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102 page printout
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
This file, its printout, or copies of either
are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
**** ****
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
AND OTHER ESSAYS
BY
LEMUEL K. WASHBURN
NEW YORK:
THE TRUTH SEEKER COMPANY
62 Vesey St.
**** ****
Copyrighted, 1911
L.K.Washburn
Revere, Mass
**** ****
The writer of this
book dedicates it to all
men and women of
common honesty and
common sense.
**** ****
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
That depends. If a man is going to get his living by standing
in a Christian pulpit, I should be obliged to answer, Yes! But if
he is going to follow any other calling, or work at any trade, I
should have to answer, No! There is absolutely no information in
the Bible that man can make any use of as he goes through life. The
Bible is not a book of knowledge. It does not give instruction in
any of the sciences. It furnishes no help to labor. It is useless
as a political guide. There is nothing in it that gives the
mechanic any hint, or affords the farmer any enlightenment in his
occupation.
If man wishes to learn about the earth or the heavens; about
life or the animal kingdom, he has no need to study the Bible. If
he is desirous of reading the best poetry or the most entertaining
literature he will not find it in the Bible. If he wants to read to
store his mind with facts, the Bible is the last book for him to
open, for never yet was a volume written that contained fewer facts
than this book. If he is anxious to get some information that will
help him earn an honest living he does not want to spend his time
reading Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Kings, Psalms, or the Gospels. If
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
1
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
he wants to read just for the fun of reading, to kill time, or to
see how much nonsensical writing there is in one book, let him read
the Bible.
I have not said that there are not wise sayings in the Bible,
or a few dramatic incidents, but there are just as wise sayings,
and wiser ones, too, out of the book, and there are dramas of human
life that surpass in interest anything contained in the Old or New
Testament.
No person can make a decent excuse for reading the Bible more
than once. To do such a thing would be a foolish waste of time. But
our stoutest objection to reading this book is, not that it
contains nothing particularly good, but that it contains so much
that is positively bad. To read this book is to get false ideas,
absurd ideas, bad ideas. The injury to the human mind that reads
the Bible as a reliable book is beyond repair. I do not think that
this book should be read by children, by any human being less than
twenty years of age, and it would be better for mankind if not a
man or woman read a line of it until he or she was fifty years old.
What I want to say is this, that there is nothing in the Bible
that is of the least consequence to the people of the twentieth
century. English literature is richer a thousand fold than this so-
called sacred volume. We have books of more information and of more
inspiration than the Bible. As the relic of a barbarous and
superstitious people, it should have a place in our libraries, but
it is not a work of any value to this age. I pity men who stand in
pulpits and call this book the word of God. I wish they had brains
enough to earn their living without having to repeat this foolish
falsehood. The day will come when this book will be estimated for
what it is worth, and when that day comes, the Bible will no longer
be called the word of God, but the work of ignorant, superstitious
men.
**** ****
The cross everywhere is a dagger in the heart of liberty.
**** ****
A miracle is not an explanation of what we cannot comprehend.
**** ****
The statue of liberty that will endure on this continent is
not the one made of granite or bronze, but the one made of love of
freedom.
**** ****
Take away every achievement of the world and leave man
freedom, and the earth would again bloom with every glory of
attainment; but take away liberty and everything useful and
beautiful would vanish.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
2
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
SACRIFICE
The sacrifice of Jesus, so much boasted by the Christian
church, is nothing compared to the sacrifice of a mother for her
family. It is not to be spoken of in the same light. A mother's
sacrifice is constant: momentary, hourly, daily, life-long. It
never ceases. It is a veritable providence; a watchful care; a real
giving of one life for another, or for several others; a gift of
love so pure and holy, so single and complete, that it is an
offering in spirit and in substance.
This is to me the highest, purest, holiest act of humanity.
All others, when weighed with this unselfish consecration to duty,
seem small and insignificant. There is, in a mother's life, no
counting of cost, no calculation of reward. It is enough that a
duty is to be done; that a service is to be rendered; that a
sacrifice is called for. The true mother gives herself to the
offices of love without hope, expectation, or wish of recompense.
A mother's love for her children cannot be determined by any
earthly measure, by any material standard. It outshines all glory,
and is the last gleam of light in the human heart. A mother's love
walks in a thousand Gethsemanes, endures a thousand Calvaries, and
has a thousand agonies that the dying of Jesus upon a cross cannot
symbolize. This maternal sacrifice is the greater that it is made
cheerfully, without a murmur, and even with joy. If it is not
sought; it is never pushed aside.
A mother's sacrifice for her family makes a chapter of
suffering, of patient toil and strife, of heroic endurance and
forbearance, that religion is not yet high enough to appreciate;
and this sublime devotion is not in one home, but in hundreds of
thousands in every land everywhere on earth, and it is real, true,
heart-born, and the utmost of renunciation that human life has
revealed.
The brief martyrdom of Jesus was not voluntary, was not
lasting in its pain or in its service to mankind. His death was
cruel, his suffering and agony terrible to think of, but it was all
soon over. A few hours of torture make up the tragedy of the cross.
But the story of this crucifixion may be fictitious, imaginary;
most likely is such. Perhaps no such man died such a death in any
such way. Then how vain and foolish to waste our sympathy on a
fanciful sufferer, an imaginary martyr, who never existed outside
of the brain of the writer of the story, while there are actual,
real beings living who are making a greater sacrifice, doing a
holier duty, within our reach!
We need not go to a Bible to find those who deserve our tears,
or who have earned our admiration. The bravest heart that ever
author wrote into being, fails to come up to the lofty height of
endurance, of a life inspired by love, of heroic sacrifice, that
can be found in hundreds of homes in our land.
Far be it from my intention to paint less any deed of mortal
that has brightened the lot of man, or to throw discredit upon
aught that is worthy of human gratitude and praise. I yield most
ready sympathy and most willing admiration to every noble soul that
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
3
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
has lived or died to make earth better and happier, but I do not
believe that greatness, goodness and love are all dead, and that
our whole duty is to stand and weep around a tomb. I believe in
living men and women, in living hearts and souls, in living
greatness and goodness and love, and I tell you all that the earth
never bore more loving, more humane, tenderer, braver, or truer
hearts than beat today in the living breasts of mankind.
And I place above all that is brave and true, great and good,
in the past or present, the mothers of our age. -- What man cannot
see that silent, patient mother in her home, the victim of a
multitude of trials, crosses, annoyances, day after day and week
after week, meeting all, bearing all, with a saint's look and
manner; and what man, seeing her there, at the side of the sick,
worn out with watching and waiting, and then at the bed of death,
faithful and true to the last, though wounded in heart and spirit
never faltering in the way of duty, that would not say if there be
one sacrifice that is above, and greater than, all others, it is
that of a mother's love?
THE DRAMA OF LIFE
With the passing of the season we are reminded of the rapid
flight of life. It seems but yesterday that the first bluebird of
spring lit on the bare bough of the apple-tree in the orchard near
by, and the early robin sang his welcome notes in our glad ears,
and yet the bluebird and robin are seen and heard no more, and the
green promise of spring has changed to the brown harvest of autumn,
which will soon be stored for winter's use. This is the way every
season comes and goes; a little long in coming sometimes; but never
long in going; and every year grows shorter as we grow older, and
every year goes more quickly as we near the border of old age. Life
soon changes from a glad look ahead to a sad glance behind. From
baby to boy, from boy to man, from man to tottering age, -- how
swiftly the scenes change, and life comes and life goes, and the
door of death opens almost before the door of birth closes. The
cradle and the grave touch, and the blithe youth that lends his
strength to feeble age finds himself ere long leaning upon the arm
of youth and strength. The circle of years soon rolls round, and
life is but a day of toil and a night of dreams. As we look back
upon vanished time and see the happy scenes of childhood mingled
with the surroundings of later life, days and months shrink to
hours, and years seem to be spanned by a sunrise; and a sunset with
a little laughter and perhaps some tears between. We who have
travelled more than half way on the road cannot look backward
without a sigh, cannot think backward without a pang. Many of us
have left the graves of father and mother behind, perhaps the
smaller graves of children, where some of our heart lies buried
too. The storms that beat on us make life seem shorter; make the
days go faster, and the night draw nearer; and all of us have
already, or must sometime, bow our heads to the blast.
One human being in the great world of man, and in the greater
world of Nature, plays but a small part. Of but little account is
a human life in the vast, limitless universe. A man fills but a
little space while alive, and touches but a few hearts when he
dies. We are fortunate if we make during life, one true, loyal
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
4
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
friend who stands by us while that life lasts. We reckon this,
after all, the grandest triumph of the human soul. It is not
difficult to gather dollars -- quite a number, at least, -- nor to
win a measure of fame, but to live, to be, to act, in such way as
to bind one true heart to ours, is a victory which we may be proud
of. Some lives have larger circumferences than others, radiate
farther, influence more, but none can win the rare tribute of
perfect friendship from more than one or two. Yes! man plays but a
small part in the great drama of life. He is on the stage but a few
short hours, and most men are but poor or indifferent actors at
best.
Who cares when a man dies? Not the sun, for it shines just as
gaily when he closes his eyes to its golden light; not the birds,
for they chatter and sing over his coffin, and hop and sing on his
grave; not the brook, for it runs laughing on and never stops its
gambols and song; not any of the things of earth, but man.
When man dies, a few say, Is he gone? and then forget that he
ever lived; a few go to help carry his dead body to the grave, and
then turn away to join the business and pleasure of life, and
forget that they have buried a man; a few, some days after, call at
the house where he lived and drop a tear of sympathy for the
weeping widow and tearful children, and then forget that the
husband and father is no more. But does no one care? Perhaps a
wife, who will carry his dead image in her heart as long as it
beats; perhaps a daughter, who will remember him a year or two, or
a little longer, who will miss his happy greeting, his loving kiss,
his proud, kind look as he lifts the heart's dearest idol to his
knee; and this is all. And this is enough. We care for only a few;
and why should many care for us?
Though life is short and not always heroic; and though, when
it ends, the world goes on just the same, we love life and it is
sweet while it lasts. Though we travel quickly over the road, we
enjoy for the most part, the journey of life. We have pain, it is
true; we learn of sorrow and grief; we feel the pang of parting and
weep on the white face of some loved one, and yet, we find
happiness, we enjoy living, and we regret when the curtain is rung
down and our part is played and the lights turned out. When we
strike the balance between pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow,
happiness and misery, most find that life is worth living.
**** ****
A dogma will thrive in soil where the truth could not get
root.
**** ****
The measure of liberty which man enjoys determines the
civilization of the age in which he lives.
**** ****
The person who can make a loaf of bread is more to the world
than the person who could perform a miracle.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
5
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
The indifference to Christianity may well alarm the men who
live on the credulity that gives it the show of life, but to those
who delight in actions of sincerity, it affords the greatest
encouragement, for it promises to the world a day when intelligence
and integrity will be respected more than ignorance and hypocrisy.
**** ****
NATURE IN JUNE
We can hardly look anywhere in Nature without having the
conviction grow in the mind that there are more or less superfluous
things on this spot of the universe where our lot is cast, however
it may be in Mars, Venus, Saturn, or any other of the Greek-named
planets or any heavenly constellations with or without names. just
at this particular season of the year, the presence of weeds in the
garden or on the farm raises a colossal doubt as to the fact of any
wisdom guiding the divine voice when, in a majestic sweep of its
omnipotent power on the third day of the drama of creation, it
called into being the grass, the herb, the tree and what-so-ever
bears leaf or blade or flower. To those who have to pull the weeds
out of the ground they are a curse of the first magnitude, and how
a creator, who had common sense, could take pride in making such
vegetable abortions as weeds we cannot comprehend. The most
worthless things in Nature are the most prolific. Chickweed will
cover an acre while clover is considering where it is best to go
into business, and every pesky, nasty little weed will live and
laugh when the queenly corn droops its head in the sun, and the
beet and turnip cannot get nourishment enough to keep them alive.
It is just the same in the animal world. An immense quantity
of useless beings go about on two and four legs or on none at all.
The only excuse for the snake is that he was made to eat the toad;
for the toad, that he was made to eat insects; for the insects --
well, nobody has yet made a wholesome excuse for their existence,
anyway. It looks as though one being in Nature was made simply to
kill another being, and the last-made being, man, is the supreme
killer of the whole lot. Take the whole range of wild beasts, and
find, if you can, aught but malice in their creation, if they were
created. No plague ever destroyed hyenas and jackals. No one ever
found a sick rattlesnake or an invalid hornet. The fittest
survive?. The fittest for what? To worry man, to make life
miserable. Mosquitoes, wasps, fleas, reptiles and wild beasts,
poisonous vines and shrubs, noxious blossoms whose perfume is the
kiss of death, weeds that push and crowd decent plants until they
die in utter despair -- these are the sturdiest triumphs of the
creative art. We cannot help wishing that the Lord-God had not
rested on the seventh day, but instead, had gone around and
destroyed about seven-eighths of what he had created. We might then
have had quite a decent world to live in.
Man builds a home for her he loves, he plants beside it all
that will make it beautiful to the eyes of his wife. He works and
brings what is fair to adorn it, and makes every room a casket to
hold the jewel of love. He looks at his home with pride, and feels
that it is "the dearest spot on earth," a refuge safe and secure.
The cyclone comes and in a moment all is swept away. Man cannot
trust the God of the winds.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
6
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
There is no more terrible calamity that afflicts our globe at
the present time than an earthquake. It comes without warning, by
day or night, when man is at his place of business or when he is at
rest. There is no way of preventing it, no way of preparing for it.
It may wait a hundred, a thousand, years before it works its deadly
ruin. But when it comes, havoc is left. An earthquake may be good
for the earth, but it is almighty discouraging to the people that
live on it. It may seek a beneficent end, but it goes to work in a
cruel manner to accomplish it. Human life counts no more than the
life of rats when an earthquake gets started. This infernal visitor
does not seek a spot where its malevolence can be wrecked upon the
rocks and hills. Oftener it goes to the thickly populated city or
town and topples over houses and swallows up dwellings, with men,
women and children. Does God send the earthquake? If he does, where
is the evidence of his love for man? If He does not, who does?
It is pretty tough business to try to reconcile Nature with
the idea of God's watchful care over man. If the winds did not turn
to hurricanes; if the sunshine did not make drought; if the rain
never became a flood; if the sea never grew angry and sunk the
ship; if the clouds always dissolved in gentle rain or in dew; if
there were no wild beasts; no venomous snakes; no poisonous vines
or flowers; if there were only what is bright and fair and good on
earth and nothing that was dark and cold and repulsive, we might
believe that a heavenly father had made the earth for a dwelling-
place for man. But as it is, we have to think as well of Nature as
possible and dodge her lightning, run from her water-spouts, keep
out of the way of cyclones and shift for ourselves while here. What
follows nobody knows. It may be better for us beyond this life; we
hope it is no worse. And it may be only sleep, sleep with no dreams
and no awakening. We should dislike to die on this side of the
grave with the fear that we should come out on the other only to
meet a hurricane in the teeth, or find an earthquake had been put
under us to give us a shaking up the first thing on that "shining
shore," or to be caught in a furious torrent that poured down the
sides of some heavenly mountain. Earth is a pretty good place when
the conditions are all favorable, but if we are to have another
life it ought to be a better one or else we should be saved the
trouble of dying.
**** ****
The feet of progress have always been shod by doubt.
**** ****
A true man will not join anything that in any way abridges his
freedom or robs him of his rights.
