Satires And Profanities Part 5

pa.s.sionately laments them; and Mrs. Browning more pa.s.sionately answers him, crying, "G.o.d himself is the best Poet, and the Real is his song and the Real we accept perforce in its fulness, but discern not how it can derive from an unreal G.o.d. Novalis in his "Hymns to the Night" laments with Schiller the unsouling of Nature, "bound in iron chains by arid number and rigorous rule;" but goes on to celebrate the resurrection of Humanity in Christ. Heine in his. "G.o.ds of Greece," after declaring in his wild way that he has never loved the old deities, that to him the Greek are repugnant, and the Romans thoroughly hateful, yet avows that when he considers how dastardly and windy are the G.o.ds who overcame them, the new reigning sorrowful G.o.ds, malignant in their sheep's, clothing of humility, he feels ready to fight for the former against these. This change of the celestial dynasty is indeed a favorite theme with him. Elsewhere he pictures the Olympians holding high revelry, with nectar and ambrosia, with Apollonian music and inextinguishable laughter, when suddenly a wretched Jew staggers in, his brow bleeding from a crown of thorns, trailing on his shoulder a heavy cross, which he heaves upon the banquet table; and forthwith the revel is no more, the divine feast disappears, the everburning lights are quenched, the triumphant G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses vanish terror-smitten, dethroned for ever and ever. And again, in his incomparable "G.o.ds in Exile," he tells us what became of these dispersed Olympians during the Dark Ages, in the thick night of the noontide of Christianity; how they were transformed from celestial to infernal by the monstrous superst.i.tion of that baleful era; as we find the hoofs and horns of Pan transferred to the Devil himself; as we find Venus in that legend of Tannhauser which has fascinated so many poets, as well as great Wagner,-

Venus, ma belle deesse, Vous etes diablesse!

More than eighteen hundred years have pa.s.sed since the death of the great G.o.d Pan was proclaimed; and now it is full time to proclaim the death of the great G.o.d Christ. Eighteen hundred years make a fairly long period even for a celestial dynasty; but this one in its perishing must differ from all that have perished before it, seeing that no other can succeed it; the throne shall remain void for ever, the royalty of the Heavens be abolished. Fate, in the form of Science, has decreed the extinction of the G.o.ds. Mary and her babe must join Venus and Love, Isis and Horus; living with them only in the world of art. Jesus on his cross must dwindle to a point, even in the realms of legend under Prometheus on Caucasus. For ages already the Father has been as spectral as Jupiter; for ages already the Holy Ghost has been but the shadow of a shade. And the last, not least, member of the Divine Royal Family, Satan the Prince of Darkness, Prince of this World, and Prince of the Powers of the Air, is no more alive than Pluto, who also was born brother to the Monarch of Heaven. The Hebrew dynasty of the G.o.ds is no more; it has done much evil in its long sovranty, which we will try to forget now it ceases to reign; it has done some little good, whose remembrance we will cherish when it is sepulchred, Christ the Great is dead, but Pan the Great lives again, as Mr. Maccall told us in some lines published in this paper several years ago. Pan lives, not as a G.o.d, but as the All, Nature, now that the oppression of the Supernatural is removed. I may be told that Christianity is yet alive and flourishing, that its priesthood and its churches hold possession of Europe and America and Australia. So the priesthood and the shrines of the Olympians kept possession of the Roman Empire centuries after the crucifixion of Jesus. When the spirit of a faith has departed, that faith is dead, and its burial is only a question of time. When the n.o.blest hearts worship not at its altars, when the most vigorous intellects abandon its creeds, the knell of its doom has rung. At the risk of being thought bigoted or prejudiced, I must avow that to my mind the decomposition of Christianity is so offensively manifest and advanced, that, with the exception of a very few persons whose transcendent genius could throw a glamor of glory over any creed however crude and mean, and whom I recognise as far above my judgment, I can no longer give my esteem to any educated man who has investigated and still professes this, religion, without grave deduction at the expense of his heart, his intellect, or his conscience, if not of all three. Miraculous voices are not heard in these days; but everywhere myriads of natural voices are continually announcing to us, and enjoining us to announce to others, Great Christ is dead!

RESURRECTION AND ASCENSION OF JESUS

(1876.)

In reviewing Mr. R. H. Hutton's Essay on "Christian Evidences, Popular and Critical," I was obliged to follow his lead, joining issue on such pleas as he put forward. Thus with regard to the resurrection of Jesus, as Mr. Hutton adduced what he thought confirmatory evidence only from the New Testament itself, I confined myself to showing or attempting to show that such evidence is unsubstantial. But I could not consider this argument adequate or conclusive, for there are large general considerations of incomparably greater importance which it leaves out altogether. It is as if a case ruled by broad principles of equity were to be decided on the narrowest technical grounds. Therefore, while confident that even on these grounds the case must go against the Christian believer, I wish to add a few words on its wider relations, in order that the decision may be established, not merely by the letter of the law, but also by the spirit of justice.

