
iintimation that lhe was conscientious, truthful, or even
pious; but lie was poor, - one of those whose is thle
killgdomn of God.  The beggar died, and was carried
by angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also
died, and was. buried; but in hell he lifted up his
eyes, being in torment; nor could all his entreaties
procure a drop of water to cool his parched tongue
while tormented in the scorching flame.  H-ere is the




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?              227
woe denounced upon the rich, here the terrible fate
that awaits them. No wonder that James said, " Go
to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries
that shall come upon you."  When the rich mall in
the parable asks Abraham that Lazarus may dip the
tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue, the
answer of Abraham is, "' Son, remember that thou in
thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise
Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted, and
thou art tormented."  The hungry are to rejoice, for
by and by they will be fed; the mourners, for they
will be comforted; and the miserably poor, for the
joys of heaven' await them. But this hell-tortured
sinner, who might not have the slightest mitigation of
his penalty, was guilty of the crime of being rich: he
had had his good things, and now it is turn about; and
in his fate all rich men may see the doom that awaits
them: the smoke of their torment must ascend forever. Nor is it a donation of a hundred dollars to
foreign missions that will save you, or two hlundred to
the Rev. Theophiluts Hardsllell's salary: your only
chalice for salvation is to become poor.
A young man comes running to Jesus: he is evidently in earnest, and says, " Good Master, what good
thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?"  Suppose the answer of Jesus had never been recorded,
and the professing Christians of the various sects had
been left to fill in the answer, each according to his
lOtion. " I have no doubt," says one, " that he told
him there was nothing to do but to exercise saving faith in bim as the Messiah."    H Ie must have
commanded him," says another, "to pray at least




228          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
three times a day, to attend divine service every sabbath, and live a Christian life."  " I can tell you just
whlat hle told the young man," a third would have
confidentially exclaimed;'"and that is, simply to
believe ill him as the Christ, and be immersed in his
name." Very fortunately, the answer of Jesus has
been recorded; and it is such a one as no member
of the three hundred Christian sects would ever have
supposed. He first tells him that he must keep the
commandments; but this the young man declares he
has done from his youth up: and then he asks the
all-important question, "What lack I yet?"  Now
we sliall have the very essence of Christianity: keeping the commandments was Jewish, and men had
practised it for centuries before Jesus came. If Christianity is true, from the lips of the Master of life is
about to fall the words that contain the key to bliss
eternal. " Sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and come and follow me."  Imagine how chop-fallen
the young man looked! How many young men who
compose our Christian associations would have looked
otherwise?  Only those that had nothing to sell.
"' He went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions."  Had Jesus tried the solid men of Boston, how
many would have obeyed him? Not a soul. The
difference between them and the young man would
have been, that they would have gone away angry
instead of sorrowful. If the Christian missionaries
of to-day preached such a gospel as Jesus did, their
disciples would be as few.
" But Christianity does not require that a man should
strip h]imself in that way."  The sham  Christianity




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?              229
of the churches does not; but the Christianity of Jesus
does. His commands are, " Sell that ye have, and
give alms" (Luke xii. 33).  "Take no thought for
your life, what ye shall eat, nor yet for your body,
what ye shall put on."  " Take no thought for the
morrow" (Matt. vi. 25, 34).  Jesus and his disciples wandered about Galilee, sleeping on the ground
or in a fishing-boat, knowing not to-day how to-morrow's dinner would be obtained.  Jesus appears to
have been as regardless of to-morrow as the birds,
whose practice he recommends. The members of the
earliest Christian Church appear to have understood
the commands of Jesus literally, and they acted accordingly.  They sold their possessions, and laid  the
money at the apostles' feet; and distribution was
made to every one according to his need (Acts ii.
45).
Let men obey the teachings of Jesus, and how long
would they be rich, or have possessions?  Let the
strongest bank in Boston put out a sign, "Here we
lend, hoping for nothing inll return; we give to all who
ask of us, and of those who take our goods we ask
them  not again."  Though the parties were rich as
the Rothschilds in the morning, and as sure of hell as
Dives, they would be stripped as bare as Lazarus
before night, and be just as certain of a place in Abraham's capacious bosom.
Where is the church that demands of its members
obedience to these vital Christian  duties?   Jesus
says, "Believe in me."  They do it, and are not at all
backward in saying so. Christianity is now a fashionable religion; and nothing can be easier than to be




2`0           WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
a, floating chip on the current of public opinion.
Jesus says, 6' When ye pray, say, Our Father:" and
this how ready all are to perform, from the, Unitarians
to the ranters, from the prattling babe to the grayhaired sinner of ninety; and ask for their daily bread
as if the breakfast-loaf depended on their morning
petition.  This also costs nothing.  Jesus says, handing the wine-cup to his disciples, " Do this, as oft as ye
do it, in remembrance of me;" and, althouglh there is
no positive command, they are eager to attend to the
slightest hint of their Master, and down goes the poisonous alcoholic compound as the mystical blood
of Jesus.  He also says, " He that believeth, and is
baptized, shlall be saved."' Then we must be baptized," say the Baptists. "' Yes, our little ones," say
the pedo-Baptists; and up come the little children in
the arms of their parents, and are sprinkled in the
name of the triune Jehovah; and down go the childrein of a larger growth in the arms of the priest, to be
dipped in the same name.  This also costs next to
nothing, and is often a passport into what is called
good society.  But when Jesus says, "' Lend, hoping
for nothing again," "' Give to him that asketh of thee,"
" Sell that ye have, and give alms," all are stonedeaf; or, if they hear, they are quite sure that he does
not mnean what lie says.  Jesus may beckon for them
to tread the path that lie has trod; but they are all
blind.  This costs something; this strips them  and
tries them; this tests their faith.  Jesus is reported
as saying, " When thie Son of man cometh, shall he
find faith on tihe earth? " and I thinik, if he should
come now, he would fild the pretending members




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?               231
of his church to be infidels to a manll: there is no faith
in Jesus in the land. Let millionnaires distribute what
they have robbed fromi the poor, when they take the
Christian name; let them sell their mansions to-day,
and distribute to the necessitous, and know not where
they shall lay their heads to-morrow; let those Christian ministers who denounce all who do not accept
their standard of Christianity set the example by
reducing themselves to abject poverty, and then we
shall have evidence of their sincerity at least.
Who are genuine Christians? They cannot be those
lords over God's heritage, who pocket from five to fifteen thousand dollars a year for preaching a gospel
scarcely an item of which Jesus could recognize. They
cannot be among those sleek church-goers who pay
from a hundred to a thousand dollars a year for the
privilege of sitting in a cushioned pew, and listening
to Rev. Silver-Tongue as he proves how easy it is for a
camel to go through a needle's eye. Boston, among its
regiment of preachers, cannot find a single man; and
the New-York a-nd Brooklyn pounders, expounders, and
ten-pounders, ase not a whit more Christian than their
Boston brethren. If the Christians only are sheep, they
are left-hand goats, to a matn; and the Judge's fatal
"Depart! " must ring through their guilty souls in
"' the last great day."  Nor are the members of our socalled Christian churches in a much more hopeful condition. Not only is it impossible to find a man who
obeys the commands of Jesus, we cannot even find
one who tries to obey them; and, if we did, his Christian brethren would be among the first to conclude that
he had taken leave of his senses.




232          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
If any of you still think that you are Christians, and
that, on account of this, Jesus will save you from the
curses pronounced on the disobedient, let me refer you
to the sixteenth chapter of Mark. I read, "' He that
believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that
believeth not shall be damned."  Now comes the question of questions: Are you a believer? for, if you are
not, damnation is yours. Jesus himself gives the test
by which you may decide: "' These signs shall follow
them that believe: in my name shall they cast out
devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall
take up serpents; and, if they drink any deadly thing,
it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the
sick, and they shall recover." Can you cast out devils
in the name of Jesus?  Can you speak with new
tongues? It may be difficult to tell when the devils
are in, and perhaps still more to tell when they are
out; it may be impossible for us to tell whether any
paculiar speech that you may utter is a veritable language or not: but can you handle serpents with impunity, say rattlesnakes, vipers, or copperheads?  Can
you drink any deadly thing without injury? - a dose
of arsenic, for instance, a few grains of corrosive sublimate, or half a pint of sulphuric-acid? Can a man be
found among the millions professing the Christian
name that would submit to the test, to say nothing
about being unharmed afterward?  Or can you lay
your hands on the sick, and they recover? I hear of
Spiritualists doing this at times; but where are the
Christians that can do it?  And yet it is evident, if
Jesus states what is true, that those who cannot do
these things will be damned. Out of the way, you




WHO ARE C.HRISTIANS?             233
shams! - you Roman Catholic, with your seven sacraments, your holy water, your Latin gabble, your fantastic
dresses! Away with you, monks, priests, cardinals, and
infatuated popes, and take your Pater-Nosters and AveMiarias, your litanies and your solomn masses, with
you! What are they good for?  The whole pile of
your mummery never made a single Christian, and
cannot save from  damnation one guilty soul. You
need not come, Episcopalian, to take his place. What
better is your prayer-book than his mass-book?  Are
your two sacraments any more efficacious than his
seven? your damnatory creed any more soul-saving
than his? You cain make Episcopalians by the million; but there is not a Christian among theai; and,
if Jesus speaks what is true, they will every one be
damned with the common herd. Here come the Presbyterians. "' We are the Christians, orthodox, evangelical.  We have thrown  overboard unscriptural
Popery, unchristian Episcopalianism; and we are the
true followers of the Saviour.". You, With your cloudcleaving spires, your velvet-cushioned pews and your
tasselled pulpits, your ten-thousand-dollar ministers and
millionnaire members, - you Christians?  Then, are
misers generous, drunkards temperate, and Hottentots
the most beautiful of mankind. You need not crowd
in, Methodist, Baptist, Quaker, Shaker, Unitarian, Universalist, and Adventist, - shams, every one. Jesus can
only say to you all, "1 Depart from me: I never knew
you!"  You have built on the sand, and your structure
must fall when the wrath of God is revealed on those
who obey not the gospel of his Son.




234.         WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
If none are to be saved but Christians, where, my
professing brother, will you appear?
I can see the last great day, " the day for which all
other days were made." Down from heaven descends
the Master, surrounded with the shining host; and at
the sound of that trumpet whose call the very dead
hear, up comse earth's buried hosts. I bellold all the
Christians sects, marshalled by their leaders and under
their respective banners, come before the throne of
Him whose name had been their boast. The Roman
Catholics, a myriad-membered throng, approach; and
a venerable prelate stands as their mouthpiece before
the 1" dread tribunal." 6" On what grounds do ye claim
the Christian name, and a place in my kingdom?"
said the once meek Nazarene, but now the lion of the
tribe of Judah, with flaming vengeance in his eye and a
dagger in every word. " Thou gavest to Peter the keys
of the kingdom  of heaven; and we have faithfully
obeyed his successors, and proclaimed their decisions
infallible. We have styled the holy Mary, thy mother,
Mother of God, and given to her all but divine homage.
We have built the most magnificent cathedrals, and
drained from the poor more money for thy cause than
any other people on earth. We have persecuted to
death, wherever we have had the power, all who would
not bow down to thy name, as our church directed:
we burnt them at the stake, racked them on the wheel,
hung them on the gibbet, and tortured them in all
ways that our ingenuity could devise, to drive their
heresies from themm, and save precious souls. Surely
we are thy people, and shall be allowed to enter into
thy kingdom, and sit down with thee."




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?            235
DsDid you not know," and his voice sounded like
thunder, Go that Peter was he to whom I said,  Get thee
behind me, Satan'  and that he denied me with oaths
and curses? What authority had you from me to call
his pretended successors infallible? When I was on
earth, my disciples wished to call down fire from heaven
on those who rejected me; but I replied, as you know,' The Son of man came not to destroy men's lives, but
to save them.' Was it for you, then, in my name, to
torture and burn men because they would not submit
to a tyrannical church, - the most infernal that was
ever established among men? My mother did no more
than any other woman might have done in her place,
and was no more divine than the mothers of my poor,
whom you robbed to build your pompous piles, and feed
your pampered church. Traitors to humanity, lovers
of darkness, torturers of the conscientious, plunderers
of the poor, depart from me!"  Then the banners
drooped, the proud prelates hung their heads, and the
duped multitude blushed for shame as they moved on,
and made room for the Presbyterians, who came boldly,
in no degree disconcerted by the fate of the Romanists
that had preceded them. "' We are Christians," said
they, 1 and we claim the kingdom which is ours by
faith."- " What have ye done to deserve it? " said He
on the throne.  They answered, "'We rescued thy
Church and thy Word from the hands of the polluted
wretches that preceded us, and uplifted thy banner,
that had been trampled in the dust, and made it sacred
in the eyes of the respectable in all Christian lands.
We built the best of churches, paid millions for home
and foreign missions, and made thy name to be honored




236          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
by the rich and influential everywhere. We erected
colleges for training young men to preach thy Word;
and our doctors of divinity were renowned throughout
the civilized world."
"' Is this what I commanded you to do? " and his eye
blazed like lightning; and a shudder ran through the
multitude, so that they trembled, as he spoke, like a
leaf on an aspen-tree. " You rescued my Church and
my Bible? You never did either. My Church exists
alone in the hearts of those who obey my instructions;
and from whom did my Word need to be rescued more
than from you who denied its meaning, and by every
deed of your lives set at nought its requirements?
You made my name honored by misrepresenting my
character, and belying my gospel; and in my kingdom
there is no place for such as you." And I saw the sad,
solemn multitude depart like a funeral procession, to
make room for the next claimants of the Christian's
reward.
Confidently came a greater host, a host no man might
number: a million columns filed before the throne, and
they looked as if they might, in case of refusal, take
heaven itself by storm.  They were the Methodists.
e Ware are thine," said they, " the children of the King;
and we come to thee for our crown and our kingdom."
-" Why should I give crowns to you?  What proofs
can you present of your relationship to me? " said the
Judge. " Like thee we went among the poor and the
lowly, we formed prayer-meetings, established classmeetings, got up revivals, and swept millions into thy
Church and thy fold. We, too, have built churches in
thy name; in thy name have founded colleges, and sent




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?            237
out preachers to the remotest bounds of the earth." --
I( I know you," said the Judge; and, as he said it, I
saw darkness upon their faces like the shadow of a
cloud on a mountain-side. " You went among the
poor and lowly: ye did well; but did you go to distribute all that you had? Did you give to those who
asked you? Did you lend, hoping for nothing? Did
you denounce the tyrant lordlings who held my people
in bondage, and wrung from them  the fruits of their
labor to pamper their pride? Who told you to form
prayer-meetings and class-meetings? Who commanded
you to get up revivals, build churches, and send preachers to declare a gospel which they preached, instead of
my gospel, scarcely a word of which they ever uttered?
My crowns are not for such as you, and my heaven
cannot reward pretenders, or their dupes."  And the
weeping Methodists followed the Presbyterians and the
Romanists, as all other Christian sects followed them;
for in the heaven of Jesus the Christ there was no
place found by them.
Where, then, shall we find the true Christians?  I
will give you the gospel-marks by which they may be
distinguished; and, when you find one, you cannot be
mistaken. They never swear, not even in a court of
justice; they do not resist evil, and, if any man hits
them on one cheek, they turn the other; they lend,
hoping for nothing again; they give to all who ask of
them; they sell what they have, and*, give alms; they
take no thought for the morrow; they take no thought
about what they shall eat, drink, or wear; they wash
one another's feet. When they make a feast, they do
n~ot invite their friends nor their acquaintances nor




238           WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
their rich neighbors, but the poor, the halt, and ths
blind. They love their enemies; but they hate their
fathers, mothers, sisters, brothers, husbands or wives,
their children, and their own lives: for all these Jesus
commanded.  Should there be any doubt still remaining, you will know them  by this: they call cast out
devils, speak with new tongues, handle serpents, drink
deadly poison with impunity, and heal the sick by laying their hands upon them.' But there are no such
people," I think I hear you say.  Certainly not; and
hence there are no Christians in your sense, — none
who obey the commands of Jesus; and indeed Jesus
himself was no Christian, if this alone constitutes one.
Like all other men, his ideal was different from  his
actual life.  He says, " Whosoever calleth his brother
a fool is in danger of hell-fire;" yet he repeatedly calls
the Pharisees " fools and blind."  He says, "' Resist not
evil," yet withl a scourge drives the traffickers out of
the temple, and overturns the tables of the moneychangers.  ie tells men to be perfect, as their Father
in heaven is perfect; and yet says there is but One:good, that is God. He says, "' Take no thought for the
morrow.".Hear him in the Garden of Gethsemane,
as he prays, "c 0 my Father, if it it be possible, let this
cup pass from me.7"  What cup?  The cup of sorrow
that he was to drink on the morrow. If none get to
heaven but those who obey the commandments of
Jesus, then Jesus himself will be absent: lie too will
be cast into outer darkness, where there is weeping,
wailing, and teeth-gnashing.  If Jesus was not a genuine Christian, what chance has any one else to be?
I do not, of course, blame any one for failing to be a




