My Path to Atheism Part 4

or are the signs of Jeremiah and Ezekiel the less childish and indecent because they are prefaced with, "thus saith Jehovah?" Far be it from me to detract from the glorious morality of portions of the Bible; but if the whole book be inspired and infallible in its moral teaching, then, of course, one moral lesson is as important as another, and we have no right to pick and choose where the whole is divine. The harsher part of the Old Testament morality has burnt its mark into the world, and may be traced through history by the groans of suffering men and women, by burning witches and tortured enemies of the Lord, by flaming cities and blood-stained fields. If murder and rapine, treachery and lies, robbery and violence, were commanded long ago by Almighty G.o.d; if things are right and wrong only by virtue of His command, then who can say that they may not be right once more, when used in the cause of the Church, and how are we to know that Moses speaks in G.o.d's name when he commands them, and Torquemada only in his own? But even Christians are beginning to feel ashamed of some of the exploits of the "Old Testament Saints,"

and to try and explain away some of the harsher features; we even hear sometimes a wicked whisper about "imperfect light," &c. Good heavens!

what blasphemy! Imperfect light can mean nothing less than imperfect G.o.d, if He is responsible for the morality of these writings.

So, from our study of the Bible we deduce another canon by which we may judge of inspiration:

"Inspiration does not prevent moral error." There is a fourth cla.s.s of inspirationists, the last which clings to the skirts of orthodoxy, which is always endeavouring to plant one foot on the rocks of science, while it balances the other over the quicksands of orthodox super-naturalism.

The Broad Church school here takes one wide step away from orthodoxy, by allowing that the inspiration of the Bible differs only in degree and not in kind from the inspiration common to all mankind. They recognise the great fact that the inspiring Spirit of G.o.d is the source whence flow all good and n.o.ble deeds, and they point out that the Bible itself refers all good and all knowledge to that one Spirit, and that He breathes mechanical skill into Bezaleel and Aholiab, strength into Samson's arms, wisdom into Solomon, as much as He breathes the ecstacy of the prophet into Isaiah, faith into Paul, and love into John. They recognise the old legends as authentic, but would maintain as stoutly that He spoke to Newton through the falling of an apple, as that He spoke of old to Elijah by fire, or to the wise men by a star. This school try and remove the moral difficulties of the Old Testament by regarding the history recorded in it as a history which is specially intended to unveil the working of G.o.d through all history, and so to gradually reveal G.o.d as He makes Himself known to the world; thus the grosser parts are regarded as wholly attributable to the ignorance of men, and they delight to see the divine light breaking slowly through the thick clouds of human error and prejudice, and to trace in the Bible the gradual evolution of a n.o.bler faith and a purer morality.

They regard the miracles of Jesus as a manifestation that G.o.d underlies Nature and works ever therein: they believe G.o.d to be specially manifested in Jewish history, in order that men may understand that He presides over all nations and rules over all peoples. To Maurice the Bible is the explainer of all earth's problems, the unveiler of G.o.d, the Bread of Life. There is, on the whole, little to object to in the Broad Church view of inspiration, although liberal thinkers regret that, as a party, they stop half way, and are still trammelled by the half-broken chains of orthodoxy. For instance, they usually regard the direct revelation of morality as closed by Jesus and His immediate followers, although they allow that G.o.d has not deserted His world, nor confined His inspiration within the covers of a book. To them, however, the Bible is still _the_ inspired book, standing apart by itself, differing from all other sacred books. From their views of inspiration, which contains so much that is true, we deduce a fourth rule:

"Inspiration is not confined to written words about G.o.d." From a criticism of the book, which is held by orthodox Christians, to be specially inspired, we have then gained some idea of what inspiration does _not_ do. It does not prevent inaccuracy, ignorance, error, nor is it confined to any written book. Inspiration, then, cannot be an overwhelming influence, crushing the human faculties and bearing along the subject of it on a flood which he can neither direct nor resist. It is a breathing--gentle and gradual--of pure thoughts into impure hearts, tender thoughts into fierce hearts, forgiving thoughts into revengeful hearts. David calls home his banished son, and he learns that, "even as a father pitieth his children, so is the Lord merciful unto them that fear Him." Paul wishes himself accursed if it may save his brethren, and from his own self-sacrificing love he learns that "G.o.d will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." Thus inspiration is breathed into the man's heart. "I love and forgive, weak as I am; what must be the depth of the love and forgiveness of G.o.d?"

David's fierce revenge finds an echo in his writings; for man writes, and not G.o.d: he defaces G.o.d by ascribing to Him the pa.s.sions surging only in his own burning Eastern heart: then, as the Spirit moves him to forgiveness, his song is of mercy; for he feels that his Maker must be better than himself. That part of the Bible is inspired, I do not deny, in the sense that all good thoughts are the result of inspiration, but only as we share the inspiration of the Bible can we distinguish between the n.o.ble and the base in it, between the eternal and that which is fast pa.s.sing away. But as we do not expect to find that inspiration, now-a-days, guards men from much error, both of word and deed, so we should not expect to find it otherwise in days gone by; nor should we wonder that the man who spoke of G.o.d as showing His tender fatherhood by punishing and correcting, could so sink down into hard thoughts of that loving Father as to say that it was a fearful thing to fall into His hands. These contradictions meet us in every man; they are the highest and the lowest moments of the human soul. Only as we are inspired to love and patience in our conduct towards men will our words be inspired when we speak of G.o.d.