We leave thus the torturing of texts in the dim cells of the theological Inquisition, a process by which almost any confession required can be and has been wrung from the unfortunate victims, and emerge into the open daylight of common-sense and reason. And here I venture to a.s.sert that if the story of the resurrection and ascension were recorded of any other than Jesus in any other sacred book than the Bible, Mr. Hutton and all other intelligent Christians would not only disbelieve it, but would not even condescend to investigate it, condemning it offhand as too preposterous to be worthy of serious attention. Thus, what Christian has ever deigned to examine critically the marvels affirmed in the Koran, such as Mohammed's visit to heaven; although the Koran can be traced far more surely to the Prophet of Islam than can the Gospels to their reputed authors, and this Prophet bears a far higher character for truthfulness than do the early Christians? Nay, what Bibliolater has ever seriously weighed the evidence for the miracles of his fellow Christian the great St. Bernard; such as those which are minutely related and solemnly attested by ten eye-witnesses, men well known and of unimpeached veracity, and which are thus infinitely better attested than any miracle in the Bible from Genesis to Revelation?

Your enlightened Protestant simply shrugs his shoulders at all such stories, and says with a superior smile: "Of course, mere imposture and collusion, or superst.i.tion and delusion; no sensible man can afford to waste his time in weighing that sort of stuff; we don't think twice before determining whether the impossible ever really occurred." How, then, can this enlightened Protestant receive without question the miracles of the Jewish books while rejecting without question all others? We have seen that it cannot be because of any superiority of evidence for the former, since the evidence for the latter is in many cases infinitely greater and better authenticated, and since he does not attempt to weigh evidence before either accepting or rejecting, though he may seek evidence and argument to confirm what he has already given himself to believe. He accepts the Jewish miracles simply because they have come down to him, through many generations of his forefathers, invested with a glamor of sanct.i.ty, and he regards them with the eye of faith which sees, and sees not, just what it wishes; he rejects miracles not in the Bible because they come to him without any hallowed a.s.sociations, and he regards them with the eye of reason which beholds the plain facts before it, and neither wishes nor is able to avoid beholding them.

It is worth noting that while our Christian advocates insist with all their might, such as it is, upon the resurrection of Jesus, they willingly pa.s.s over as lightly as possible, if they do not altogether ignore, a similar miracle guaranteed by the very same authority. In Matt, xxvii., 52, 53, it stands recorded among the marvels following the death of Jesus: "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of their graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many." The reader of Shakespeare will remember the prodigies anterior to the death of Julius Caesar when-

"The sheeted dead Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."

This prodigal multiplicity and superfluity of resurrections seems to have been not a little embarra.s.sing to modern Christian champions, though doubtless it did not in the least trouble the primitive non-scientific believers, to whom nothing was more natural than the unnatural, including the supernatural and the infranatural. An apologist of our days who _must_ affirm the one resurrection, seeing that his whole religion is based upon it, and who, though valiantly defying science, seeks to conciliate historical possibility, finds his task quite heavy enough in accounting for the facts that the risen Jesus "was seen of above five hundred brethren at once," and yet that no record of his rising can be found beyond the limits of the New Testament. But the difficulties of the poor apologist are enormously increased if he must further contend that many bodies of the saints came out of their graves, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many, and still there is no external evidence. We are surely at the utmost limits of the possible in conceiving that Jesus could appear unto five hundred of the brethren at once (there is no hint elsewhere that he had so many permanent followers in his lifetime; in Acts i., 15, we find that there were about one hundred and twenty gathered after the ascension), without the priests and the Roman officials hearing of the apparition and investigating it. But if many others rose from their graves and appeared to many, it is absolutely impossible that anyone in Jerusalem could be ignorant of the miracle; equally impossible that Pilate and his officers did not investigate it, and equally impossible that finding it real he did not report it with the evidence to Rome, for the Empire was a thoroughly organised State, and the Romans were a thoroughly practical and business-like people. Once in the imperial archives, the record of the miracle would have spread everywhere; all subsequent historians would have related it, all subsequent writers referred to it. So it is no wonder that, recoiling from these manifold impossibilities, the Christian advocates prefer to dwell on the one resurrection as if it were unique, and avoid dwelling on the others that by the very same testimony immediately followed it. It is very significant that neither in the Acts nor in the Epistles is there any allusion to these resurrections. When Peter and the others were preaching the resurrection of Christ, why did they not adduce and produce some of these many, risen saints, whose visible, tangible, living and speaking evidence would have been irresistible?