WHO ARE' CHRISTIANS?             2  9
Christian. It is not in the power of humanity to be 
and for men even to try to be would be most disastrous,
It was this that made a eunuch of Origen, filled the
Church with idle nuns and beggarly monks, and to-day
makes celibates of hundreds of Shakers, who, but for
their unfortunate faith, might be exemplary parents,
and leave the world better than they found it. It has
made multitudes fools for Christ's sake, who might
have been intelligent and happy men and women. Let
those who desire to become Christians give to those
who ask of thelm  and lend, hoping for nothing again,
and the list of paupers would soon be largely increased,
and the idle and the industrious would be equally
cursed. There is often no better way to cure a man
of Christianity than to induce him to try to live his
faith. These members of Christian churches, then, -
these Christian ministers too, who' deal damnation
round the land," — are Christians in no other sense
than the mass of believers in Jesus outside of the
Church; and, if their Master is to be believed, their
damnation is as certain as that of those they denounce.
They are Christian ministers, as our thieves are Christian thieves; and the churches in which they preach
are Christian churches, as our jails are Christian jails,
and our drink-houses, Christian grog-shops.   They
have taken just as much of the doctrine of Jesus as
they pleased, mixed it with a set of monstrous fables
of their own, or of other pretended Christians, from
Paul down; and, having baptized this as Christianity,
they curse every one who will not bow down to the idol
that they have set up.
There are multitudes of well-meaning people, who




240          WHO ARE CHRISTIANS?
have been educated in the Christian faith, or what goes
by that name, who are sincerely desirous to obey the
teachings of Jesus, because they believe it to be their
duty. Mlany such are made unhappy by their inability
to live the life that their faith demands.  What a satisfaction it must be to know that there is not the least
necessity for any one to be a Christian! our welfare in
this life or the next does not in the slightest degree
depend upon it. You can be a philosopher, as Humboldt was, and be no Christian, as he was none; you
may be a poet, with Shelley; a philanthropist with
tHenry C. Wright, who had long cast off the Christian
name and the Christian pretence; you can be a good
father or mother, a good citizen, a lover of man, and a
doer of right, a practiser of temperance and every
virtue, and yet be no Christian. And a man may be a
thief, drunkard, murderer, adulterer, hypocrite, and
brute, and yet be a Christian in the only sense in which
any man can be a Christian.
Think of the time, labor, and energy wasted in the
attempt to make men Christians. Think of the thousands of missionaries roaming over the world, and spending their lives in converting men from one form of
superstition to another. Think of the millions spent
in Massachusetts to convert men to the dog'mas of
twenty contending sects, that are no more Christian
than the Roman Church is catholic. Instead of Bibleclasses, where our young people are taught what the
Bible means, and often what it does not mean, let us
have classes of physiology, phrenology, geology, and
astronomy; schools for adults, in which granmmar, elocution,  music, and drawing will be taught, and where




WHO ARE CHRISTIANS              241
instruction can be obtained in the moral duties which
grow out of our relations to each other and to nature.
Then every member will learn something useful, not
only for this life, but that will be capital with which to
start in the next. Instead of Christians, let us have
whole-souled, well-developed men and women, who will
do right because right-doing is best for humanity. Instead of Christian ministers, let us have human ministers, - men bound by no creed, tied to no church,
cursed by no Bible; men who will simply ask, What
does Nature teach? and, having learned this, seek to
impress the truth on the minds of their fellows.
16








C1RISTIANITY NO FINALITY.








CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY.
WE surpass the ancients in almost every department
of literature, science, mechanics, and art. Among the
Greeks and Romans, not more than one inl a hundred
could read and write, and among the ancient Jews still
fewer. Charlemagne of France, the greatest of Christian kings, about a thousand years ago, never knew
how to write. Very few of the French clergy knew
how to read, and scarcely any to write; and, in England, the condition of the people was no better. Now
a man. so ignorant in this country is a rarity. Where
there was one author two thousand years ago, there
are a hundred now; and our schools and colleges
contain thousands in the embryo. Then a book as
large as Shakspeare's works could only be written by
the unremitting labor of a year; now a dozen meni
will turn out a tlhousand in a day. Six hundred and
fifty thousand " New-York Tribunes " are printed every
week; each containing as much matter as the New
Testament: to write them as they did then would re.
quire the labor of a thousand men for twelve years.
It took a fortune in those days to buy a few manuscripts; now a peasant has a library that a Roman
emperor would have envied.
245




246        CHRISTIANITY  O FINALITY; OR,
In astronomy, we have advanced from the childish
guesses of the Hebrews, and-the only less wild conjectures of the Greeks, to the magnificent works of the
Hersehels, and the splendid and all but demonstrated
theories of La Place. The little world made by the
Jewish Jehovah in six days; that had ends, and was
flat; that rested on pillars, and was established so that
it could not be moved, - is gone; and in its place we
have the grand old earth, born of the sun in the eternity of the past, rushing through space sixty times
faster than a ball from the mouth of a cannofi.  In
place of the stars that were made on the fourth day
after the creation of the earth, to assist inl giving light
upon it, and that occasionally fell when Jehovah shook
the heavens, we have millions of blazing suns, some of
them a thousand times larger than the centre of our
system; and, compared with them, we find our planet
to be but a drop in an. infinite ocean. We have deciphered the hieroglyphics on the rocks, in which the
history of our planet is inscribed (a history all unknown
to the men of the past); have called up from their long
sleep the hosts of organic forms which flourished during
the geologic ages; and wrested from Nature her deep
secrets, hidden for so long from the most scrutinizing
gaze.   Physiology, phrenology, chemistry, sciences
unknown to the world two thousand years ago, are
blessing us daily with their beautiful and usefill revelations; and the future is big with promise of new
sciences to be born, new realms yet to be discovered,
explored, and appropriated.
I am told that the Pyramids of Egypt are superior
to all modern structures, and that they demonstrate
how much the art of the ancients was superior to that




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.  247
of the moderns. But let a hundred thousand men be
employed for thirty years, as they were to make the
great Pyramid, with the appliances of modern mechanics and art, and they would pile up a mountain like
Chimborazo, whose giant crest the traveller views at a
distance of a hundred miles. For every art supposed
to be lost, we have made a hundred; and new ones
are starting up daily.
We have to-day better houses, better heads, consequently better brains and better minds, better books,
better governments, than the ancients, and why not
a better religion?  Having advanced in every other
direction, why not in this? Are we to march forward
in science with excelsior for our motto, looking upward,
and ever climbing to the untrodden heights; and, in
religion, are we to be constantly looking over our
shoulders, or groping in some mummy-pit over the
musty records of the past, deciphering mouldy parchments, and mourning over mutilated manuscripts, as
if God had left his word to the mercy of some spreading fungus or nibbling rat?
"Why should we see with dead men's eyes,
Looking at Was from morn till night?
When the beauteous Now; the divine To be,/
Woo with their charms the living sight?'"
As the race has advanced from its primitive barbarism, it has made for itself better and better religious
forms, corresponding with its advancement.  Feti.
chism was once the best form of religion, when men
worshipped trees, stones, beetles, snakes, and more
disgusting objects still.




248        CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,': Then a crocodile served as a reverend lord,
And the leeks that we eat were the gods they adored."
The soul of man could not always thus grovel: some
primitive Moses, Jesus, or Luther, denounced, doubtless, as a heretic and infidel, scouted the snaky gods,
and turned meni's attention to the heavens. " There,"
said he, "is the beautiful sun: what more glorious
object of worship can you have? This makes our day;
its absence, gloomy night; under its benignant reign
spring up grasses, flowers, fruits, and all hearts are
cheered."  Listening to him, they abandoned the old
gods, danced in circles at early morn, and chanted
hymns of praise to the god of day.  Heroes who had
slain wild beasts, and destroyed neighboring tribes
who were their enemies, in turn also became gods
to be adored: their deeds were emulated by their
worshippers; and the exaggerated stories of their
exploits were handed down from generation to generation.
Judaism  at length became possible, better than
some of its predecessors; for it gave to its adherents
the unseen God, "the Creator of the heavens and
earth," in whose name a valuable moral code was inculcated, and the more flagrant crimes sternly denounced. But this God, though invisible, was in human
shape; stern, revengeful, passionate. and, at times,
terribly cruel. The Jews were his children beloved;
the Gentiles, his illegitimate offspring, whom the Jews
were commissioned by him to destroy whenever they
interfered with their convenience or pleasure.
As men's minds expanded, the Jewish God, and the
ritual founded in his name, could no longer command.




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.  249
their respect. Jesus inaugurates a new era, and supersedes Judaism, as the dawn does the light of the
stars.  God is the Father of the hutman race: the sun
that shines on all, the rain that drops so impartially
on all, are the fit emblems of his unbiassed love. The
burden of superstitious rites and ceremonies, the offering of sacrifices, the sabbaths, and the yearly pilgrimages, are abolished. Faith in Jesus, and obedience
to his simple doctrine, are all that the new religion
demands.
But is Christianity, even as Jesus taught it, a finality? Did this Galilean mechanic exhaust the Infinite?
Has Nature no deeper secrets than he revealed? Did
he climb higher than mortal can ever again rise? Did
he alone know the way of life, and are we doomed to
walk implicitly in his footsteps, or forever go astray?
So thought the Jew of Moses; so thinks the Turk of
Mohammed, and the Mormon of Joseph Smith.
We dream not that we have approached the Infinite
in any other direction. Ask the best musician if he
has exhausted the possibilities of his science and art,
and he will tell you that we have but ascended to the
clouds; and the infinite heaven of harmony lies beyond,
yet to be scaled, and yet to be enjoyed. The geologist
knows that we have but deciphered a few torn leaves
of a mighty volume, whose unread lore will feast explorers for ages to come. Ask the astronomer if the
last star in the firmament has yielded to him its secrets,
and the heavens have no more to reveal, and he will
tell you that he is but a babe, who has made the acquaintance of a few pebbles on the shore of the ocean,
whose unfathomable waters spread illimitably around
him. What would be thought of the man who should




250        CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
attempt to anchor us where our present attainments
are in these sciences? He would be justly regarded as
a foe to the human race. Was Jesus greater in religion than Newton and Herschel in astronomy, than
Lyell in geology, or Humboldt in general science? We
certainly have no evidence of it. If we are to rely
upon the New-Testament record, and we have no other,
his deficiencies, and that of his religion, are most
manifest.
It is, in the first place, most sadly deficient in the
ability to give to the sceptic any evidence of life beyond
the grave. Judaism, it is true, was more deficient: it
lacked even hope. Job says (Job vii. 9), "As the cloud
is consumed and vanisheth away, so he that goeth down
to the grave shall come up no more; " and certainly, if
man does go down to the grave, he comes up no more:
but man does no such thing. And David (Ps. cxlvi. 4):
"' His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in
that very day his thoughts perish."  And Solomon
(Eccl. iii. 18-22): "I said in my heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might
manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts. For that which befalleth the sons
of men befalleth the beasts; even one thing befalleth
them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they
have all one breath; so that a man hath no pre-enillence
above a beast: for all is vanity. All go unto one place;
all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Who
knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the
spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better than
that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is
his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall




SPi2R[TUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.  251
be after him?"  So said the grossly material Solomon,
who drank the cup of pleasure to the dregs, and then
called it bitter. I suppose it was in this spirit that he
married seven hundred wives, and took three hundred
concubines, the result of which he gives us in his
despairing words, " All is vanity."
Christianity, it must be acknowledged, is far in
advance of this. By the mouth of Jesus, it exclaims,
"' In my Father's house are many mansions: I go to
prepare a place for you, that, where I am, there ye may
be also." Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob still live, and
Moses and Elias appear on the mountain, and talk.
Paul says, " To be absent from the body is to be present
with the Lord,"' and " If our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a
house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."
Blessed words! - how many sinking souls they have
buoyed when the billows had well-nigh gone over them!
What hosts of hearts they have gladdened, as they trod
the dark valley, with no light but the star of Christianity to cheer them! Let us thankfully acknowledge
the good of the old, though we prefer the new: the
light of the stars is joyously accepted before the morning breaks.
But how little comfort the doubter obtains from
these! How meagre the evidence of future existence
which the Christian can give to those who dispute it!
"' How know you, my brother, that you will live when
this body dies; that there is a bridge that spans the
broad, dark chasm  of death?"  We pause for his
reply. " Jesus died, and rose again triumphant; and,
because he lives, we shall live also." -" But how do
you know that Jesus rose from the dead? "-"I We have




252       CtlRrSTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
the testimony of those who saw him after his resurrection, -the disciples with whom he brake bread after
he rose, who saw, conversed with, and even handled
him; the five hundred brethren who saw him at once,
and never doubted his triumph over death and the
grave." —' But where do you find all this? " -  In the
New Testament."  In vain the sceptic looks for what
would justify such an extravagant statement. Here
are accounts by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and
the merest mention in the Epistle of Peter, and,
besides this, absolutely nothing from any one pretending to be an eye-witness of these occurrences. Let ius
examine what we possess.  How much of it would
be taken in a court of justice?
Mark's Gospel appears to have been transcribed from
previous records; and we have no evidence that the
writer ever saw Jesus, either after his death or before.
Even Orthodox commentators do not pretend to know
when his Gospel was written, or what Mark wrote it.
" Of Mark, little, certainly, is known," says Albert
Barnes the Orthodox commentator. Again: he says,
"He was not an apostle or companion of the Lord
Jesus during his ministry." We cannot, therefore,
accept his statement: it would be ruled out of court
at once.
Luke does not profess to have been an eye-witness
of any of the events that he relates: he merely professes (Luke i. 1) to set forth, in order, a declaration of
what was most surely believed among the Christians
of that time; and his statement can do but little
more in establishing the resurrection of Jesus than
the statement of a Christian's belief in it at this day.
The Gospels of Matthew and John are, however,




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.  253
believed by most Christians to have been written by
the me(n wliose names they bear, who saw Jesus before
his death, and after he rose from the dead; and
who are, ill every respect, competent witnesses. This
can never be proved; but, for the sake of the argument, we will grant it.
Let Matthew be examined.' Matthew, did you see
Jesus of Nazareth die? "-" Ii did not: when the
multitude came with swords and staves to take Jesus,
we all forsook him, and fled." — -' What was done with
his body? " — " Joseph of Arimathea buried it in a new
sepulchre in his garden." —" Who went to the sepulchre on the first day of the week? "-" Mary Magdalene and the other Mary" (Matt. xxviii. I). " What
did they see? " -" An angel, who said, Fear not ye;
for I know that ye seek Jesus, which was crucified.
He is not here; for he is risen, as he said. Go
quickly, and tell his disciples that he is risen from the
dead; and, behold, he goeth before you pinto Galilee; there shall ye see him: lo, I have told'you! "D id these women see Jesus on that occasion? "-' They did: as they were going to tell the disciples,
they saw him, held him by the feet, and worshipped
himr; and he said,' Go tell my brethren that they go
into Galilee, and there they shall see me.' " -" What
then? " --  Then the eleven disciples went away into
Galilee into at mountain where Jesus had appointed
them; and, when they saw him, they worshipped him:
but some doubted" (Matt. xxviii. 16, 17).
Let us look at Matthew's testimony for a moment.
An angel tells the two women to go quickly and tell
the disciples of Jesus that he is risen from the dead,
and goes before them into Galilee, and that they shall




254       CHRISTIANITY.NO FI.NALITY; OR,
see him  there; and, on their seeing Jesus, he adds,
"' Go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and
there they shall see me." What was meant to be con.
veyed by these commands?  That Jesus was on his
way to Galilee, and that he did not intend to see them.
till he should see them there; then that the disciples
went at once to Galilee, and there first saw Jesus.
Nothing else can be fairly gathered from them.
" Now, John, let us hear your testimony.  Did you
see Jesus of Nazareth die? " —" I did: I was standing
near his mother, looking' on at the time."
"Who went to the sepulchre on the first day of the
week? "-" Mary Magdalene." -"  What did she
see? "-" She saw no one, but found that the body of
Jesus was gone." -"  What did she do?" - " She ran
and told Peter and me; and we ran to the sepulchre, and
found it to be as she had told us; and then we went
home." -" What became of her? " -" She remained
there weeping; and, looking into the sepulchre, she saw
two angels who asked her why she wept; and, after telling them, she turned and saw Jesus, but thought he was
the gardener, but, on hlis speaking, recognized him. IHe
said,' Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my
Father; but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I
ascend unto my Father and your Father, and to my
God and your God.' "-" What did the disciples do?"
-" They remained in Jerusalem; and the same day, at
evening, all but Thomas being in an upper room for
fear of the Jews, Jesus appeared to them and made
them  glad. Eight days afterwards, he appeared to
them again in the same place; and, Thomas being
present, satisfied him also of his resurrection from the
dead."