Having thus seen what inspiration does not do, we must glance at what it really is. It is, perhaps, natural that we, rejecting, as we do, with somewhat of vehemence, the idea of supernatural revelation, should oftentimes be accused of denying all revelation and disbelieving all inspiration. But even as we are not atheists, although we deny the G.o.dhead of Jesus, so are we not unbelievers in inspiration because we refuse to bend our necks beneath the yoke of an inspired Bible. For we believe in a G.o.d too mighty and too universal to be wrapped in swaddling clothes or buried in a cave, and we believe in an inspiration too mighty and too universal to belong only to one nation and to one age. As the air is as free and as refreshing to us as it was to Isaiah, to Jesus, or to Paul, so does the spiritual air of G.o.d's Spirit breathe so softly and as refreshingly on our brows as on theirs. We have eyes to see and ears to hear quite as much as they had in Judea long ago. "If G.o.d be omnipresent and omniactive, this inspiration is no miracle, but a regular mode of G.o.d's action on conscious Spirit, as gravitation on unconscious matter. It is not a rare condescension of G.o.d, but a universal uplifting of man. To obtain a knowledge of duty, a man is not sent away outside of himself to ancient doc.u.ments for the only rule of faith and practice; the Word is very nigh him, even in his heart, and by this word he is to try all doc.u.ments whatever.... Wisdom, Righteous-ness, and Love are the Spirit of G.o.d in the soul of man; wherever these are, and just in proportion to their power, there is inspiration from G.o.d.... Inspiration is the in-come of G.o.d to the soul, in the form of Truth through the Reason, of Right through the Conscience, of Love and Faith through the Affections and Religious Element.... A man would be looked on as mad who should claim miraculous inspiration for Newton, as they have been who denied it in the case of Moses. But no candid man will doubt that, humanly speaking, it was a more difficult thing to write the Principia than to write the Decalogue.

Man must have a nature most sadly anomalous if, una.s.sisted, he is able to accomplish all the triumphs of modern science, and yet cannot discover the plainest and most important principles of Religion and Morality without a miraculous inspiration; and still more so if, being able to discover by G.o.d's natural aid these chief and most important principles, he needs a miraculous inspiration to disclose minor details."* Thus we believe that inspiration from G.o.d is the birthright of humanity, and to be an heir of G.o.d it needs only to be a son of man.

Earth's treasures are highly priced and hard to win, but G.o.d's blessings are, like the rain and the sunshine, showered on all-comers.

"'Tis only heaven is given away; 'Tis only G.o.d may be had for the asking; No price is set on the lavish summer; June may be had by the poorest comer."

* Theodore Parker.

If inspiration were indeed that which it is thought to be by the orthodox Christians, surely we ought to be able to distinguish its sayings from those of the uninspired. If inspiration be confined to the Christian Bible, how is it that the inspired thoughts were in many cases spoken out to the world hundreds of years before they fell from the lips of an inspired Jew? It seems a somewhat uncalled for miraculous interference for a man to be supernaturally inspired to inform the world of some moral truth which had been well known for hundreds of years to a large portion of the race. Or is it that a great moral truth bears within itself so little evidence of its royal birth, that it cannot be accepted as ruler by divine right over men until its proclamation is signed by some duly accredited messenger of the Most High? Then, indeed, must G.o.d be "more cognizable by the senses than by the soul;" and then "the eye or the ear is a truer and quicker percipient of Deity than the Spirit which came forth from Him."* Was Paul inspired when he wished himself accursed for his brethren's sake, but Kwan-yin uninspired, when she said, "Never will I seek nor receive private individual salvation; never enter into final peace alone?" If Jesus and the prophets were inspired when they placed mercy above sacrifice, was Manu uninspired in saying that a man "will fall very low if he performs ceremonial acts only, and fails to discharge his moral duties"? Was Jesus inspired when he taught that the whole law was comprehended in one saying, namely, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself?" and yet was Confucius uninspired when, in answer to the question, "What one word would serve as a rule to one's whole life?" he said, "Reciprocity; what you do not wish done to yourself, do not to others." Or take the Talmud and study it, and then judge from what uninspired source Jesus drew much of His highest teaching. "Whoso looketh on the wife of another with a l.u.s.tful eye, is considered as if he had committed adultery."--(Kalah.) "With what measure we mete, we shall be measured again."--(Johanan.) "What thou wouldst not like to be done to thyself, do not to others; this is the fundamental law."--(Hillel.) "If he be admonished to take the splinter out of his eye, he would answer, Take the beam out of thine own."--(Tarphon.) "Imitate G.o.d in His goodness. Be towards thy fellow-creatures as He is towards the whole creation. Clothe the naked; heal the sick; comfort the afflicted; be a brother to the children of thy Father." The whole parable of the houses built on the rock and on the sand is taken out of the Talmud, and such instances of quotation might be indefinitely multiplied. What do they all prove? That there is no inspiration in the Bible? by no means. But surely that inspiration is not confined to the Bible, but is spread over the world; that much in all "sacred books" is the outcome of inspired minds at their highest, although we find the same books containing gross and low thoughts.

We should always remember that although the Bible is more specially a revelation to us of the Western nations than are the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta, that it is only so because it is better suited to our modes of thought, and because it has-been one of the agents in our education.

* W. R. Greg.

The reverence with which we may regard the Bible as bound up with many-sacred memories, and as the chosen teacher of many of our greatest minds and purest characters, is rightly directed in other nations to their own sacred books. The books are really all on a level, with much good and much bad in them all; but as the Hebrew was inspired to proclaim that "the Lord thy G.o.d is one Lord" to the Hebrews, so was the Hindoo inspired to proclaim to Hindoos, "There is only one Deity, the great Soul." Either all are inspired, or none are. They stand on the same footing. And we rejoice to-believe that one Spirit breathes in all, and that His inspiration is ours to-day. "The Father worketh hitherto,"

although men fancy He is resting in an eternal Sabbath. The orthodox tells us that, in rejecting the rule of morality laid down for us in the Bible, and in trusting ourselves to this inspiration of the free Spirit of G.o.d, our faith and our morality will alike be shifting and unstable.