Just as the resurrection of Jesus could be accepted without misgiving by the non-scientific early Christians, to whom miracles appeared among the most frequent occurrences of life, so could the ascension. Their earth was a plane, vaulted by the sky, lamped by the little sun and moon and stars; above this vault was Heaven, where their G.o.d dwelt enthroned; they knew nothing of the law of gravitation; their Christ, standing in the flesh on the Mount of Olives, floated up through this vault to sit enthroned beside his Father in the most natural supernatural manner. We can conceive and sympathise with this simple faith; but it is hard to conceive and sympathise with the blind faith, which seems wilfully blind, of the modem educated Christians. It has been often remarked that Copernicus and Kepler and Newton have destroyed all the old mythologies, including of course the mythology of both the Old and New Testaments.

With the earth no longer the universe of mortal life, between a Heaven above its domed firmament and a Hades like a vast dungeon beneath, but a quite infinitesimal grain of sand involved by an infinitesimal drop of dew, floating and revolving in an ocean of s.p.a.ce boundless in heighth and depth and breadth, amidst innumerable other spherules, most of which visible are very much greater than itself, and at inconceivable distances from it; with man no longer the lord of the creation, for whose service all things were made, but an animalcule inexpressibly small, living for a moment inexpressibly brief, with limitless time before his beginning and limitless time beyond his end; the Christian mythology and system, among others, because ineffably absurd. Where is the Heaven for its G.o.d? where the h.e.l.l for its Devil? Where is above?

Where beneath? Whence came the winged angels, with their wrings which would not enable them to fly?

If Jesus had ascended and continued to ascend with the speed of light, he might be ascending now and go 011 ascending for millions and millions of years, and still not reach a heavenly region beyond the range of our telescopes I And think of the scheme of the Atonement in the system of the universe, as we are learning to know it now-try to conceive an infinite and eternal G.o.d of this infinite and eternal Whole sacrificing his only son for the salvation of us most insignificant insects on our most insignificant earth! The immense conceptions of science dwarf these petty conceptions of mythology to a littleness which reduces them beneath consideration, which in our days reduces them even beneath contempt.

Naturally the churches have always hated and resisted science, and the theologians have seldom dared to face its conclusions. They ignore the immensities, and confine their vision to the pages of a single book, to a history whose chronology counts not six thousand years. But, as I have remarked, even this minute field they cannot hold against the sceptic, who has made them abandon all the rest of the universe. Why did their risen Lord only slink about among his own disciples, appearing to these but at flying instants: why did he not, with his well-known features and with the wounds of the nails and the spear in his body, confront the chief priests and Pilate and the whole of Jerusalem, and compel them to acknowledge and bear enduring witness to his resurrection? Why did he not summon all the people from the highest to the lowest to the solemn spectacle of his ascension, securing mult.i.tudinous and permanently recorded evidence such as none of us could doubt? We might go on asking Why? and Why? and Why? in this fashion on a hundred points, confident that to not one of our questions could the Christian apologist give a straightforward and satisfactory answer. As the scheme of the Atonement is presented to us, G.o.d sacrificed his only son that all mankind might be saved through belief in him; yet not merely neglected to secure trustworthy evidence and certain record of this supreme fact and the miracles attesting it, but adopted every means possible to make the evidence untrustworthy, the record uncertain, the miracles and the sacrifice incredible.

SOME MUSLIM LAWS AND BELIEFS

(1876.)

The following notes are drawn from E. W. Lane's charming and instructive "Manners and Customs of the Modem Egyptians" (fifth and standard ed., 1860), a worthy companion to Sir Gardner Wilkinson's book on the Ancient Egyptians, and written about forty years since, before steam-communication had materially changed that people. The muedoins, whose summons to prayer is one of the few audible charms of the East to a western, are generally chosen from the blind, in order that the harems and terraces of houses may not be overlooked from the minarets. _Our_ callers to prayer are generally blind also; but this is because few clearsighted men will in these days accept the office. The imams or priests and other religious officials are all paid from the funds of their respective mosques, and not by any contributions exacted from the people: a lesson to us with our State Church. The imams have no authority above other persons, and enjoy no respect save for reputed learning and piety; they are not a distinct order of men set apart for the ministry, but may resign or be displaced, losing with the office the t.i.tle of imam; they chiefly obtain their living by other means than service in the mosque (for which their salaries are as a rule only about a shilling a month), many of them being tradesmen: here surely are several good lessons for us. The mosques are open all day, and the great mosque El-Azhar all night; the Muslims have great reverence for them, yet in many of the larger ones persons lounge, chat, eat, sleep, spit, sew, etc.: another lesson to us with our churches nearly always closed and useless. The Muslim does not abstain from business on the Friday, his Sabbath, except during the time of prayer, and for this he has the authority of the Kur-an: when will our bigoted Sabbatarians learn so much liberal wisdom from him? The Prophet did not forbid women to attend public prayers in the mosques, but p.r.o.nounced it better for them to pray in private; in Cairo they are not admitted to the public prayers, it being thought that their presence would inspire a wrong sort of devotion. The result is that few women in Egypt pray at all. If ours were in like case, how many churches and chapels would attract large congregations? The Egyptians, like the modern Arabs, are not a truthful people, but there are some oaths which few would falsely take; such as swearing three times by "G.o.d the Great," or on a copy of the Kur-an "By what this contains of the word of G.o.d!"-I wonder whether the Christian Englishmen are few who falsely swear by G.o.d and on the Bible. Mr. Lane witnessed many instances of forbearance in persons of the middle and lower cla.s.ses when grossly insulted; and often heard an Egyptian say on receiving a blow from an equal, "G.o.d bless thee," "G.o.d requite thee good," "Beat me again": how many of the Christians obey in like manner one of the plainest precepts of Christ? In general a quarrel terminates by one or both of them saying "Justice is against me"; often after this they recite together the first chapter of the Kur-an; and then, sometimes, embrace and kiss one another. If a similar custom prevailed here there would be little serious quarrelling; for the men would all avoid disputes save with pretty girls and charming women, and would always make it up very quickly with them. The Muslim believes that there have been six great Prophets and Apostles-Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed; each of whom received a revealed law or system of religion and morality, each of the first five abrogated and superseded by the next, though all were the same in essentials. Thus the Jews from the time of Moses to that of Christ, and the Christians (if they did not accept the corrupt and idolatrous doctrine of the divinity of Jesus) from the time of Christianity to that of Mohammed, were true believers.

