Jonathan and His Continent Part 21

Now, the Esoterists are safe to continue with us; for either they will arrive at perfection and become immortal, or they will fall away from grace and will have children to swell their ranks. The head of this sect, which is as yet only about two years old, claims that when the Esoterists attain perfection, not only will they be immortal, but they will have a clear insight into the future, a gift which will enable them to ama.s.s great riches. And, indeed, the utility of such an accomplishment, on the Stock Exchange, for instance, must be apparent at a glance.

Another sect pretends to be able to cure all disease by faith. The faith of these fanatics is not shaken by the death of their patients. "If they had had more faith, they would have recovered." Doctor Sangrado cured all illnesses by bleedings and hot water. When a patient died, it was because the bleeding had been too copious or not copious enough, and the water administered too hot or too cool. The theory remained excellent.

All these new sects are commercial enterprises, some of them established on the plan of limited liability companies. A room is hired, and supplied with a table and chairs, and a few novelty-hunters are soon attracted to the embryo temple. These in turn draw others, and by-and-by a more imposing meeting-place is secured, and the pockets of the proselytes are appealed to for funds to found what is called "The Lord's Treasury." Many poor simple folk have been persuaded into giving all they possessed to the "Lord's Treasury."

No need to put by a reserved fund: human credulity is an inexhaustible mine.

Fortune-tellers are punished with from six months' to two years'

imprisonment. How is it the law allows schemers to found a "Lord's Treasury" by promising immortality to the geese who bring their money to it? It looks as if, in America, as in England, swindling may be practised with impunity in the name of religion.

One meets with just as many cases of the adroit blending of the worship of G.o.d and Mammon.

A publisher, who is not above making money by the sale of books stolen from English and French authors, is yet G.o.dly enough to build a church with part of the proceeds.

An immense quant.i.ty of literary piracies issues from another firm, whose warehouse rejoices in the appellation of "Bible House."

A popular preacher sells his church sittings by auction.

Another furnishes to a syndicate advance sheets of the sermons he preaches on Sunday; so that the princ.i.p.al papers throughout the United States are able to furnish their readers, on Monday morning, with the full discourse delivered the day before in Brooklyn.

During my stay in America, a well-known evangelist published a volume of sermons with the following preface: "G.o.d has been kind enough to own the words when I spoke them. I hope He will give His blessing to the book, now that the same words appear in print." Many books are published in France with the remark, "A work approved of by Mgr. the Archbishop of----" A volume, advertised as having been owned and blessed by the Lord Himself, ought to have a wild sale.

Sabbatarian hypocrisy is as flourishing in the eastern States of America as in England and Scotland.

I was visiting the sub-tropical Exhibition at Jacksonville one Sunday, and at a certain stall I chose a few little natural curiosities.

"I cannot sell them to you to-day," said the stall-keeper to me, after well puffing his wares.

"No? Why?"

"Because it is Sunday. I can put them aside for you; but you must _buy_ them to-morrow."

This is the kind of thing one is supposed to admire.

A truly edifying sight is that of the noisy, dirty, blaspheming crowd collected on a Sunday evening outside Madison Square Gardens, New York, on the eve of a "six days' go-as-you-please walking match." From six or seven in the evening there is a betting, swearing match outside the gates. But the walking only begins at one minute past midnight.

Not to take the name of G.o.d in vain, the English have invented many euphemisms; some men, imagining, I suppose, that the Deity takes no cognisance of any language but English, venture so far as to say _mon Dieu_ or _mein Gott_.

At this kind of thing the Americans are as clever as the English. They have invented _Great Scott_!

Something admirable in all the main religious sects of America is their national character.

When I hear it said that religion is the sworn enemy of progress, especially of Republican inst.i.tutions, I turn to America and say to myself, "This is not true."

There is no minister of religion, from the archbishops down to the most unlettered preachers of all the small _isms_, who would dare to tell his congregation that liberty is not the most precious, the most sacred of their possessions, or that the Republic is not the most admirable form of Government--the only possible one--for America.