**** ****
THE INFINITE PURPOSE
A Christian writer recently said; -- "The supreme duty of
humanity is to get into touch with the infinite purpose." This may
be so, but we want first to understand just what the infinite
purpose is before we subscribe to it. When the infinite purpose is
bent on getting up an earthquake we do not care to "get into touch"
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
7
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
with it, not much. When this purpose is forging an electric bolt to
shoot out of the clouds, we have no desire to "get into touch" with
any such thing. It makes a vast difference what this purpose is
bent upon, whether or not we want to go into partnership with it.
Now, when the infinite purpose is at work on the earth, turning
dirt into flowers, or vegetables, or trees, we should feel a joy in
sharing its labor, but when it is determined to burn and scorch
everything on the face of the ground with a heat that knows no
abatement, we should want to sell out our interest in the concern
at once.
There is just as much nonsense connected with the use of this
phrase "the infinite purpose" as there is with "special Providence"
or "Divine love," or any other religious expression which expresses
nothing unless you are religious. Where this "purpose" "makes for
righteousness," as Matthew Arnold delighted to believe, we are
willing to catch on to it, but where it is going in the other
direction we prefer to go our own way.
This notion of uniting the finite with the infinite purpose is
all right, providing the latter does not conflict with the former,
but we have serious objection to doing anything that will interfere
with the highest development of our humanity. The purpose which is
at work in the world does not make for health any more than for
disease. It seems to carry a tubercle with as much satisfaction as
a ray of sunshine, and lends all its forces to assist the
highwayman with no more charge than it makes to the law-abiding
citizen.
It seems to us that it is necessary to divorce the "infinite
purpose" from a lot of intentions that do not work for human
interests, before it will be desirable to assume intimate relations
with this purpose. We do not want to "get into touch" with what is
not going our way; that is, the way of health, of prosperity, of
happiness. We do not deny that we need to give a higher direction
to human thought. We affirm this fact as positively as our most
Christian contemporary. But before we advise mankind to harness its
wagon to the infinite purpose we want to be sure where it is going.
Man has to go to mill and market as well as to meeting, and there
is just as good a purpose manifested in getting the most wholesome
food for our stomachs as there is in getting the safest creed for
our souls. We are loth to trust any religious purpose as opposed to
a human one. We believe in man first, last, and all the time.
Now, let us admit that humanity needs a wiser purpose to guide
it, but let us also admit that it can be found in a wiser human
head and human heart. If what is called the infinite purpose is
working for the highest end of human life, there is no evidence of
the fact. If there is anything better than human energy back of a
good human thought that will help this world, we do not know what
it is.
**** ****
The man who accepts the faith of Calvin is miserable in
proportion to the extent he carries it out.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
8
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
Whatever tends to prolong the existence of ignorance or to
prevent the recognition of knowledge is dangerous to the well-being
of the human race.
**** ****
A higher respect for man has been one of the chief promoters
of civilization. Advancement has always been toward right and truth
when the ranks were imbued with a proper regard for human hearts
and human happiness.
**** ****
FREETHOUGHT COMMANDS
Say nothing about others that you would not have others say
about you.
Be severe toward yourself; be kind to your fellow-man.
Do not give advice that you cannot follow.
Do not thank God for what man does.
Serve neither God nor Mammon, but humanity alone.
Do not try to be perfect as a "Father in heaven," but try to
be better than you yourself are.
Seek first to improve the earth, and heaven will be of less
consequence,
**** ****
Let us not forget that men speak according to the measure of
their knowledge and light, and that a superior enlightenment is a
higher authority.
**** ****
History shows that there is nothing so easy to enslave and
nothing so hard to emancipate as ignorance, hence it becomes the
double enemy of civilization. By its servility it is the prey of
tyranny, and by its credulity it is the foe of enlightenment.
**** ****
A RAINBOW RELIGION
There is little doubt that the faith of the early Christians
was what might be classed under the head of rainbow religion. We
learn from the New Testament that it was taught that those who
accepted the faith held by John and Jesus and Paul were in some
peculiar manner to be protected from the common ills of life, and
were to be especial favorites of their "Father in heaven." How
sincerely this faith was held we cannot now determine, nor to what
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
extent it was put into practice, but that it possessed the mind in
a considerable degree there is no room whatever to doubt. But this
is not the question that we want settled, but rather the value of
this faith.
It is pleasant and comforting to believe that one is watched
over by a superior power which at any moment of peril or temptation
is ready to stretch forth its hand and rescue from danger and
death, and it is on account of the wonderful seductiveness of this
faith that it has lasted so long and has been so hard to overcome.
But what we are interested in is, whether or not such a belief has
any foundation in fact or in human experience. When Jesus bid his
followers to cease giving thought to what they should eat and drink
and wear, telling them that their "heavenly Father" fed the fowls
of the air, and that they were better than such fowls, thus
implying that their heavenly Father would take proportionately
better care of them, was there any ground for any such teaching,
and is there any ground for this faith today? We claim that the
"heavenly Father" referred to by Jesus never fed anything, neither
fowl nor man; and that no human being was ever taken care of by any
superior power or snatched by it from danger or death. Such a faith
is the veriest delusion, and it could lodge and take root only in
the childish mind. Jesus also taught that the "Father which is in
heaven" would "give good things to them that ask him." Is there any
ground for this rainbow religion? Is there any evidence that there
is a "Father in heaven" who has good things to give to those who
ask for them?
We presume that this faith led men to give up work and to
trust to begging for a living. But the question is, which got the
most good things, -- those who studied the laws of Nature and of
life and worked in harmony with them, or those who prayed for good
things? How is it to-day? What good things can be had by praying?
Who has any good thing that he received by asking his "Father in
heaven" for it? The asking business has been carried on for
hundreds of years, and all that has been asked of God has had to be
given by man or has not been given at all.
Has it ever been true that Christians had any immunity from
danger that others did not have, or that they could live in
defiance of the laws of Nature? Jesus told his followers that in
his name they shall cast out devils, they shall take up serpents,
and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them and they
shall have the power to cure the sick by laying their hands upon
them. Have men, who professed to follow Jesus, ever done the things
which he said they shall do? Is there any man to-day who can do
these things? Is there any evidence that Christians are treated by
any power of the universe differently from what others are treated?
And is there any evidence that they possess any gift that is not
shared by others? As far as we can see Christians are subject to
the same laws of Nature that all others must obey, and they cannot
either defy those laws or act independently of them. If they fool
with deadly serpents they will get bitten and probably die just the
same as would an infidel; if they drink a cup of poison, they will
suffer and perhaps die just the same as an unbeliever; if they have
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
any sickness, they do not trust to the laying-on of hands by a
fellow-Christian, but send for a doctor the same as a freethinker.
The fact is, the world has learned better than to put faith in
these teachings of Jesus.
The Christian faith belonged to the childhood of the race, and
ought no longer to be preached to man. No one attempts to put this
faith into practice, to carry into life the teachings of Jesus. And
why not? Simply because it is known to be false. Christianity is a
rainbow religion, a representation of things for which there is no
warrant in Nature; a picture painted in false colors; a view of
life copied from a diseased imagination; a falsehood fed by priests
upon which they live.
There is not an intelligent man or woman living to-day who has
any faith in the rainbow religion taught by Jesus; not an
intelligent man or woman who believes that a heavenly Father or a
God will provide food or drink or clothes for a human being; nor an
intelligent man or woman who has faith that he or she can get good
things by asking a "Father in heaven" for them and not an
intelligent man or woman who cares or dares to put the declaration
of Jesus to the test; that those who have faith in him can play
with serpents without danger, and drink deadly poison with no more
harm than attends quaffing a glass of water.
We are then to conclude that Christianity is held only by the
ignorant.
**** ****
There is greater argument in one fact than in all the creeds.
**** ****
It is easier to believe that a man is honest who says the
Bible is the word of God than to believe that he is bright.
**** ****
A CRUEL GOD
There may be some other religion in the world that sings of a
God more cruel than the God of Christianity, but we do not know of
any. At any rate, we believe it is safe to say that no religion of
a civilized people has a God who is more vindictive. We have always
wondered how men and women could set such infernal ideas to music
as we find in Christian hymns. It is really too bad that human
beings are compelled to sing such lies as we find in the pious
song-books of the church. The sentiments contained in them are not
fit for savages. It can only brutalize the heart to sing of blood,
and nothing but blood, no matter whose blood it is. The "precious
blood of Jesus" is just as suggestive of cruelty as the blood on
the executioner's knife. Men become what they read, what they
think, what they sing, what they believe. Religions have made men
wicked, cruel, hard, unkind. It is impossible to have faith in a
God of wrath and vindictiveness without in time developing these
qualities. Men grow into the likeness of their belief. As a man
believes, so is he, to a certain extent.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
11
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
The influence of cruel sentiments on the mind is greater with
the young than with adults. Some hymns sung in Christian churches
are positively brutal in tone. Think of human beings singing the
following verse: --
"But vengeance and damnation lie
On rebels who refuse His grace;
Who God's eternal Son despise,
The hottest hell shall be their place."
Christians seem to delight in pictures of hell. God would
hardly be God to them if he did not damn somebody. In painting the
divine idea vengeance and damnation are laid on thick.
Here is the Christian notion of father and son: --
"How justice frowned and vengeance stood
To drive me down to endless pain!
But the great Son propos'd his blood,
And heavenly wrath grew mild again."
Think of the religion based on such an idea of God! And think
on the terrible effect on men and women which such religion must
have!
The following description of the Christian God was probably
written by one of his adorers: --
"Adore and tremble for our God
Is a consuming fire!
His jealous eyes with wrath inflame,
And raise His vengeance higher.
"Almighty vengeance, how it burns,
How bright His fury glows!
Vast magazines of plagues and storms
Lie treasured for His foes.
"Those heaps of wrath, by slow degrees,
Are force into a flame:
But kindled, Oh! how fierce they blaze!
And rend all nature's frame.
"At His approach the mountains flee,
And seek a watery grave;
The frighted sea makes haste away,
And shrinks up every wave.
"Through the wide air the weighty rocks
Are swift as hailstones hurled;
Who dares engage His fiery rage,
That shakes the solid world?
"Thy hand shall on rebellious kings
A fiery tempest pour,
While we, beneath Thy sheltering wings,
Thy just revenge adore."
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
And we are asked to love this God! We should just as soon
think of loving a tiger, a cyclone, a deluge, a fiend. Love goes
out to what is lovely. We can love what is good, what is beautiful,
what is noble; a great-hearted man, a pitying woman we cannot help
loving, but if we should say that we love such a God as is pictured
in the words of that hymn we should lie. Man cannot love hate,
vengeance, wrath -- even in a God.
The Christian church, down through the ages, has been like the
God it worshiped -- full of hate, malice and cruelty. The world has
grown kind and humane just in proportion as it has given up worship
of this divine monster. We judge gods as we judge men, and we can
respect and love only what is worthy of respect and love from a
human point of view. If there is such a God as is painted in
Christian literature he deserves, not to be worshipped, but to be
ignored.
**** ****
The Bible upon which Christianity is founded does not say what
Christianity is, what a Christian is, nor what we must do in order
to be a Christian.
WHAT IS JESUS
Time was when Jesus was looked upon as God, or the Son of God.
No one had any doubt of his divinity or divine character; or if he
had, he wisely deferred to the superstitious majority and kept his
mouth shut and so kept his head on his shoulders. This idea that
Jesus was God has been steadily declining for several hundred
years. Intelligence has pretty much given it up, except where it is
paid a big salary for preaching it. There is no rational defence
that can be made of the dogma of the divinity of Jesus. It is one
of many theological absurdities that was born when gods were
popular.
A large number believe that Jesus was a man and nothing more;
a good man, but still human. They look upon him as a product of
human nature. He is allowed a human father and mother, although the
gospels, in which is found the story of his life, hardly warrant so
much earthly parentage. He is regarded as a part of humanity, and
his extraordinary deeds merely as exaggerated performances of heart
and hand of man. The people that look upon Jesus as a man have a
superstitious reverence for his humanity. He is called "the one
perfect man," the "pattern of the race," etc. Though human, they
will have him every inch a man.
Yet others see nothing remarkable in the career of Jesus;
nothing which marks him for universal emulation; nothing which
compels praise and admiration. They think he was a sort of mild
lunatic, possessed of the idea that he was the Messiah of his
people, and that in endeavoring to further his scheme he
antagonized the existing authority and met the just punishment of
his ambition.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
13
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
But it is neither as God nor as a man that Jesus must be
regarded, but as a myth. No such person ever lived either as a
human or divine existence. He is simply a creature of fancy, the
fruit of the imagination. He is a character of the brain, the
creation of religious genius.
**** ****
There is no justifiable Christianity in this age.
**** ****
A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living.
**** ****
The progress of the world depends upon freedom of thought and
freedom of utterance.
**** ****
If you can forgive the man who wronged you, the neighbor who
slandered you and help the poor about you, you need not be
particular about making any professions of righteousness
**** ****
DEEDS BETTER THAN PROFESSIONS
We have tears of regret to shed over the wreck of beauty and
talent; but if we take no steps to preserve beauty and talent from
wreck, our compassion is not to our honor but to our disgrace. The
feeling of pity which to-day expends itself in solemn warning or
solemn weeping for the poor unfortunates of earth, must devise
means to rescue them from misery, or it is but a mockery and a
shame. One arm inspired with love of man will do more than a
thousand tender sentiments. Sympathy must take the form of
assistance, or it is not sincere.
When we do not love man as we ought, we hate ourselves. The
way to get heaven for ourselves is to give it to others. The way to
be happy is to make others happy. Selfishness kills every noble
feeling and defeats every good desire. We cannot have peace when we
give pain to others. Our deeds reward us. What wrongs man is wrong
for man to do. We should live so as not to regret the past nor fear
the future. We set too great a value upon earthly possessions, and
spend our lives in gaining what we cannot hold. We best enjoy the
things of earth when we give up wanting them wholly for ourselves.
The best part of our happiness is having someone to share it.
GIVE US THE TRUTH
If there is one tree that man needs to eat of, it is the
forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil; and if any
knowledge will keep him alive and make him happy and perfect, it is
just this knowledge which the Christian God forbid him to acquire.
We are dying to-day from ignorance, not from knowledge, -- dying
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
because we do not know the good from the evil; and we are dooming
ourselves and future generations to premature death because we do
not eat more of the tree of knowledge.
To know more is what we need. Let us look into things and find
out what the world means. If this universe is only an illuminated
deception, the man who discovers the fact will be a public
benefactor. If things which exist around us are lying to us, -- if
the stars that shine out through the deep space above us are only
fire-flies of the night, let us know it. Knowledge will not hurt us
so much as ignorance and deception. If the flowers that uncover
their beauty for our delight have but a phantom loveliness, and
nought is real in the enchanting world about us, then let us be
told the truth. The soul can bear it better than to be deceived. We
may be trusted with the knowledge of good and evil and of right and
wrong, ye God of Genesis! and praise be to the first-created man
for breaking the command to remain in ignorance and taking the
first step toward solving the riddle of life!
We learn everything by living. The truth is not revealed to
us: we must discover it. It is seen when we climb high enough to
see it, or live wise enough to feel it, or act true enough to utter
it. When we hear the truth, we hear only the echo of the universe.
The last thing that we have to fear is the truth and the
consequences of knowing it. Let us not fear to speak it or to hear
it. And let us go with it whenever found. They who are keeping the
world from the knowledge of good and evil, who are trying to
discourage the preaching of truth, are the enemies of mankind.
**** ****
If man had no knowledge except what he has got out of the
Bible he would not know enough to make a shoe.
**** ****
The great work of man has ever been to rescue the present from
the past; to turn the mind from what it has left behind to the
opportunities and duties which are around it. For this has genius
toiled down the ages, sung its song of love, carved its dream of
beauty and whispered to the world's dull ear its bright message of
hope.