Of course the last is the greatest Prophet, and since his revelation the Muslims only have been the faithful. The Pentateuch, Psalms and Gospels, though of divine origin, have been so much altered as to contain very little of the true Word of G.o.d; but the Kur-an is supposed to have suffered no essential change whatever. Jesus was born of a pure virgin by the miraculous operation of G.o.d, without any father human or divine.

When he had fulfilled the object of his mission, he was taken up to G.o.d from the Jews who sought to slay him, and another man, on whom G.o.d had stamped the likeness of Jesus, was crucified in his stead. He will come again upon earth, to establish the Muslim religion and perfect peace and security, after having killed Anti-Christ, and to be a sign of the approach of the last day. In all these doctrines the Muslims are decidedly more consistent and liberal, as well as somewhat less superst.i.tious than the Christians, with their G.o.d-man and trinity in unity, their d.a.m.nation of Mohammed as a mere impostor and of his religion, El Islam, as a vile fabrication of stolen materials. "The Egyptians pay a superst.i.tious reverence not to imaginary beings alone: they extend it to certain individuals of their own species; and often to those who are justly the least ent.i.tled to such respect. An _idiot_ or a _fool_ is vulgarly regarded by them as a being whose mind is in heaven, while his grosser part mingles among ordinary mortals; consequently, he is considered an especial favorite of heaven. Whatever enormities a reputed saint may commit (and there are many who are constantly infringing precepts of their religion) such acts do not affect his fame for sanct.i.ty: for they are considered as the results of the abstraction of his mind from worldly things; his soul, or reasoning faculties, being wholly absorbed in devotion, so that his pa.s.sions are left without control. Lunatics who are dangerous to society are kept in confinement; but those who are harmless are generally regarded as saints. _Most of the reputed saints of Egypt are either lunatics, or idiots, or impostors._" wonder whether this applies at all, and if it does, to what extent, to the countless saints of our Most Holy Catholic Church of Christendom. In Egypt, as in other countries of the East, Muslims, Christians, and Jews adopt each other's superst.i.tions, while they abhor the leading doctrines of each other's faith. "In sickness, the Muslim sometimes employs Christian and Jewish priests to pray for him: the Christians and Jews, in the same predicament, often call in Muslim saints for the like purpose!" So much human nature is there in man, not to speak of woman. The Muslims profoundly reverence the Kur-an, yet will quote it on the most trivial occasions in jest as well as on the most important in earnest. They are generally fond of conversing on religion among themselves; and the most prevalent mode of entertaining a party of guests among the higher middle cla.s.ses, in Cairo, is the recital of the whole of the Kur-an, which is chanted by special persons hired for the purpose, or other religious exercises. This chanting of the Kur-an takes up about nine hours. When will our fashionable Bibliolaters issue invitations for the treat of hearing poor curates or scripture readers intone the whole of the Bible, or even so much of it at a time as might be got through in nine hours? When, oh when?