But we reck not of their warnings; our faith and our morality are only shifting in this sense, that, as we grow holier, and purer, and wiser, our conception of G.o.d and of righteousness will rise and expand with our growth. It was a golden saying of one of G.o.d's n.o.blest sons that "no man knoweth the Father save the Son:" to know G.o.d we must resemble Him, as we see in the child the likeness of the parent. But in trusting ourselves to the guidance of the Spirit of G.o.d, we are not building the house of our faith on the shifting sand; rather are we "dwelling in a city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is G.o.d." Wisely was it sung of old, "Except the Lord build the house, their labour is but lost that build it." Vain are all efforts of priestly coercion; vain all toils of inspired books; vain the utter sacrifice of reason and conscience; their labour is but lost when they strive to build a temple of human faith, strong enough to bear the long strain of time, or the earthquake-shock of grief. G.o.d only, by the patient guiding of His love, by the direct inspiration of His Spirit, can lay, stone by stone, and timber by timber, that priceless fabric of trust and love, which shall outlive all attacks and all changes, and shall stand in the human soul as long as His own Eternity endures.

ON THE RELIGIOUS EDUCATION OF CHILDREN.

IN every transition-stage of the world's history the question of education naturally comes to the front. So much depends on the first impressions of childhood, on the first training of the tender shoot, that it has always been acknowledged, from Solomon to Forster, that to "train up a child in the way he should go" is among the most important duties of fathers and citizens. To the individual, to the family, to the State, the education of the rising generation is a question of primary importance. Plato began the education of the citizens of his ideal Republic from the very hour of their birth; the nursing child was taken from the mother lest injudicious treatment should mar, in the slightest degree, the perfection of the future warrior. On this point modern and ancient wisdom clasp hands, and place the education of the child among the most important duties of the State. The battle at present raging between the advocates of "secular" and "religious" education--to use the cant of the day--is a most natural and righteous recognition of the vast interests at stake when Church or State claims the right of training the sons and daughters of England. No one has yet attempted to explain why it should be "irreligious" to teach writing, or history, or geography; or why it should "destroy a child's soul" to improve his mental faculties. It is among the "mysteries" of the faith, why it is better for our poor to leave' them to grow up in both moral and intellectual darkness, than to dissipate the intellectual darkness by some few rays of knowledge, and to leave the moral training to other hands. If we left a starving man to die because we could only give him bread, and were unable to afford cheese in addition, all would unite in declaiming at our folly: but "religious" people would rather that our street Arabs grew up both heathens and brutes, than that we should improve their minds without Christianizing their souls. Better let a lad grow up a thief and a drunkard, than turn him into an artizan and a freethinker.

There can scarcely be a better proof of the unreasonableness of Christian doctrine, than the Christian fear of sharpening mental faculties, without binding them down, at the same time, in the chains of dogma. Only a religion founded on reason can dare to train children's minds to the utmost, and then leave them free to use all the power and keenness acquired by that training on the investigation of any religious doctrine presented to them. We, who have written Tekel on the Christian faith, share in the opinion of the Christian clergy, that man's carnal reason is a terrible foe to the Christian revelation; but here we begin to differ from them, for while they regard this reason as a child of the devil, to be scourged and chained down, we do homage to it as to the fairest offspring of the Divine Spirit, the brightest earthly reflection of His glory, and the nearest image of His "Person"; we would cherish it, tend it, nourish it, as our Father's n.o.blest gift to humanity, as our surest guide and best counsellor, as the ear which hears His voice, and the eye which sees Him, as the sharpest weapon against superst.i.tion, the ultimate arbiter on earth between right and wrong. To us, then, education is ranged on the side of G.o.d; we welcome it freely and gladly, because all truth, all light, all knowledge, are foes of falsehood, of darkness, of ignorance. If we mistake error for truth a brighter light will set us right, and we only wish to be taught truth, not to be proved right.

Most liberal thinkers agree in recognizing the fact that the duties of the State in the matter of education must, in the nature of things, be purely "secular:" that is to say, that while the State insists that the future citizen shall be taught at least the elements of learning, so as to fit him or her for fulfilling the duties of that citizenship, it has no right to insist on impressing on the mind of its pupil any set of religious dogmas or any form of religious creed. The abdication by the State of the pretended right of enforcing on its citizens any special form of religion, is not at all identical with the opposition by the State to religious teaching; It is merely a development of the very wise maxim of the great Jewish Teacher, to render the things of Caesar to Caesar, and the things of G.o.d to G.o.d. To teach reading, writing, honesty, regard for law, these things are Caesar's duties; to teach religious dogma, creed, or article, is entirely the province of the teachers who claim to hold the truth of G.o.d.

But my object now is not to draw the line between the duties of Church and State, of school and home; nor do I wish to enter the lists of sectarian controversy, to break a lance in favour of a new religious dogma. The question is rather this: "What are the limits of the religious education which it is wise to impose on the young? Is any dogmatic teaching to be a part of their moral training, and is the dogmatism against which we have rebelled to be revived in a new form?

Are the fetters which we are breaking for ourselves to be welded together again for the young limbs of our children? Are they to be fed on the husks which have starved our own religious aspirations, and which we have a.n.a.lysed, and rejected as unfit to sustain our moral and mental vigour? On the other hand, are our children to grow up without any religious teaching at all, without a ray of that sunshine which is to most of us the very source of our gladness, and the renewal of our strength?"

I think the best way of deciding this question is to notice the gradual development of the childish body and mind. Nature's indications are a sure guide-post, and we cannot go very far wrong in following her hints.