THE AMERICAN SUNDAY
Everybody has heard of what is called the "Christian sabbath,"
and nearly everybody has a tolerably clear idea of what is meant by
a "continental sabbath." A "continental sabbath" may be described
as a sort of week-day Sunday, that is, as a religious holiday with
more secular, than pious, features. A Christian sabbath is so near
dead in this country as a religious fact that a definition of it
cannot be had from real life. We find the ideal sabbath of the
Christians in the history of early New England. For two centuries
the people have been gradually outgrowing the austere religion
which made Sunday a day to be dreaded all the week. The attempt has
been frequently made by a small puritan contingent, which has
survived all these years, to resuscitate this dead sabbath and
inflict it upon the world again. But so far the effort has only met
with deserved failure.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
Resurrections have never been successful. When the inhabitants
of graves have come out of their abodes it has been only to walk
the streets for a brief period, and then to return again to silence
and rest. The stories of ghosts, when considered true, are always
short. These visitants never stop long or do anything that is of
any worth to the world. When the grave is once made over the dead
it is best to let it alone. There is nothing in cemeteries to aid
progress or civilization.
We do not need the revival of old customs or of old faiths. To
endeavor to rehabilitate the sabbath of our forefathers is as
foolish as to try to make people go back into log houses and cook
in a fire-place. Some persons can never realize that the world
grows; that what was a help to one age becomes a hindrance to
another; that time corrects the mistakes of men and that respect
and reverence for our ancestors does not necessarily require us to
adopt their clothes or their habits.
Men and women are made fossils by their religion. The people
who are trying to-day to resurrect the puritan sabbath are people
who have got religion, but not much of anything else. A man who
allows religion to dominate all his thoughts, all his efforts, all
his acts, usually is a nuisance, if nothing worse.
A day of rest once a week is a good thing in itself, but it is
a bad thing when controlled by religion. We are in favor of Sunday
as a day when man can lay aside his business, his care, his tools,
and enjoy himself, but we want everybody to take their hands off of
it. Sunday is not a day for religion alone. If certain people wish
to go to church on Sunday, let them go; but when these people, who
go to church on Sunday, wish to compel everyone else to do the
same, they need to be informed that liberty on Sunday is just as
much a human right as liberty on Monday. There are better things
that man has found than religion. Liberty is better, truth is
better, happiness is better. We would like to see an American
Sunday on this continent, a Sunday in harmony with the principles
upon which our government was founded, a Sunday which was not run
by religion, a Sunday for man and not for the church. Such a day
would not be a sabbath, but it would be a free day, a happy day.
The notion of Sunday as a holy day is too absurd, too ridiculous to
deserve respectful attention. No man can have fifty-two holy days
in a year.
The minister must take his pious grasp off of the throat of
Sunday.
**** ****
A true man is not troubled by anything but his own acts.
**** ****
The true man walks the earth as the stars walk the heavens,
grandly obedient to those laws which are implanted in his nature.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
16
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
A great many people are afraid of knowledge, but we have seen
hundreds of people that we thought would be improved if they knew
more, but we have never seen one that we thought would be better if
he knew less.
**** ****
LORD AND MASTER
The Christian is fond of referring to Jesus as his lord and
master. We wonder why, for it is evident that not a Christian of
this century takes Jesus for his lord and master. The fact is, that
there is nothing that a man objects to more strongly than a master.
Man wants to be independent. He does not want anybody to be lord
over him. The struggle of the race for ages has been to get rid of
lords and masters, to be free from tyrants. Religion is after all
only dead politics. The church makes sacred what the state casts
off. What sense is there in fighting for long centuries to liberate
the body, and voluntarily accepting slavery for the mind? Jesus is
the ghost of a dead king. But why should the world prostrate itself
before his invisible throne when it refuses to acknowledge by its
obedience that he is fit to rule the kingdom of conduct?
What hypocrites Christians are! What a farce it is for men and
women to call Jesus lord and master! They do not obey his slightest
command, and they ignore his teachings as undeserving their regard.
There is not a precept, that the Christian church teaches came from
the lips of Jesus, that Christians honor by practice, not one.
Never did a lord receive so little honest respect from his vessels;
never a master so little true obedience from his servants.
Men and women are not sincere when they profess to accept
Jesus as their lord and master. They doubtless feel grateful to him
for saving them from the fires of hell hereafter, but they look
upon him as a mighty poor example for them to follow here. As
everybody knows, the church does not require that its members shall
practice the precepts given by Jesus. If she did demand this of men
and women her membership would speedily be reduced to zero. We do
not regard a man as honest, or worthy of respect, who calls Jesus
his lord and master and turns his back in contempt upon the
precepts he gave his disciples to practice.
**** ****
You cannot stuff your minds with the lives of saints and grow
good on the stuffing.
**** ****
Some persons are remembered solely for their virtues and
others solely for their faults. This is why we have a Jesus and a
Judas.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
17
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
ARE CHRISTIANS INTELLIGENT OR HONEST?
Future generations will regard the men who accept the
Christian superstitions either as simple or dishonest.
We are forced to doubt the sanity or sincerity of people who
profess to believe in the doctrine of the trinity, in a "begotten
Son of God," in miraculous conception, in the resurrection of the
body, in the Bible as the word of God, in miracles, and in heaven
and hell. We ask ourselves: -- Are men intelligent who believe
these things, or do they merely profess to believe them, and are
dishonest? We cannot reconcile faith in the Christian superstitions
with mental soundness and good sense.
What is there in Nature to suggest any of the Christian
doctrines? Does not everything we know, everything we have seen,
everything we have experienced, deny and disprove the Christian
superstitions? Why, then, do people accept them? We find no one
that acts as though Christianity were true, no one who lives as
though hell were under his feet and liable at any moment to pull
him down to eternal damnation. We find men spending all their
energies in trying to get the good things of earth, just as though
they were told to do so by God, instead of commanded not to lay up
treasures upon earth, etc.
It is one of the serious problems of the age to know how to
deal with Christians. They are, as a rule, respectable and decent;
they have good manners generally, and they eat and drink, dress and
talk, live and die very much as other people, and yet they profess
a faith that is absurd and foolish and that has no foundation in
fact or philosophy.
We like to think well of our fellow-beings, and we would like
to think well of Christians, but we cannot do so as long as they
pretend to believe what a person of intelligence, of good sense,
cannot believe. Are Christians honest? Perhaps they think so, but
have they ever really examined their belief in the light of the
knowledge of the twentieth century? If they will do this, we do not
see how they can longer profess to be Christians, if they are
honest.
**** ****
When men are hungry roast mutton is better than the lamb that
taketh away wrath.
**** ****
If a man can look in the mirror of his own soul without shame,
he can look the whole world in the face without a blush.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
18
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
THE DANGER OF THE BALLOT
Men speak usually as though voters ranged them-selves on one
side of a political question, or another, according to their
convictions or principles. We wish this were so, then we should be
nearer having a pure ballot. But we cannot share this lofty view.
It does not seem to us that the average voter is a man of either
political convictions or principles. Party service does not require
intelligent, independent action, and politics to-day stands for
party fealty more than for governmental ethics.
The main question that is decided by an election in our
country is, which political party shall have the privilege of
dispensing the offices of Government? There is a desire on the part
of certain persons to obtain office, for either personal or party
advantage, and this desire is oftentimes so fierce that it will
betray the honor of citizenship. Where this is done, or attempted,
lies the danger of the ballot.
If men voted only as their political convictions dictated, we
should have a higher party morality and purer officers, but we must
face the facts even though the duty is not an agreeable one.
Politics has degenerated to a dirty business and political trickery
and bribery secure victory where honor, integrity and principle
suffer defeat. The plain truth is, we have a large class of voters
who make merchandise of their right of suffrage, and a set of
demagogues whose business it is to bribe or coerce voters for the
advancement of selfish ends.
The honest, virtuous, intelligent, independent vote is the
noblest power of a freeman, but the purchasable vote, the ignorant
vote, the vicious and servile vote, is the opportunity of the knave
and the scoundrel. The purity of the ballot is the only safety of
a Republic, and no greater danger threatens this nation to-day than
that which arises from the corruption of the suffrage. A ballot
should be the honest declaration of our principles, the expression
of our own opinions, the badge of our manhood; but when it is held
in the hand that has sold it for a price, or will deposit it at the
dictation of another, it is the prostitute of greed and the hired
assassin of the despot.
Every man should select his own ballot and vote to please
himself, and any person that would interfere with his right and
duty to do this, should be disfranchised forever. The individual
who does not know enough to select his own ballot has no right to
vote in this country.
There have been too many voters led to the polls, and used as
party troops. There are still slaves on election day who are afraid
of the crack of the whip. There ought to be permitted in this
nation no political or religious disability on account of the
honest exercise of the right of suffrage. A man should be protected
from the politician and the priest. When a man votes as he thinks,
he has discharged the highest duty of citizenship, but when he
votes through bribe or fear, he forfeits the privilege of the
ballot. The polls are more sacred to man than the altar. Religion
might die and man could still have every blessing of earth, but
when liberty is killed, the noblest blessing of earth has departed.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
19
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
**** ****
The petty salvation offered by Christianity is not much sought
after to-day, while the world is bending its mighty energies in the
direction of knowledge as never before, and the glory of the
electric light, the song of the steam-whistle, the music of the
telegraph, the chorus of machinery and the grand anthem of
countless enterprises tell of a bright and golden future time when
man will master the elements of Nature and guide his life through
its course of years in perfect safety and security and step down at
the end of it, -- "Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
about him and lies down to pleasant dreams."
**** ****
WHO CARRIED THE CROSS
Who carried the cross upon which Jesus was crucified? Such a
question ought to be easy to answer, if the event ever occurred.
There ought to be no disagreement upon so simple a matter as this.
But there is disagreement, and quite a serious one at that. Three
of the gospels declare that Simon carried the cross, while the
fourth gospel says that Jesus himself carried the cross upon which
he was crucified. Now, which is right? Is John right? If so, then
Matthew, Mark and Luke are wrong. If Simon carried it, Jesus could
not have done so; and if Jesus carried it, then Simon did not.
That there is such a discrepancy in the accounts of this
alleged event does not so much indicate that one is right and the
others wrong in regard to the carrying of the cross as that none is
right. To our mind this disagreement of the gospels is an
indication that no such event as the carrying of a cross upon which
to crucify Jesus ever occurred.
Christians put forth the Bible as a work which in some way
came from God; as a book which is reliable in its statements, and
correct in its narrative of events. Now, it is patent to everyone
that in the gospels there are two distinct accounts of the carrying
of the cross. How can Christians reconcile this fact with their
theory that God is the author of the Bible?
It must be admitted by all that one mind could not have
written or inspired both of these stories, and it must also be
admitted that if one is true the other is false. What is the
natural conclusion that an unprejudiced mind would arrive at after
reading the account of the carrying of the cross for the
crucifixion of Jesus in the four gospels? is it not that no such
cross was ever carried for any such purpose?
There are too many gospels, too many stories of Jesus. It
would have been better for Christianity had all but one of these
narratives been destroyed. They contradict each other in so many
essential points as to make them totally unreliable as records of
facts. It is plain that not one of the writers of the four gospels
knew of what he was writing.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
We must in honesty say that no one knows who carried the cross
on which Jesus was crucified, and no one knows whether Jesus was
crucified or not, and no one knows whether any such person as Jesus
ever lived, to be crucified.
**** ****
Civilization has come about by going to school more than to
church.
**** ****
Nature is the volume from which all of our knowledge has been
translated,
**** ****
MODERN DISCIPLES OF JESUS
The modern disciples do not resemble very closely the ancient
disciples of Jesus. In fact it is very hard to find a reason why
Christian preachers call themselves disciples of Jesus at all.
According to the narrative of the New Testament Jesus was not in
love with money and what money will buy; he did not have a high
appreciation of the good things of the world; he did not express
any anxiety about his food or dress, nor manifest any desire to
have aesthetic surroundings.
And if we can credit the story of the gospels, Jesus charged
his disciples to be and do pretty much as he himself was and did.
He said to them: "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the
dead, cast out devils; ... Provide neither gold nor silver, nor
brass in your purses, nor scrip for your journey, neither two
coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves, for the workman is worthy of
his meat ... It is enough for the disciple that he be as his
master."
Whether or not the ancient disciples heeded these words of
their master, and carried out his instructions, we do not know, but
there is abundant evidence that his modern disciples do not pay his
commands the compliment of obedience. If there is one item that the
clergyman of to-day looks after it is his salary. He deliberately
disobeys all of the injunctions of Jesus to his disciples, and
thinks he is doing his duty to do so.
This is the funny part of his discipleship to us. He does not
consider the charge of Jesus worthy of being heeded. When we point
to the commands of Jesus, and ask some Christian minister why he
does not obey them, he coolly informs us that it would be the
height of folly in this age to attempt to do as Jesus commanded his
first disciples. In other words the Christian clergyman acts upon
the ground that the orders of Jesus to his apostles are
incompatible with personal dignity and decent living, and that only
a person utterly devoid of all sense of fitness and social
responsibility would undertake to follow his directions.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
21
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
We agree with the action of the modern disciple of Jesus in
regarding his commands as foolish and unfit to be obeyed, but we
want him to take an honest stand before the world and say so like
a man. Now he is a hypocrite, when he assumes a place in the
Christian ranks but refuses to obey the orders of his master. The
modem disciple of Jesus is more concerned about putting money in a
bank or investing it in real estate than he is about "laying up
treasures in heaven."
If there is one person who believes thoroughly in looking
after himself and his in the world, and getting all the good things
out of it, it is the Christian minister. He is well housed, well
fed, well dressed, and, as a rule, has a comfortable income. How he
must laugh when he reads the New Testament! He probably regards
Jesus as a chump to tell men and women to take no thought for what
they shall eat and drink and wear, and not to lay up a few dollars
for a rainy day. He has to make believe honor the poor,
unsophisticated peasant of Galilee, in order to get his fat living.
He has to fool the fools that support him in luxury, but all the
reverence he has for Jesus you could put in your eye.
If it paid better to tell the truth and to take an honest
position in the world, we presume that most ministers would quit
playing the hypocrite, but as long as Christianity pays its
preachers more than they can get from any other source, we may
expect them to profess to follow Jesus and then do as they please.
**** ****
Every fact is backed up by the whole universe.
**** ****
Christianity is a black spot on the page of civilization.
**** ****
The church is a bank that is continually receiving deposits
but never pays a dividend.
**** ****
A POOR EXCUSE
The excuse of the poor for not going to church is a poor
excuse. The woman who does not go to church because she cannot
dress well enough, cannot have much respect for her master. Jesus
did not rail against the poor, but the rich. He did not condemn
Lazarus, but Dives. Christian churches should be filled with rags,
not silks; with paupers, not bankers. No one can be too poor to
feel at home in the church of him who was too poor to have a place
to lay his head. A Christian church is the church of poverty, and
its minister should welcome the tramp, the beggar, the rag-muffin
and should give the cold shoulder to the rich merchant, the well-
dressed politician, the prosperous citizen.
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
It is a singular thing that while silks despise rags, rags
respect silks. The poor Christians ought to glory in their poverty,
ought to be proud of their patches. They should have utter contempt
for good clothes, and go to the church of Jesus with a feeling of
pride that they honor him by being poor, as he was. Velvet, satin
and broadcloth are insults to him whose ragged royalty they profess
to reverence.
If the poor were not as big hypocrites as the rich, they would
drive the richly-dressed worshipers out of the church dedicated to
the poverty-stricken Nazarene, who has been elected to the office
of savior. A person has not very much Christianity when his
religion is ashamed of his old clothes.