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRxSTIANITY.  255
From Jolhn, then, we learn that Jesus appeared to his
disciples in Jerusalem  on the same day that he rose
from the dead, and satisfied all but Thomas of his resurrection; but, according to Matthew, when the eleven
disciples saw him in Galilee, sonze doubted. This must,
therefore, have been before he was seen in Jerusalem;
for they could not have doubted ill Galilee if they had
previously been satisfied inl Jerusalem.  To make
Matthew's statement and Johl's even appear to agree,
the disciples must have first seen Jesus on the mountain at Galilee, and then at Jerusalem: but, to do
this, they must, when Mary Magdalene and the other
Mary gave them the imperative word of Jesus, have
gone at once to Galilee, and returned to Jerusalem in
time for the evening's appearance on the same day;
which would involve a journey of at least a hundred and
twenty miles, to say nothing of climbing the mountain. But those were not days of railroads, steamboats,
nor even stage-coaches; and we see at once, if their
other discrepancies had not satisfied us, that these pretended eye-witnesses are deceiving us. In court, they
would be in danger of trial for perjury.
Although we have granted that Matthew wrote the
gospel attributed to him, there is good reason to believe that lie never did write a word of it.  Could he
have seen Jesus, as John represents, on the very day
that he rose from the dead, in an upper room at Jerusalem, and yet have represented that Jesus was first
seen at Galilee, at least sixty miles off, and never have
said a word about his appearance at Jerusalem? It is
impossible.
" What have we left, then? " —" The five hundred
who saw Jesus at once."- " Who are they?  Where




256        CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR
is their testimony? "-" Nowhere: Paul says that five
hundred brethren saw him at once."  Very different,
indeed, from the testimony of these five hundred, no
name even of one being given.
We have, beside this, the testimony of Peter, who is
supposed to have been an eye-witness; but it amounts
to little. All that he says is, God " hath begotten us
again to a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead; " and " God raised him up from
the dead."  And this is absolutely all from those pretending to have known Jesus when alive.  Paul
evidently knew nothing of him personally. If some
of those who saw Jesus doubted, -the very disciples,
while looking upon the face of their risen Master, - well
mnay the sceptic doubt to-day, with nothing but such
meagre and contradictory evidence before him as this.
On what a slender thread this momentous doctrine has
hung! Man's strong desire for immortality has led him
to clutch at any straw to save him from the abyss of
nothingness in which death threatened to plunge him,
or such testimony as this never could have been
accepted.
But suppose that Jesus did rise from the dead: he
rose with his flesh, blood, and bones, - a proper physical
man. Hie says, " A spirit hath not flesh and bones, as
ye see me have." He ate broiled fish and honeycomb;
showing that he was actually the same being after
death as before. But we can never rise in this way:
our friends have perished, if this is the only resurrec.
tion possible. Some lie in trenches in the bloody fields
of the South, and their decomposing remains give verdure to the palmetto that waves over them: some
sank into the turbid Mississippi, with the vessels they




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIAXN[TY.  257
bravely defended: others were lost at sea, and sharks
became their living sepulchres; or were burned up in
houses and ships, and the particles of their bodies
have been wafted over the globe on the wings of a
thousand winds. They have become parts of other
human bodies; and how can these ever be recovered
and re-animated? It cannot be, in the nature of things.
If we had no other evidence than this, well might we
weep on the death of our friends, as those who'have no
hope I Christianity, then, utterly fails to give to the
sceptic any evidence of life beyond the grave.  When
he asks for evidence on the most important question
that the soul of man can consider, it is silent as a skeleton, or chatters but to reveal its imbecility.
Spiritualism  is, in this respect, almost infinitely superior.  Christianity rests on faith, spiritualism  on
knowledge.  The one is a historical statement, the
other a living f:ict.  Christianity says, "' Blessed are
they who have not seen, and yet believed; " thus offering.; premium  for blind faith.  Spiritualism  says,'" Come hither, ye sceptics: hear, see, feel, and know
that your departed friends still live; and, because they
live, receive the assurance that ye shall live also."
The riddle of thle universe is read, the mystery of
ages is revealed; the question tlhat we have been asking with tearful eyes for long mlillellllitums is answered
in the affirmative, and we are mnll  for tile ages to
come. Tell thle Indian it was inot all a delusion tLhat
his medicile-mana taught lim: thle Indianl lives whllere
the pale-face interferes not withl Ihis domainl, ald tlhe
hell of the Christianl is unknownl.  There is a lparadise
for the Mohammedan better suited to his so!l's leeds
tlhan the one promised by Mohammed to thle faithful.
17




258        CGRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
What Socrates hoped for, Jesus taught, and Paul believed, we know. Death is swallowed up in life, joyfill life.
Who  are the witnesses?   No long-dead Peter,
Matthew, or John, but living men and women, who can
be questioned.  Not three or four, of whom some may
have been  doubters; but unnumbered thousands,
spread over the broad land, some of whom may be met
and cross-questioned every day. Not merely the ignorant and superstitious, like the fishermen of Galilee,
who seem to have been prepared for any story, however
marvellous, but sceptics like the Owens, Hare, and
Elliotson; such men and women as Thackeray, the
Llowitts and Halls, Dr. Ashburner, Lord Lyndhurst,
Alfred R. Wallace, Epes Sargent, Prof. Gunning,
Prof. Mapes, Drs. Hallock and Brittan, William Lloyd
Garrison, Archbishop Whately and hosts of others,
many of whom were convinced notwithstanding the
strongest prejudice against it.  Ministers in Orthodox
pulpits have seen and believed, and preach now with a
power on the subject of future life such as Christianity never could give.  Sceptics the most determiled have found their scepticism melting like snow
before the sun of this truth.
Intelligent witnesses indeed we have, numbering
hundreds of thousands, whose word upon any ordinary
suibject would be taken at once; and, if the fact of
spiritual intercourse cannot be established, it is in vain
to attempt to establish any very remarkable fact by
hlman testimony.
Christianity is a miraculous reli;ion.  The earth
and man are miraculously created; the earth will be
miraculously destroyed; and man will miraculously




SPIRITUALISA~ SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.  259
die, since the constitution of man at first was sucli
that he would not have died if God had not cursed
him. He is to be miraculously raised from the dead
by the miraculously begotten.and resurrected Jesus.
Future life is consequently miraculous: "It is the
gift of God; " and those only can live to whom it is
given.
All this is sadly out of joint: it fails to harmonize
with what we know of Nature in the past, and hence
we may fairly presume that it does with what is to be
in the future.  Men are learning that the earth came
to be as it is by the operation of law, and man came
in like manner. As his life here came naturally, so
comes his life hereafter. The spirit lives when the
body dies, by virtue of its nature: it cannot do otherwise. Immortality is not the gift of a jealous Jehovah,
who may, in a fit of anger, withhold it, and drop us into
nonentity: we live as the sun shines, because it is its
nature.
It is no wonder that, a religion so interwoven with
miracle miraculously changes all persons at death, so
as to destroy their individuality, and give future existence not to the same individuals, but to the beings into
whom they have been thus changed. Heaven is the
miraculous home of the righteous few, hell the miraculous prison for the wicked many. The good alone
are to be admitted to heaven; no unclean thing can
enter it: but, since all men are partly good and partly
bad, all who enter there must be so changed as to be
quite different individuals. What wife would recognize her quick-tempered husband, what husband would
know his fretful wife, when two immaculate angels
had taken their places?  Where are the good fit for




260        CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
the heaven of the New Testament?  From Abel, who
was slain because he was more righteous than his
brother, to Washington, the patron saint of America,
there never was a good man, - never a man who did
not lie, who did not at some time become angry, who
was not envious or jealous or mean. If none but the
good go to heaven, then it is as empty as an Orthodox
church on week-days, and God is a king without a
subject. Nor are there any bad men: from Cain, who
murdered his brother, to Arnold, who tried to murder
his country, there never was a man all bad, - one in
whose heart pity never dwelt, from whose purse charity never drew a cent, nor pity from his eye a tear;
who never spoke the truth when it was possible to lie,
nor said a kind word or did a good deed during his
miserable life. If none but the bad are sent to hell,
that is just as empty as heaven.
A religion that teaches such a doctrine as this cannot be a finality.  Science in this nineteenth century
says to Miracle, " Away, hag of the night! " and she
hides her deformed countenance.  We have rent the
veil of miracle that hid from us the orderly operations
of Nature, and everywhere we see law and its manifestations; and, in harmony with that, we also see that
men must be themselves, if there is to be any future
life for them.  All human beings are mixed: the
sheep are not destitute of hair and beard, and might
be at times mistaken for goats; the goats are not
without wool, and some have a striking resemblance
to sheep. From the best man to the worst, there is an
infinite gradation; and Omnipotence itself can draw no
line between the bad to be doomed to a Christian hell,
and the good doomed to a Christian heaven. Tile




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.   261
natural consequences of our misdeeds, in a realm
without miracle, cling to us, - as much a part of us
as our memory; and not even God can rob us of the
fruit of our good actions, ours to enjoy while life endures. At one blow, away go the Christian's hell and
heaven: they are foreign to the universe; and in their
place we have a spiritual realm for all, where the
good-doer can rejoice in the society of the philanthropic, and with them lay plans for humanity's benefit, and where the evil-doer may learn the folly of his
ways, cease to do evil, learn to do well, and reap the
reward of well-doing.
The temporary nature of Christianity-is plainly indicated by its indorsement of the Old Testament. Jesus
was never able entirely to outgrow the prejudices of
his Jewish education. " One jot or one tittle," says lie,
"' shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled."  " The scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses' seat:
all, therefore, whatsoever they bid you observe, that
observe and do."  As if the doctrine of these Jewish
law-expounders was all divine! Jesus refers to the old
stories of the Jewish Bible as if he believed them; and
he evidently did: and even takes the marvellous tale of
Jonah for true, and refers to prophecies of himself in
the Old Testament which certainly have no existence.
It is no wonder, when Swedenborg, in many respects
a superior man to Jesus, was never able to shake off
the biblical shackles in which his sectarian education
had bound him.
Christianity, therefore, indorses the Old Testament,
and drags around this shockingly offensive corpse, that
is a stench in the nostrils of all intelligent and unprej.
udiced people. It takes this old bottle of Judaism, and




262        CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
puts into it the new, and in some respects better, religion of Jesus, and, in consequence, destroys its flavor,
and renders it unfit for our acceptance.
Following in their Master's footsteps, the Christians
of the present day not only indorse the Old Testament
and its absurdities, but also the New Testament, with
some absurdities greater than the writers of the Old
ever dreamed of. To be wiser than the Bible is to the
true Christian impossible: to teach that it can ever be
superseded is blasphemy. It is his chart; and by it he
will be guided, though his judgment tells him that it
is wrong a thousand times a day.
What would be thought of the geographer who should
found a class in geography based upon the old atlas
of Ptolemy; every one of the class signing a declaration that Ptolemy's atlas was constructed by God himself, and contained all of geography that it was necessary for man to know? What progress could they ever
make? How they would fight against every new geographical discovery, and denounce every discoverer as
a heretic! What an arch infidel Columbus would have
been regarded by such a class in his day! Thus it was,
in the time of Galileo, with the Bible believers. No
sooner did he discover in the heavens what could not
be found in the Bible, than he was cast into prison as
areward for his superior knowledge. To-day, such men
as Darwin, Vogt, Huxley, and Spencer are looked upon
with suspicion, and denounced, because they have discovered new realms that the Bible does not describe,
and that make it evident that a great deal which the
Bible does describe is false. ~ They have learned that
Nature is infinitely wider than the Bible writers ever
dreamed, and exceedingly different from their repre



SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO C(7-RISTIANITY.  263
sentations; and they may expect to be cursed by all
who have sworn to be no wiser than the ien of two
thousand years ago.
We must say to the Bible, "' Henceforth you take your
place by the side of all other books. We are not to be
deceived by your expanded size, your embossed covers,
nor your gilded leaves. You must be content to be
treated as we treat Milton's' Paradise Lost,' Shakspeare's'Plays,' and Bunyan's' Pilgrim's Progress.' 
And to Jesus, "You can no longer be our master.
We do not object to you as a brother or a teacher: as
such we will place you with Socrates, Plato, and Confucius, -just as good men in their way as you were in
yours. You must not come between us and Nature,
our mother, -just as much ours as yours. The man
who pretends to possess a monopoly of Heaven's favors,
and, in the name of God, lords it over his fellows, is
either self-deceived or an impostor; and in either case
is a very poor guide." To the Jewish Jehovah, "' You
are as truly an idol as the gods denounced in your
name: they were the work of men's hands, and you of
men's brains. You never made the world, or you
could have informed us how you made it. Neither you
nor your Son ever redeemed the world, for it is not
redeemed; and the deliverance that has come to it has
come in a very different channel from. yours.  You
have long enough been a stumbling-block in the world's
pathway: we move you to one side, that the car of
progress may advance."
The indorsement of the divinity of the old Jewish
records has been the curse of Christianity from its comr
mencement. It prevented the disciples of Jesus firom
preaching it among the Samaritans and Gentiles during




264       CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
the lifetime of its founder; and, had it not been for the
partial emancipation of Paul, it would have strangled it
at its birth. It has produced a continual warfare between it and science, which will without doubt end in
its death. It curses Unitarianism and Universalism
to-day.  They are trying to run with heavy Jewish
slackles on their legs and this ponderous Bible on their
backs. Brethren, drop your Bibles; if they cannot go
alone, leave them behind: snap your Jewish shackles;
unite with all who are laboring to benefit humanity,
taking and giving the utmost freedom: then failure will
be as impossible as success is now.
With the indorsement of the Old Testament comes
the acceptance by Christianity of the Jewish Divinity;
and I know of no worse feature of it than this. Originally the idol of a petty tribe of sheep and cattle
breeders of Judea, Jehovah became the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and their descendants. As they
extended their domain by force of arms, so extended
the kingdom of their Divinity, and his name became
a terror to the nations round about; while the Jews
credited him with all that their superior knowledge,
craft, and cruelty enabled them to accomplish. The
common sentiment of the Jewish nation at an early
period is well exemplified in a song attributed to Moses,
and which occurs in the fifteenth chapter of Exodus:
" He is my God, and I will prepare him a habitation;
my father's God, and I will exalt him. The Lord is a
man of war: the Lord is his name."  In accordance
with this, they called him "' the Lord of hosts," or, in
other words, the Lord of armies, and the " Lord mighty
in battle."  A similar sentiment was shared in by the
nations round about them, who had each divinities




SPIRITUALISaM SUPERIOR TO C.RIrSTIANITY.  265
that they worshipped and prayed to, and to whom
all their victories were ascribed.
WXhat has the soul of the universe to do with this
petty, jealous, vacillating, malignant, cruel idol of the
Jews? The spirit that shines in the sun; that throbs
in the heart of the distant nebula to form solar systems, as it does in that of the unborn child to form
the man; that, out of the fiery hell of the world primeval, has developed plant, fish, reptile, brute, and man,
and is urging the world on in that grand career of
progress whose magnificent future may be estimated
by its mighty past,-what relation is the sacrificeloving, roasted-oxen-smelling deity of the Jews to
this spirit?  No more than Jupiter or Juno.
Jehovah is a being who cursed the earth and the
entire race because the first pair fell, when lie knew
beforehand that they had not the ability to stand;
he found the world of one language and of one speech,
and, in a fit of jealousy lest they should build a tower
to heaven and invade his domain, cursed them with a
thousand different tongues, so that they could not understand each other's speech; he tempted Abraham to
murder his own son, and, when he showed his readiness
to commit the infamous crime, lie blessed him, and
represents him as the best man upon earth, because
he was most willing to do the worst deed. He is a
God that transmuted a woman into a pillar of salt,
because she looked back upon her burning home, and
lingeringly left her friends to perish; who hardened
Pharoah's heart so that he should not let the people
of Israel go, and then slew millions of innocent
Egyptians because he was so hard-hearted that he
would not let t[eml go; lie gave to the Jews the grand




266        CHRISTLANITY NO FIN~.ALITY; OR
charter of death, — no Camanche chief's war-speech
was ever worse, — -" Thou shalt save alive nothing that
breatheth."  He has sent all mankind into the world
with a strong disposition to do evil; he allows the
Devil and his agents to tempt men, and thus make
them worse than they are naturally, and then has so
arranged matters, that, if they persist in doing whlat
lie calls evil, he will plunge them into a den of woe,
from which there is no escape, but from  which the
smoke of their torment is to ascend for ever and
ever. And we are told that it is our duty to love this
monster that the Jew made and the Christian has
remodelled.  Tell the captive pining in his dungeon
to love the tyrant that placed him  there; tell the
slave to love the master who has robbed him  of his
rights since he began to breathe, and whose back is yet
bloody from the blows of his lash; tell the mother to
love the fiend who has slain her darling, and now
gloats over her agony.  As impossible is it for us to
love this Devil-creator, this plaguer of the human
race, this framner and jailer of hell, and tormentor
of the damnled.  Reason will not, cannot, call him
father; Love shrinks with terror from his presence;
and Justice says, "' Let him die, for he is unworthy to
live."  The gods of silver and gold, of iron and brass,
will perish; the gods of wood and stone shall be no
more, and their worshippers shall be ashamed of their
folly: and so shall this grim, blood-besprinkled, eternally hating and torturing Jehovah die, and a million ransomed souls join in swelling to heaven his
ftlneral-hymn.
The traasient character of the Christian religion is
clearly manifested by its intolerance. Jesus said, " He