I am now on ground with which mothers are familiar, though perhaps few men have watched young children with sufficient attention to be able to note their gradual development. The first instincts of a baby are purely personal: the "not-I" is for it nonexistent: food, warmth, cleanliness, comprise all its needs and all our duties to it. The next stage is when the infant becomes conscious of the existence of something outside itself: when, vaguely and indistinctly, but yet decidedly, it shows signs of observing the things around it: to cultivate observation, to attract attention, slowly to guide it into distinguishing one object from another, are the next steps in its education. The child soon succeeds in distinguishing forms, and learns to attach different sounds to different shapes: it is also taught to avoid some things and to play with others: it awakes to the knowledge that while some objects give pleasure, others give pain: so far as material things go, it learns to choose the good and to avoid the evil. This power is only gained by experience, and is therefore acquired but gradually, and after a time, side by side with it, runs another lesson; slowly and gradually there appears a dawning appreciation of "right" and "wrong." This appreciation is not, however, at first an appreciation of any intrinsic rightness or wrongness in any given action; it is simply a recognition on the child's part that some of its acts meet with approval, others with disapproval, from its elders. The standard of its seniors is unquestioningly accepted by the child. The moral sense awakes, but is completely guided in its first efforts by the hand of the child's teacher, as completely as the first efforts to walk are directed by the mother. Thus it comes to pa.s.s that the conscience of the child is but the reflex of the conscience of its parents or guardians: "right" and "wrong" in a child's vocabulary are in the earliest stages equivalent to "reward"

and "punishment;" its final court of appeal in cases of morality is the judgment of the parent.*

* The moral sense does show itself, however, in very young children, in a higher form than this; for we may often observe in a young child an instinctive sense of shame at having done wrong. But the moral sense is awakened and educated by the parents' approval and disapproval. This may be proved, I think, by the fact that a child brought up among thieves and evil-livers will accept their morality as a matter of course, and will steal and lie habitually, without attaching to either act any idea of wrong. The moral sense is inherent in man, and is in no way _given_ by the parent; but I think that it is first aroused and put into action by the parent; the parent accustoms the child to regard certain actions as right and wrong; this appeals to the moral sense in the child, and the child very rapidly is ashamed of wrong, as wrong, and not simply from dread of punishment. I would be understood to mean, in the text, that the wish for reward is the first response of the child to the idea of an inherent distinction between different actions; this feeling rapidly developes into the true moral sense, which regards right as right, and wrong as wrong.

I append this note at the suggestion of a valued friend, who feared that the inference might be drawn from the text that the moral sense was implanted by the parent instead of being, as it is, the gift of G.o.d.

It is perhaps scarcely accurate to call this motive power in the child a _moral_ sense at all; still, this recognition of some thing which is immaterial and intangible, and which is yet to be the guide of its actions, is a great step forward from the simple consciousness of outer and material objects, and is truly the dawn of that moral sense which becomes in men and women the test of right and wrong. So far we have considered the growing faculties of the child as regards physical and moral development, and I particularly wish to remark that the moral sense appears long before any "religious" tendency can be noted. There is, however, another side of the complete human character which is very important, but which is slow in showing itself in any healthy child; I mean what may be called the _spiritual_ sense, in distinction from the moral; the sense which is the crowning grace of humanity, the sense which belongs wholly to the immortal part of man: the outstretched hands of the human spirit groping after the Eternal Spirit; the yearning after that all-pervading Power which men call G.o.d. I know well that in many precociously-pious children this spiritual sense is forced into a premature and unwholesome maturity; by means of a spiritual hot-house the summer-fruit of piety may be obtained in the spring-time of the childish heart. The imitative instinct of childhood quickly reproduces the sentiments around it, and set phrases which meet with admiration flow glibly from baby-lips. But this strongly developed religious feeling in a child is both unnatural and harmful, and can never, because it is unreal, produce any lasting good effect. Yet is it none the less true that, at an early age, differing much in different children, the "spiritual sense" does show signs of awakening; that children soon begin to wonder about things around them, and to ask questions which can only find their true answer in the name of G.o.d. How to meet these questions, how to train this growing sentiment without crushing it on the one hand, and without unduly stimulating it on the other, is a source of deep anxiety to many a mother's heart in the present day. They are unable to tell their children the stories which satisfied their own childish cravings: no longer can they hold up before the eager faces the picture of the manger at Bethlehem, or dim the bright eyes with the story of the cross on Calvary; no longer can they fold the little hands in prayer to the child of Nazareth, or hush the hasty tongue with the reminder of the obedience of the Virgin's son. To a certain extent this is a loss.

A child quickly seizes the concrete; the idea of the child Jesus or the man Jesus is readily grasped by a child's intellect; the G.o.d of the Old Testament, the "magnified man," is also, though more dimly, understood.

These conceptions of the childhood of humanity suit the childhood of the individual, and it is far more difficult for the child to realize the idea of G.o.d when he is divested of these materialistic garments. Yet I speak from experience when I say that it is by no means impossible to train a child into the simplest and happiest feelings as regards the Supreme Being, without degrading the Divine into the human. By one name we can speak of G.o.d by which He will be readily welcomed to the child's heart, and that is the name of the Father. Most children are keenly alive to natural beauties, and are quick to observe birds, and flowers, and sunshine; at times they will ask how these things come there, and then it is well to tell them that they are the works of G.o.d Thus the child's first notions of the existence of a Power he cannot see or feel will come to him clothed in the things he loves, and will be free from any suggestion of fear.* Even those who regard G.o.d from the stand-point of Pantheism may use natural objects so as to train the child into a fearless and happy recognition of the constant working of the Spirit of Nature, and so guard the young mind against that shrinking from, and terror of G.o.d, which popular Christianity is so apt to induce. The lad or girl who grows up with even the habit of regarding G.o.d as the calm and mighty motive-power of the forces of Nature, changeless, infinite, absolutely trustworthy, will be slow to accept in later life the crude conceptions which incarnate the creative power in a virgin's womb, and ascribe caprice, injustice, and cruelty to the mighty Spirit of the Universe.

* The ordinary shrinking of a child from the idea of a Presence which he cannot see, but which sees him, will not be felt by children whose only ideas about G.o.d are that He is the Father from whose hand come all beautiful things. In any home where the parents' thoughts of G.o.d are free from doubt and mistrust, the children's thoughts will be the same; religion, in their eyes, will be synonymous with happiness, for G.o.d and good will be convertible terms.