PROFESSION AND PRACTICE
There are a great many persons who are anxious to pass for
more than they are worth, to stand for more than they represent.
They always get on the side of the majority, because that is
considered the safe side, the side that is most likely to have the
largest number of loaves and fishes. These people are willing to
pay the price of popularity; willing to do anything that is
regarded as respectable, even to denying their own souls. The
easiest way to win favor is by professing the popular faith, no
matter what it is. A true man will be true to his convictions, true
to his principles; but such a man may not receive applause, may not
make money, may not be allowed to enter the door of society. In
order to win the favor and secure the good-will of the majority, it
is necessary to go with it, no matter where it is going. The
thoughtless, the weak and simple, follow the crowd.
Profession is demanded of him who would join the ranks of the
pious. Profession is required of the man or woman who belongs to
the church. The performance of every duty, the practice of every
virtue, is not a sufficient recommendation to popular favor. It is
a fact that profession with out practice is accepted in preference
to practice without profession.
The man who gives his life to man without thought or care
about God is considered a bad man, while he who gives his life to
God without thought or care about man is regarded as holy and
saintly. Nobody can do God any good or any harm, and all the
worship that is offered him is waste of time.
The man who stands up in public and asks God in prayer to help
the poor, to bless the suffering, is looked upon as a good man,
while he who does not pray nor ask God to do anything, but helps
his needy brothers and sisters, is pronounced wicked and sinful.
Values have become strangely mixed in the eyes of mankind. Religion
is considered as worth more than morality; worship more than work;
prayer more than performance and profession more than practice.
This is wrong, false and foolish.
Profession is a mighty poor jewel, a cheap and flashy
substitute for the diamond of practice. It is a confession of
fraud; a mask for a face; a coward's excuse; a hypocrite's wile.
Honesty need not profess to be honest.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
When a minister says that God will help you, ask him to put up
the collateral.
**** ****
The church spends thousands of dollars to save a dogma, where
it spends a cent to find a truth.
**** ****
WHERE IS TRUTH
Men have enthroned truth in some far-off kingdom, away from
the world, as though it were too pure to live on earth. It has been
made supernatural, and only to be known by being revealed. But
truth is everywhere; its voice is heard in everything. The very
pebble at our feet holds its image, and its light twinkles in the
white splendor of the distant star.
Man has searched for truth in books, but has not found it
there. He has invented words to conceal his disappointment, such as
God, heaven, providence, etc. Nature contains all the truth, and so
far as men have read Nature aright they have learned what is true,
but we cannot catch and hold Nature in our philosophies. She breaks
through all the finely-woven theories we put about her, and man, in
his attempt to bind Nature with his thoughts, binds only himself.
Men in all ages have tried to read the secret of the
universe. We have been told that God directs it, that a divine mind
planned it and keeps it in motion. Why not let the universe explain
itself? Why not read it by its own light? Why not confess our
ignorance? God is a figure of speech, but Nature is a reality. Let
us trust what we know. Nature is never capricious. Fire will always
burn, water will always drown, frost will always freeze. Though we
have confidence in Nature, let us acknowledge that we do not yet
comprehend the meaning of things. The old habit of inventing words
to hide our ignorance has been adopted by silence as well as by
religion. Evolution does not reduce the mystery of existence to a
simple problem. What we call truth is more than we have yet found.
The unknown is still provocative of investigation, and the only
prayer of the mind is, more light. We must beware of accepting
dogmas, whether of science or religion. No statement is the last
word of truth. Doubt is the first step of progress, and inquiry is
the way to knowledge.
There is nothing that stands more in the way of human
advancement than the authority of opinions. Some dragon of
assertion ever disputes our right to the golden fleece of truth. If
we ask for proof of God's existence or man's immortality, we are
answered with a text, but a text is only the dead opinion of a dead
man. This age demands truth, not the belief of a person who lived
centuries ago.
Because superstition holds the contents of a book sacred we
are not to enslave reason to its statements. We will not be bound
by the opinions of others, neither must we bind others to our
opinions. We must make freedom sacred, and cease condemning men for
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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disbelief or unbelief. The bondage of faith is the slavery of the
soul. It makes man unjust, unwise and unkind. Allegiance to a creed
makes us ill use a man simply because he does not believe as we do.
No church has all the truth, and no school either. So-called
religion merely shows where the search after truth ended. But truth
is the infinite reality,, and it will always be for man to find.
**** ****
Christianity is like a slow clock -- always being moved ahead.
**** ****
The day of the Bible is passed. Books have taken its place.
**** ****
Better be late to church Sunday morning than late at home
Saturday night.
**** ****
Man to-day has more and better ways of getting, a living than
at any time in the history of the race.
**** ****
WHAT DOES IT PROVE
Christians say that the resurrection of Jesus proves his claim
to be the Messiah. But what proves the resurrection? Certainly not
the contradictory stories of the gospels. The story of the
resurrection of Jesus from the tomb merely proves that somebody
lied, that is all. A pretty Messiah Jesus was! The Messiah of the
Jews was to be a king who should restore the lost splendor of the
house of David; who should overthrow the power of the Romans and
build up the Israelitish kingdom. This king never came. Jesus was
just about as much a Jewish Messiah as Crispus Attucks was a
President of the United States.
**** ****
No creed can be stretched to the size of truth; no church can
be made as large as man.
**** ****
To correct in ourselves what we condemn in others would remove
most of the evils of life.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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HUMAN RESPONSIBILITY
There is nothing that tends to perpetuate the weakness of
humanity more than religion. Men have been taught for ages that
they were dependent upon God for all they have. This kind of
teaching must be corrected; it is false. Man is dependent upon man.
No God will help or hurt him. Be he ever so good no God will praise
him; be he ever so bad no God will blame him. What he wants to
escape is his own condemnation.
In order to develop an independent spirit in man it is
necessary to increase his responsibility. Man must be taught to
rely upon his own strength, upon his own body and mind. He must
learn his relations to Nature and abide by the laws of his being.
He must know this: if he would have anything he must deserve it.
Human destiny follows human conduct.
The old notion that man is responsible to God cannot be
proved. There are no facts that corroborate that notion. Man is
responsible to himself. It is this truth that is calculated to
elevate and ennoble human life. Let human beings understand that
there is that within themselves that is to be respected, and that
they are responsible to themselves for all they do, and they will
be more worthy of respect and live more worthy lives.
ABOLISH DIRT
We should like to see one generation brought up to hate dirt.
Every child ought to be taught that clean hands and face and clean
clothes help to a clean life. There are too many homes, on this
earth that human beings live in that are dirty, in which those
three household gods -- the broom, the mop, and the dust-rag --
have no place.
Children should be taught to drive dirt out of the house as
they would a mad dog. Dirt is the food of disease. It is the enemy
of health and happiness. Abolish dirt.
**** ****
If God exists, what objection can he have to saying so?
**** ****
When we have nothing to give a beggar, we can at least tell
him so kindly.
RELIGION AND MORALITY
A religious man is not trusted to-day because he is religious.
Faith in vicarious atonement is not accepted as a moral substitute
for meeting one's obligations. Worship of God is not equivalent to
helping your neighbor. The fact that a man is religious may not be
proof that he is a bad man, but it is no evidence that he is a good
man. The most contemptible wretch that ever robbed the widow or
orphan could shine in a prayer-meeting, where words are passed for
virtues. The veriest scoundrel can pay a pew tax and march up the
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
aisle of the church with sanctimonious countenance. Religion is
such a superficial affair that it carries no moral recommendation.
Without morality religion could not borrow a dollar on its name,
while morality without religion can get all the accommodation it
asks for. The real virtues of a man do not depend upon religion.
Men have lived good lives while believing in dozens of gods and
without faith in a single god. Morality is not the offspring of
theology. You cannot pick out a moral man by hearing him pray. A
great deal of religion is worn to conceal moral defects.
We should watch the man who stands up in public and says: I am
moral. We should say to him: It is not necessary for you to
proclaim your morality; your daily life will show how moral you
are. The world is becoming suspicious of him who stands up in
public and says: I am religious. A great many people seem to think
if they profess to love God it is not necessary for them to love
man.
We are not denying that a great many good men and women are
religious; that a great many good men and women go to church and
prayer-meeting. We do not deny that a great many moral men and
women profess faith in total depravity, in vicarious atonement, but
we do not see how their faith has anything to do with their
morality. There is no particular necessity for Christians to be
good. Their faith saves them, not their conduct. Religion is not
doing, it is believing, or pretending to.
There is a big opportunity to lie in religion. You cannot tell
when a person says he believes in God whether he is telling the
truth or not. It is mighty easy to be religious. But the moral man
has no such chance. He is not judged by his professions, but by his
actions.
Religion makes hypocrisy easy, but morality offers the
hypocrite no show whatever.
**** ****
Never forget the good deeds that others do to you, nor
remember those that you do to others.
**** ****
JESUS AS A MODEL
It is common to speak of Jesus as though he touched the
borders of every human experience, and sounded the depths of every
joy and every woe, but there is no warrant for such statements.
He lived a very narrow life, and his brief career cannot be
stretched to cover the limits of our earthly existence. He is held
up for us to imitate, as though he had left a pattern for every
hour of our lives, and a model for every day from the cradle to the
grave. This is simply nonsense. This "model" business has been
overworked. Jesus had a great many crude, foolish ideas, and did a
great many deeds that are not worth repeating. As a model of what
is best in this age he is a wretched failure. It is a mistake to
look upon Jesus as a fit person to lead our century to a higher
life.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
**** ****
There is nothing to live for in the past.
**** ****
We must condemn christianity, not christians; strike the
church, but spare the heart.
SINGING LIES
Go into any Christian church and you will hear the choir and
the congregation singing lies. Is it not time to stop it? Is music
married irrevocably to falsehood? Take up an ordinary hymn-book and
you will hardly find a sensible line in it. The entire contents of
the book is about God, heaven, salvation, and other equally unknown
quantities, states and conditions. Why not sing sense? Why not sing
facts? Why not sing truth? Why not Sing the glories of Nature, of
life, of man?
Music is a wonderful power, a wonderful educator of the
feelings and emotions. It is essential, therefore, that music be
inspired by what is true, by what is good, by what is right. Truth
should be set to music and the lips taught to sing what science has
discovered, what art has done, what the universe reveals, what the
world is living for.
The common Christian music is a wail of despair, a cry of
sorrow, a shriek of fear. It is composed of false conceptions of
Nature, of humanity, of life. It is a "doleful sound." The triumph
of faith which it celebrates is not a full, round, complete joy.
The Church does not know the music of laughter, the music of
the heart. Its song seems always to hover on the brink of fear. It
is not the glad note of natural freedom, but the uncertain joy of
the escaped convict.
The free song must come from the free heart, must denote the
free thought. Let life that is healthy, happy and human be set to
music. Let us sing as we live, as we think, as we feel. The music
of the hand, the mind, the heart, should be on the lips. If we
could only sing what sings through us, the world would listen with
rapture. We do not want "harmonious madness" nor harmonious idiocy.
Pious music is stupid, false. It is inspired by the sickness of the
world. We need a stronger note, a sturdier song.
Lies enough have been sung. Let truth now fill the air. Out of
the great hope of the race let new songs come. We are beginning to
live for life on earth, for happiness here, for love here, for
victory here. Let the hands and feet, the brains and hearts of men
and women move to the music of truth.
**** ****
There is not a village where poverty does not pinch the
stomach or starve the mind, where misery does not need charity and
where wealth could not bless.
**** ****
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
Piety could do nothing better than imitate morality.
**** ****
A WALK THROUGH A CEMETERY
In walking through a country graveyard one sees a prominent
granite or marble monument here and there, but more of the stones
that mark the resting-places of the dead are modest in appearance,
plain and humble. But there are some graves that are unmarked by
any outward token of remembrance. Such graves may hold the dust of
as great and good men and women as those spots above which has been
raised the lofty shaft and costly design.
Graveyards are just as deceptive as are the homes of the
living. A fine house is not proof of the moral, the manly or
womanly worth of its occupant. Saints do not sleep beneath the
gilded roof any more than under a leaky thatch. So also the wise,
the good, the true, are not the ones over whose ashes rises the
chiseled stone. The dead may deserve monuments that the living are
not able to buy.
A graveyard might be called a library of lies. Epitaphs are to
be read, and believed, if you can believe them. We have found as
big falsehoods in cemeteries as in newspapers. "Say nothing bad of
the dead" is kindly counsel, but, say nothing of the dead on a
tombstone, is wiser.
We have seen a towering stone covered with words of praise
over the ashes of a man, who, while living, was simply a lover of
money. We have seen the sunken grave of a woman, with no marble to
adorn it, who lived a heroic life of love and duty beyond words to
tell. If virtues bore monuments one would rise over the neglected
grave of that saintly woman that would reach the clouds, and that
other grave would be stripped of its marble and left to oblivion.
Though a cemetery is more or less a museum of vanity and
pride, there is at the bottom of the costly display of granite and
marble a tender feeling, a commendable virtue. There may be as much
love and respect for those in unmarked graves as for those who
sleep in costly masonry or beneath sculptured stone. In walking
through a graveyard, if our steps should go to the places where no
monument invited the eye, they would be more likely to walk over
the dust of those who did life's duty well, than if they paused
only before the imposing shaft or read the marble tale of virtue
that never was told in deeds.
**** ****
God never helps those who need the help of men and women.
**** ****
No man ever knew Providence to interpose when his neighbor's
hens are scratching up his garden.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
29
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
PEACE WITH GOD
A good, pious lady said to us not long ago: "Don't you think
that you ought to make your peace with God?" We have never had a
bit of trouble with God. We have got along with him tip top. He has
never shown that it was at all necessary for us to make peace with
him. We have never quarrelled. If we are not at peace with God, we
did not know it. We have no wish to have a row with anyone, and if
God has the idea that we are mad with him or want to injure him in
any way, we wish to disabuse his mind of such a notion.
We wish to say that we have never had any dealings with God,
to our knowledge. If we have seen him, we did not know it. If he
has spoken to us, we were not aware of the fact. If he has been in
our presence at any time, we were not conscious of it.
We do not know that we have ever wronged God or that God has
ever wronged us. We do not say that some word or act of ours may
not have injured God.
All we can say is that we have no way of finding out whether
such is the fact or not. Of course, we could not take the word of
a priest or minister on this point. We want God's own assurance in
the matter.
Up to this time God has made no complaint to us that we have
wronged him, or that we need to make our peace with him, and until
we hear from his own lips that we owe him an apology, we do not
intend to make one.
God is just as good to us as though he was dead. He does not
cross our path, stand in our light, dog our steps, or interfere
with what we are doing. He does not get in our way any more than if
he lived in the planet Jupiter. So we do not see that we need to
make our peace with him. We do not comprehend how there can be any
collision between us.
**** ****
Priests will pardon thieves but not philosophers.
**** ****
Priest and God have formed some of the worst combinations in
history.
**** ****
Too long has this world been at the feet of the priest. Man is
never in that position for his own benefit, but for the benefit of
the priest.
SAVING THE SOUL
The man who can deliberately, and in cold blood, as it were,
try to save his soul, must be grossly selfish. To do that which
shall redound to one's own advantage or profit, without care or
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
consideration of another, shows little humanity. The finer feeling
is that which looks after others rather than one's self. It can
only increase selfishness to seek salvation.
When a man gets the idea that his soul must be saved, and goes
to work to save it, the things that he will do in order to insure
its salvation tend to lessen its value; and by the time he thinks
his soul is saved it is generally not worth saving. The more
willing we are to be lost, the more chance there is that we will
not be.