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHlRISTIANITY.  267
that believeth and is baptized shall be saved: he that
believeth not shall be damned;" and, so saying, he
opened the doors of persecution as wide as the Christian faith.  He sowed the seed that fruited in creeds
and curses, prisons, chains, blazing fagots, and all the
horrors of the Inquisition; lihe created hell, and placed
it in the hands of priests to curse the world for ages.
i' If men are to be damned for a wrong faith," says the
conscientious Christian, "1 we must do our best to provide them with a right faith, and to prevent the spread
of what may damn them; and, since persecution will
do this, we must persecute. Better by far to burn one
man here, than that a thousand should burn hereafter."
Calvin, who burnt Servetus, acted most conscientiously, I have no doubt; for his course was in perfect harniony with his faith.  If the apostles had possessed the
power, they would, doubtless, have exercised it in a similar manner.  Hear Paul: " If any man love not the,Lord Jesus christ, let him be anathema marcanatha."
Behind that lie thumb-screw, rack, and gibbet. Again:
"If any mall preach any other gospel unto you than
that ye have received, let hitm be accursed."  Ill other
words, " Damn every man that preaches not our guspet;" which is a literal translation of his curse. Even
the gentle John, the preacher of love, says, " If there
come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive
him not into your house, neither bid him God speed."
And the next step is easily taken, and legitimately follows: " Take him into your prison, and thus prevent the
dissemination of his' damnable heresies,' "- a NewTestament phrase, born of intolerance. As Christianity denounces the most fearful penalties for unbelief,
so has it been the most persecuting and intolerant of all




2i38       CHRISTIANITY NO FILVALITY; OR,
religions; and those among Christians who are farthest
from  this, as the Unitarians and Universalists, are
farthest from primitive, genuine Christianity.
As soon as Christianity became strong enough to
wield the sword, in harmony with its faith, it commenced a crusade against philosophy, and established
a reign of terror over all who dared to thilnk otherwise
than as the church directed. Draper says of the Christian Church in the reign of Constantine, " Thev denounced as magic, or the sinful pursuit of vain trifling,
all the learning that stood in the way.  It was intended
to cut off every philosopher. Every manuscript that
could be seized was forthwith burned.  Throughout
the East, men, in terror, destroyed their libraries, for
fear that some unfortunate sentence contained in any
of the books should involve them and their families in
destruction. The universal opinion was, that it was
right to compel men to believe what the majority of
society had now accepted as the truth; and, if they
refused, it was right to punishl them.  No one Was
heard in the dominating party to raise his voice ill behalf of intellectual liberty." Certainly not: this would
be to tolerate another gospel, and open the door to all
heresy, which might be the cause of eternal misery to
millions.  The belief that our future destiny is to be
decided by our faith, so strenuously insisted upon by
Christianity, has made Christians the most relentless
persecutors the world has known. Tile pagan Pomans,
who never supposed that a false faith would damn men,
were tolerant of all religions that did not interfere
with the State.  Since the religion that denounces
most vehemently and threatens the most terrible tortures has the greatest advantage among the ignorant,




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHIRISTIANITY.  269
who can fear when they cannot reason, Christianity
spread, crowded out and destroyed paganism and philosophy, set up its tortures, and for centuries applied
them. It is true that Christians do not so persecute
to-day: but the reason is evident; they are more intelligent, and have less power. By the operation of irresistible law, the world has advanced, and superstition
has been left behind in the march; and thus Christianity and its intolerant spirit are fast being superseded,
and they shall rule the world no more.
Christianity favors sectarianism and priesteraft.  In
Judaism, the priest is the most imposing figure: dressed
in his sacerdotal robes, he is the visible manifestation0
of the deity, and commands the reverence of all worshippers. Jesus called himself Lord and Master, and
his followers have not been slow to imitate him; and,
if the priest is not the great I AM, he is the little I am,
and heathen all who reject the gospel he preaches.
He prays in the name of the congregation, whom he
calls " my people: " " We thank thee, 0 God," " we
beseech thee; " and most of his people think that he is
much nearer to God than themselves, so that, when
sick, they send for him to pray, his prayers are so much
more potent than their own. A man in the Christian
church is a man bound to be no wiser than its creed,
no broader than its intolerant spirit, no better than its
impractical founder. As soon as he attempts to be any
of these, the church's anathema is fulminated against
him: he has committed the sil unpardonable.
I hail spiritualism  as a deliverer from this priestcraft, this ecclesiastical bondage, an opener of prisondoors to the captives, and the usherer in of a new era
for humanity.  Here is no Moses communingg with




270       CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; 01R,
God, who shows him his glory, but tells him  to keep
back the crowd, for, if they break thlrough, tliey shall
perish; no Jesus, the true door, denounlcing all who
enter some other way as thieves and robbers; no pope
extending his pedal digits to-be embraced by the sots of
superstition; not even a priest to say " my people:"
for communion with the spirit-world is open to all
classes, - children of seven and old people of seventy.
Peasants who never read a line are as highly favored as
college-bred professors; and the sinner, in this respect,
is as highly favored as the saint.
We have sects enough: why multiply them?  Too
long have we allowed men who.never had any more
authority than ourselves to drive down the stakes and
enclose us within a creed-made fold.  Luther found
the pasture bare, or nothing left but bitter weeds;
the streams soiled by the feet of millions and the impurities of ages: he looked over the pale, saw the
fertile prairie in its virgin beauty, the best of pasturage, living streams flowing through it, and said to
the hungry,. thirsty, dog-bitten crowd, " Out where
the living waters flow, and the pastures illimitable
invite us to the feast." And out went a hlost, but only
to drive down new stakes and enclose another flock.
Wesley broke down the ecclesiastical barrier, and took
the liberty to look for better fare; but no sooner had
he found it, than the stake-drivers were set to work,
the field enclosed, and the sheep solemnly warned
against straying outside of the fold, where the wolves
lurk to devour the straying lambs of the flock. Having taken the field for ourselves, we must allow all
others the same privilege.  Do not imagine, that,
because wve have outgrown  Christianity, we have




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CHRISTIANITY.  271
attained the highest and best of which the race is capable; that we have learned it all, and may henceforth
embody our views in a creed, build our churches, and
stand at the door and bark at all outsiders.  We have
done little more than master the alphabet of knowledge: its literature is all but unread.
Organizations we must hlave for work: let them be
a thousand times multiplied. We must unite, or do
but little of what is so much needed: but let it be a
union of free men, not for the extension of a sect, but
for the enlightenment and upbuilding of mankind; in
that finding our satisfaction and sufficient reward, and
rejoicing in all movements that aid this, by whoever
made. Sectarians look at every thing as it affects their
sect: if it will help that, then they will assist it; if it
will injure their sect,. lowever much it may benefit
the race, "' Curse it!" they cry: " for it blesses not
us!"  Thus the strongest sectarians have been the
most deadly foes of progress.
We must stand where we can rejoice at all progress:
whatever blesses mankind cannot but be worthy of our
regard. We shall herald instead of denouncing reform.  We shall aid temperance, labor-reform, social
science, human suffrage, and all other progressive
movements: they are agencies operated by the members of our grand church of humanity.  We shall
unite with those who do not recognize existence after
death: they are our brethren also, - many of them
most noble and true, whio have stood  by the truth
amid obloquy, reproach, scorn, and bitter persecution.
I can belong to no church that excludes thenm or any
others who are honestly laboring to benefit the race.
Spiritualists need carefully to guard against making




272       CHRISTIANITY NO FINALITY; OR,
spirits authority.  The world  abounds with lazy
people, who do not wish the trouble of making up their
minds, and are glad to have spirits do this for them.
What the spirit says is swallowed as unadulterated
gospel; and one idol, the Bible, cast down, only that
another many-headed monster may take its place.
Nothing can relieve us from the necessity of thinking.
We must allow nothing to take us off the solid ground
of reason, or growth is impossible.
Nothing can absolve us from  the obligations of
morality, the duties which we naturally owe to ourselves and others.  We must prove that we have a
better religion by living better lives.  When ecclesiastical bonds are being snapped, people are sometimes
ready to discard even the authority of Nature herself,
and disregard the laws upon obedience to which our
own and others' well-being depend. Spirits cannot
prevent the consequences of wrong-doing from falling
upon the head of the guilty; and a spiritualist sinner
will be made to suffer as certainly as an Orthodox
good-doer will be rewarded.  With increasing intelligence, we shall learn that the wisest man is he vho
knows the most of what Nature teaches; and the best
man, he who most faithfully reduces her lessons to
practice.
Our vessel is afloat; the sails are set; heaven wafts
a prosperous gale.  Science is our compass, Reason
our pilot, and angels point the way.  Already the
goodly land appears in view.  See its sunny slopes!
We can even hear its music in faint tones, as it comes
wafted over the breakers. There stand the friends
that ill youth we loved, on whose cold graves we
dropped a tear. They beckon to us! No dark cloud




SPIRITUALISM SUPERIOR TO CIHRISTA4NITY.  273
obscures our vision; no mist like a curtain hides from
us the home of the soul. We do not say, "' I hope to
join you, if God will but help me for the sake of
Jesus;" but we boldly say, " Ye, my brethren, live
and love, and we shall live and love also!"








GOD PROPOSED.








THE GOD PROPOSED FOR OUR NATIONAL
CONSTITUTION,
iT is said, that, "once upon a time," the frogs were
desirous of having a king. On looking around for a
suitable individual, they spied a fat ox feeding in the
meadow. Admiring his majestic appearance, they sent a
deputation to wait upon him, and ask him to accept the
position. The ox, nothing loath, strode down to the
marsh, and was properly installed king of frogdom.
His happy subjects crowded around him to present
their congratulations; but, unfortunately for them, as
he moved his ponderous body to return the compliments that were croaked from every side, beneath his
royal hoofs lay a dozen of his loyal subjects crushed
to the earth. Too late they discovered that an ox,
though a fine-looking animal, is no fit monarch for
frogs.
Before we think of placing a God in the Constitution
of these United States, it must be well to examine the
character of the individual proposed for the position,
or we may find ourselves in the condition of the frogs
in the fable; death following every step of our God,
and we powerless to stop the destruction.
277




278             THE GOD PROPOSED
Up to the present time, I have heard of but one God
who has been proposed for the highest of all offices in
the gift of the people; and that is the Christian's God,
whom Jesus declared to be the God of Abraham, Isaac,
and Jacob.  The God, then, that we are asked to make
the God of these United States, is Jehovah, the God of
the Jews, whose sayings and deeds are recorded in
their so-called sacred books and in the Christian Scriptures, from which we can, fortunately, obtain a knowledge of his actual character. It is furnished, if we are to
believe what these books say, by himself and his friends,
it is true; and this must be taken into account, as we
may suppose them to represent him in a more favorable
light than the facts will really warrant.
Moses gives us a portrait of him that is very beautiful: "' He is the Rock; his work is perfect; for all his
ways are judgment; a God of truth and without
iniquity, just and right is he " (Deut. xxxii. 4). What
an excellent example to place before the officers of our
government!  Of himself he says, "' The Lord God is
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in
goodness and truth " (Exod. xxxiv. 6). Who could object to such a God as this? He needs but to be known
to be loved, but to be heard to be obeyed. It may be
well, however, to see whether his deeds correspond with
his words. Men accepted for what they claim to be, and
State-prison convicts are patterns of all excellency.
It may possibly be so with gods. Let us see.
Jehovah informs Adam  (Gen. ii. 17), that, if he
shall eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, in the
day that he eats of it he shall surely die. But, instead
of dying in that day, Adam lived more than nine hundred years afterward.  Could Jehovah have made a




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.      279
mistake? That is, of course, impossible. Did he really
intend to deceive the mal? Was not some other kind
of death meant? If truthful in every other respect,
we will give him the benefit of the doubt; but, if otherwise, we shall suspect him, to say the least.
According to the sixteenth chapter of Ist Samuel,
Jehovah told Samuel to go to Jesse the Bethlehemite,
and anoint one of his sons, whom he had provided for
king over Israel, in the place of Saul. But Samuel
replies, " How can I go? If Saul hear it, he will kill
me."  Saul was king, and he would kill the man who
thus sought to put another man in his place. Now,
mark the advice of Jehovah: "' And the Lord said, Take
a heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to
the Lord." Was it for that Jehovalh wished him to go?
No such thing; but to anoint David king. What was
he to take the heifer for? To deceive Saul, and thus
escape the consequences of his deed by lying. You
may call that a white lie. The crime of lying consists
in the deception practised; and in this respect it was as
black as any lie. The difference between that and all
ordinary lie is, that it was a mean, cowardly lie. The
man who tells an out-and-out lie stands on his feet
when he tells it; but the man who tells a lie like that
crawls on the ground like a snake. I have no respect
for cowards, be they men or gods. How much better
it would have been for Jehovah to say to Samuel,
" Tell the truth, and I will attend to the consequences "!
or, better still, " If you are afraid to do what I tell you,
let it alone, and I will find a more courageous man "!
If we are to have a constitutional God of the United
States, I think it will be generally acknowledged that
he should be a trzuttlful CGod. I know that politicians,




280             THE GOD PROPOSED
as a class, care but little about truth, unless it can be
made to subserve their purposes. I know that partisan newspapers, especially just before election, care
as little about truth as a hungry hyena does about
grace before meat.  I know, also, that many priests
and orthodox tract-society managers are not very
scrupulous about lying, when they think it will help
" the Lord's cause."  This I know: but the body of the
people love truth; feed on lies only because the truth
is withheld from them; and, if they are to have a national God, want, as they must surely need, a God of
truth; one who will neither lie himself, nor induce
others to lie. I object to Jehovah, then, as our God,
because he is a liar.
After the separation of Abram and Lot, Jehovah told
Abram to walk through the length and breadth if the
land of Canaan, and said, " All the land which thou
seest, to thee I will give it, and to thy seed forever"
(Gen. xiii. 15). He made this promise still more definite subsequently by saying, " Unto thy seed have I
given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great
river, the River Euphrates" (Gen. xv. 18).   The
promise made and sworn to by Jehovah to Abraham
was repeated to Isaac and Jacob.  How was it fulfilled?  Abraham himself never received a foot of it
(Acts vii. 5). Nearly five hundred years passed away
before his seed commenced the conquest of the promised country; and so slowly did it proceed, that it was.
not till nearly four hundred years after this that even
Zion, the stronghold of Jerusalem, was taken from the
Jebusites (2 Sam. v. 7); and less than four hundred
years after this the kingdom ofJudall was overthrown by
Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. lii.).  To-day the nine thousand




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       281
Jews that dwell in Palestine are foreigners; and they
may see what the promises of Jehovah are worth, and
how little dependence is to be placed upon his word.
Even in the latter part of David's reign, and that of
Solomon's, when the country of the Israelites was
most extended, the northern part of the promised
territory was in the hands of the Plcenicians and thle
Syrians, while the southern part was held by the
Philistines and the Eygptians.
"From  Dan to lBeersheba," which designated the
length of Canaan, even near the close of David's reign
(2 Chr. xxi. 2), is only about a hundred and forty miles;
while the distance from the river of Egypt to the Euphrates, the land promised to the seed of Abraham, is
between five and six hundred miles. The little that the
Israelites did possess was only for a few years at a time,
fitful occupancy of a small territory, obtained by theft
and murder, only held by continual fighting, and
which thev have lost possession of for more than two
thousand years.  This Jehovah, who thus swore to
the fathers and lied to the children, is the very last of
all gods to be chosen by a people who love truth, and
desire it to become universal.
The same Jehovah lied to David and his descendants, lied plainly and unequivocally. In the 89th Psalm
we read, " I have made a covenant with my chosen,
I have sworn unto David my servant, Thy seed will I
establish forever, and build up thy throne to all generations."  And again, "' His seed also will I make to
endure forever, and his throne as the days of heaven."
But the most definite promise is this: " If his
children forsake my law, and walk not in my judgments; if they break my statutes, and keep not my




282            THE GOD PROPOSED
commandments; then will I visit their transgressions
with the rod, and their iniquity with stripes. Nevertheless, my loving-kindness will I not utterly take from
him, nor suffer my faithfulness to fail. My covenant
will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of
my lips. Once have I sworn by niy holiness that I will
not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever,
and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever as the moon, and as a faithful witness
in heaven."
If the sun had endured no longer than David's
throne, we had never been; and, if the moon had been
no better established, we had never seen it.
Long after this, when there seemed to be danger of
the utter destruction of the kingdom  of Judah, the
promise is repeated to Jeremiah (Jer. xxxiii. 17): "Thus
saith the Lord: David shall never want a man to sit
upon the throne of the house of Israel; neither shall
the priests the Levites want a man before me to offer
burnt-offerings and to kindle meat-offerings, and to do
sacrifice continually."  Again he says, " If ye can
break my covenant of the day, and my covenant of the
night, and that there should not be day and night in
their season; then may also my covenant be broken
with David my servant, that lihe should not have a son
to reign upon his throne; and with the Levites the
priests, my ministers."
Let us see how these unconditional promises, from
the God that would not lie to David, were fulfilled.
David reigned about forty years, then Solomlon forty;
but his son Rehoboam  lost the government of tenll
tribes, which were ruled over by Jeroboam, a man in
no way related to David. And the kingdom of Judah,




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       283
as the government of the remaining tribes, Judah and
Benjamin, was then called, lasted under the dynasty of
David about four hundred years, till Nebuchadnezzar
destroyed Jerusalem, carried the people into captivity,
and destroyed " the throne of David."
What kind of a forever is five hundred years?
When Jehovah told Jeremiah  that David  should
never want a man to sit upon his throne, le must
have known, that within ten years, at the outside,
there would be no throne of David to sit on. It is said
that he who will swear will lie; and it appears to be
as true of gods as men. Where is the throne of David
to-day, that was to be as the sun before Jehovah?
Where are the Levites offering burnt-offerings? and
where are they doing sacrifice continually?
The condition of the Jew among us, which has been
appealed to as a proof of the truth of the Bible, is
one of the strongest evidences of the untruth of Jehovah. Destitute of a nation, destitute of the ceremonials of his ancient faith, he shows us the sad consequences of the trust of his race in the promise-making,
but no less promise-breaking, Jehovah, who has ruined
one nation, and whom traitors to freedom are inviting
to ruin this country also, - the only refuge for the Godcursed of all lands.
Some children lie in their infancy, but, when their
reasoning faculties become active, see the impropriety
of it, and thenceforth speak the truth; but Jehoval
does not seem to improve in this respect with age.
I find Paul stating (2 Thess. ii. 11), that, because
certain people would not receive the love of the truth,
God should send them  strong delusion, that they
should believe a lie, that they all might be damned.