There is a deep truth in the idea of Pantheism, that "Nature is an apparition of the Deity, G.o.d in a mask;" that "He is the light of the morning, the beauty of the noon, and the strength of the sun. He is the One, the All... The soul of all; more moving than motion, more stable than rest; fairer than beauty, and stronger than strength. The power of Nature is G.o.d... He is the All; the Reality of all phenomena." The child fed on this food will have scarcely anything to unlearn, even when he begins to believe that G.o.d is something more than Nature; "the created All is the symbol of G.o.d," and he will pa.s.s easily and naturally on from seeing G.o.d in Nature to see Him in a higher form.

Of course, as a Theist, I should myself go much further than this: I should speak of all natural glory as but the reflection of the Deity, or as the robe in which He veils His infinite beauty; I should bid my children rejoice in all happiness as in the gift of a Father who delights in sharing His joy with His creatures; I should point out that the pain caused by ignorance of, or by breaking natural laws, is G.o.d's way of teaching men obedience for their own ultimate good: in the freedom and fulness of Nature's gifts I should teach them to see the equal love of G.o.d for all; through marking that in Nature's visible kingdom no end can be gained without labour and without using certain laws, they should learn that in the invisible kingdom they need not expect to find favouritism, nor think to share the fruits of victory without patient toil. To all who believe in a G.o.d who is also the Father of Spirits such teaching as this comes easily; as they themselves learn of G.o.d only through His works, so they naturally teach their children to seek Him in the same way.

The questions, so familiar to every mother, "Can G.o.d see me?" "Where is G.o.d?" can only be met with the simple a.s.sertion that G.o.d sees all, and is everywhere. For there are many childish questions which it is wisest to meet with statements which are above the grasp of the childish mind.

These statements may be simply given to the child as statements which it is too young either to question or to understand. Nothing is gained by trying to smooth down spiritual subjects to the level of a child's capacity; the time will come later when the child must meet and answer for itself all great spiritual questions; the parent's care should be to remove all hindrances from the child's path of inquiry, but not to give it cut-and-dried answers to every possible question; religion, to be worth anything, must be a personal matter, and each must find it out for himself; the wise parent will endeavour to save the child from the pain of unlearning, by giving but little formal religious teaching; he cannot fight the battle for his child, but he can prevent his being crippled by a fancied armour which will stifle rather than protect him; he can give a few wide principles to direct him, without weighing him down with guide-books.

But even the most general ideas of G.o.d should not be forced on a childish mind; they should come, so to speak, by chance; they should be presented in answer to some demand of the child's heart; they should be inculcated by stray words and pa.s.sing remarks; they should form the atmosphere surrounding the child habitually, and not be a sudden "wind of doctrine." Of course all this is far more troublesome than to teach a child a catechism or a creed, but it is a far higher training. Dogma, _i e_., conviction petrified by authority, should be utterly excluded from the religious education of children; a few great axiomatic truths may be laid down, but even in these primary truths dogmatism should be avoided. The parent should always take care to make it apparent that he is stating his own convictions, but is not enforcing them on the child by his authority. So far as the child is capable of appreciating them, the reasons for the religious conviction should be presented along with the conviction itself. Thus the child will see, as he grows older, that religion cannot be learned by rote, that it is not shut up in a book, or contained in creeds; he will appreciate the all-important fact that free inquiry is the only air in which truth can breathe; that one man's faith cannot justly be imposed on another, and that every individual soul has the privilege and the responsibility of forming his own religion, and must either hear G.o.d with his own ears, or else not hear Him at all.

We have noticed that the moral sense awakes before the religious (I must state my repugnance to these terms, although I use them for the sake of clearness; but morality _is_ religion, although religion is more than morality, and the so-called religion which is not morality is worthless and hateful). There remains then to consider what we will call the second side of religion, although it is by far its most important side.

True religion consists not only in feelings towards G.o.d, but also in duties towards men: the first, n.o.ble and blessed as they are, should, in every healthy religion, give place to the second; for a morally good man who does not believe in G.o.d at all, is in a far higher state of being than the man who believes in G.o.d and is selfish, cruel or unjust. Error in faith is forgiveable; error in life is fatal. The good man shall surely see G.o.d, although, for a time, his eyes be holden; the evil man, though he hold the n.o.blest faith yet known, shall never taste the joy of G.o.d, until he turns from sin, and struggles after holiness. Faith first, and then morality, is the war-cry of the churches; morality above all, and let faith follow in good time, is the watch-word of Theism; so, among us, the princ.i.p.al part of the religious training of our children should be morality; religious feeling may be over-strained, or give rise to self-deception; religious talk may be morbid and unreal; religious faith may be erring, and must be imperfect; but morality is a rock which can never be shaken, a guide which can never mislead. Whether we are right or wrong in our belief about G.o.d, whether we are immortal spirits or perishable organizations, yet purity is n.o.bler than vice, courage than cowardice, truth than falsehood, love than hate. Let us, then, teach our children morality above all things. Let us teach them to love good for its own sake, without thought of reward, and they will remain good, even if, in after life, they should, alas! lose all hope of immortality and all faith hi G.o.d. A child's natural instinct is towards good; a tale of heroism, of self sacrifice, of generosity, will bring the eager blood flushing up to a child's face and wake a quick response and a desire of emulation. It is therefore well to place in children's hands tales of n.o.ble deeds in days gone by. Nothing is easier than to train a child into feeling a desire to be good for the sake of being so.

There is something so attractive in goodness, that I have found it more effectual to hold up the n.o.bility of courage and unselfishness before the child's eyes, than to descend to punishment for the corresponding faults. If a child is in the habit of regarding all wrong as something low and degrading, he quickly shrinks from it; all mothers know the instinctive ambition of children to be something superior and admirable, and this instinct is most useful in inculcating virtue. Later in life nothing ruins a young man like discovering that morality and religion are often divorced, and that the foremost professors of religion are less delicately honourable and trustworthy than high-minded "worldly men;" on the other hand, nothing will have so beneficial an effect on men and women entering life, as to see that those who are most joyful in their faith towards G.o.d, lead the purest and most blameless lives. "Do good, be good" is, as has been well said, the golden rule of life; "do good, be good" must be the law impressed on our children's hearts.