Ladies will learn with approval that it is thought improper, and even disreputable, for a man to be single. Mr. Lane was a bachelor during his first two visits to Egypt; and in the former of these, having to change his residence, engaged another house. The lease was duly signed and some money paid in advance, but the inhabitants of the neighborhood (who were mostly descendants of the Prophet) would not have an unmarried man in their midst. The agent said they would gladly admit him if he would but purchase a female slave, thus redeeming himself from the opprobrium of not possessing a wife of some sort. He managed to secure a house in a less scrupulous quarter, but had to engage that no creature wearing a hat should visit him. The Sheykh or chief of this quarter often urged him to marry; Lane objected that he intended to live in Egypt only a year or two longer. The Sheykh answered, with great moral force and earnestness, that a handsome young widow a few doors off would be glad to marry him, on the express understanding that he should divorce her on going away; while of course he could do so earlier if she did not suit him. Now this young widow, in spite of her religion and veil, had several times contrived (the Sage saith that there is nothing a woman cannot contrive, except to refrain from contriving) to let our Oriental Englishman catch a glimpse of her very pretty face; and the miserable bachelor was reduced to plead that she was the very last woman he would like to marry _pro tempore_, for he felt sure that once wed he could never make up his mind to part with her. Doubtless all our single men, and especially our Christian young men, would much rather be deemed disreputable and denied decent lodgings than establish their character for virtue and respectability by buying female slaves, however cheap, or marrying nice young widows divorcible at pleasure!

As to polygamy, Mr. Lane remarks that it can only be defended as preventing a greater immorality than it occasions; and that Mohammed, like Moses, did not introduce but limited and regulated it. The ancient Egyptians had but one wife each, though they might have slave concubines. Polygamy, however, is rare, and rarer among the upper and middle cla.s.ses than the lower; "I believe that not more than one husband in twenty has two wives." The mere sentence, "I give myself up to thee,"

uttered by a female to a man who proposes to become her husband (even without the presence of witnesses, if none can easily be procured) renders her his legal wife if arrived at p.u.b.erty. A man may divorce his wife twice, and each time take her back without any ceremony, unless she has paid for it by resigning the reserved third of the dowry, furniture, etc.; but if he divorces her the third time, or puts her away by a triple divorce conveyed in one sentence, he cannot receive her again until she has been, married and divorced by another husband, who must have consummated his marriage with her. To divorce her, he simply has to say, "Thou art divorced," or "I divorce thee"; but the woman cannot separate herself from her husband against his will, unless it be for some considerable fault on his side, such as cruel treatment or neglect.

The facility of divorce has depraving effects, upon both s.e.xes. Many men in the course of ten years have married twenty, thirty, or more wives; and women not far advanced in age have been wives to a dozen or more successively. "I have heard of men who have been in the habit of marrying a new wife almost every month." But such conduct is generally regarded as very disgraceful; and few persons in the upper or middle cla.s.ses would give a daughter in marriage to a person who had divorced many wives.

The women deem it more inc.u.mbent to cover the upper and back part of the head than the face; and more requisite to conceal the face than most parts of the person. Many among the lower cla.s.ses never conceal their faces; women may often be seen with nothing but a narrow strip of rag round the hips. The face-veils have the advantage of leaving the eyes visible, which are generally the most beautiful of the features; fine figures being more common than altogether handsome faces; though some faces are of a beauty distinguished by such sweetness of expression that they seem the perfection of female loveliness, "and impressed me at the time with the idea that their equal could not be found in any other country." The women of Cairo are less strictly guarded than in most Eastern lands; wives are proud of the restraint as showing that the husbands value them highly, looking upon themselves as hidden treasures.

To such an absurd extent do Muslims carry their feeling of the sacredness of women that entrance into the tombs of some women is forbidden to men; and a man and woman are never buried in the same vault, without a wall between them-as if their very corpses might get up to mischief. For adultery on the part of the woman the Kur-an prescribes death by stoning, but drowning is generally subst.i.tuted. Unless detected by an officer of justice _four eye-witnesses are required_; failing these, the accuser is to be scourged with eighty stripes. This extraordinary law is traced to an accusation of adultery against the Prophet's favorite wife "Asheh," who was thus absolved from punishment, and subsequent revelations established her innocence. If we had a similar law here we might close our Divorce Court. If a husband without any witnesses accuses his wife of adultery, he must swear four times by G.o.d that he speaks the truth, and the fifth time imprecate G.o.d's curse on himself if he is a liar; but the wife can counterbalance this by swearing four times by G.o.d that he is a liar, and the fifth time imprecating G.o.d's wrath on herself if he speaks the truth. The commentators and lawyers have agreed that in this dilemma the marriage must be dissolved. When a peasant woman is found to have been unfaithful to her husband, in general he or her brother throws her into the Nile, with a stone tied to her neck; or cuts her to pieces and then throws these into the river. In most instances a father or brother punishes in the same manner an unmarried daughter or sister who has been guilty of incontinence. These relatives are considered more disgraced than the husband by the crime of the woman; and are often despised if they do not thus punish her. Women in easy circ.u.mstances are put to bed for from three to six days after childbirth; but poor women in the same case seldom take to bed at all, and after a day or two resume their ordinary occupations, if these do not require great exertion.