The cheapest method of saving one's soul is by believing
something. This requires but little effort and no brains.
Christianity is organized gullibility. It tells people to believe
what it teaches and it will save their souls. It remains to be seen
whether Christianity fulfills its part of the contract.
It occurs to us that before we try to save our soul we ought
to know that we have a soul and that it needs saving. We fail to
see any necessity for anxiety on account of our soul. We do not
care to go into the salvation business and let the priest get all
the dividends. Any person who can seriously talk about "saving his
soul" ought to have a guardian.
THE SEARCH FOR SOMETHING TO WORSHIP
What is there in the universe that deserves worship? Is there
anything? What is there that men and women should kneel to, pray to
and adore? If there is anything that deserves such worship from
human beings, where is it? Let us see if we can find any such
thing.
We look at the earth and its inhabitants, and while we see
much which calls for admiration, we find nothing to worship. The
mountain impresses us with its towering grandeur, the ocean with
its vast extent and terrible power, but we cannot get on our knees
to rocks, no matter how high they are piled; nor pray to water, no
matter how much there is of it. The flower elicits our wondering
delight, but we cannot adore a rose, a sunflower or a daisy, We own
the marvelous beauty of the animal form, but we cannot worship a
horse, a tiger or a dog. We hear the gladness and madness of melody
which comes from the throat of the bird, but sweet and entrancing
as it is, we cannot adore a skylark, a nightingale or a thrush. We
see man, the fairest form that walks the earth, the most marvelous
piece of work that Nature reveals to our senses, but we cannot
worship our own image.
Beyond earth the eye looks, and cloud, black or bright, is
seen and the endless blue beyond the cloud, but man cannot get on
his knees to vapor or pray to the sky. In the daytime the sun is
seen, and at night the moon and countless stars, but man cannot
worship a ball of fire nor a dying planet, or adore a point of
light.
We can find nothing on the earth or in the heavens that we can
worship. Is there something not on the earth or in the heavens? If
so, what is it and where is it? What do men and women kneel to?
Nothing. What do men and women pray to? Nothing. What do men and
women worship?, Nothing.
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
**** ****
Coals out of the ashes of love will never light the fires of
friendship.
**** ****
The names of most men live on account of the, falsehoods told
about them.
**** ****
We should scorn the person who would be mean enough to allow
his fellow-being to be punished for his deeds. Yet we have a
religion in our midst that is founded on this kind of meanness.
WHERE ARE THEY
Where are the sons of gods that loved the daughters of men?
Where are the nymphs, the goddesses of the winds and waters?
Where are the gnomes that lived inside the earth?
Where are the goblins that used to play tricks on mortals?
Where are the fairies that could blight or bless the human
heart?
Where are the ghosts that haunted this globe?
Where are the witches that flew in and out of the homes of
men?
Where is the devil that once roamed over the earth?
Where are they? Gone with the ignorance that believed in them.
**** ****
No man was ever yet canonized for minding his own business.
**** ****
No man was ever yet sorry to find that he had married a good
cook.
SOME QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS TO ANSWER
How do ministers know what pleases God?
What is "inspiration of God?"
When God "inspired men of old," what did he do to them?
What has God revealed to man that has ever helped him get a
living?
If we do not need to worship God six days in the week why do
we need to worship him on the seventh?
If there were no ministers and no priests, how long would
there be any churches?
If God will answer prayer, what is the necessity of working?
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
If God weeps when the poor suffer, what does he make it so
cold for?
If rich men cannot enter the kingdom of God, what business
have rich men to be in Christian churches?
If God is our "father," does he take very good care of his
children?
If God sends what blesses us, who sends what curses us?
If Christianity makes the world better, why is there so much
vice and crime?
If "salvation is free," why is anybody lost?
**** ****
THE IMAGE OF GOD
We wonder if anyone knows what is meant by the expression,
"the image of God." It is said in the Bible that God "created man
in his own image."
If man makes anything in his image we know how this thing
looks, but when God creates something in his image we are at a loss
to comprehend what is meant unless God has the likeness of man. In
ancient times there is no doubt but what the assertion that God
"created man in his own image" was accepted literally, that the
people looked upon God as a big man. Latter they came to look upon
man as a little god.
But we are dealing with the brain of the twentieth century,
with the common sense of a scientific age, when it is no longer
believed that God "created" man at all. To-day the "image of God"
is a puzzle. If God "created man in his own image," in whose image
did he create the elephant, the lion, the bear, the ox, the goat,
the snake, the beetle, the bee, the fly, the gnat? These could not
all have been created in the divine image, unless the divine image
is a multitudinous likeness.
Is it not about time that a few literary murders were
committed, that some one went through our literature and killed off
a lot of nonsensical expressions that, if they ever meant anything,
are meaningless to-day? If there was more honesty in the pulpit a
great many Bible expressions would go out of fashion. One of the
first that needs to die or be killed is this foolish expression,
"the image of God." It may be religious, but it lacks sense. It
means nothing in this age. God is a term that eludes definition. It
is a survival of an age of ignorance.
**** ****
A man may be a fool and not know it, but he cannot be a fool
without others knowing it.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
There is a pious regard for certain men and women who have in
past ages been, as it were, the world's salvation. We would honor
these men wherever piety offers her praise, but we would not, like
piety, forbid man the right to excel them. We all know how much
easier it is to be saved by another than to save ourselves, but it
cannot be denied that there is a certain respect, a feeling of
admiration, a thrill of reverence for the man who says: I am a free
moral being and scorn to allow another to suffer for my sins.
**** ****
RELIGION AND SCIENCE
When religion attacks science it is like trying to cut down
the tree of truth with the hatchet of falsehood. It is unfortunate
for Christianity that it was founded on the book of Genesis. A
scientific fact is higher authority to-day than a religious fable.
Science has found so many facts that contradict the stories of
Genesis that to accept these stories as divine truth is to make
falsehood the word of God.
The one particular enemy of every religion is science. With
merciless labor her votaries have dethroned one after another idol
of man. Science has no creed, no dogmas. Her search is for facts,
and on these she stands. If what is discovered by lovers of truth
is contrary to the tenets of religion, such tenets must be
abandoned, for what is scientifically false cannot be religiously
true.
The Christian church is built upon a lot of divine say-soes.
Science has found that these say-soes are not so. The only honest
thing for Christians to do is to give up the book of Genesis as a
reliable record. What men have said that God has said is not
necessarily sacred. Men may have lied, and lies are not holy.
Christianity has been afraid of the divine name. What it has found
in the name of God it has blindly worshiped as the word of God.
This stupid action has been a prolific source of mischief. Faith
has carried on its innocent back a thousand impositions through
fear to doubt.
Science has not found the name of God in the earth or in the
heavens. It has ignored the guide-board which the priest of
religion nailed to the Bible, "this book shows the way to truth,"
and has studied the volume of Nature instead. Whatever it has found
has been told. What may be honestly inferred from the facts of
science is that all religions are humbugs, and that Christianity is
a fraud.
**** ****
The only way to a better life is by living better.
**** ****
The person who tells a lie does not know what he will have to
do next.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
34
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
A great many persons have the idea that the universe would run
off the track but for them.
**** ****
Have a good time, make life cheerful and bright, dance if you
want to, sing if you can, play as long as you live and leave the
world with a smile.
THE BIBLE AND THE CHILD
The longer we live the more are we convinced that no adult
person would accept the Bible as a divine work if he had not been
taught the dogma of the Bible's divinity when a child. Let the
matured mind come to the perusal of the Bible without the religious
prejudice in favor of its divine character, and it would reject the
book as unworthy the consideration of the intelligent, educated
mind. Let the refined sense, which all education in art, manners
and social morals seeks to cultivate, begin to read the Bible,
without the religious prejudice in favor of its sacred character,
and before a dozen pages had been read, it would close the volume
with disgust and hide it out of sight, or burn it as soon as
possible.
The Bible's divinity rests upon the mental and moral
corruption of the young. Were children not taught that this book
was sacred, men and women would look upon it as unholy. Do people
realize what harm they are doing to the mind of the child when they
teach it to accept the Bible as God's word? They are telling the
child that falsehood is sacred; that ignorance is holy; that foul
stories are pure; that vile words are clean, in the mouth of God.
Fathers and mothers would not tell their children what they, and
what priests and ministers, tell them God wrote or inspired man to
write.
What is needed to-day is to tell the truth about the Bible.
Tell men and women that ignorant, uncultured, unrefined men wrote
it hundreds of years ago, and that it is unfit in its present shape
to put into the hands of a child that a mother wishes to grow up
honest, true and pure.
Liberals should not allow their children to touch the Bible.
They should keep it from them until they are old enough to know
that no book was ever written by a God, and then, if they read the
Bible, they would see its true character. We must guard the minds
of our children from Christian influences. We pity the child that
is taught that the Bible is the word of God, but we despise the man
that teaches this falsehood.
**** ****
Most men would kill the truth if truth would kill their
religion
**** ****
The truths which God revealed have been overthrown by the
truths which man has discovered.
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**** ****
People used to think that to mix religion with business
spoiled the religion, now they think it spoils the business.
**** ****
WHEN TO HELP THE WORLD
Recently an old man, over eighty years of age, lay on his
death-bed. He could no longer keep possession of the wealth he had
accumulated. In a few hours he must leave it to the world from
which he had taken it and kept it so many years. He had not been a
generous man. He had loved money. He loved to get it and loved to
keep it, and if he could have carried his wealth with him,
whither he was going with that unknown guide, Death, there is no
doubt but that he would have done so. He had given nothing to the
world while he lived and he would not have given anything when he
died, only that he was obliged to do so. This is the only charity
of a great many people.
When death comes, then the hand of avarice must open. Nothing
can be carried through the grave. So the old man must at last
release his hold upon his gains. He must leave his loved dollars to
somebody. He had gathered them for himself, not for others. He had
thought only of himself when he gathered them, and now, when he was
to part with them, he did not know what disposition to make of
them. The lawyer was present at his bedside; the minister was also
with him. The will had been drawn. He had bequeathed certain sums
to public charities and remembered the church. Life was almost
gone. He hesitated yet to give up the control of his money to
others. The pen was placed in his dying fingers for him to affix
his name to the will. But he had waited too long. He died with the
name unwritten, the pen unused in his dead hand.
Not voluntarily did he part with a cent of his fortune. His
millions will now be divided by the law.
Is there in the bare possession of money the happiness that
men desire, that men dream of, that men want? Is a dollar the
highest goal of human effort, the crown of human endeavor? Is this
dollar, the insignia of fortune, the true sign of good fortune? We
believe not. The man who works for this and nothing else, is the
slave of avarice; as hard, as cruel, as merciless a tyrant as ever
cursed the earth.
Let every man strive for independence. Let man be rewarded
well for his labor. Let every hand keep busy, but let there be a
desire higher than money, a dream nobler than of gain, a want above
the possession of riches.
There is a better charity than that unwilling gift which death
compels us to make; it is to help the world while we live. There
are two ways of doing this: by giving back a part of what we take,
-- that is one way and a good way -- and by taking less from
others, that is another way and a better way. The help that men
need to-day is justice. Thousands are poor that one may be rich.
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Thousands toil that one may live in idleness. Thousands are in want
that one may live in luxury. Thousands have not a dollar that one
may have millions. This is not right, not fair, not just. Men must
take less while they go through life.
It is not enough that a man on his deathbed give a college a
million, a public library a million, a public park a million. He
should have no millions to give. He should live a more just life
and help others by trying to get less for himself. The public
bequest is the popular atonement for large fortunes, but such
atonement does not efface the sufferings of poverty and want they
entail.
We say to the rich, do not wait until you die before you try
to help your fellow-men. Help them while you are living. When a man
has made money he should make a noble use of it, or he wrongs
himself and the world.
**** ****
Where the cross has been planted only superstitions have
grown.
**** ****
Religion is no more the parent of morality than an incubator
is the mother of a chicken.
**** ****
Unless some people change their habits before they die, there
will be a lot of dirty angels in the next world, if there is any
next world.
**** ****
THE JUDGMENT OF GOD
We hear less of what is called the "judgment of God" than
formerly, but quite enough to show that this foolish superstition
still lingers in the human mind. It used to be believed that God
was on the lookout for the bad boy who went fishing or skating on
his holy sabbath and that when he caught him he immediately made
use of him to prove his loving-kindness and tender mercy by making
him get into the water where he could drown him. It was never
related that God took this boy by the shoulder or even by the ear
and led him back home to his parents with the request that they
take better care of him in the future. This was not God's way.
There would be no judgment in this. God must murder the poor boy
who could see no difference in the conduct of the birds and fishes
on Sunday from their conduct on Saturday, and have him carried back
to his father's arms and his mother's heart a corpse, a cold, dead
thing, no longer needing love, kindness, and a parent's great,
forgiving charity. This was God's way. He delighted in seeing a
dead boy taken out of the frozen stream and laid down in the
presence of his poor, grief-crazed mother. He thought this would
make the mother love him more and other boys keep his holy sabbath.
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So when any misfortune befell on Sunday a human being who was not
on his way to God's house, or engaged in other pious occupation, it
was believed to be a judgment of God and people took care to avoid
a similar punishment. This kind of religious teaching does not
enjoy the reputation that it once did for the reason that it has
become discredited by human experience. All things considered it is
just as safe to go sailing or swimming, fishing, or driving, on
Sunday as on Monday and men have learned that no penalty attaches
to violation of the fourth commandment. As people become sensible
they cease to be religious.
**** ****
Prayer is begging from a pauper.
**** ****
The egg of prayer never yet became a chicken.
**** ****
Prayer is like a pump in an empty well, it makes lots of
noise, but brings no water.
**** ****
A great many people who worship Jesus would not let him come
in at the back door.
**** ****
CHRISTIANITY AND FREETHOUGHT
Christianity is opposed to freedom, and consequently freedom
is opposed to Christianity. A Christian cannot be a freethinker,
and a freethinker cannot be a Christian. When a man is required to
believe certain doctrines, he is not free to think. A creed is to
keep the mind from inquiry. Questions lead to doubt, and doubt is
the death of faith.
The church condemns freethought, because freethought cannot be
bound by its chain of dogma. There is no place in the Christian
church for the exercise of liberty. If the mind finds a new truth
that contradicts the old dogma, the truth must be strangled that
the dogma may hold its power over the thoughts and deeds of men.
To be a Christian is to surrender to the priest or minister in
the name of Christ. It is to be a monkey on the end of an
ecclesiastical string to get pennies for his master. It is to crawl
at the feet of superstition.
To be a freethinker is to search for truth without fear. Where
there is love of freedom there is no reverence for authority. There
is no faith in God as sacred as love of man.
**** ****
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There may be lots of Providence in the world, but no man seems
to know just where it can be found.
**** ****
THE BROTHERHOOD AND FREEDOM OF MAN
From the fall of Rome a new era marks the history of man; a
new soul was born out of human experience. The idea which had been
prophesied by the philosophers of India, Egypt and Greece now
appeared in life, and what had been hoped for seemed about to be
realized. Born in an age of slaughter and inhumanity the thought of
the brotherhood of man fell upon the world like a star out of the
night's sky. Though the power of this idea was not fully
comprehended by the people upon whom it blazed forth, still the
promise it contained was able to kindle enthusiasm in the hearts of
the few, who bequeathed it to the world as the destiny of mankind.
Human life was inspired with a new purpose under the power of this
grand and noble sentiment. Although it was not understood and the
subject of much misapprehension, the thought of uniting man in one
great endeavor grew and endowed nations with a feeling that never
before had moved their hearts. Its advent gave the world a new
ambition and the mind was enlisted in the great cause of love and
fellowship of man.