Whatever "eclipse of faith" may await England, whatever darkness of most hopeless scepticism, whatever depth of uttermost despair of G.o.d, there is not only the hope, but the certainty of the resurrection of religion, if we all hold fast through the driving storm to the sheet-anchor of pure morality, to most faithful discharge of all duty towards man to love, and tenderness, and charity, and patience. Morality never faileth; but, whether there be dogmas, they shall fail; whether there be creeds, they shall cease; whether there be churches, they shall crumble away; but morality shall abide for evermore and endure as long as the endless circle of Nature revolves around the Eternal Throne.

NATURAL RELIGION VERSUS REVEALED RELIGION.

ONE is almost ashamed to repeat so trite an aphorism as the well-worn saying that "history repeats itself." But in studying the course taken by the advocates of what is called "revealed religion," in seeing their disdain of "mere nature," their scornful repudiation of the idea that any poor natural product can come into compet.i.tion with their special article, hall-stamped by heaven itself, I feel irresistibly compelled to glance backwards down the long vista of history, and there I see the conflict of the present day raging fierce and long. I see the same serried ranks of orthodoxy marshalled by bishops and priests, arrayed in all the splendour of prescriptive right, armed with mighty weapons of authority and thunderbolts of Church anathemas. Their war-cry is the same as that which rings in our ears to-day; "revelation" is inscribed on their banners and "infallible authority" is the watchword of their camp. The Church is facing nature for the first time, and is setting her revealed science against natural science. "Mere Nature" is temporarily getting the worst of it, and Galileo, Nature's champion, is sorely pressed by "revealed truth." I hear scornful taunts at his presumption in attacking revealed science by his pretended natural facts. Had they not G.o.d's Own account of His creation, and did he pretend to know more about the matter than G.o.d Himself? Was he present when G.o.d created the world, that he spoke so positively about its shape? Could he declare, of his own personal knowledge, that it was sent hurtling through s.p.a.ce in the ridiculous manner he talked about, and could he, by the evidence of his own eye-sight, declare that G.o.d was mistaken when He revealed to man how He "laid the foundation of the earth that it never should move at anytime?" But if he was only reasoning from the wee bit of earth he knew, was he not speaking of things he had not seen, being vainly puffed-up in his fleshly mind? Was it probable, _a priori_, that G.o.d would allow mankind to be deceived for thousands of years on so important a matter; would in fact--G.o.d forgive it!--deceive man Himself by revealing through His holy prophets an account of His creation which was utterly untrue; nay, further, would carry on the delusion for century after century, by working miracles in support of it--for what but a miracle could make men unconscious of the fact that they were being hurried through s.p.a.ce at so tremendous a rate? Surely very little reverence, or rather no reverence at all, was needed to allow that G.o.d the Holy Ghost, who inspired the Bible, knew better than we did how He made the world. But, the theologian proceeds, he must remind his audience that, under the specious pretext of investigating the creation, this man, this pseudo-scientist, was in reality blaspheming the Creator, by contradicting His revealed word, and thus "making Him a liar." It was all very well to talk about _natural_ science; but he would ask this presuming speculator, what was the use of G.o.d revealing science to us if man's natural faculties were sufficient to discover it for himself? They had sufficient proofs of the absurdities of science into which reason, unenlightened by revelation, had betrayed men in past ages. The idea of the Hindoo, that the world rested on an elephant and the elephant on a tortoise, was a sad proof of the incapacity of the acutest natural intellect to discover scientific truth without the aid of revelation.

Reason had its place, and a very n.o.ble placer in science; but it must always bow before revelation, and not presume to set its puny guesses against a "thus sayeth the Lord." Let reason, then, pursue its way with belief not unbelief, for its guide. What could reason, with all its vaunted powers, tell us of the long-past creation of the world? Eye hath not seen those things of ages past, but G.o.d hath revealed them to us by His Spirit. A darkness that might be felt would enshroud the origin of the world were it not for the magnificent revelation of Moses, that "in six days G.o.d created the heaven and the earth." He might urge how our conceptions of G.o.d were enlarged and elevated, and what a deep awe filled the adoring heart on contemplating the revealed truth, that this wonderful earth with its varied beauty, and the heavens above with their countless stars, were all called forth out of nothing within the s.p.a.ce of one short week by the creative fiat of the Almighty. What could this pseudo-science give them in exchange for such a revelation as that? Was it probable, further, that G.o.d would have become incarnate for the sake of a world that was only one out of many revolving round the sun? How irreverent to regard the theatre of that awful sacrifice as aught less than the centre of the universe, the cynosure of angelic eyes, gazing from their thrones in the heaven above! Galileo might say that his heresy does not affect the primary truths of our holy faith; but this is only one of the evasions natural to evildoers--and it is unnecessary to remark that intellectual error is invariably the offspring of moral guilt--for consider how much is involved in his theory. The inspiration of Scripture receives its death-blow; for if fallible in one point, we have no reason to conclude it to be infallible in others. If there is one fact revealed to us more clearly than another in Holy Scripture, it is this one of the steadfastness of our world, which we are distinctly told, "cannot be moved." It is plainly revealed to us that the earth was created and fixed firmly on its foundations; that then there was formed over it the vast vault of heaven, in which were set the stars, and in this vault was prepared "the course" for the sun, spoken of, as you will remember, in the 19th Psalm, where holy David reveals to us that in the heavens G.o.d has made a tabernacle for the sun, which "goeth forth from the uttermost part of the heaven, and runneth about unto the end of it again." Language has no definiteness of meaning if this inspired declaration can be translated into a statement that the sun remains stationary and is encircled by a revolving earth. This great revealed truth cannot be contradicted by any true science. G.o.d's works cannot contradict His word; and if for a moment they appear mutually irreconcileable, we may be sure that our ignorance is to blame, and that a deeper knowledge will ultimately remove the apparent inconsistency.