The law of inheritance is remarkable in two respects; primogeniture is not privileged, and in most cases the share of a female is half that of a male in the same degree of relationship. A debtor is only kept imprisoned for debt if he cannot prove himself insolvent; but if able, he may be made work out what he owes. Apostacy from the faith is death if not recanted on three warnings. Blasphemy against G.o.d or any of the Great Prophets, whether repented or not, is instant death: on the ground that apostacy or infidelity is but ignorance and misjudgment, while blasphemy shows utter depravity. If Christians blaspheming Mohammed were punished as are Muslims blaspheming Christians, what a number of our enlightened clerical teachers would have died the death of malefactors!

The Copts, or descendants of the ancient Egyptians, said to number about 150,000, are Christians, but scarcely a credit to that religion whose votaries boast of its civilising and elevating character. The fact is that in advanced countries the Christianity has been civilised by the Secularism, not the Secularism by the Christianity; in countries where the sciences and arts are stationary or retrograde, Christianity proves that it has in itself no motive-power, and is generally even more degraded than the other superst.i.tions around it. Mr. Lane almost despaired of learning anything about these Copts, until he had the good fortune to become acquainted with a character of which he had doubted the existence-a Copt of a liberal as well as an intelligent mind. They hate the Greeks and all other Christians not of their own sect much worse than they hate the Muslims themselves. The priests are supported only by alms or by their own industry. Their language is a dead one.

They pray seven times a day, in the course of these reciting the whole Book of Psalms, as well as chapters of the Bible, prayers, etc.: a fine example to their lax co-religionists here. They have long and arduous fasts. In spite or because of all this, they bear a very bad character as sullen, avaricious, abominable dissemblers, cringing or domineering according to circ.u.mstances. The one respectable Copt discovered by Lane admitted that they are generally ignorant, faithless, worldly, sensual, and drunken; he declared that the Patriarch was a tyrant and suborner of false witnesses; that the monks and priests in Cairo are seen every evening begging and asking the loan of money, which they never repay, at the houses of their parishioners and other acquaintances, and procuring brandy if possible wherever they call. So much for our esteemed fellow-Christians in Egypt, descendants of what in heathen times was long the foremost nation in the world.

"Women are not to be excluded from paradise, according to the faith of El Islam; though it has been a.s.serted by many Christians, that the Muslims believe women to have no soul. In several places in the Kur-an, Paradise is promised to all true believers." They will be admitted by G.o.d's mercy on account of their faith, not of their good works; but their felicity there will be proportioned to their good works. The very meanest male in Paradise is promised eighty thousand beautiful youths as servants, and seventy-two wives of the daughters of Paradise. These celestial virgins we commonly call houris, but learned and accurate Mr-Lane terms them hooreeyehs, vividly suggesting that the Muslim saints burst into rapturous and prolonged hoorays on first perceiving them. He may also have the wives he had here below, if he wants them; and doubtless the good will desire the good. On behalf of the earthly fair s.e.x, I must emphatically protest against this part of the heavenly arrangements. How do we know that the good husband will desire the good wife, however good, when he has two-and-seventy maidens of Paradise all to himself? The trust that he will, cannot be trusted; it is a perfidious consolation to poor women. No wonder Muslim wives are obsequious, when it depends on the will, pleasure or caprice of their husbands whether they shall be re-married in the other world or not.

Mrs. Caudle herself would scarcely hazard a curtain lecture with this atrocious alternative in prospect. Try to fancy being an old-maid or gra.s.s-widow for ever and ever where all the men are very much married, having six dozen wives each at the very lowest! Such a heaven to a good woman were ten times crueller than h.e.l.l. When the Muslim women have been aroused to a sense of their rights, they will insist on being treated in the next world on equal terms with the men: the meanest woman of the faithful (supposing any woman can be mean) shall have her eighty thousand beautiful servants, and her seventy-two husbands of the youths of Paradise, resplendent, adoring, ever obedient. This settled first, it will be a question for consideration between herself and her terrene spouse whether they shall combine their several establishments, or agree to be divorced by death. But I digress; women always lead us into digressions, only these are usually much more interesting than the dusty high-road along which it is our business to trudge. The meanest of Muslims will further have a very large tent bejewelled with pearls, jacinths and emeralds. He will be waited on by three hundred attendants while he eats, and served in dishes of gold, whereof three hundred shall be set before him at once, each containing a different kind of food, "the last morsel of which will be as grateful as the first." This absence of satiety, this ever-fresh vigor, I believe, is to mark all his enjoyments, however freely he may indulge in them. Though wine is forbidden in this life, he may drink of it _ad libitum_ in the next, and the wine of Paradise doth not inebriate. He shall have perpetual youth, and as many children as he may desire. He shall be ravished with the songs of the angel Israfeel, "whose heart-strings are a lute, and who has the sweetest voice of all G.o.d's creatures." I really cannot go on; my feelings are too much for me. I remember when young being taught to sing (or rather to squall; for my voice could never have been mistaken for that of the angel Israfeel, even by a frequenter of revival meetings or music halls):

"I thank the goodness and the grace (grays?) Which on my birth have smiled, And made me in these Christian days (dace?) A happy English child.'*

But now that I am a man, this same consideration fills me with bitterest sorrow and anguish, so that I am ready to bellow:

I curse the evil and disgrace Which have my birth defiled, Who would have been in other case A happy Muslim child!