284             THE GOD PROPOSED
The God that Paul believed in was Jehovah; and, because people do not love the truth, he will lie to them,
that they may believe the lie, and be damned! How
much love of truth has that Being who adopts such
lying measures? how much justice has he who lies
to people, and then damns them because they believe
him? and how much propriety is there in putting
this lying Jehovah into our national Constitution?
Bad as was the treatment that the Jews received at
the hands of Jehovah, it was the best ever vouchsafed
by him to any people: for he is a partial God; and I
bring this as another objection against him.  lie
chooses Abram, out of all the Arab chiefs of his time, to
be the father of his peculiar people; he loves Jacob
rather than Esau, and that before either of them is
born, " that the purpose of God, according to election,
might stand," as Paul tells us. He chose the Israelites from all the nations of the earth, delivered them
from Egypt by a series of most astounding miracles,
blew a passage for them through the Red Sea, fed
them with bread from heavenl, and sent quails by the
million, caused water to spring from the solid rock,
and for forty years never allowed the clothes on their
backs nor the shoes on their feet to grow old or worn.
Hle says, "' The Lord thy God hath chosen thee to be a
special people unto himself, above all people that are
on the face of the earth " (Deut. vii. 6). And again:
"You only have I known of all the families of the
earth" (Nmos iii. 2). The, peaceful and industrious
Chinese, the philosophic Hindoos, the intelligent and
religious Egyptians, the brave Assyrians, and the artistic Greeks, Jehovah never knew; for them he never
cared. In the darkness, a thousand million of God's




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       285
neglected sons groped through the centuries; but
this handful of Israelites, his beloved children, lived inll
a blaze of divine glory, and were permitted, nay, commanded, to butcher their brothers who would not become their slaves, and bow down and worship their
little-souled and partial God; and those who are moving for the Jehovah amendment in the Constitution
not only worship this unjust Divinity, but seem to be
desirous to compel their more enlightened and more
manly neighbors to worship him also.
This country justly prides itself upon its general
intelligence.  The few do not shoot up like pines, and
the many squat like toad-stools. The average culture
of the people of the Northern States, at least, is probably as great as or greater than that of any other country
on the globe. If we are to have a God for our nation,
he should be an iiltelligent God, or how can intelligent
people respect him? I object, then, to Jehovah, because
lie is an igrnorant God, - so ignorant of geography, that
he does not know either the shape of the earth or its
size, and supposed that a forty-days' rain would drown
it (Gen. vii. 4). He knows so little of astronomy, that
he supposes the earth to be the universe, to which the
heavens hold the same relation as a curtain does to a
bed (Isa. xl. 22).  He thinks the stars are " set " in
this stretched curtain; and when he shall roll it up, as
lie threatens to do at some time, he supposes the stars
will fall to the earth (Isa. xxxiv. 4; Rev. vi. 13). He has
so little knowledge of the number of species of animals
on the globe, that lie supposed Noah could preserve, in
a box about five hundred feet long, less than one hundred broad, and about fifty high, seven of every kind of
bird, male and femnale, and two of every other kind of




286             THE GOD PROPOSED
animal, and provisions for them  for twelve months;
one-fourth of which could never have got into it.
He is so ignorant of zoology, that he tells the Israelites they must not eat the hare, because it chews the
cud (Lev. xi. 6), —a thing that no hare does; thus
mistaking a rodent for a rumillant. He knows so
little of geology, that he supposes the earth was made
less than six thousand years ago, and brought into a
condition similar to the present in. less than a week;
and is so ignorant of the history of man, whom he pretends to have made, that he supposes all human beings
descended from a single pair, who were made long
after the valley of the Nile was occupied by civilized
people; and then, to crown his imbecility, threatens
man with damnation unless he believes that of which
he fails to give him sufficient evidence. There is not
a boy of fourteen years of age in any New-England
grammar-school who does not know more than this
Jewish Jehovah is represented in the Bible as knowing; and a man so ignorant would be a laughing-stock
to his whole neighborhood.  The HIottentots of Africa
might debate whether a God as ignorant should be
admitted into the constitution of their government;
but the men who propose him for the United-States
Constitttion are the deadliest enemies of intelligence.
As a nation, the United States lhas been a grand
success. The fathers of our country undertook to
form a republic uncursed by kings and government
priests; where all men could have liberty of conscience,
for all religious faiths should be equal inll the eye of the
law. They sought to make a home for the oppressed,
the king-cursed, the poverty-stricken, of all lands; and
they did it. We undertook to rid the land of slavery,




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       287
that it might be in spirit, as in name, the land of the free;
and we have done it. Much remains to be done to
make this country what the wisest and best desire: and,
if we are to have a God for the country, it should be one
who has been successful; one in whom we can have
confidence that he will help us to succeed in carrying
out still needed reforms.  I object, then, to Jehovah,
because he has utterly failed in nearly every thing that
he has undertaken.  Hell only exists in consequence of
the failure of heaven. The very first human beings that
Jehovah made failed so utterly, that lhe cursed them
almost as soon as they were out of hlis hlands.  The
world that he had made, and pronoun ced good, was
such a dead failure, that it grieved him at his heart, and
he destroyed it, and tried it over again with scarcely
any better success. He chose the Israelites, that they
miglht be a holy people unto him; yet they turned out to
be the vilest of wretches, and made him so angry, that
be cursed themu in his wrath, and destroyed them in his
fury. Mankind failed so utterly, that he left heaven to
save them; and for this purpose became a Jewish baby,
and subsequently a carpenter and a preacler; allowed
men to kill him, and then sent his disciples unto all the
world to tell people that they might be saved by believinig the story. Yet so bunglingly did he manage the
whole matter, that not one in fifty of the world's population since that time has ever believed the account;
and the more intelligent people become, the less inclined they are to believe it, and the more certain they
are to be damned,- the very fate from which Jehovah
professes to have undertaken to deliver them, - and
the myriads of hell's victims are to howl his failure, to
all eternity.




288             THE GOD PROPOSED
Shall we suffer a God who so mismanages his own
affairs to manage ours? Obey such a God as this, and
we should soon be in the condition of his chosen people
when they wished to return to thle Egypt they had fled
from, or as they were when he sold them into the hands
of Nebuchadnezzar.
One reason of Jehovah's want of success may be that
he is vacillatigo, - lacking that strong will, governed
by intelligence, which moves toward its object without
flinching, because wisdom'has determined the course
marked out to be the best.
" It repented the Lord that lie had made man on the
earth, and it grieved him at his heart" (Gen. vi. 6).
It is therefore presumable, that,, if he had known how
he would turn out, he never would have made him.
After leading the Israelites into the wilderness, they so
provoked him, that he declared lie would smite them
with the pestilence, and disinherit them; and would
have done it, apparently, had not Moses expostulated
with him, and led this vacillating Divinity to " repent
of the evil that lie thought to do unto his people"
(Exod. xxxii. 14). Moses saw, that, if he did tl-is, his
reputation among other nations would be destroyed;
and, onl presenting this view of the matter to Jehovah,
he appears to have seen the wisdom of the suggestion.
A prime-minister often knows more than a king; and
a prophet, we see, may be more intelligent than the
God that sends hiam.
Jehovah sent word to Hezekiah, " Set thine- house in
order; for thou shalt die, alld not live " (Isa. xxxviii.).
But Hezekiah, as many others would have done, felt
as if he would rather live than die: he said, " Remember now, 0 Lord! I beseech thee, how I have walked




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       289
before thee in truth and with a perfect heart, and
have done that which is good in thy sight. And
Hlezekiah wept sore."  This appears to have led
to a reconsideration of the matter on the part of Jehovah, and he sent word to him that he had lengthened
his days fifteen years.
We read that the Ninevites at one time offended
Jehovah greatly, and he sent Jonah to announce to them
their unconditional destruction.  Jonah was unwilling to go; and it required a three-days' residence in
a whale to make him obedient to the heavenly voice.
When 1" he reached Nineveh, lie went through the
streets crying, Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown."  But, at the preaching of this foreign
prophet, the whole city repented, and fasted, and
-" cried mightily unto God;" and thlen God repented,
and concluded to spare the repentant city, regardless of
the feelings of Jonah, who thought he was badly used.
If Jehovah knew the end from the beginning, lie must
have known that the Ninevites would repent, and the
city be spared; and I think Jonah had just ground
of complaint in being sent there with that lie in his
mouth.
What confidence can we have ill a God who is
grieved at his heart at the foreseen consequences of his
own actions, and undoes in a day what it took him
more than a thousand years to accomplish, and then,
after it is over, promises that he will not do it again?
(Gen. viii. 21.)
I object to Jehovah's name in our national Constitution also, because he is a male aod, and neither
has, nlor ever had, any female associated with him  in
the divine government. He is a stern father, chas19




'90             THE GOD PROPOSED
tising in anger every unrepentant son. But where is
the tender-hearted mother, that with a kiss receives
the erring child to her bosom, and melts him into repentance with her tears? God the Father, God the
Son, God the Holy Ghost; three unmarried males, constituting a monkish trinity, from all eternity to alleternity. I object to him (them) as utterly unfit to
reign over us, and especially when women shall have
their political rights; and the day cannot be far distant.
This is the God who thunders in the ears of the first
woman, " Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he
shall rule over thee;"- who made man first, and woman
only because man needed somebody to help him; who
set a trap for humanity, and baited it so that human
nature could not resist the temptation, and then cursed
all women because the first one went into it. A
heavenly mother would never have cursed all her
daughters with pain on account of the trivial fault of
the first; nor would she ever have made the penalty
for their misdoing unutterable woe forever. If we
are to have a God in the Constitution of the United
States, it must be a God in whom the sexes are equally
represented, or our Government will be as one-sided
as the Bible. It is altogetlher too n-Luch so now.
The fate of the Jews, who trusted in this Jehovah, should
forever prevent us from following their example.
The Lord, we are told, delivered Israel out of the
hand of the Egyptians, broke the yoke of their bondage, and became their guide to the land of promise.
So near was it, that a man could have walked there in
a couple of weeks; but, under the guidance of Jelo-.
vah, it took them forty years, and only two men arrived
there who started from Egypt.  So disgusted were




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       291
the Israelites with the conduct of their God, that they
desired to return to Egypt, preferring the slavery of
Pharaoh to that of Jehovah.  Nay, they even made a
golden calf, and worshipped it in preference, and said,'" These be thy gods, 0 Israel! that brought thee up
out of the land of Egypt."  And there is no doubt that
the calf had as much to do with it as Jehovah. But
Jehovah was so angry, that he caused the Levites, who
were just as guilty as the rest, to murder three thousaind of the people in consequence (Exod. xxxii. 28).
When their descendants arrived at the promised
land, they were compelled to fight for many years in
order to obtain possession of what Jehovah promised
to give them.  Whlenever they failed in battle, it was
because Jehovah was angry with them, of course; and,
whenever they succeeded, it was because he helped
them. But his help seems to have done them but little good. This is the way trhat he served them, as he
himself has recorded for our instruction: "Tile anger
of the Lord was hot against Israel, and he delivered
them into the hands of spoilers, and he sold them into
the hands of their enemies round about, so that they
could not any longer stand before  their enemies.
Whithersoever they went out, the hand of the Lord
was against them for evil; and they were sadly distressed" (Judges ii. 14, 15).
"The Lord strengthened Eglon, king of Moab, against
Israel." "' So the children of Israel served Eglon, king
of Moab, eighteen years " (Judges iii. 12, 14).
Shall we, who have just liberated our slaves, put
this Jehovah into our Constitution, who thus kidnapped a whole nation, and sold them for slaves?
" Tile Lord sold them into the hand of Jabin, king




292            THE GOD PROPOSED
of Canaan," " and twenty years he mightily oppressed
the children of Israel." And so continues the disgraceful record.  Out of three hundred and thirty
years, in the time of the Judges, when Jehovah was
their king, they were slaves, in the hands of their enemies, for one hundred and eleven years, or more than
one-third of the time. We are told, it is true, that all
this happened because the children of Israel did evil
in the sight of Jehovah, and because they would not
obey his commands; but when we read (Judges xiii.
1) that " the Lord delivered them into the hands of
the Philistines forty years," the explanation is insufficient. In forty years, in a state of bondage, there
could have been very few alive of those whose sins
drove them into captivity; and what kind of a God can
that be who kept innocent millions in slavery for the
fault of a few? A sensible man would have modified
his commands in the first place, or taken such measures
as would have led the people to see that it was to their
interest to obey them. As Jehovah did neither, he
proved his unfitness to rule over the Israelites, and
his infinite unfitness to rule over us.
On one occasion Jehovah sold them into the hands
of the Philistines and the children of Ammon, who
sorely oppressed them, so that they cried unto him.
But he replied,'"Ye have forsaken me, and served
other gods: wherefore I will deliver you no more"
(Judges x. 13). But even this was a lie; for the very
next chapter tells us that the Lord delivered the children of Ammon into the hands of Jephthah, and they
were subdued before the children of Israel. But the
poor wretches were only delivered for a few years, to be
sold again into the hands of their enemies by their
Godly owner.




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       293
The Israelites did much better in the reigns of Saul,
David, and Solomon, than at any previous time; for
they had less to do with Jehovah, or rather with his
priests, and more to do with men who understood their
needs and attended to their supply. But their whole
history, from the exodus to the destruction of Jerusalem, is one long, bloody trail down the ages.
Make Jehovah God of these United States, and let
the people become obedient to his commands as they
would be explained by his priests, and our history
would be like theirs, and, this paradise of liberty become a Pandemonium of tyranny, a plague-spot onl the
face of the earth.
A man may be known, it is said, by the company he
keeps; and why not a god? Judging Jehovah by this,
I cannot but regard him as utterly unfit for the office
to which his American friends are so desirous of elevating him.
He is "the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob."
Abraham is styled inl the Bible " the father of the faithful, and the friend of God;" an Arab chief, rude and
hospitable, but crafty, superstitious, licentious, cowardly, and cruel. Twice he induced his wife to lie for
him; and in both cases Jehovah cursed the men to whom
she lied, but never rebuked either her or Abraham.
He turned another wife with her child into the wilderness, where, according to the story, she would have
perished, had not an angel saved her; and he receives
more credit from Jehovah for his willingness to mur.
der his son than for any other deed of his life.
Of Isaac we know but little; but, like his father
Abraham, he was cowardly, lying, and selfish, putting
his wife's chastity in hazard to save his life; though, as




294            THE GOD PROPOSED
the event proved, there was no danger whatever. The
blessing that he gave his son in his old age shows the
character of the man. Part of it reads, " Let people
serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over
thy brethren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to
thee."  That is essentially Jewish  and Jehovistic.
Isaac had the same feeling for his pet son that Jehovah
had for his pet nation.
Of Jacob we know considerable: he was an especial
favorite of Jehovah: he loved him, if Paul is to be believed, even before he was born, and gave him, through
life, many signal instances of his favor. Yet he was a
liar, cheat, slaveholder, polygamist, and essentially
mean man. He lied to his father, most shamefully
lied, and in a way that showed him to have had large
practice. He cheated his brother and his uncle; and
when his sons murdered the men of a whole city, and
took all the survivors captive, this is what the selfish old
stock-raiser said: " Ye have troubled me to make me
to stink among the inhabitants of the land;....
and I shall be destroyed, I and my house."  No rebuke for the horrible crime committed, no word of
pity for the widow and orphans; but,' I shall be destroyed, I and my iouse."  "Ye have troubled me."
If they had not troubled him, and he had been in no
danger, it is evident that the deed would never have
troubled him.
Yet this is the man whom Jehovah blesses, and with
whom he converses; to whom he makes splendid
promises, and with whom he wrestled a whole night,
and lost, Jacob obtaining a blessing, which appears to
have been the prize, though at the expense of a dislocated thigh.