But it is yet more important to observe that some of the cardinal doctrines of the Church are a.s.sailed by this novel teaching. How could our blessed Redeemer, after accomplishing the work of our salvation, ascend from a revolving earth? Whither did He go? North, south, east, or west? For, if I understand aright this new heresy, the s.p.a.ce above us at one time is below us at another, and thus Jesus might be actually descending at His glorious Ascension. Where, too, is that Right Hand of G.o.d to which He went, in this new universe without top or bottom? How can we hope to rise and meet Him in the air at His return, according to the most sure promise given to us through the blessed Paul, if He comes we know not from what direction? How can the lightning of His coming shine at once all round a globe to herald His approach, or how can the people at the other side of the world see the sign of the Son of Man in the heavens? But I cannot bring myself to acc.u.mulate these blasphemies; all must see that the most glorious truths of the Bible are bound up with its science, and must stand or fall together. And if this is so, and this so-called natural science is to be allowed to undermine the revealed science, what have we got to rely upon in this world or in the next? With the absolute truth of the Bible stands or falls our faith in G.o.d and our hope of immortality; on the truth of revelation hinges all morality, and they who deny to-day the truth of revealed science will tamper tomorrow with the truth of revealed history, of revealed morality, of revealed religion. Shall we, then, condescend to accept natural science instead of revealed; shall we, the teachers of revelation, condescend to abandon revealed science, and become the mere teachers of nature?

Thunders of applause greeted the right reverend theologian as he concluded--he happened to be a bishop, the direct ancestor in regular apostolical succession of a late prelate who inherited among other valuable qualities the very argument which closed the speech above quoted--and Galileo, the foolish believer in facts and the heretical student of mere nature, turned away with a sigh from trying to convince them, and contented himself with the fact he knew, and which must surely announce itself in the long run. _E pur si muove!_ Fear not, n.o.ble martyr of science: facts alter not to suit theologies: many a one may fall crushed and vanquished before the Juggernaut-car of the Church, but "G.o.d does not die with His children, nor truth with its martyrs;" the natural is the divine, for Nature is only "G.o.d in a mask." So, looking down at that first great battle-field between nature and revelation I see the serried ranks break up and fly, and the excommunicated student become the prophet of the future, Galileo the seer, the revealer of the truth of G.o.d.

It is eternally true that nature must triumph in the long run.

Theories are very imposing, doubtless, but when they are erected on a misconception the inexorable fact is sure to a.s.sert itself sooner or later, and with pitiless serenity level the magnificent fabric with the dust. It is this which gives to scientific men so grave and calm an att.i.tude; theologians wrangle fiercely and bitterly because they wrangle about _opinions_, and one man's say is as good as another's where both deal in intangibles; but the man of science, when absolutely sure of his ground, _can afford to wait_, because the fact he has discovered remains unshaken, however it be a.s.sailed, and it will, in time, a.s.sert itself.

When nature and revelation then come into contact, revelation must go to the wall; no outcry can save it; it is doomed; as well try and dam the rising Thames with a feather, as seek to bolster up a theology whose main dogmas are being slowly undermined by natural science. Of course no one nowadays (at least among educated people, for Zadkiel's Almanac I believe still protests on Biblical grounds against the heresy of the motion of the earth) dreams of maintaining Bible, _i e_., revealed, science against natural science; it is agreed on all hands that on points where science speaks with certainty the words of the _Bible must be explained so as to accord with the dictum of nature_; _i e._, it is allowed--though the admission is wrapped up in thick folds of circ.u.mlocution--that science must mould revelation, and not revelation science. The desperate attempts to force the first chapter of Genesis into some faint resemblance to the ascertained results of geological investigations are a powerful testimony to the conscious weakness of revealed science and to the feeling on the part of all intelligent theologians that the testimony graven with an iron pen on the rocks cannot be contradicted or refuted. In fact so successfully has science a.s.serted its own preeminence in its own domain that many defenders of the Bible a.s.sert loudly, to cover their strategic movement to the rear, that revelation was not intended to teach science, and that scientific mistakes were only to be expected in a book given to mankind by the great Origin of all scientific law. They are freely welcome to find out any reasons they like for the errors in revealed science; all that concerns us is that their revelation should get out of the way of advancing science, and should no longer interpose its puny anathemas to silence inquiry into facts, or to fetter free research and free discussion.

But I challenge revelation further than this, and a.s.sert that when the dictates of natural_ religion_ are in opposition to those of revealed _religion_ then the natural must again triumph over the revealed.

Christianity has so long successfully impressed on human hearts the revelation that natural impulses are in themselves sinful, that in "the flesh dwelleth no good thing," that man is a fallen creature, thoroughly corrupt and instinctively evil, that it has come to-pa.s.s that even those who would be liberal if they dared, shrink back when it comes to casting away their revelation-crutches, and ask wildly _what_ they can trust to if they give up the Bible. Their teachers tell them that if they let this go they will wander compa.s.sless on the waves of a pathless ocean; and so determinedly do they fix their eyes on the foaming waters, striving to discern there the trace of a pathway and only seeing the broken reflections of the waving torches in their hands, that they do not raise their heads and gaze upwards at the everlasting stars, the silent natural guides of the bewildered mariner. "Trust to mere nature!"

exclaim the priesthood, and their flocks fall back aghast, clutching their revelation to their bosom and crying out: "What indeed is there to rely on if this be taken from us?" Only G.o.d. "Mere" G.o.d indeed, who is a very feeble support after the bolstering up of creeds and dogmas, of Churches and Bibles. As the sunshine dazzles eyes accustomed to the darkness, as the fresh wind makes shiver an invalid from a heated room, so does the light of G.o.d dazzle those who live amid the candles of the Churches, and the breath of His inspiration blows cold on feeble souls.