Yea, when I contrast these glowing and glorious prospects held out to the faithful by the Kur-an, with the everlasting singing in white night-gowns, amidst the howling of elders and composite beasts all over eyes (what our Heine terms "all the menagerie of the Apocalypse"), in adoration of a G.o.d like a jasper and sardine stone to look upon, and of a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes; then do I wring my hands and beat my breast and tear my hair, sighing and sobbing, moaning and groaning, weeping and lamenting most piteously-Alas! and alas! and alas!

why was I bom in a Christian land and reared for the Christian Heaven?

Would that I had been born among the Muslims and brought up in the faith of El Islam! So should I be now looking forward (for from such a generous faith never, never would I have lapsed) unto a Paradise worthy of the name; revelling in antic.i.p.ations of four-score thousand servants, uncloying courses of three hundred dishes, unlimited strong wine without inebriation, six-dozen wives of the refulgent celestial virgins, aging not themselves, aging not me; perpetual youth, unsating and unexhausting raptures, for ever, and ever, and ever; and instead of having to sing my own throat hoa.r.s.e, I should have the angel Israfeel to sing for me. Ah, dear G.o.d! Thou most Compa.s.sionate! Thou most Bountiful! Thou to whom all things are possible! grant that I may even yet be converted from a doleful Christian infidel into a blessed Muslim true believer! O G.o.d the All-merciful, save me from the terrors and tortures of our Sankey and Moody Christian heaven! O G.o.d the All-gracious, let me lie secure in the arms of six-dozen hooreeyehs of Paradise of El Islam! Amen, and Amen.

THE CHRISTIAN WORLD AND THE SECULARIST

(1876.)

The _Christian World_ of the 1st inst. has another note on the article on "Some Muslim Laws and Beliefs." As Mr. Foote responded to the first note on behalf of the _Secularist_, I, as the author of the obnoxious article, which was mainly mere compilation from the work of a Christian scholar and gentleman, may say a few words on my own behalf in reply to the second, which is as follows:-

"A correspondent writes:-In your 'Notes by the Way' last week there is a painful, though not unseasonable, quotation from a writer on 'Muslim Laws and Beliefs.' This, as coming from a Secularist, is deplorable enough. It is very much more so that the late Viscount Amberley, a son of a veteran statesman, should in his 'a.n.a.lysis of Religious Belief,'

which might indeed more justly be termed 'A Panegyric of all Heathen Beliefs, and a Travesty of that of the Christian,' have given a like description of the paradise of the Koran, and should have sneeringly told us that the Christian Scriptures, in their pictures of the heavenly life, '_strangely overlook this enjoyment_' of 'ever virgins' never growing old, who are to 'supply the faithful with the pleasure of love'

(vide Vol. II., p. 200). This is but a specimen of the disdainful and derisive tone with which this writer, who at length leaves himself stranded in a region of the dreariest Atheism, continually speaks of that Book which what he terms 'the illusions of our younger days' might have taught him o respect."

I do not doubt that the quotation was painful to the Christian correspondent, since it is always painful to have our lifelong prejudices shocked by those who have never shared them, or who have attained freedom from their yoke. One might give not a few quotations from any number of the _Christian World_ which would be very painful to a pious Muslim. Nor do I doubt that the quotation was not unseasonable, for quotations from the _Secularist_ must always be seasonable in an influential Christian periodical, when they tend to expand the Christian narrowness, and show that there is much to be said in favor of other beliefs. And I admit that, like many other things coming from a Secularist, it must have been deplorable enough to a Christian suckled on the Bible, and a.s.sured in his unreflecting ignorance that it is the one true word of the three-in-one true G.o.d. But the correspondent finds it very much more deplorable that a son of a veteran statesman should agree with the Secularist-as if the sons of veteran statesmen were naturally expected to be sunk deeper than other persons in the prevailing superst.i.tion. The correspondent who, we may presume, has always been taught, and has never doubted, that all heathen beliefs are wholly devilish, and that the Christian belief is wholly divine, thinks that Viscount Amberley's book is a panegyric of the former and a travesty of the latter. If the unfortunate correspondent had the courage and intelligence to enter upon a real a.n.a.lysis of religious belief, he would soon discover that he and his co-religionists have been all along travestying every form of what they call heathenism. With amusing simplicity he is astonished that Lord Amberley gives a like description of the paradise of the Kur-an to that which I gave in the _Secularist_, as if he could have been accurate in giving any other, when mine was drawn from one of the most careful and accurate of writers, the Oriental Englishman, unequalled in his knowledge of Arabic literature and life!