There was another sentiment not less true or beautiful but
more revolutionary, which about the same time began to assume
likeness in human affairs, which must be considered of larger
importance in the new social movement, which, during the first
century of the so-called Christian era, commenced to be felt. The
declaration of the sovereignty of man was more prophetic of change
in government and society than the doctrine of the brotherhood of
man. No government taught that man ought to judge for himself what
is right, and no church preached that man should love his neighbor
as himself.
Political and religious organizations then as now were arrayed
against individual rights. The state and the church controlled the
person. Man was crucified between these two thieves. One robbed him
of his body, the other of his soul. Our history assigns the origin
of these two great principles -- man's right to judge for himself
and his duty to help his fellow-being -- to Christianity. But one
was born before the beginning of the Christian era and the other
long after the Christian church was established. One represents man
as opposed to authority; the other the soul resisting tradition.
There is more or less talk about the freedom and brotherhood
of man, but they exist as ideas yet more than as facts. It is true
that man enjoys a certain measure of liberty in many directions,
but the victory of freedom has not yet been won. So too is there a
kind of human sympathy in society, but the broad and magnificent
destiny which dwells in the bosom of human brotherhood is more a
dream than a reality.
There has been too much time wasted in disputing who was the
human author of these great and sublime conceptions, and too little
expended in trying to plant them in human hearts and cultivate them
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in human lives. It is unimportant who first stood against the world
of tyranny and demanded his right of independence, or who first
felt indignation for the wrongs inflicted upon his race and pity
for the victims of cruelty, and pleaded for more humanity towards
man. The secret can never be wrested from the silent past, and we
can gain nothing by fighting over graves.
The world seems nearer the full realization of human freedom
and brotherhood than ever before. What is needed now to hasten the
fruition of the glad promise of a better destiny for the world is
to take authority from the priest and selfishness from man.
**** ****
Prayer is a hook that never caught any fish. It is a gun that
never brought down any game.
**** ****
No man ever got an answer to prayer that he could show to
another person.
**** ****
WHATEVER IS IS RIGHT
There are a great many familiar sayings, that are in the
mouths of nearly everybody, which are perfect nonsense, and one of
these many sayings is the one we have chosen for the subject of
this article. One would imagine that falsehood became sacred by
repetition, judging from the way that certain untruths live in the
literature and language of mankind. Many a holy text is only holy
by being with what is true, as we pay respect to many a man whom we
know to be unworthy because he is related to respectable people.
The saying that "whatever is is right," is a dogma of the
philosophy of indifference. To anyone who works for the right and
suffers wrong, such a dogma is impertinent. Is the deed that sinks
a man to the realm of brutes, and the deed that lifts him to
heights where virtue in her high estate dwells alone, both right?
The worst light for a human soul is that light in which a bad act
looks like a good one. We cannot afford to trifle with things pure
and true. To succeed grandly in life we must side with what is
right.
There is a class of people that hold a don't-care philosophy.
These people don't care what they say or do; they don't care what
takes place in the world or what the world suffers or endures. The
tent in which they dwell is pitched above the plane of human wants
and sufferings. They look from their serene abode upon the troubled
elements below, and, in contemplation of what is beneath them,
pronounce with pious gravity the highest text of their system of
philosophy: "Whatever is is right."
To those who have never seen the bitter tear start under the
infliction of injury; to those who have never heard the sigh that
disappointment and deception have wrung from a breaking heart; to
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those who have never witnessed the sufferings which tyranny imposes
upon its victims; to those who have never felt the miseries which
selfishness heaps upon human beings, this doctrine may seem true;
but to those who have beheld the consequences of evil doing, and
felt the hard hand of injustice upon their lives; to those who have
been the victims of deception, and realized the terrible fate of
disappointment; to those who have been trodden upon and denied the
rights of men; to those who have been the slaves of the world's
cruel masters, how false it is!
We cannot disguise the fact that there is wrong in the world.
It haunts every dwelling-place of man. It follows man to his
business, to his work. It goes with him when he seeks his pleasure.
It does not leave him when he enters his home.
Every harsh word is wrong, every unjust judgment is wrong,
every cruel act is wrong, every deception is wrong, every wicked or
impure thought is wrong. Go where we will we shall meet the ugly
face of wrong. On the street its presence will bring shame into the
face; in our dealings with the world it will come before our eyes
in all its hideous reality. Even when alone we cannot keep this
phantom away.
Is it right that a human being should cause another pain and
anguish that will leave their marks on the heart and brow for life?
Is it right to make a man suffer unjustly, to add to misfortune the
weight of cruelty? Is it right to deprive one of honor, of fortune,
of life? Is it right to bear false witness against a brother-man,
to abuse a neighbor, to slander and malign a human soul? Is wrong
right?
Go to the garret of the poor wretch where want stares him in
the face, where extortion robs his family of every joy and every
comfort, where the day is made dark from no ray of human love
coming into the heart, and the night darker from the absence of
warmth and light. Go to the home rent asunder by vice and see the
broken promises once so fair and bright, now blushing with shame;
hear curses from lips that once spoke in love; see the skeletons of
vows beautiful when breathed by the lips of the holiest passion on
earth, but now hideous in their ruin. Go to the den of wickedness,
to the house of crime supported by lust and greed; look upon the
pictures of wretchedness and sorrow, of sin and guilt painted by
the hand of wrong; behold the wrecked human lives that are floating
on the sea of existence, only drifting until some sudden wave shall
overwhelm them and sink them out of sight, leaving behind a memory
that man should contemplate with pity and which kindness would blot
out forever. See the world in its vice, in its suffering, in its
misery, in its tears and its shame and let your lips say, if they
can, that "Whatever is is right."
**** ****
It is necessary to distinguish between the virtue and the vice
of obedience.
**** ****
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I believe that if God dwelt above the earth in the twelfth
century of the Christian era, and witnessed the cruelty of priests
and heard the cries of their poor victims when their bones were
broken upon the rack or their flesh was burning in the wicked
flames, and these priests should have lifted up their voices to
this God and given him the glory of the awful sacrifice, he would
have said to them: You lie; I never commanded one of my children to
murder another. You are no ministers of mine, and your victims,
with their heresies, are a thousand times holier in my sight than
are you with your pious dogmas and holy sacraments.
**** ****
THE OBJECT OF LIFE
Men live for less than their advancement. The object of life
is not human improvement. Ambition has not self-denial for a mark
but self-gratification. A thousand pander to one. Passion, instead
of principle, is the power that guides. We do not save to help save
the world, to aid progress and truth, but to have means to satisfy
selfish desires. The highest consideration of mankind is self.
Everything is done for one. Humanity is a word of little meaning.
It is not often regarded as a great, living, suffering being, which
demands of every person his or her best life. Man is not loved as
the supreme fact of Nature. When not a beast of burden, he is too
often a beast of pleasure.
As long as self is to be preferred to all, it matters little
what is employed to promote it. Self is alone sacred to
selfishness. General interest is sacrificed to individual
possession. Every man thinks the world his first. It is regarded as
magnanimous to leave what you cannot take.
The world no longer permits the stronger to kill the weaker,
but it allows the wealthy to oppress the poor. Money is holier than
man. Human life is less sacred than property. To save a dollar is
regarded as a more necessary virtue than to save a human heart.
Society cares more for fortune than for truth. It is easier to win
your way with hypocrisy than with honesty. The world does not ask:
What are you worth morally? but, what are you worth financially?
Self-interest has made it the object of life to injure our fellows.
To get an advantage over another is the victory man seeks. One must
fall that another may rise.
Those who are at the bottom support those who are on top. The
toilers are the foundation of society. We need to be more careful
of what is beneath us than of what is above us. "I write not, these
things to shame you, but to warn you."
**** ****
When you are falling, you cannot stop where you wish to
**** ****
The power that conquers men to-day must be the power of
enlightened opinion.
**** ****
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Two dollars given to the son do not atone for one stolen from
the father.
**** ****
MAN
The Hebrew psalmist sings of man: -- "Thou madest him a little
lower than the angels." A modern psalmist writing on this subject
says."Man was made a little higher than the brutes." Man is a rare
animal; he is the only animal that can make a fire, but he is more
than a brute. We do not know how much less than an angel he is, for
we do not know the dimensions of an angel.
What we do know is, that this strange, rare being, called man,
is capable of doing a good deed, but is prone to do a bad one; that
he has developed virtues above the brute and vices below the brute;
that he is better in public than in private, and yet take him all
in all he might be worse. We have had the weakness of human nature
preached until we have almost come to expect man to be immoral and
vicious, and are surprised if anyone asserts that man is strong
enough to resist temptation, and disappointed if he does not come
up, or down, to our expectations of vileness and wickedness.
While we have faith in man in the minority rather than in the
majority, still we are inclined to think that most men are bad from
circumstance more than from choice. We trust to better conditions
for better men, and depend upon our best men to establish such
conditions.
There is some criticism of virtue that vice offers which is as
pertinent as the censure of vice which virtue indulges in. We admit
that there are a great many sinners that are preferable to some
kinds of saints, who are no more to blame for their sins than their
more fortunate fellow-beings are for their saintliness. But we do
not mean to say that every good man is a villain in disguise, nor
every rogue a righteous man who has not been found out.
There are men and women whose goodness is looked upon as
"flat, state, and unprofitable" because it is that kind that is
good from favorable circumstances, and not from the exercise of any
strength of their own, but such virtue is better than vice. We
cannot afford to lose any power that protects the world from evil,
and we rejoice in all the favorable circumstances that guard human
beings.
Men are educated into bad habits through the constant
assertion of human weakness, and the publicity which is given to
bad deeds. We can never build man very high on the foundation of
"total depravity." It is to be regretted that we think so meanly of
mankind. We must start with a better assumption of human nature
than that held by Christianity.
We ought to emphasize man's strength and give prominence to
the good deeds of men. It is not necessary to lie about human
nature one way more than another. Man has been painted worse than
he is. We do not ask to have him painted better than he is. We want
a true likeness. Man will make the best picture without any
fictitious coloring.
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We are aware that we have not yet outgrown our animal
inheritance, that we are still fettered to earthly things. Man can
more easily deny his soul than he can his stomach, but for all this
there is greatness in him. While man can fall to the lowest depths
from which he sprung, he can rise to the height which is visible in
his purest hours. What we ought to do is to encourage, all we can,
the conditions most favorable to the development of the noblest
part of man. Every temptation to vice should be driven from the
public gaze. If man must fall, let him fall out of sight.
**** ****
People who rely most on God rely least on themselves.
**** ****
The original sin was not in eating of the forbidden fruit, but
in planting the tree that bore the fruit.
**** ****
The people who boast the loudest of carrying their cross are
never around when man cries for help.
**** ****
An audience composed of the best-dressed people in a town
stands for "pure religion and undefiled" to-day.
**** ****
THE DOGMA OF THE DIVINE MAN
There are growing indications all along the Christian line
that the dogma of the divinity of Jesus is being abandoned. It is
seen that such a dogma involves confusion and misapprehension. When
the question, "How can a God who is infinite exist in a form that
is finite?" is pressed to an answer, no satisfactory reply is
forthcoming. There is apparent absurdity in this doctrine. The
general definition of God, as put forth to-day by the Christian
Church, is irreconcilable with the dogma of the divinity of Jesus.
If Jesus was God he was not a man; if he was a man, he was not God.
To talk about his divinity. is to talk nonsense, if Joseph was his
father and Mary his mother. Man is not divine; God is not human.
The mixing up of these two terms is done simply to impose upon the
credulous and superstitious. We cannot think that any man of real
good sense believes this Orthodox dogma. It seems impossible for
intelligence to so contradict itself. The brain stoops that accepts
this dogma. For a man to confess his faith in jesus as divine is to
admit that his hat is not full. The evidence adduced to prove the
divinity of Jesus proves the divinity of Apollo, of Hercules, of
Prometheus, of hundreds of mythological heroes. Are Christians
prepared to admit this? If not, then they are called upon to tell
the world why not. What is meant by divine? What kind of a man is
a divine man? Let us see. Divine means super-human, supernatural,
God-like; hence a divine man is a superhuman man, a supernatural
man, a God-like man. Does anyone know what
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these definitive terms mean? Does a person know what he is talking
about when he says a man is super-human? Can a man be more than
man, more than human, more than natural?
The dogma of a divine man is a dogma of deception. It is a
theological cobweb. It is spread to catch flies.
The idea prevailed in the past that what could not be
understood must necessarily be profound, as though muddy water was
deep water.
Does anyone comprehend the dogma of the Trinity? It is
believed because it cannot be comprehended. The tribute of faith
has been paid to occult nonsense long enough.
How does anyone know what is superhuman? What is human? The
fact is, Jesus has had his day. His reign is drawing to a close. He
is being seen for what he is, -- a myth. Faith in him as a God is
dying. The belief that Jesus was divine is a blot on the
intelligence of this century. But the blot is growing smaller.
**** ****
Lots of men who would not associate with infidels for fear of
contaminating their characters are not yet out of jail.
**** ****
THE RICH MAN'S GOSPEL
The presence of numberless rich men in Christian pews leads
one to wonder if the gospel of Jesus has been kicked out of the
church. Such men do not, and cannot, respect the person to whom
every church is dedicated. The gospel of Jesus is not the gospel of
the rich, but of the poor; not of the banker, but of the beggar. It
is impossible for the wealthy man to be a Christian. If he had any
faith in the doctrines of Jesus he would "sell what he has and give
to the poor." And not only this, but he would be poor himself.
Jesus never said a kind word of the rich. He never uttered a
word that contains any consolation for the millionaire. He never
gave any command that encourages the 'laying up treasures upon
earth.' What is a rich man in the Christian church for? He has no
business there, if he is an honest man. He is living exactly
opposite to the life Jesus commended. He is doing what Jesus told
men not to do. He refuses to do what Jesus said a man must do in
order to be his disciple.
Either the rich man who joins the church is a hypocrite, or
the minister, that receives such a man into the church, is. There
is a hypocrite somewhere. You do not find that Jesus went into the
temple to flatter the money-changers; he went in there to drive
them out with a whip.
The rich man's gospel is not found in the New Testament. That
is sure. It may be preached from a Christian pulpit by a so-called
Christian minister, but the man who preaches this gospel denies his
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professed Lord and Master. Jesus did not say, "Lay up treasures
upon earth." Take all you can from the poor. Form trusts and
combinations to enrich yourselves. Worship Mammon. There is a
misunderstanding evidently on the part of the rich man who joins
the Christian church. If he would read the New Testament he would
learn his mistake, and see that he was in the wrong place. He does
not seem to be aware what Jesus preached. There is one thing
certain, the Christian church that receives into fellowship a
millionaire, has more reverence for the millionaire than for Jesus.
**** ****
The beating of humanity's heart cannot be felt by placing the
finger on the church's pulse.
**** ****
What a queer thing is Christian salvation! Believing in
firemen will not save a burning house; believing in doctors will
not make one well, but believing in a savior saves men. Fudge!
**** ****
SPEAK WELL OF ONE ANOTHER
There is nothing that will make this world brighter and
happier than to speak well of one another. We sometimes wonder how
a mean story about a fellow-mortal gets started, and how it is kept
going. Surely no base report ever had birth in a kind intention,
and no mouth ever repeated it with the wish to make the world
better.