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.      295
Another of the favorites of Jehovah was Mloses, a
man, apparently, of a good deal of mental ability for
the time in which he lived, and proud of his nation,
yet crafty, harsh, exacting, and blood-thirsty. He murdered an Egyptian, fled to Midian, married the daughter
of a Midianite priest, and lived there for forty years.
One might suppose that lie would have had some respect for the people of this land of his adoption. Yet,
on the journey through the wilderness, he sent an
army against Midian, that slew every man, but saved
alive the widows, babies, and girls. As they returned
from the massacre with the weeping captives, Moses
meets them, and cries out, "Have ye saved all the
women alive? Now, therefore, kill every male among
the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known
man by lying with him: " the girls they were to keep
alive for themselves.  What Camanche chief ever
committed a greater atrocity than this? And yet he
was one of Jehovah's favorites, talking with him for
hours together as familiarly as one man talks with
another.
After the death of Moses, Joshua became the leader
of the people. His public life was that of a marauder
and human butcher, who seems to have had no more
pity than a hungry tiger. For years, at the head of
a band of cut-throats, he went through Canaan among
a peaceable people, destroying their cities, killing men,
women, and children, and distributing their wealth and
their country among his followers. " The Lord," we
are informed, "was with him wherever he went; " and
the result is told in the bloody record: s" They utterly
destroyed all that was in the city [Jericho], both main
and woman, young and old, and ox and sheep and




296            THE GOD PROPOSED
ass, with the edge of the sword." And again: " Joshua
drew not his hand back until he had utterly destroyed
all the inhabitants of Ai."  So friendly was Jehovah
with this man, and so much sympathy did he have
with him, that on one occasion, when the people of
the country united to defend themselves against this
godly marauder, and were repulsed, and the daylight
failed, as Joshua pursued the flying host, Jehovah
stayed the sun in the heaven for about a whole day
that the massacre might be complete, and rained down
great stones from  heaven upon the poor wretches
who were fighllting to save their families and their
homes.
I question whether the whole world's literature presents a bloodier page than that of the tenth chapter of
Joshua: 
"And that day Joshua took Makkedall and smote
it with the edge of the sword; and the king thereof he
utterly destroyed, them, and all the souls that were
therein.
"And he smote it [Libnah] with the edge of the
sword, and all the souls that were therein: he let none
remain in it.
"The Lord delivered Lachish into the hand of
Israel, which took it on the second day, and smote it
with the edge of the sword, and all the souls that were
therein."
Then follows a list of other cities whose inhabitants
were butchered, from the helplessly old to babes at
the breast; and the document ends: " So Joshua smote
all the country of the hills, and of the south, and of
the vale, and of the springs, and all their kings: he
left none remaining, but utterly destroyed all that




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.      297
breathed." There is good reason to believe that some
who are clamorous for God in the Constitution desire
just such a God as this. In a fair intellectual struggle, they acknowledge that they are no match for their
opponents; but with soldiers, muskets, cannon, and
this Israelitish Moloch, on their side, they would leave
none remaining, " as the Lord God of Israel commanded."
There is another man of God who must not be forgotten in this connection, - the Jewish Hercules, Samson. An angrel of Jehovah foretold his birth. When
he was a child, Jehovah blessed him.  On the occasion
of his marriage, he wagered thirty changes of raiment
with thirty young men that they could not find out
the meaning of a riddle which he propounded to them.
Having lost, the Spirit of Jehovah came upon him,
and he went down to Ashkelon and slew thirty men,
stripped them, and gave their garments to the young
men (Judges xiv. 19).
Can those men who desire Jehovah to rule over this
nation have read these passages? If they have, do
they believe them? If they do, how dare they present
this gamblers' companion, and instigator of murder,
for our acceptance and worship?
On another occasion " the Spirit of the Lord came
mightily upon him." We naturally look for some corresponding lordly deed; and we find it. He found
a new jaw-bone of an ass, and put forth his hand
and took it, and slew a thousand men therewith. We
should like to know what the nine hundred were doing
while lie slew the first hundred. A man a minute
gave him sixteen and a half hours of steady murder.
There stands the butcher; here lie his victims; and




298             THE GOD PROPOSED
he exclaims, " Heaps upon heaps, with the jaw-bone of
an ass have I slain a thousand men."  But now he is
sore athirst: his long, unremitting labor has made him
faint, and he is ready to die: unless he can obtain
water, he must perish. What is he doing now? kneeling! praying! Can it be possible that such a murdering wrefch as that can pray? Certainly: lhe has a God,
the very image of himself: it is Jehovah. Listen to his
prayer: " Thou hast given this great deliverance into
the hand of thy servant; and now shall I die for thirst,
and fall into the hand of the uncircumcised? " Jehovall heard the prayer of his faithfil servant, and from
the bloody, battered jaw-bone flowed water, that
quenched his thirst, and his spirit revived.
Then comes Jehovah's great friend David, of whom
lie said, " I have found David, the son of Jesse, a man
after mine own heart, which shall fulfil all my will"
(Acts xiii. 22). He must have seen what a noble
man he was destined to be. After the death of David,
Jehovah says of him, "L My servant David, who kept
myv commandments, and who followed me with all his
heart, to do that only which was right in mine eyes"
(1 Kings xiv. 8). He was fearless, firm, generous at
times, pious, and poetic: but he was guilty of almost
every crime; and it is quite safe to say that no criminal as great as he lives in any civilized country to-day.
When he was not more than sixteen years of age, he
murdered two hundred men to please his prospective
father-in-law, and mutilated their persons in a way
that would disgrace a man-eating savage (1 Sam. xviii.
27).
He was captain of a gang of banditti; and in return
for the hospitality of the king of Gath, to whom he




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.        299
fled when Saul pursued him, killed the inhabitants of
a whole city with whom that king was friendly, leaving
not a soul alive, lest they should tell the tale of his
villany (1 Sam. xxvii. 9-12).  And yet, after this,
he says, "' The Lord rewarded me according to my
righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands
hath he recompensed me " (2 Sam. xxii. 21).
This reminds me of an epitaph that I once saw in
Wales over the grave of a prize-fighter and drunken
scoundrel:
"A man so true, there are but few,
And difficult to find;
A man so just, and true to trust,
There is not left behind."
But this was when David was a young man: perhaps
he repented, and became a changed character, in lhis
riper years.
In the latter part of his life, Rabbah, a city of the
Ammonites, was taken; and David " brought forth the
people that were therein, and put them under harrows
of iron and under axes of iron, and made them pass
through the brick-kiln; and thus did he unto the cities
of the children of Anmone" (2 Sam. xii. 31). To
find the equal of such a cruel wretch as this, we need
to read the annals of the Fiji Islands.
But he certainly repented before he died. Not he:
he had nothing to repent of. Jehovah acknowledges
that he had done but one wrong deed in his whole
life (1 Kings xv. 5); and that he had repented of long
before.  With his dying breath, the hoary sinner advised his son Solomon to kill the men whose lives he
had sworn to spare.




300            THE GOD PROPOSED
Time fails me to tell of Rahab the harlot, who saved
her life by betraying into the hands of murderers her
own city; of Jephthah, who offered up his daughter a
burnt-offering to Jehovah; Jael, who murdered the
fugitive king, after receiving him hospitably into her
tent; of Ehud, who slew the king of Moab, and who
said, as he plunged the dagger into him, "I have a
message from God unto thee;" of Jehu, who slew the
seventy innocent sons of Ahab, his whole kindred and
his priests, and of whom Jehovah said he did what was
in his heart; and a host of lesser liars, thieves, and
murderers, who are spoken of in terms of praise by
Jehovah.
There is scarcely a man or woman mentioned in the
Bible, with whom Jehovah was friendly, whose life
was not stained by crime that would, in this day, send
a person to the State-prison or to the gallows.
Even the prophets of Jehovah, who are generally
supposed to have been patterns of all excellency, were
far from being models of virtue. Samuel was a liar,
as we have seen: he both murdered; and urged others
to murder; and found fault with Saul because he saved
the lives of kings whom he had captured. Elijah calls
down fire from heaven, and kills men with no more
concern than if they had been flies (2 Kings i.).
Elisha curses children in the name of Jehovah; and
bears tear forty-two of them (2 Kings ii. 24). Jeremiah
never scruples to lie when the king advises him
(Jer. xxxviii. 27); and some of his prayers are only
second to the witch-curses of David. Hosea buys an
adulteress to live with him (Hos. 1. 3), after having
illicit intercourse by command of Jehovah with a prostitute. Is this the kind of God, a companion and




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.           301
abetter of liars, thieves, and murderers, whose name
is to be placed in the Constitution of our country, and
whose character is to be upheld as a model of all excellency?
I object to Jehovah in our Constitution because he
is fierce, jealous, cruel, vindictive, and even maliognant.
We might as well be lost souls in the hands of a tornienting Devil as to be the subjects of such a God.
Moses describes Jehovah correctly: " The Lord thy God
is a consuming fire, even a jealous God " (Deut. iv. 24).
Tie writer of Hebrews has a similar opinion: " God is a
consuming fire." Watts, the Christian poet, draws his
portrait for us:"Adore and tremble; for our God
Is a consuming fire:
His jealous eyes with wrath inflame,
And raise his vengeance higher.
Almighty vengeance, how it burns I
How bright his fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for his foes."
Nor is this portrait overdrawn. Jehovah himself,
by Jeremiah, says, " I myself will fight against you
with an outstretched arm, even in anger, and in fury,
and in great wrath."  No wonder the poor Jews suffered
inder such circumstances. To Moses he says (Dent.
xxxii. 22), " A fire is kindled inll mine anger, and shall
burn unto the lowest hell; " and again, to Jeremiah,
" Ye have kindled a fire in mine anger, which shall burn
forever." If we heard a man talk so to his children, we
should set him down as passionate, revengeful, unreasonable, and utterly unfit to be a parent.  It is much
less excusable in a God.  Shall we make this eternally.




302             THE GOD PROPOSED
angry and infinitely-furious Jehovah Lord of these
United States?
The deeds of Jehovah are in correspondence with
his words.  He commences his career by a fit of cursing, of which woman obtains the largest portion.  He
follows this by drowning the entire human race because their conduct did not meet his approbation, and
thus made himself king of murderers, who takes the
life of the world as a human murderer takes the life
of a man.
When he sent Moses to Pharaoh to tell him to let the
people go, lie said, "' But I will harden his heart, that
he shall not let the people go " (Exod.iv. 21): and then
we are told that "' the Lord hardened Pharaoh's heart,
so that he would not let the children of Israel go out
of his land " (Exod. xi. 10); and because Pharoah did
not let them go, when he had so hardened his heart
that he would not, he murdered the first-born of his
entire nation.
There is a State-prison at Charlestown, where several
hundred prisoners are held.  Pres. Grant sends a letter to the superintendent, commanding him to let the
prisoners go; but, before the letter reaches him, he
surrounds the penitentiary with a guard of several
thousand soldiers, who have strictest orders to allow no
prisoner to go out. The superintendent receives the
letter of the President, but, owing to the guard, is unable to set a single prisoner at liberty. " What! will
you not let the prisoners go? " writes the President:
"then I will show you my power, and make you glad
to let them go."  He hangs the oldest son of the superintendent in front of the prison, in sight of the heartbroken father and mother, as. a punishment for his




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.      303
disobedience.  Can anybody imagine tlie horror with
which such a crime as this would strike the heart of the
country?  Multiply this by a million, and you have
some idea of the crime of Jehovah.
Shall we make this greatest of wrong-doers a God,
and our God? Forbid it, says humanity; and it must
be forbidden.
When Jehovah came down on Mrt. Sinai, he said to
Moses, "' Charge the people, lest they break through
unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish," -
as moths die when they fly into the flame: so Jehovah
is a flaming fire, and the people must be kept out, or
they will perish. The precaution was a necessary
one. When the ark of Jehovah was sent from  the
land of the Philistines back to Judea, the cattle that
drew it went into a field near Bethshemesh.  The
Bethshemites were apparently inquisitive, and thought
this a good opportunity to see what was in an old box,
of which they had frequently heard; but, had it been
Pandora's box, it could not have been more deadly.
Jehovah was very angry at their intrusion, and slew
of the men of Bethslhemesh fifty thousand and seventy!
This God can wink at lying, theft, mulrder, licentiousness, and praise the men who are guilty of these
crimes; but, when inquisitive people look into one of
his chests, lie strikes tellns of thousands with death.
Shall we place the name of this almighty Bluebeard
in our national Constitution?
In the fifteenth chapter of the First of Samuel, we
are informed that Jehovah told Samuel that he remembered what Amalek did to Israel when he came
up from Egypt: that was, remember, four hundred
years before. For this he tells him to command Saul




804             THE GOD PROPOSED
to smite Amalek, and utterly destroy man, woman,
infant, and suckling; and, because Saul did not wholly
execute the horrible command, Jehovah was angry
with him, and repented that he had made him king
over Israel.
During the reign of Queen Elizabeth, nearly three
hundred years since, an immense Armada left Spain to
conquer England.  Suppose Jehovah should command
Queen Victoria to kill every man, woman, infant, and
suckling in Spain because he remembered this, and
that she went with an army and did as she was commanded, but saved the king of Spain alive, and that
Jehovah was angry because she had not killed him
also: it would not be quite as bad as the conduct of
Jehovall to the Amalekites; for they were a hundred
years farther removed from the crime said to have
been committed by their fathers.
Was viler deed than this ever done in the name of
the child-devouring Moloch?
In the time of David, there was a three-years' famine in the land. David inquired of Jelhovah what was
the cause; and Jehovah answered, "It is for Saul and
his bloody house, because he slew the Gibeonites"
(2 Sam. xxi.). Here is a strange story. Saul slew
the Gibeonites; and for this God torments a whole
nation by famine in the days of David. What can be
done? Saul is dead, and probably damned. David
asks the Gibeonites how lie can make an atonement
for the crime done by Saul, and they reply by asking
him to hang seven of Saul's sons. David hangs two
solns of Saul, and five grandsons,- the sons being his
brothers-in-law, and the grandsons his step-sons; and
after that we are piously told that God was entreated




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.        305
for the land. After the seven innocent men were
hung, Jehovalh caused the famine to cease: his thirst
for blood was satisfied.
Bad as are the representations ofs-.ehovah in the
Old Testament, those of the New are infinitely worse.
Jesus, it is true, calls him  " our Father; " and we are
told by John' that " God is love: " but such a father!
and such love! Jesus, whom we are assured is the
representative of Jehovah, tells us that those who believe not in him are to " be damned" (Mark xvi. 16);
and those who have not administered to him in the
person of his believers are to go "into everlasting
fire prepared for the Devil and his angels " (Matt.
xxv. 41). Again: lie tells us that " all who do iniquity
shall be cast into a furnace of fire, where there shall
be wailing, and gnashing of teeth."  There the doomed
wretches, according to the apocalyptic seer, are to
1"1drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is
poaired out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and they shall be tormented with fire and
brimstone in the presence of the holy angels and in
the presence of the Lamb, where the smoke of their
torment ascendeth for ever and ever" (Rev. xiv. 10);
where, as good Dr. Watts so beautifully expresses
it, -
"Tempests of angry fire shall roll
To blast the rebel worm,
And beat upon his naked soul
In one eternal storm."
Jehovah made this hell of horror.  Before him stand
earth's millions, more numerous than her sand-grains.
He calls up the few, the chosen few, who were mean,
ignorant, or sycophantic enough to worship him, - not
20




306             T~HE GOD PROPOSED
one in a thousand: to the rest he turns, and, with a
voice that shakes the distant stars, he roars, "' Depart,
ye cursed! " Down drop the myriads, - men, women,
fathers, mothers beautiful maidens, noble men; the
sweetest poets, the best of mechanics, the boldest
navigators; painters whose creations have gladdened
the eyes of many generations; musicians who have
made the air more melodious for all time; true believers, miscalled infidels, who have broken the shackles of
priesteraft and superstition from the limbs of millions,
- down they go into that lake of fire, to hear Jehovah's
laugh re-echo through the caverns of the damnied, aund
his voice saying, " I told you in my Word that I would
laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear
came."  And to all eternity the jailer holds his captives, and applies his tortures; for " their worm dieth
not, and the fire is not quenched."
This revelation of Jehovah we owe to Jesus, who,
we are told, is Jehovah in another form; and he
fr.equently anticipates the time when lie shall execute
hiis wrath upon the helpless victims that shall stand
before lIis blazing throne.'rThe fact is, that this Jehovah is the idol of a Syrian
mountain-tribe, that has beeni foisted upon the rest
of mankind under the penalty of eternal torments, and
modified from age to age, but his worst features retained even to our own day.  I arraign him  in the
name of the millions who are held by him in spiritual
bondage; in the name of the freemen of America,
whose enslavement is sought by the incorporation of
this tyrant's name into the charter of our liberties.
Away with you, hideous monster, in whom meet the
worst vices of the barbarous people who made you,




FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.       307
and the ignorailt and fearful who still believe in you!
You may do for God of the wolves that prowl over our
Western prairies and hunt down sick buffaloes, or the
hyeras that make night hideous in your Holy Laiid.
Your name may properly be inserted on the black flag
of every pirate vessel, between the death's-llead and
the cross-bones. Infinite tyrant, king of miscreants,
woman-curser, soul-tormentor, destroyer of the world,
architect of hell, inventor of its tortures, and supplier
of its eternal fires, go with your co-partnler, the Devil!
You belong to the ignorance, brutality, and lust of an
age long past. Go to the hell to which you have so
long consigned the best representatives of our race!
and may your name and history alone remain for a
warning and a lesson to all generations!
I am told that Jehovah was the highest ideal of the
Divine that the Israelites could form at the time.  I
do not object to this: so Zeus was the highest ideal of
the Greek, and all Hfellas united to do homage to
their god of gods.  Shall we incorporate Jupiter with
our Constitution, or acknowledge that lihe is god because
an intelligent people once regarded him as such?
I have generally argued as if the Bible was a record
of facts, and its God a reality.  MAost of you know better. The Bible is no more of all authority to you than
the Book of Mormon.  To you its God does not exist,
and you may therefore think he is perfectly harmless.
You may remember that the Greeks besieged Troy
for weary years in vain, but at length accomplished
by stratagem what they could not do by force of arms.
They made a large wooden horse, and filled it with
armed men, and retreated to a distance as if they hlad
broken up the siege, and patiently waited for the re



308 THE GOD FOR OUR NATIONAL CONSTITUTION.
suit. The Trojans, finding their enemies gone, came
out of the city, and soon spied the harmless wooden
horse. " Let us draw it into the city," said they. It
was done; but, that night, out issued the armed men,
opened the gates to their companions, who had returned, and Troy fell.
This God may seem to be a very harmless fellow,
since he is only a thought god or a paper god; but,
admit him into our Constitution, and out will come the
army of fifty thousand priests that are hidden in his
bowels, the gates will be opened to our enemies, and
religious freedom be no more.