Why, in the very week following the attack on the _Secularist_, the _Christian World's_ twin sister, the _Literary World_ (perhaps incited thereto by its study of our vilified paper), showed that it had been reading or dipping into Lane, by an article on him under the queer t.i.tle of "A Man of One Book," he being distinguished for three-"The Manners and Customs of the Modem Egyptians," the translation of the "Arabian Nights," with its peerless notes, and the monumental "Arabic Lexicon"; and the said queerly-named article echoed the general praise of his thoroughness and accuracy, and repeated the statement of those who knew him, that he was a deeply pious man. I am not concerned with the defence of Lord Amberley, and shall therefore not follow further the correspondent's remarks on his book, save to note that a man who says that any such writer "leaves himself stranded in a region of the dreariest Atheism," proves himself by this one phrase utterly incompetent to study that word or understand its subject matter; and, as ignorant and incapable, had better confine himself to the Sunday-school, the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, the religious tea-meeting, and street-corner raving.

It may be as well to say something on my own account, in addition to the vigorous remarks of Mr. Foote, in reply to the first note of the _Christian World_, and vindication of the pa.s.sage it impugned. And first, as to the Book of Revelation, which claims to be prophetic, and stands in our Bible as the work of St. John the Divine. Luther, indeed, who was not afraid to pa.s.s an independent judgment, said, "I look upon the revelation as neither apostolic nor prophetic;" but it is received as both by our English Protestants, and continually referred to by them as the record of a genuine and authentic vision. But I a.s.sert, without fear of contradiction, that if they had never known it, and some missionary brought home an account of its marvels as belonging to the faith of some Polynesian islanders, they would be filled with wonder and compa.s.sion at the monstrous superst.i.tions of those poor heathen barbarians. Yes, Exeter Hall and the readers and writers of the _Christian World_ itself, would a.s.suredly invoke help to enlighten the degraded idolaters who believed in a heaven whose G.o.d was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine; in the midst of whose throne, and round about whose throne, were four beasts-a lion, a calf, a man-faced monster, an eagle-each with six wings, and full of eyes before and behind and within; which beasts never rested day nor night from saying, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord G.o.d Almighty;" and which, moreover, worshipped a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes-a figment more extravagant than the many-headed and many-armed idols of India. And so with the other enormities of the Apocalypse. Our civilised gentlemen of the _Christian World_ can only believe that they believe these things, because hallowed a.s.sociations and unreflecting faith blind their judgment to the obvious absurdity of the imagery and the conspicuous non-fulfilment of the prophecy, which again and again claims to announce events then at hand, to come quickly.

In the next place I a.s.sert that the everlasting monotonous singing of the praises of the lamb, the interminable senseless routine, is not a whit more spiritual, while infinitely less alluring, than the occupations of the Mohammedan Paradise. If it be answered that enlightened Christians have n.o.bler ideas of heaven, I reply that such antic.i.p.ations are not warranted by the New Testament, and that magnanimous Muslims have also n.o.bler antic.i.p.ations of paradise, for which there is warrant in the Kur-an. And while on the subject of spirituality, I may remark that the pure monotheism of the Muslim and the Jew is immensely more spiritual, as well as more rational, than the monotritheism of the Christian, which not only deifies a man, but juggles with a so-called mystery that cannot be expressed in words without self-contradiction, cannot be conceived in thought, and, by the confession of its own apologists, defies reason.

As to the "hysterical buffoonery," I have yet to learn that there is anything hysterical in a jolly burst of Rabelaisian laughter. And as to the "poor hollow mockery," I can a.s.sure the writer in the _Christian World_ that the mockery was quite rich, sound and genuine in relation to the Apocalypse of his idolised book and the popular Protestant Moody and Sankey heaven. (By the bye, can anyone inform us whether Mr. Sankey is really a Jew, and not a Christian Jew, as I have heard positively a.s.serted on Hebrew authority?) As to the "blasphemous irreverence" and the "horrible and blasphemous invocation," I deny the possibility of blasphemy where there is no belief. A man may blaspheme that which he accounts worthy of reverence, because in speaking evil of it he violates his own convictions and holiest feelings. But if for me there is no G.o.d, how can I blaspheme him? Speaking contemptuously of him, I but contemn nothing. If the writer in the _Christian World_ were accused of blasphemy for reviling Jupiter and Venus, Brahma and Vishnu, Baal and Moloch, the G.o.ddess of Reason and Mumbo Jumbo, he would reply, I cannot blaspheme false G.o.ds, meaning simply G.o.ds in whom he has no faith. Just so,

I say that I cannot blaspheme the trinity-in-unity of the Christian, which to me is non-existent, absurd, impossible. It would be well for the writers and readers of the _Christian World_ to ponder these things.