Envy, malice and ill-will can make no decent defense of
themselves. Now, it costs no more to say a good word of a brother
or sister than to say a bad one, and there is no obligation on the
part of a person to blacken human reputation. It is a mean heart
that cannot do justice to another. If we must speak of our
neighbors, let us speak kindly. Let us refer to those things that
are pleasant, and discuss that in their characters that is worthy
of praise. It hurts us to say bad things of other people, and it
may hurt them. There is certainly some part of everyone's life that
can be commended. What we know of others that is not good, let us
not refer to. Silence is never more charitable than when it spares
a human heart.
There are many of our friends who are striving to make a
success in life. Nothing will aid them more than to speak well of
them. Everybody can be generous with kind words, and yet they are
worth more than gold. They are the diamonds of speech, which the
poorest can wear.
Don't be afraid to speak well of men, to praise good deeds. No
one will think worse of you for speaking kindly of others. It is
not necessary that we speak well only of those deeds that men sing
in words of song. There are scores of little every-day acts, that
give the perfume of self-denial, of sacrifice, and that deserve
praise. If we were to give any advice to a man or woman, who wished
to help the world as they passed through it, it would be this,
Speak well of men and women.
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**** ****
A receipt for bringing up a child will not apply to a whole
family.
**** ****
To build one house for man is better than to build a dozen
houses to God.
**** ****
We often hear a man say that the world owes him a living. So
it does, if he earns it. But man owes the world something. The debt
is on both sides, and it is only by giving what is due to others
that we get what is due to ourselves. We receive assistance when we
render it, and it is by a law of our nature that the world turns
from a man who turns from the world.
DISGRACEFUL PARTNERSHIPS
Six marriages out of ten are disgraceful partner-ships. The
ones to question our assertion will be the married men, and the
very ones, too, responsible for the disgrace. Marriage is a union
where the two partners should share alike the profits and the
losses. There should be no head of the firm in the sense of making
one subservient in any way to the other. The wife has just the same
right to handle the money of the firm as the husband. The family
purse should not be carried in the husband's pocket unless he is
willing to pass it out whenever his partner requests it, and no
questions asked.
Most men treat their wives worse than servants, If a wife asks
for some money, the husband, in. most instances, wants to know what
she is going to do with it and how much she wants, instead of
giving her what is her right. Married men do not recognize their
wives as equal partners in the family concern. They think they
should have what they want and their wives what they are pleased to
give them. How many homes have been broken up by carrying out such
a principle as this? More than men will confess.
This state of things is not confined to the homes of poverty.
Not at all. It exists where there is plenty. Many a proud woman is
almost daily humiliated by a man to whom she is obliged to go for
what money she needs. The pain that niggardly husbands inflict upon
sensitive wives is only known by themselves. Many a woman has said:
"I would rather go without the money than have so much trouble to
get it from my husband." What must a woman have suffered to be
forced to make such a confession as that!
A marriage in which a woman is daily made to feel her
dependence upon a man, is attended with the gravest moral perils.
The only just rule is for the husband to allow his wife a fair
share of his income, for her to do with as she pleases. Not only
marital harmony would be promoted by such an arrangement as this,
but love would burn longer and purer on the family altar, private
morality would be conserved, and all the relations of life elevated
and dignified thereby.
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**** ****
The most beautiful thing is the beauty we see in those we
love.
**** ****
The money that men waste would make them rich, and the time
they waste would make them wise.
**** ****
SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY
Every day we are told of some wonderful discovery of science.
But what has theology discovered? The scientist is searching for
the truth; the theologian is trying to save his idols. Of all the
great inventions and discoveries that go to make human life easier,
happier, more rich and glorious, not one can be laid to the work of
theology. These triumphs all belong to science. Some day the world
will become wise enough to confess that the priest is of no benefit
to mankind. The investigator, the student, the inventor, is the
true philanthropist, the real benefactor. He finds what is useful
to his race, what adds comfort and joy to existence. Science is the
hope of the world, the only savior that humanity has had down the
ages or will have as man lives on through the centuries.
**** ****
Many a man who was too good to play cards has broken a bank.
**** ****
A dog can get rid of another dog that cannot get rid of the
flea on his back.
**** ****
UNEQUAL REMUNERATION
A great many small men draw large salaries, and a great many
large men draw small salaries. Of course we measure men by their
ability to do something of value to their race. It is a sorry fact
that one person is paid ten thousand dollars a year for playing
base ball or riding a race-horse, and that another person in unable
to earn seven hundred and fifty dollars for the same length of time
by performing some useful labor. A mechanic, who actually adds to
the wealth of the nation, who produces something of value, is paid
less than a jockey or a base-ball pitcher whose business (?) is
chiefly maintained for purposes of gambling.
But there are other phases of this question that present
equally disproportionate features. An actor, who merely repeats the
words of another, receives one thousand dollars a night for his
performance, while a lecturer who imparts original knowledge to his
hearers, is paid twenty dollars and his expenses for his thought
and labor. A singer is given five thousand dollars for appearing
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three nights of a week upon the stage, and a reformer is allowed
what her audience will drop into the contribution box. One
explanation of this is: "There is only one Caruso."
There is another explanation, and that is: People will pay
more to be entertained, to be pleased, than to be instructed, to be
enlightened or to be told what is right and best.
It is a sad fact that many are paid too little for what they
do. As a rule the actual laborers, the real workers of the world,
both male and female, do not receive fair compensation for their
work, while thousands of people who merely hold an office are paid
far more than they are worth. Teachers, writers and professors are
all underpaid. The highest work that man or woman is doing is the
work of education, training the human mind to think truly, to act
nobly, and yet a lawyer receives more in a day than a teacher in a
year.
The world that will pay one thousand dollars an hour to hear
the voice of Melba, will grumble at paying ten cents an hour to a
washerwoman. The world that will give a person ten thousand dollars
a year for pitching base-ball will object to raising the wages of
our mill operatives five per cent. The world that will pay ten
thousand dollars a year for riding a horse, wants a woman to teach
school for fifty dollars a month.
We say, pay talent well and genius generously, but pay well
also the arm that toils; pay the needle, the saw, the spade, the
hoe, the mop.
**** ****
Every man who claims the right to "life, liberty and the
pursuit of happiness," is bound to show that he deserves this
right.
THE OLD AND THE NEW
This is essentially an age of change. Things which have been
established for centuries are no longer regarded as fixed. That
which has been looked upon as absolute is now respectfully held to
be uncertain. The foundations of old ideas are being disturbed and
man finds that he has built upon sandy-bottom. Much which in times
past answered the human soul, now affords no satisfaction. It is
plain that a revolution has commenced that will be far reaching and
important in its actions and reactions. There is to be a general
overhauling of matters secular and religious, political and social
and a wholesale clearing out of old words and forms, of outgrown
habits and customs, may be expected, The world of man is about to
take account of stock and to have a universal comparison of
estimates of values. Too long have we been subsisting upon the say-
soes of our ancestors and taking their eyes and ears as infallible.
For many years men have regarded all questions of religion as
settled, and that the whole duty of this and future generations was
to accept the conclusions of the past upon all religious matters.
We do not understand how men ever came to regard such conclusions
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as final or how they came to expect the whole human race to receive
them as the utmost of human knowledge. We do not look upon the
questions of religion as settled, and the growing doubts of the
infallibility of the common religious ideas demand that we
reconsider these questions. To do this we have not to go into any
theological discussion. No learned authorities are to be consulted
to establish or refute any line of argument. No dictionary of terms
is to be examined to settle the meanings of words. We have only to
decide whether mankind had better facilities for observing and
studying the phenomena of the universe in past times than we have
to-day; whether their eyes and ears were better than ours, and
their methods and opportunities for ascertaining the truth of
things higher than those of this age.
If men in the past had facilities inferior to ours for
observing the phenomena of the universe, it would follow that their
ideas of the universe would be inferior. Now, if we have superior
ideas of the universe, ideas nearer the truth of things, why should
we be expected to surrender these and hold ideas which are false?
Is seems to us that the questions of religion may be settled
by deciding whether or not we are to believe our own eyes and ears
and trust our own knowledge and experience. It is certain that if
we can trust our senses and our knowledge, the old ideas of the
universe, of the origin of earth, of life, of man, and of good and
evil and the whole catalogue of religious things are incorrect; and
if we accept them we do so contrary to our reason and
understanding.
With faith in the present, and in all that makes it peculiar,
-- its scientific tendencies, -- and with the belief that out of
the doubt and uncertainty that are now around us will come higher
convictions which will deepen and widen life's purpose and make
humanity a fairer word and a fairer reality, we say:
"Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring out the false, ring in the true."
**** ****
Hell is where cowards have sent heroes.
**** ****
A man never fell down stairs that he did not blame the stairs.
**** ****
The cross people carry to-day is made of gold or set with
diamonds.
**** ****
There is nothing in this world of ours that will work harder,
fight harder, wait more patiently and suffer longer than love,
unless it be hate.
**** ****
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GUARD THE EAR
Much of our character depends upon what we hear. A person may
be saved or lost by what reaches him through the ear. The ear has
no defense. It is open to every sound. It cannot be deaf. It must
hear. We cannot open it to one person or shut it to another. It is
filled with songs of deepest thoughts or words of ugliest shape
without choosing either. It is at the mercy, and the soul as well,
of whatever is uttered. The ear is falsehood's, as well as truth's,
servant. It carries what it hears, and is as faithful to the vilest
as to the purest speech. It is temptation's peculiar channel. The
eyes may be shut, the lips may be closed, but the ear is always
open. We may decide what we will say, what we will see, but not
what we shall hear.
We perceive how important it is that none but pure, true,
brave and sincere words be spoken. If a person never heard a bad
word he would never utter one. The character of everyone born into
the world is determined largely by the world. Men do pretty much
what they are taught to do. The heart at birth is pure, and were it
not taught impurity, would remain so. We regard the ear as the
chief door of the assault against the human heart. Guard the ear
and you save the boy and girl.
**** ****
THE CHARACTER OF GOD
The character of God would stand vastly higher in human
estimation if he had visited the garden in which he had placed the
first human pair and picked up the serpent and cast him over the
garden wall before he had a chance to tempt Eve, instead of waiting
until the mischief was done, and then cursing the whole lot for
what he might so easily have prevented.
**** ****
No man can be himself with fear always at his heels.
**** ****
Death can get into a house when everything else can be kept
out.
**** ****
It is plain enough that men and women care for God. This is
too apparent to be disputed, unless men and women are hypocrites.
What is not so plain is that God cares for men and women.
**** ****
NOT IMPORTANT
A Christian contemporary says: "No question is so important to
mankind as religion." We wonder how a person could write that
sentence without writing after it, a la Artemus Ward, "This is a
goak." Of course, a preacher is the author of it, or a person who
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gets his living out of religion. Had the writer said, "No question
is so important to ministers and priests as religion," he would
have told the truth; but as it stands, it is a falsehood. We can
mention several questions of more importance to mankind than
religion. The question of something to eat and the question of
something to wear are of vastly greater importance than that of
religion. So, too, is the question of education, or the question of
government, of more importance than religion. It is first necessary
for man to live, then to find a place to live, then to find the
things to sustain life, then to live happily and well. All this is
prior to any religious consideration. We believe the church as an
organization would go to pieces but for clergymen and those who are
interested in keeping it alive in order to get a living out of it.
It would be nearer the truth to say: No question is less important
to mankind than religion.
**** ****
A man's reputation oftentimes depends upon the success he has
had in hiding his character.
**** ****
OATHS
The superstition prevails that unless man swears to tell the
truth he will tell a lie. This superstition makes the sanctity of
the oath. But is it a fact that a person will, under oath, always
tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" It is
the general opinion that judicial swearing is simply a judicial
farce. We concur in the general opinion.
An oath is the liar's retreat. Behind it falsehood puts on the
robes of truth. The perjurer delights in swearing, for the act
invests him with the appearance of honesty. An oath makes the
tongue of vice as pure as the lips of virtue. It gives a rogue the
weapon of the gentleman. It permits guilt to wear the dress of
innocence.
The man who is willing to tell the truth feels that his
honesty is impeached when asked to take an oath, while the knave,
who is bound to lie, feels that his knavery is protected by the God
in whose name he swears. No more senseless custom survives in our
age than the administration of the oath. We do not believe that a
judge or lawyer has one whit more confidence in human testimony
because it is given in the divine name.
Is it not time to recognize this fact, that men can tell the
truth without the help of God, and that those, who cannot do so, do
not succeed any better with his help? In other words, an oath is
calculated to pass a scoundrel for an honest man. While it does not
insure truth-telling, it does serve to dignify a falsehood. It is
time that a lie was obliged to stand on its own bottom, and not be
passed for what it is not, because it is told in the name of God.
**** ****
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God's name is not considered good at the banks.
**** ****
To depend upon God is like holding on to the
tail-end of nothing.
**** ****
A man cannot be happy who believes in hell, any more than he
can sweeten his coffee with a pickle.
**** ****
The church wants us to believe that God will go out of his way
to strike a blasphemer and work a week to save the soul of a
murderer.
**** ****
DEAD WORDS
There is not one real, true, live word in the Christian
vocabulary of salvation. Eden, the stage on which was performed the
tragedy of original sin, is a dead word; devil, the name of the
scaly gentleman who took the leading part in this tragedy is a dead
word; hell, the abode of all those who descended from the original
sinners, is a dead word; Christ, the title of the man who offered
to ransom the human race and save men and women from hell, is a
dead word; atonement, the word that stands for the expiation to be
made by Christ, is a dead word. These words that the Christian
church uses in its exhortations to mankind have no heart of truth
in them. They stand for no facts; they represent no realities. Take
away these dead words from the Christian preacher, and you take
away his powder, shot and wads. Let the Christian be held to facts
and obliged to tell the truth, and his lips would be dumb. There
never was such a place as the Garden of Eden; never such an
individual as the devil. There is no such place as hell. There
never was a Christ, and no atonement made, for there was no
necessity of any being made. If there was no such thing as faith,
Christianity could not make a convert on the earth. If ministers
were obliged to furnish the proof of their statements, there would
be no preaching.
**** ****
CONFESSION OF SIN
When the church teaches that "confession is good for the
soul," it teaches false doctrine; it is only good for the church.
Men once confessed their sins, believing that it was the evidence
of the loftiest courage to acknowledge that they had made fools of
themselves or that they were the veriest knaves. But never was a
greater mistake made. Confession is itself a sin, a base betrayal
of one's own heart. It shows utter lack of shame. Our sins should
be sacred. We should let no eyes see them but our own. To exhort
one to confess one's sins is to ask the sinner to become the slave
of his confessor.
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Man has learned to keep still in respect to those things that
concern no one but himself. He has found that where he has done
wrong it is wiser to hold his tongue than to speak. We are not
likely to confess what will harm us. This prudence is utility in
morals. A wanton confession of wrong-doing shows a loss of self-
respect, and a virtuous confession is proof of mental weakness. No
human necessity requires self-degradation. To tell what we have
done is to pay a compliment to prurient curiosity which it does not
deserve. When we are commanded to do such a thing, resistance is a
greater virtue than compliance.
The human conscience to-day says: "Hands off." It is
impertinent to touch the soul against its will. Secrecy is our
right. No one can demand that we expose our indiscretions. If the
church asks if we have sinned, we feel justified in answering: "It
is none of your business." A man's sins are his own. Our actions
are private and subject only to voluntary betrayal. We are at
liberty to own our weakness or our meanness and to tell whatever we
have done; but when another attempts to coerce a confession from
us, we refuse to submit to such unwarrantable authority, and assert
our right to be custodians of our own deeds. The court which does
not require a man to criminate himself is higher than the church
which bids a man lay bare his soul.
There is no ear pure enough to listen to the story of the
secret straggles of the human heart. The doctrine of "confession of
sin," which has been taught by the Christian church, is detrimental
to manhood and womanhood. It is a police arrangement where the
private conscience is under the eye of the priest. There can be no
independence where the soul has surrendered to another.