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEAREO








A SERMION FROM SHAKSPEARE'S TEXT,
"Tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."
AMY text will be found in the play of " As You
Like it," Act II., Scene 1:"And this our life, exempt from public haunt,
Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,
Sermons in stones, and good in every thing."
Shakspeare was a mental Argus, whose hundred eyes
nothing could escape. Men see by their brains still more
than they do by their eyes; and his were brains so developed that they enabled his eyes to see what mortal
had never beheld before.  He was a walking polyglot,
with as many tongues as eyes; what his eyes beheld,
his tongues had the ability to speak,- ability how
rare! He peered through the palace walls and beheld
the secret deeds of kings; and there was no dungeon
so dark but his eye beheld the prisoner.  He saw, too,
the thought of eachr; he heard their uttered fancies;
he beheld their aspirations, and embodied them  in
glowing language that speaks to every heart.  In him
811




312      A SEtRMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
the silent trees found utterance, the babbling brooks
discoursed in rational speech, and the very stones
cried out with eloquent tongue.
Nature, the ready-helper of genius, bowed to him,
and opened wide the door of her domain for his observance and appropriation.  She whispered her choicest
secrets into his ear, and found him a worthy listener, —
a true man, who proclaimed them aloud for the benefit
of the world.
I call fancy William Shakspeare, after rambling by
the banks of the flowing Avon, and watching the pellucid stream flow over its pebbly bottom, and the trees
bending lovingly over it, returning to write, " And this
our life, exempt from public haunt, fiends tongues in
trees, books ill the running brooks, sermons in stones,
and good in every thing."  Let us, thils afternoon, hear
these tongued trees, read the books that are in the
running brooks, listen to the sermons that the stones
dispense, and find and appropriate the good that
dwells in every thing.
It is autumn.  We lie upon the velvet sward, and
watch the squirrels skip.  Grand old trees, lordly
possessors of the soil, how I love you! You lift your
myriad hands to heaven, and wave your tinted banners
in your joy, as if a wintry wind could never blow.
Generations of leaves have flourished, dropped, and decayed around you; but there you stand, renewing your
beauty from year to year. You have put down your
radiating roots deep into the soil, have sucked up by a
million mouths the nourishment needed  for your
growth, and transformed the gross, dark mould into




A SERMON FROM. SHAKSPEARE.             13
the regal garments you wear; and, though the storm
has swept many a time around you, you have only
knit your hearts the firmer, and soared daily nearer
and  nearer to heaven.  Beautiful! trees, eloquent
trees! we listen to your tongues, and we learn your
lessons. So stands the true mall: rooted in the earth,
watered by its springs, fed by its soil, but using these
only as a means to climb into the spiritual realm
above him; shedding old opinions, false notions, barbarous creeds, as a tree sheds its leaves; but his firm
heart grows but the firmer in the right, his aims the
purer, new and true opinions take the place of the old,
and he climbs year by year nearer and nearer to perfect
manhood.
Down drop the acorns around us. What magical
globes are these! The Chinese carve, with admirable
skill, half-a-dozen ivory globes one within the other;
but what are they to this forest-containitng acorn?
Folded within this- shell -is that life which makes the
future tree, its leaves, its blossoms, its fruit, and the
untold millions of its descendants; an artist lies sleeping
here that may beautify a thousand worlds that are yet
to be.  So the truth, spoken or written, is a seed
endowed with perpetual life, and the power to educe
new truths and bless the world forever.  Error is a
stake driven into the ground.  Every drop that falls
tends to rot it, every wind to blow it down. All nature
conspires against it; and its destruction is certain.
How these trees struggle upward for the light!
How they " shoulder each other for the sun's smile! "
Why are these crowded trees so tall, so straight, and




314      A SERMON FROM SAKSPrARE.
their trunks so small? Every thing is sacrificed for
light. The last words of the dying Goethe are their
motto, -" Light, more light! " Listen to that tongue,
my brother, and learn. Let thy motto be, " Up to the
sunlight!"  What are riches, broad lands, magnificent
house, honor, fame, when they go with an ignorant,
undeveloped soul?  Men squat and spread like toadstools under the dripping trees in the twilight, instead
of soaring like pines to live in the sun's continual
smile.
See on these trees the effect of surrounding conditions. Mark the one that has had light on every
side: how symmetrical, how beautiful is that tree! It
is, as the poet says, " a thing of beauty and a joy forever."  But mark that tree shaded on every side but
one, - uneven, warped, lopsided: toward the light it
grew, toward the shade it refused to grow; and it
would rather grow crooked than not at all. Far from
it is the beauty and grace that go with the proper conditions for development. Here is an eloquent tongue.
Tupper says, " Scratch the rind of the sapling, and the
knotted oak will tell of it for centuries to come."
There is a distorted ash, whose ugliness makes the
raven croak, as it flies over it. The hoof of a flying
deer trampled it into the earth when it was a tender
sapling, and it will bear the brand of it while life lasts.
That criminal you clutch by the throat, policeman, and
strike with your billy, - he, too, was trampled upon in
his infancy;' nor is the hoof of society off him yet.
Lift him up, give him a chance: room for him! air for
him! sunshine for him! So much is assured: in the




A SERMON FROM StHAKSPEARE.           315
great hereafter, he shall have the chance for development that he never had here.  This crabbed old
woman, gnarled as a knotty oak, slanderer, liar, thief, -
she, too, came to be so by causes. Once she was a
smiling, prattling baby, the joy of her mother's heart,
dearer to her than a cherub from paradise. She grew,
she was tempted, fell, was trampled under the feet of
the scrambling crowd of onrushing humanity. Charity
for her! light for her! heaven for her, too, where all
wrongs are at last to be righted, and the crooked made
straight!
There is another tongue in these trees that discourses patience. The slower the growth, the firmer
the tree, and the more enduring the wood. "s See me
grow," said the squash to the oak; " I shall cover a
rod while your feeble head is rising a single inch."
So it was: the squash covered the ground for many a
yard, while the oak seemed an idler; but there stood
the oak in its majesty when hundreds of generations of
the squash had perished. The tree grows by steady,
persistent effort: so can you. Do not hurry, do not
idle; but steadily mount, and success, the highest
success, is yours.  Go into the woods now: how silent
they are! Put your car to the trunks of the trees; call
you hear any thing? Not a whisper: they are still as
death; yet engines are pumping, and sap is rushing
through a million pipes to accomplish a most important
work. The mandate has gone forth: every tree must
be clad in velvet-green to greet the dawning spring;
and there is but a month in which to do it.  All the
trees of the forest are busy preparing their new dresses




316      A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
in honor of the coming queen. Suppose a thousand
young ladies were to be furnished: with new dresses
within the next month: what an excitement would
there be! what a snipping of scissors, tearing of
cloth, running of sewing machines, - yes, and of talking machines too, - before all were provided! And
yet here are all the trees of the forest making their new
dresses without contention, without noise, without the
intervention of a French artiste,' inl the good, oldfashioned style which can never be improved.
The storm  goes howling by.  What a noise! It
rouses the world! "Here am I: listen to mle; see
what I can do! "  But when it is over, there lie a few
rotten trunks prostrated by its power.  Without bluster, or even sound, the million-columned woods arise,
and God's first and best temples are reared. It is not
the most noisy that accomplish the most. The armies
march, the music sounds, the cannons thunder. " These
are- they that do the world's work," says the crowd.
Some thinker in his silent study does more than they
all. Bonaparte bestrides Europe like a colossus: his
voice makes every throne tremble; all eyes are turned
to him, and all ears are dinned with his name; but
James Watt, obscurely laboring to perfect the steamengine, has done infinitely more to change the face of
the world, to revolutionize society, and, above all, to
bless the human race.
Cut a tree down, and examine the rings of its
growth, and you will find an eloquent tongue that
gives the lie to many other tongues. The whole history of the tree, and of the times in which it flourished,




A SERMON FROM SHAISPEARE.            317
is indelibly'written in the grain of the trunk. Twenty
years ago there was a cool, short, and dry summer:
here is the narrow ring that answers to that summer.
See that expanded circle: fifty years ago there was a
warm, moist season; and you see the result. Not a day
passed over this tree that has not left its record around
its heart, never to be forgotten, never to be erased.  I
tell you, my brother, my sister, so is it with you.
Thus we build up the inward man day by day. There
is not an hour in your history that is not inwoven, ingrown into the very constitution of your soul, that
does not exercise an influence olln your destiny; and
there is nothing that can make it be as though it had
never been. I know how common it is for men to believe and teach that Jesus can wipe out, at one
stroke, and iln a moment, the consequences of their
misdeeds, — that five minutes of prayer can remove
the dark stains of fifty years of crime; but nothing can
be more false. Nature tells us this in the grand eloquence of these trees.  Do you think that any amount
of waving on the part of the green leaves, this coming
summer, can remove the effect of the dry seasons long
gone by, and expand those contracted rings of growth
to full dimensions?  When conditions are unfavorable
for their proper development, where are the Christs for
the trees, — to remove the scars, straighten the bended
trunk, and fill out the lean circumference? These very
tree-tongues give the lie to this orthodox fable, that
man can do wrong, thus hindering his spiritual growth
and cramping his soul, and then escape the legitimate
consequences of that wrong-doing.




318       A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
Mark, too, the tendency in all trees to symmetry and
beauty, each of its own kind. Take that young tree
and hew off its limbs, -reduce it, if you please, to a
naked, crooked stick. What does it do? It commences
instantly to repair damages. The unsightly cuts are
salved with new bark; to the right grows a branch, to
the left a corresponding branch.  A spirit of beauty
presides over it, and employs her agents to adorn it;
blossoms expand in their loveliness, fruit is developed,
and the tree stands at last as perfect as its more
favored neighbors.  There is inherent in all nature
this tendency to symmetry and beauty.  The claystone no less than the crystal show it in the mineral
kingdom; the vegetable kingdom displays it from the
fucoid of the sea-bottom to the pine of the mountaintop; and is man destitute of it? He is and is to be its
most glorious manifestation.  Man, though king-curst
and priest-curst and God-curst,
"Though sin and the devil hath bound him," —
has yet within him  that divine spirit which, in spite
of unfavorable conditions, shall push him  onward to
excellence, toward perfection.
Were I to tell all that the trees have to teach, how
long would my sermon last? By what possibility could
it ever have an end? It seems to me, as I go into the
woods and listen to their tongues, that all other words
are needless.  They are the most eloquent of preachers;-and, listeniig to them, we can well afford to let
all others be silent.  Multitudes who throng the piles




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.            319
of superstition on Sundays would be more blessed by
attending the green temples of Nature, and entering
into the spirit that breathes from every leaf.
I watch these trees, and see how they grow, day by
day, year by year, becoming larger, fairer, as the seasons pass. But I am  told that, when the tree arrives
at its perfection, - which all may attain in a few centuries, like the stars when they culminate, - it begins
to sink, and nothing can arrest its decay and death. It
is resolved into its original components: it is gone as a
tree, - entered into the dust from which it can never
more emerge. And yet, out of the very dust of that
tree up springs a new one, fairer and brighter for the
richness of the soil gained from the ashes of its predecessor. Nor is that all. Extravagant as it may seem,
I have learned that there is a future life even for trees.
There is room enough in an infinite universe for all
the trees that ever blossomed: somewhere they are
blossoming still. How much more shall there be room
for the men. They are all living still. A brighter sky
than we ever saw bends over them; a more glorious
sun sheds his rays on their heads; the winds of beneficent conditions play around them. Development in the
grand future is their inalienable destiny.
But Shakspeare says there are " books in the running
brooks;" and we must not listen too long to these
trees, or we shall lose the lessons that are contained in
those running brooks. Strange places to find books!
No less strange, and quite as interesting, are the books
themselves that we find in this alcove of Nature's library, free for all. There is a book on chronology, and a




320      A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
wonderful book it is: our longest chronological, lists
are invisible when compared with this. At Niagara,one of our brooks, -you see an ocean of water pouring over the solid limestone into the foaming abyss
beneath. At Queenstown, seven miles below, the cataract once was; and the deep channel between the two
shows what the water has accomplished, fretting the
solid rock through the ages. Though fifty thousand
years were probably spent in the work, yet that is but
a day in the geologic calendar.- But what is this, compared with the record of other brooks? The Colorado
has worn a canton three hundred miles long, and in
places more than a mile deep, and for a thousand
feet through solid granite.  Thousands of centuries
must have been employed in the work. These grand
brooks are older than Britain and the Druids, Greece
and Etruria; older than the mummies; ay, older than.
Egypt itself, for it is made of the mud that one of these
brooks laid down; older than the old serpent and the
Christians that made him; older than Noah and his
wonderful box; older, indeed, than the Jews and Jelhovah,  " the Ancient of days," - their handiwork,
or, rather, their headwork. These brooks have been
rolling for ages where they now are, doing the work
of the world, as they have prepared it for the habitation
of mankind.
There is a volume on perseverance in the brooks that
many might read with benefit. Thlere was a time
when the Gulf of Mexico extended to where Cairo in
Illinois now is; and the Mississippi, by patient perseverance, has filled up the Gulf to New Orleans; and it




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.           321
is destined to annex Cuba to the United States, whether
Spain favors the annexation or opposes it. They have
carried to their graves in the ocean-depths mountains
innumerable, and are now engaged in ferrying down
all that remain. Not a day but they lay down part of
Mlont Blanc and Mount Washingtoll, Cotopaxi and
Chimborazo; and ere long, by their aid, the ocean
shall roll over the heads of the loftiest peaks., They
have made seven miles of fossilliferous rock, and formed
the grand continents, on whose surface we dwell; and
yet the process by which all this is accomplished is so
gradual, that but few are aware of what is going on
around them. There is a book on perseverance that it
will do you good to read, young man, young woman.
Never despair of accomplishing your soul's earnest
wish. The very desire to be and to do indicates the
power to be and to do what you desire: a day may do
but little, but you have an eternity to operate in. A
drop a day would drain the ocean in time; and you
need iiever be discouraged.
I saw a silvery rill descending from the mountain;
clear as crystal were its waters, as itleaped down with
tinkling feet on its mission of usefulness and love. " I
will stop its babbling," said the Frost, as he laid his
cold hand upon it, icy as death; and it staggered and
grew still. " I will bury it from sight," said the Snow;
and down dropped its fleecy mantle and hid the rill
from my gaze. " Alas!" said I, "' for the beautiful
stream, the envy of the Frost and Snow has destroyed
it forever."  But while I mourned, the south wind
blew with genial breath, the sun looked through the
21




322      A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
craggy clouds, the bonds of the rill were broken, snow
and ice did but increase its waters, and away danced
its waters more merrily than before. On it sped; and
wherever it went the trees arrayed themselves in their
greenest dresses, they lifted up their heads and waved
their banners in its praise; the birds sang to it in their
leafy bowers, and the flowers kissed it with their sweet
lips as it ran. But the hills saw it, and they were
offended. " Why should we allow this vagrant to roam
at large," said they, — " this leveller, this underminer
and destroyer of all things old and sacred?  Why
should we allow it to chafe our sides, and set at defiance the limits set in the days gone by? Let us unite,
and crush it forever."  So saying, they encircled the
brook in their close embrace, and presented a seemingly impassable barrier to its further passage; and
again it was lost to my sight. But, though unseen, it
was busy as ever, searching every crevice, flowing into
every cranny, to find a passage through the frowning
hills. " If I cannot get through, I must go over," said
the brook.  "Ah, ha!" laughed the hills; and they
clapped their hands, and said, "Listen to the little fellow. We have stopped his mad career; no more shall
lie roam among the trees, and disport himself with the
flowers; no more shall he remove the moss-grown
rocks, invade our sacred retreats, and undermine the
foundations of ages: his work is done, his life is ended."
But, inch by inch, and foot by foot, the water rose
above the woody sides of the hills; and, reaching a valley between two peaks, the hills saw, to their astonishment, the despised brook, now swollen to a river, go