In France, there is much indifference on the subject of religion; but a great deal of incredulity is affected to satisfy a political bias. I am certain that if, in France, you searched into the hearts of the people, you would find there much less atheism than in many other nations.

Religious belief seems to be the apanage of the Royalist party, and other people think they make a show of Republicanism by throwing over the belief of the Royalists. The religious man is rather looked upon as a political enemy than as a religious antagonist. This is the true explanation of much apparent agnosticism in France. It must also be remarked that plenty of Royalists only affect piety, and go regularly to church, as a protest against Republicanism, and that many Republicans may be excused for taking this display of religion for an act of hostility towards their pet inst.i.tutions.

This state of things is deplorable. Both sides are to blame for it.

In England and America, where the form of Government is questioned by no one, religion does not clash with progress and liberty, but lives with democracy in peace and harmony, as becomes a faith whose grand precept is: "Love ye one another."

CHAPTER XXIV.

_Colonel Ingersol's Ideas.--The Man.--His Life.--His Works.--A Minister declines to take his Place either in this World or the Next._

I one day asked one of the cleverest ladies of New York whether she knew Colonel Ingersoll.

"No," she answered, "I do not know him, and I do not wish to make his acquaintance."

"May I ask why?" I said.

She replied:

"Simply because I am told it is impossible to know him without admiring and loving him."

"Well?"

"Well, I don't want to admire or love him."

I had the honour of making his acquaintance, and, like all those who have approached and known him, I soon loved and admired him.

He is one of the greatest figures of his great country. In a book on contemporary America one must needs speak of this celebrated advocate.

He is a personality apart. He has little in common with the rest of his countrymen but the t.i.tle of Colonel.

Once more I say it: in this book of jottings I do not sit in judgment, I merely describe impressions of what I have seen and heard. It is not necessary to endorse a man's theories in order to enjoy his society; and this is especially true in the case of Colonel Ingersoll, who is many-sided in his powers, and who charms theologians and agnostics alike when religion is not on the _tapis_.

Colonel Robert Ingersoll is a man of about sixty, six feet high, and strongly built, a colossus physically and intellectually; the eyes sparkle with wit and beam with the joy of life; the mouth is humorous and smiling; the head large and well planted on broad shoulders; the face shaven; the brain bristling with great thoughts; a man with the heart of a lion to fight the battles of life, but the heart of a woman in presence of human suffering.

He has subst.i.tuted for the love of religion the religion of love and of the family. According to him, religion should have but one aim: to teach us how to be happy in this life. He repeats, with Christ: "Love one another; do not to others what you would not have others do to you." And he adds: "A G.o.d that is represented as weaving webs to catch the souls of men whom he has created is not adorable." As to a future life, the Colonel does not commit himself. He says: "We do not know, we cannot tell, whether death is a door or a wall: a spreading of pinions to soar or the folding of wings for ever." In the eyes of many pious people his theories are abominable, and he is the Antichrist: but the Americans are unanimous in admitting his extraordinary talents; and among the dear friends of the Colonel and his family are many Presbyterians, some of them ministers.

Antichrist, if you will--that is, if you can imagine such a personage endowed with every moral and intellectual faculty. In his presence, men feel themselves small, and women put their hands over their eyes, being careful to keep the fingers well apart. A decidedly dangerous Antichrist, this.

Mr. Ingersoll is not only America's greatest living orator, he is a great writer and a great thinker: an infusion, as it were, of Johnson, Voltaire, and Milton. He possesses the logic of the first, the _persiflage_ of the second, and some of the sublimity of the third. His arguments are constructed like geometrical propositions; his style is vigorous, as clear as it is graceful, as poetic as it is humorous; and his verve is inexhaustible.

The trinity that he worships is the trinity of Science: Reason, Observation, and Experience.