But the light and the air invigorate and strengthen, and nature is a surer medicine than the nostrums of the quack physician.

"Mere" G.o.d is, in very truth, all that we Theists have to offer the world in exchange for the certainties of its Bibles, Korans, Vedas, and all other revelations whatsoever. On points where they each speak with certainty, our lips are dumb. About much they a.s.sert, we confess our ignorance. Where they know, we only think or hope. Where they possess all the clearness of a sign-post, our eyes can only study the mistiness of a valley before the rising sun has dispelled the wreathing clouds.

They proclaim immortality, and are quite _au fait_ as to the particulars of our future life. They differ in details, it is true, as to whether we live in a jewelled city, where the dust is gold-dust and the gates pearls, and spend our time in attending Sacred Harmonic Societies with an archangelic Costa directing perpetual oratorios, or whether we lie in rose-embowered arbours with delights unlimited, albeit unintellectual; but if we take them one at a time they are most satisfactory in the absolute information afforded by each. But we, we can only, whisper--and the lips of some of us quiver too much to speak--"I believe in the life everlasting." We do not pretend to _know_ anything about it; the belief is intuitive, but is not demonstrable; it is a hope and a trust, not an absolute knowledge. We entertain a reasonable hope of immortality; we argue its likelihood from considerations of the justice and the love which, as we believe, rule the universe; we, many of us--as I freely confess I do myself--believe in it with a firmness of conviction absolutely immovable; but challenged to _prove_ it, we cannot answer.

"Here," the revelationists triumphantly exclaim, "is our advantage; we foretell with absolute certainty a future life, and can give you all particulars about it." Then follows a confused jumble of harps and houris, of pasture-field and hunting-grounds; we seek for certainty and find none. All that they agree in, _i e_., a future life, we find imprinted on our own hearts, a dictate of natural religion; all they differ in is contained in their several revelations, and as they all contradict each other about the revealed details, we gain nothing from them. Nature whispers to us that there is a life to come; revelation babbles a number of contradictory particulars, marring the majesty of the simple promise, and adding nothing reliable to the sum of human knowledge. And the subject of immortality is a fair specimen of what is taught respectively by nature and by revelation; what is common to all creeds is natural, what is different in each is revealed. It is so with respect to G.o.d. The idea of G.o.d belongs to all creeds alike; it is the foundation-stone of natural religion; confusion begins when revelation steps in to change the musical whisper of Nature into a categorical description worthy of "Mangnall's Questions." Triune, solitary, dual, numberless, whatever He is revealed to be in the world's varied sacred books, His nature is understood, catalogued, dogmatised on; each revelation claims to be His own account of Himself; but each contradicts its fellows; on one point only they all agree, and that is the point confessed by natural religion--"G.o.d is."

From these facts I deduce two conclusions: first, that revelation does not come to us with such a certainty of its truth as to enable us to trust it fearlessly and without reserve; second, that revelation is quite superfluous, since natural religion gives us every thing we need.

I. Revelation gives an uncertain sound. There are certain books in the world which claim to stand on a higher ground than all others. They claim to be special revelations of the will of G.o.d and the destiny of man. Now surely one of the first requisites of a Divine revelation is that it should be undoubtedly of Divine origin. But about all these books, except the Koran of Mahomet, hangs much obscurity both as regards their origin and their authorship. "Believers" urge that were the proofs undoubted there would be no room for faith and no merit in believing.

They conceive it, then, to be a worthy employment for the Supreme Intelligence to set traps for His creatures; and, there being certain facts of the greatest importance, undis-coverable by their natural faculties, He proceeds to reveal these facts, but envelopes them in such wrappings of mystery, such garments of absurdity, that those of His creatures whom he has dowered with intellects and gifted with subtle brains, are forced to reject the whole as incredible and unreasonable.

That G.o.d should give a revelation, but should not substantiate it, that He should speak, but in tones unintelligible, that His n.o.blest gifts of reason should prove an insuperable bar to accepting his manifestation, are surely statements incredible, are surely statements utterly irreconcileable with all reverent ideas of the love and wisdom of Almighty G.o.d. Further, the believers in the various revelations all claim for their several oracles the supreme position of the exponent of the Will of G.o.d, and each rejects the sacred books of other nations as spurious productions, without any Divine authority. As these revelations are mutually destructive, it is evident that only one of them, at the most can be Divine, and the next point of the inquiry is to distinguish which this is. We, of the Western nations, at once put aside the Hindoo Vedas, or the Zendavesta, on certain solid grounds; we reject their claims to be inspired books because they contain error; their mistaken science, their legendary history, their miraculous stories, stamp them, in our impartial eyes, as the work of fallible men; the nineteenth century looks down on thee ancient writings as the instructed and cultured man smiles at the crude fancies and imaginative conceits of the child. But when the generality of Christians turn to the Bible they lay aside all ordinary criticism and all common-sense. Its science may be absurd; but excuses are found for it. Its history may be false, but it is twisted into truth. Its supernatural marvels may be flagrantly absurd; but they are nevertheless believed in. Men who laugh at the visions of the "blessed Margaret" of Paray-le-Monial a.s.sent to the devil-drowning of the swine of Gadara; and those who would scorn to investigate the tale of the miraculous spring at Lourdes, find no difficulty in believing the story of the angel-moved waters of Bethesda's pool. A book which contains miracles is usually put aside as unreliable. There is no good reason for excepting the Bible from this general rule. Miracles are absolutely incredible, and discredit at once any book in which they occur. They are found in all revelations, but never in nature, they are plentiful in man's writings, but they never deface the orderly pages of the great book of G.o.d, written by His own Hand on the earth, and the stars, and the sun. Powers? Yes, beyond our grasping, but Powers moving in stately order and changeless consistency.