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.            323
thundering down upon the plain with tenfold power.
On it flowed, daily broader, deeper, receiving accessions from a thousand flowing streams, blessing thirsty
lands, and administering to man's welfare, till it poured
at last its majestic torrent into the all-embracing sea.
There is a lesson for thee, my toiling brother. Starting from the mountains of truth-loving endeavor and
manly resolve, what though the world's cold scorn falls
on thee, and the bitter winds of persecution blow
around thee, toil on, live to thy soul's ideal.  There
are noble hearts beating for thee, glorious rewards
awaiting thee. There are no obstacles too high for thee
to surmount; the greatest success of which thy soul
ever dreamed is guaranteed thee.
But Shakspeare says there are " sermons in stones;"
and, while there is time, we must look at some of
these. You would never forgive me if I did not give
you some of these sermons. These " hard-heads," as
the bowlders have been called, are old heads and wise
heads, and no less eloquent. They preach the longest,
the truest, the wisest of sermons. These ministers of
Nature are expounding continually,With magical eloquence, day and night,
Denouncing the wrong, upholding the right,by the road-side, in the swamp, in the foaming stream,
and the ploughed field. They preached to the Indian,
as he stealthily stole by to shoot the deer at the lick,
as they had done to the dumb savages, his ancestors,
who had not learned to form the rudest of implements
for the chase.  These preachers never stammer nor




324       A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
cough; they never rave nor rant; they never lie to
please a congregation, or for the glory of God, as I'm
afraid some of our gospel preachers do; they never get
drunk nor blush for their record: they invariably tell
the truth, and that is just what we need; and their bold,
outspoken utterances have spoiled a thousand barrels
of orthodox sermons in Massachusetts alone. Would
that we were more awake to their glowing utterances!
When Shakspeare was living, geology was unknown.
What wondrous sermons have been preached by the
stones since his time,, that have set the world a-thinking!  Werner, Hutton, Bakewell, Buckland, Lyell,
Mantell, Miller, and hosts of others listened to them,
took notes of their discourses; and their rough notes,
far from verbatim reports, have re-created the world,
and bid fair to re-create the next.  How silly the Gen-:
esical fable of creation appears in the light which their
utterances reveal, - the six days of fatiguing labor of
the Almiglity Mechanic, dust-made grandfather Adam,
and bone-made grandmother Eve, the chatting snake,
and the cursing God! In these sermons that the stones
preach, there is no God complacently congratulating
himself on the success of his week's work, and, in a
few days, cursing like a demon because his plans have
been frustrated.  What a story is that to be rehearsed
in the nineteenth century, with the words of these stones
ringing in our ears! There rolls the ruddy planet, as
it came from the glowing furnace of the sun, a spirit
within its concentrated fire-mist presiding over it, and
able to produce, when conditions permit, plant and
bird, beast and man.  We see the solid rock, as the




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.            325
world cools, bare, black, and flinty; and below, the boiling, turbid waters: from the deep, where the first rude
forms of life appear, island after island emerges, lichens
cling to the rocks upon them, moss-like plants carpet
them, ferns fringe them, beetles hum  over them, and
fishes go flashing along their shores, or feed upon the
sea-weeds that spread over the waters their long gelatinous arms.  Tree-ferns unroll their fronds, clubmosses upraise their columns out of the dense swamps,
lepidodendrons rear their scaly trunks, frogs hop along
the margins of the lakes or vigorously swim in their
waters, while above them dragon-flies flit on gauzy
wings. Birds appear, rude, gross, stalking along the
shores, fishing in the waters; reptiles swimming, diving, crawling, basking on the rocks, roaming through
the woods, soaring in the air; mammals, huge and
whale-like, follow them, living in the waters; thickskinned monsters wading in the rivers, crashing through
the reeds; horses roamn over the virgin prairies; deer
feed on the newly-developed grasses; monkeys, the forerunners of men, feed on the luscious figs. Thlen comes
savage man, low-browed, brutal, but human: within
him the science, the art of the nineteenth century, and
of a million centuries yet to be born; and, at last, here
are we, the freest congregation in the freest city, in
spite of its fogyism, that our planet has yet seen, each
one swearing that he will not rest till he has made this
old world better than lie found it.
This is one of the sermons the stones are preaching;
and where it is heard, most other sermons are preached
in vain. Man has been advancing from the start, as




326      A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
the world had been for so many ages before him; then
man never fell, and Jesus was never sent to raise what
the devil was never permitted to knock down. Good
and evil flow from humanity by virtue of its nature;
the Devil is no longer needed, and his bottomless pit is
filled to the brim. Jesus descends from the throne of
his glory and takes his place on the platform occupied
by his brothers; and we call say of a thousand living
men and women, a better than Jesus is here.
ZHere, too, is a sermon on progress. From fluid fire to
solid rock, from shapeless stone to symmetrical crystal,
from crystal to polyp, from this sluggish stomach at the
sea-bottom to the active fish, thence to the ground-treading reptile, first tenant of the soil; then life soars in the
bird, advances toward man in the brute, and reaches
him only to urge him on to higher and nobler positions. We are here with this infinite past beneath us,
and an illimitable future above us, and ability within
us to climb the heights apparently forever. All this to
drop at death back to the dust from which life has ascended only by slow steps for millions of years? We
are that we may be. All the past was that we might
be in the present; and the present is that the future
may be. superior to it. Progress is not dead, nor God
asleep. The ages have not sown that death or the Devil
might reap: neither hell nor the grave is the granary
of humanity. The everlasting arms are around us:
over the stream of death they shall bear us, and land
us in a sunnier clime.
But I must not preach too long from such sermons
as these, important as they are. Few geologists have




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.           327
dared to tell the truth, - reveal to the world all that
their science has taught them. Scientists, like theologians, are sad cowards. A great effort is made by many
of them to make these old preachers talk orthodoxically; but the effort is a dead failure.  Though many
geologists seek with oblique vision to look upon old
dogmas and new revelations at the same time, yet
others are gaining courage to declare the whole counsel of Nature.
Tile stones are preaching their sermons in the streets
of Boston to-day. Fort Hill is being cut down, and
interested people gather to see the gradual disappearance of one of the interesting relics of historic times.
Go and see the old " hard heads," as tliey are scooped
from the soil by the steam excavator, or lie exposed
once more to the light of day along the lessening crest.
They are covered with marks and scratches. Not a
stone to which they were introduced but left its mark:
they tell us of the grinding ice-fields of the glacial
period, when a Greenland winter locked the sea and
buried tile land; and you may learn from them that
we have only fairly started to explore the past of our
planet on which our present stands, and eternity will
be needed to read what the eternity of the past has
done.
But Shakspeare says there is "good in every thing."
What an extravagant statement is this! Right, William, right: you, too, were wiser than you knew. Good
in earthlquakes, ground-shaking, rock-cleaving, cityswallowing, life-destroying earthquakes?  Certainly.
By earthquake throes the continents have been up



828      A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
lifted, the mountains reared, and the world adorned.
We should never have been here in the glory of this
day, if our planet had not been swept by: fiery storms
and shaken millions of times by the earthquake's jar,.
Their curses are inseparable from their blessings.
Is there good in volcanoes, those fearful hells that
spout: out glowing torrents that scathe and destroy,
and with their clouds of ashes envelop cities in ruin?
Yes: these are the safety-valves of the globe. Weight
them down, as engineers sometimes do the safety-valve
of the steam-engine, and but a short time would suffice
to blow the crust of the globe to atoms.
Good in pain, that racks the nerves, that clouds the
mind, - pain, the companion of sorrow, and herald of
death? Assuredly there is. If we never felt pain,
long before we reached maturity our bodies would be
wrecks: a boy's hands would be burned to cinders
before he was ten years old. The stomach would be
injured beyond recovery by our excesses, before we
were aware of our departure from  correct living.
Pain is a guardian forever attending us: for the child
it is better than a hundred nurses. The mother's eye
may wander from her charge; but pain never sleeps at
its post. The child, attracted by the glare, puts its
finger in the flame. Ha! it starts back with a sudden
cry. It has learned a lesson that can never be forgotten. In a world without pain, not one human being in
a hundred could ever arrive at maturity. Pain, often
considered manl's enemy, is but an angel in disguise.
But there is certainly nothing good in pestilences,
that decimate cities and are the dread of nations? If




A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEABE.            329
no other good arose from them, they widen the streets
of our cities, cause arrangements to be made for sewerage, and cleanse and beautify the close and otherwise filthy alleys. The general comfort arising from
all these may be traced in considerable measure to the
dread produced by those scourges of the human race.
The darkest features of some systems are often really
the best portions of them, when properly understood.
Ask a Protestant to name the darkest features of Catholicism, and lie would probably say that portion of it which
binds its members to life-long celibacy.  Monk, nun,
and priest must never marry; or, if they do, they receive
the church's ball.  " What a horrible system is this!"
says the Protestant. Not so horrible as it looks. These
monks, nuns, and priests are the most superstitious
members of the Roman church. And how fortunate it
is that their superstition dies with them, if true to their
vows; and the most superstitious are the most likely to
be. Thus, when superstition culminates in the Roman
Catholic church, it is cut off forever.  If the heretics
could pass a law, and make it binding, that the most
superstitious people should never marry, lest their
superstition should be inherited by their children,
what an outrage it would be deemed! Yet, thanks
to the blindness of the most intolerant of all Christian
sects, this is just what the church itself does; and
there is good here, where we had least reason to expect it. When a man becomes as fanatical as a Shaker,
he ought not to transmit his fanaticism to posterity.
How carefully the Shaker, by virtue of his faith, guards
against the possibility of it!




;330     A SERMON FROM SIIAKSPEARE.
But is there any good in war? There must be, if
Shakspeare is right; and I certainly think he is. Where
did we stand but ten years ago?  The North, a great
hlunting-ground for slaves, and every man by law a kidnapper; forty thousand preachers, and eighty thousand merchants, on their knees, licking the dust at the
foot of the slave-power; the priests quoting scripture
in favor of and apologizing for the vilest of all crimes;
and the merchants defending the practices, that they
might obtain the custom of the women-whippers and
baby-stealers.  Where are they now? The red whirlwind of war has swept the whole brutal system from
the face of the land it insulted so long.  Where now
are those godly Boston ministers who with pious faces
-read their Bible-texts from the pulpit in favor of this
stupendous crime? You can scarcely find a man from
Maine to Mexico who dares lift up his voice in defence
of chattel slavery; and the ministers are now hastening to prove that they were always in favor of freedom,
and that Christianity has conquered and gained the
victory alone! That war converted more than Christianity has done for a thousand years, and at the same
time converted the Bible.
The villains that applied the torch of rebellion to the
temple of our liberty expected to burn the fabric to the
ground; but, instead of that, away went rags and scraps,
hay and stubble, that blind priests and crafty politicians
had been gathering and piling for years around it. And,
when the smoke rolled away, there stood the temple inl
its grandeur, and the golden statue of Liberty above all,
unharmed by the transient -fire, and unblackened by the




A SERMON FROIM SHAKSPEARE.          331
smoke; and now, within that temple, stands a redeemed
people. This land has at length become in truth what
it was only in name, --
"The land of the free and the home of the brave."
This grand stumbling-block out of our way, we take,
and shall hendeforth keep, the foremost place in all the
world. When I find war assisting so materially to bring
about such a condition of things, I cannot but agree with
Shakspeare, that there is "1 good in every thing."
"But the Devil, you know, is all bad," says my
orthodox brother.  Bring him here and we will dissect him, and I will show you that he has an angelic
kernel in his heart. A king who has ruled so long
over the largest population that was ever governed by
any one potentate, must have some redeeming traits.
It is only imaginary beings that are destitute of good.
A soul of good seems to be essential to a thing's existence, destitute of which it must die, or rather, it never
could have lived. If there is a devil, there must be
good in him; but since, as the orthodox inform us,
there is no good in the Devil, it is evident that he does
not exist.
Good in death, - the terrible curse pronounced by
Jehovah on all?  Certainly, and the greatest of good.
Death, the sick man's solace, the old man's h-lope, the
good man's friend, the slave's release, the great uniter,
the twin of sleep, and the door of heaven. We, as
spiritualists, see the good there is in death as no other
people ever did.  We have come from the land of




332      A SERMON FROM SHAKSPEARE.
shadows, the gloomy wilderness, peopled by devils and
lit by the fire of lurid hells. Up we have come to the
" delectable mountains," fairer than those of which
Bunyan dreamed; and we revel in the rays of a sun
that never, never sets. The prospect is so clear that
we can see beyond the swift-flowing stream the loved
ones who have gone before; nay, we can hear their
cheerful voices, and know that it is well with them,
and must be well with us. In the light of this new
morning we can take death by tile hand and say:
Thou art our benefactor, our unchanging friend.
Sent by a higher life on the most beneficent of all
missions, when our work is done on earth we will
greet thee with joy, and look into thine eyes with a
smile; for thou shalt usher us into the company of the
immortal.
Is there good, then, in all that happens to man?  I
doubt not that we shall rise in the hereafter to where,
looking over all the chequered scene of earth's universal history, we shall exclaim, from the fullest assurance of its truth, All is well! all is well!




IRRECONCILABLE RECORDS;
OR,
Genesis and Geology3
(Third Edition.)
BY WILLIAM  DENTON.
It shows the utter impossibility of harmonizing the story of creation, in
Genesis, with the revelations of science.
" This book is one of Prof. Denton's happiest effort..... One of the most
telling blows that has ever been administered to the falling cause of Judaic theology." — Washington Iconoclast.
"Mr. Denton writes clearly, forcibly, with knowledge, and with the elan
of the polemic."-. Commonwealth. t.
" There is much food for thought in the book, though its tendency would
have a disturbing, unsettling effect among simple, earnest, religious minds, as it
attributes human origin to the Bible records, throwing discredit upon their
inspiration." -New Churc7l Independent.
" In this handsome pamphlet of 80 pages is presented, in a most thorough,
searching, and conclusive manner, the irreconcilability of Genesis with G(eology." - Boston Investigator.
Price 25 cents.
RADICAL RHYMES.
BY WILLIAM  DENTON...            Price $1.25
RADICAL DISCOURSES.
BY WILLIAM DENTON....    Price 10 cents each.
The Deluge in the Light of N1iodern  Science.  It shows the
flood-story to be as false as it is foolish.
Common-sense F1 houghts ol the Bible.  (Eighteenth thousand.)
Proves that the Bible is very far from being what priests claim for it.
What is Right.  Shows how we can tell right from wrong, and that
no man can do this by the Bible.
Christianity ino Finality. Christianity, a religion to be outgrown in
the progress of humanity.
Be Thyself. A Discourse on self-hood.
The God proposed for our Nlational Constitution.
Who are Christians' Shows thatthere are no Christians, if those only
are Christians who obey Jesus.
Sermon from  Shakspeares Text, -'" Tongues in trees," &c.
iltanls True Saviors. Science and Benevolence man's great Saviors.
The two followsing are Fifteen Cents each.
Is SPiritualism  Triae I By WTILLIAIM DENTON.
Man'S Righlts. By Mrs. ANNE DENTON CRIDGE. In some respects, the
most interesting woman's-rights pamphlet ever published.
The above sent, postpaid, free, on receipt of prices. Liberal allowance to
agents, or those purchasing by the quantity. Direct to
(Box ILLA9    ),  Bosto, DET ass 
(Box 1190), Boston, Mass.




BOOKS FOR THINKERS.
Our Planet: Its Past and Future;
OR,
LECTURES ON GEOLOGY.
By WILLIAM DENTON.
(Fourth Thousand.)
" The New-York Tribune " says of it, "This is a book for the masses, - a
book that should be read by every intelligent man in the country."
" Mr. Denton has certainly succeeded better than any American author I
know, in making a really interesting, readable book on Geology."-lHenry A.
Ward, Professor of Geology in Rochester University.
" A meritorious contribution to popular scientific literature." — Scientific
American.
" Prof. Denton divests Geology of most of its technicalities, and makes it
as interesting as a romance." - Herald of Health.
a" A book which is hardly less than the beau ideal of a scientific treatise designed strictly for popular reading. It is interesting as a novel." — Boston
Commonwealth.
Price, S1.50
THE SOUL OF TH-INGS 
OR,
Psychometric  Researches  and  Discoveries.
(Pourth Edition.)
By WILLIAM AND ELIZABETH M. F. DENTON.
"We have here a marvellous book. It is calm, and seems perfectly sincere;
and yet it makes larger drafts upon our credulity than any work we ever before
met with. The old alchemists never conceived of any thing half so strange.
Spiritualism, with all its wonders, is scarcely a vestibule to what we are introduced to here.
" Were there any reliance to be placed on these revelations, it would be
impossible to estimate the value of this newly-discovered power. It would
resolve a thousand doubts and difficulties, make geology as plain as day, and
throw light on all the grave subjects that time has so effectually obscured." -
New- York Christian Ambassador.
" In the varied wonders they describe, there is a peculiar and intense interest. If what is claimed in this book to be true, it records the most remarkable
discovery yet made as regards the capacities of the human mind in its abnormal
state." - Forfolk- County Journal.
"' There is much extraordinary matter in these pages. It is a volume emphatically deserving of the reader's choicest study "'- Boston Traveller.
" Though as concise as a text-book, we read' The Soul of Things' with the
fascination of a work of fiction. Indeed, it is truth itself, stranger than fiction.
written in the vivid style which is a part of Mr. Denton's remarkable power."
- American Spiritualist.
"The reader will be amazed to see the curious facts here combined in support of the theory of the DENTONS. The natural facts adduced are more than
are dreamed of in much of our philosophy." -Albany Standard and Statesan.e 
Price $1.50,