**** ****
To make crime easy is to make criminals. One cannot rob the
clothes-line if the clothes are in the house.
**** ****
DEATH'S PHILANTHROPY
Every now and then a man dies and the world praises his name,
and men die every day whose names we never hear.
Why is the one lifted up above the other?
In the case we have in mind it was because the man, when he
died, left several millions of dollars to churches, to charities,
and to public benefactions.
This age honors the accumulation of wealth. It puts its stamp
of honor upon the man who gathers a large fortune into his hands.
If this man at his death bequeaths all of his fortune, or a large
portion of it, for what the world is pleased to call charitable
purposes, he is called a good man, and his name is spoken with
pride and praise.
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Now, we believe in all the virtues that would make a man
wealthy, but not in the vices: and we believe that a man may have
all of these virtues and not have much money when he becomes old,
or, when he reaches the banks of the river of death. We want to
praise the man that the world does not praise, the man who does not
live or die for praise, and who does not care for it. We do not
think that death's philanthropy is as grand and beautiful as life's
philanthropy.
The man who lives to get money and to keep money, that at the
last, when he can no longer keep it, he may bestow it where it will
be a monument to his name, is not half so noble as the man who
lives in such a way that he makes life easier for his fellow-
beings, giving his little every week, here and there, and letting
his gift fall quietly and out of sight of men. It is the truest
philanthropy not to rob man, not to take money from the world and
hold it until the stronger hand of death opens the strong hand of
greed. This is man's noblest way to live; to take only what can be
used for profit or pleasure. To take more than this is to rob
mankind.
What generosity is there in parting with money only when death
makes the fingers let go? Men who carry their millions to the grave
would Carry them beyond it, if they could. When only death can
conquer selfishness, its noblest bequest merits but little praise.
**** ****
There is no vicarious suffering for the one who has eaten too
much.
**** ****
The nation that proclaims the right of free, speech, but will
not protect that right, has abandoned its principles.
**** ****
OUR ATTITUDE TOWARDS NATURE
The idea that Nature is to be worshipped, either as God, the
unknown, or the incomprehensible, is being seriously questioned. We
wish first to know what good such worship does. It cannot be of any
benefit to Nature. Is it of any benefit to man? This is the only
question to be answered.
Almost everybody is ready to say that man should not worship
the sun, the moon, the stars, or any earthly thing; but a great
many still think that man should worship the mysterious something
of which everything is a manifestation. We have outgrown the
worship of objects. We look upon the person who sees a God in any
natural object as an idolater; as one whose mental vision is
unillumined by any true idea of the universe. But there is a demand
that man shall worship God, or the unknown force or power in Nature
that is the source of all things.
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We admit the unknown quantity of the universe; but we do not
see the necessity of worshiping it. We do not see any good in
praying to it, or in singing to it. Nature is all a mystery and all
the mystery there is, but why do we need to keep saying so in
prayer and praise when the silent fact is ever before our eyes? We
do not need to go down on our knees to every mysterious thing, and
stay there. Let us freely and frankly confess that Nature is
incomprehensible, and then go about our business like men, and try
to learn what will help ourselves and our fellow-beings.
**** ****
REVERENCE FOR MOTHERHOOD
An author of some note, in an article published in a
Protestant journal, while admitting that the "holy Catholic church"
had been about as unholy an institution as could well exist,
claimed that Romanism had its good points. Among them he instanced
"its reverence for motherhood." For proof of his assertion he
pointed to the homage paid to the image of Mary and her child by
the average Roman Catholic.
We admit the homage, but deny the reverence. To begin with,
where is the reverence for motherhood among the Roman Catholic
priests? Why, these men have not respect enough for woman to
elevate her to the dignity and honor of motherhood. These men are
married to the church, to Christ and not to women. Their sacred
office would be lowered by taking a wife.
The holy vows of these priests are not half as holy as the
marriage vow. A priest never had half as pure a thought as is born
in the heart of a father. He never performed a rite half as
consecrating as dancing a laughing child on his knee. These holy
old bachelors have done all their religion would allow them to
dishonor motherhood.
The pretence that woman as woman, as mother, as wife, as
sister, or daughter, is particularly respected by Roman Catholics
is simply absurd. To prove this we point to the homes of the Roman
Catholics. We confess that the Romish church encourages motherhood,
that Roman Catholics are urged to help increase the church
membership, but we claim that nowhere is there less reverence of
woman as woman, as mother, as wife, as sister, as daughter, than
among the Roman Catholics.
Because a Catholic crosses himself before a wooden Madonna, or
a plaster-paris image of the mother of Jesus, it is no proof of his
reverence for motherhood. Not a bit. The Catholic reverences Mary
as the mother of God; he pays her homage as a divine person;
worships her, not as a mother, but as a superior being.
The man that has reverence for motherhood is the man who loves
and tenderly cares for his own mother and the mother of his
children, but the man who prostrates his mind before a carved
figure of the "Virgin Mary" and pounds his wife and kicks his
daughter into the street has reverence for nothing.
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**** ****
Adam might have obeyed God, but he could not resist Eve.
**** ****
It looks easy to break off a bad habit that somebody else has
got.
**** ****
THE GOD OF THE BIBLE
The blind, foolish faith in the Bible is the cause of
intellectual dishonesty, moral hypocrisy, and religious
transgressions without number. This faith makes the twentieth
century kneel to a God that it would be ashamed to introduce among
civilized beings.
We would no sooner go to Moses to learn about deity than we
would go to Noah to learn how to build a steamship. We do not
believe in getting divinity through a straw three thousand years
long. If we must have a God, let us have one that has had the
advantages of civilization. We might possibly give this Lord God of
the Bible a quarter of mutton, as did Abel, or a peck of potatoes,
as did Cain, if we were convinced that he was living anywhere in
the universe, just to keep on the right side of him, but we would
not care to be on an out-of-the-way road with him after dark unless
we had a revolver with us. We know of no more villainous character
in all literature; and for men and women, who pretend to love what
is pure and good, who pretend to honor what is upright and just and
who pretend to revere what is noble and true, to worship this God
of Christianity, this God of Moses, this God of the Bible, is a sad
commentary on human intelligence and human integrity.
We know that all theological discussions have been wretchedly
barren of results; we know that theology has made no contribution
to actual knowledge; we know that no one knows anything about any
such being as God, and we also know that every God worshipped to-
day by men and women is only an imaginary person or thing. No one
knows what God is or where he is, and yet ministers speak about him
just as though they had been to his house and taken tea with him.
Theology has received attention out of proportion to its
achievements. It has done the cackling while science has laid the
egg.
We do not like to hear men say: "God did this" and "God said
this," when he has never opened his lips to speak to man and never
lifted his hand to help him. We call such language dishonest, and
the time will come when the men who have made such use of the
divine name will be condemned as importers.
What this generation should do is to take the Lord God of the
Israelites, that lies dead on the banks of time and bury him from
human sight forever. Not another human being born on this earth
should be allowed to read of his cruel deeds, and if Christian
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ministers were honest, and had the courage of their honesty, they
would tell the world that the being called God in the Bible was no
God, only an idol of a rude and barbarous age.
**** ****
A theologian is a person who uses the word "God" to hide his
ignorance.
**** ****
THE MEASURE OF SUFFERING
The little boy who asked his mother "if hell was worse than
the toothache?" imagined that the limits of suffering were reached
in his agony. Many of us have doubtless experienced pain that we
thought marked the utmost of endurance. In the Christian dream of
future punishment man is represented as burning eternally. Fire
probably inflicts the intensest pain that the human body has ever
suffered. Hell is fitly represented by fire.
Suffering takes various shapes. Pain comes in a thousand
forms. But there is a limit to the endurance of pain.
Unconsciousness comes to the relief of the mind when agony can no
longer be borne. Hell, such as has been taught by Christianity, is
not a logical conclusion. All suffering that we know anything about
ends itself. The victim is released by exhaustion. Hell is
impossible.
The finer suffering which is called remorse, which follows
wrong-doing, gradually wears out. Its lash loses its sting. The
sinner becomes callous to his act or finds a balm for his regret in
the lapse of years. The finger of time erases the memory of every
wrong, and soothes with its touch every pang. We can escape the
fate of wrong-doing by doing better. Reform opens the door of every
hell invented for man's punishment. The man who does right,
wherever he is, will have the reward of right-doing, the fate of
right-doing.
It is this fact which makes the idea of endless pain for man's
deeds done on earth illogical. Man can turn around on the road of
evil as well as on the road of good, and hence he can change his
fate whenever he changes his life. The measure of human suffering
makes it impossible for man to endure pain forever. He must either
perish utterly as a sentient being or be driven by his punishment
to better behavior.
**** ****
No man ever yet tore down his altar and found a God behind it.
**** ****
Trying to find God is a good deal like looking for money one
has lost in a dream.
**** ****
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We could believe in God if he shortened the road for the lame,
led the blind or fed the starving.
**** ****
We are told that "all things are possible with God," and yet
God cannot boil an egg in cold water.
**** ****
NATURE
Some people are afraid of the word Nature. They cross
themselves when they hear it pronounced, It has a sound like "Old
Nick" in their ears. To these pious souls the word Nature banishes
God from the universe. This is looked upon by many as the highest
offence of language. It has been the custom for several centuries
to abuse Nature, to call it bad names, and associate it with
depravity and everything evil. Theology has condemned the word, and
the pulpit has touched it only with the tips of its fingers. To
speak of Nature as anything good is regarded as throwing dirt in
the eyes of God.
Nothing clings to the world like a superstition. Start a fear
in the human breast, and it will make every heart quake before it
can be driven out. Let a bad habit become fixed, and it will be as
hard to dislodge it as it is to plant a good habit.
But men are getting over their fright somewhat. The natural is
found to be the true, not the false; the right, not the wrong; the
good, not the bad. Nature has been slandered, lied about. It was
once thought necessary to assassinate this word in order to
preserve the Orthodox religion. The necessity still remains, but
orthodoxy is dying.
Nature is a large word. It means about all there is. If there
is a God, he is natural.
**** ****
CREEDS
This is the age of revision. Churches are all hurrying to
catch up with the world. There is a desire to square ideas with
facts, and shape beliefs with knowledge. Religion must suffer in
this process. Something will be lost, but only what is bad, false
and wrong. Creeds are out of date. They are behind the times. They
are the dead leaves from the tree of knowledge, the dead branches
on the tree of life. The world's faith is in the living; in the
bud, the blossom, the promise of things -- not in the husk, the
shell, in dead and useless things.
New creeds are to take the place of old ones. What people
believe now, not what people believed hundreds or thousands of
years ago, must be put into a profession of faith. For a man to
profess what his father and mother believed is to make birth
useless and existence valueless. We are to live to add to life, not
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to repeat it. Is theology the only thing that people put their
trust in? A theological creed has to be accepted with the eyes
shut. We want a creed of the heart, of the head, of the senses, of
the whole person. There is no theology worth believing in. The
creed of the church is a gravestone.
If we were to make a creed for the world of men to accept we
would make it out of human hearts. We would go where a man had
helped another; where a woman had sat beside the sick and
suffering; where man had been crucified for being true; where he
had been burned for being honest; where he had stood against the
world protesting against its wrongs and proclaiming the right, and
where he had fallen with a martyr's crown upon his forehead; and we
would write these into a creed, and have men say: I believe in men
and women who have lived good lives, who have taken the unfortunate
by the hand and lifted up the fallen, who have pardoned a woman's
fault, who have shown their love of truth by being true, and who
have done right even when they were wronged for so doing.
The grandest life is the grandest creed; and, if man's faith
was faith in what has made the world better and brighter and
happier, he would be better off than by believing in a God that is
cruel, unjust and unkind, and in a heaven where the highest joy is
found in laughing at those who are in hell.
**** ****
It has been discovered that the man who was lost in thought
was not a church member.
**** ****
We do not say that another world is not worth a single
thought, but rather that this world is worth all our thoughts, and
needs them.
**** ****
DON'T TRY TO STOP THE SUN SHINING
If there is one person on earth who is to be envied it is the
happy, cheerful man or woman who always sees the bright side of
life, the good side of a fellow-being, and the warm, sunny side of
what belongs to earth. If there is a person to be pitied, it is the
sour, gloomy man or woman, who sees only the dark side of life, the
bad side of a fellow-being, and the cold, cloudy side of what
belongs to earth. Everything bright, beautiful, fair, sweet, and
good grows in the sunshine. We would not have a flower without the
sun. Cheerfulness is to the human heart what the sunbeam is to the
earth -- the source of gladness.
We ought to cultivate happiness. We ought to have the home
filled with what is beautiful. We ought to let the sun shine into
our lives. People who are sour and moody look upon the smiling,
happy person as foolish, and wonder what there is in life that one
can find to enjoy. They want to tear the flower to pieces, stop the
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bird singing, trample upon the joy of the child, and hush the laugh
of mirth. If you cannot enjoy life, don't try to prevent others
from doing so. Don't throw a shadow on the human heart. Don't try
to stop the sun shining.
**** ****
Laying up treasures in heaven never kept a man out of the
poor-house.
**** ****
FOLLOW ME
Jesus said: "Follow me." But we decline; we had rather not. We
do not wish to follow a person until we know where he is going.
If by following Jesus is meant living as he lived, doing as he
did, believing as he believed, teaching as he taught and dying as
he died, we are not in it. We shall have to say: Thank you, we
guess not. We prefer to go some other way.
We do not see any necessity of following anybody very far, if
at all. This following business is played out. Those who profess to
follow Jesus don't do it in the daytime.
But we can go a little farther and say that we do not think
Jesus was a man that a self-respecting person would like to follow.
He does not inspire us with any particular admiration. The man who
could let his lips forget to speak kindly of his mother cannot have
our admiration. The man who came not to bring peace, but a sword,
to the world cannot have our admiration. The man who said: "believe
and be saved, believe not and be damned," cannot have our
admiration.
If we follow anybody, it is going to be a person that commands
our respect, whose greatness and goodness compel our admiration,
and who did not try to win men by tricks. We regard Jesus, as he is
painted in the four gospels, as a character below the ideal of this
age, a character that, to imitate, would dwarf the noblest man. If
Jesus were alive it would be his duty to-day to follow others,
rather than to command others to follow him.
**** ****
CAN WE NEVER GET ALONG WITHOUT SERVANTS?
We recently overheard a remark which made us query if we
cannot get along without servants? A lady was commenting on the
character of the "help," which one was obliged to employ to-day,
and expressed the opinion that, if our public schools continued to
fill the heads of children with the notion that one person was as
good as another, it would not be long before it would be impossible
to get help at all.
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There seems to be an idea abroad in this land as well as in
others, that a certain class of people are for the purpose of
producing servants for another class of people, and that this
servant-producing class has no right to give their children an
education that is calculated to elevate them above the position of
their parents. We are not in sympathy with this idea. If there is
one person on this earth that is of less account than another it is
the person who is helpless, who is dependent upon others for
everything that makes life possible or endurable. We must confess
that there are too many people in this country who are of this
kind, who must have someone to do for them what they ought to do
for themselves.
Why should one person be expected to wait upon another? Why
should a man or woman look upon a fellow-being as fit only to be a
servant? Is one born to serve and the other to be waited upon? Such
notions have no right on our democratic soil. In this country there
must be no caste, no division of society into classes.
We rejoice that such a criticism of the character of the
"help" employed in the houses of the rich as we overheard, is true,
for it reveals a condition of things that may lead to what is much
needed to-day, viz.: a simpler mode of living on the part of a
great many of our American people. Is it necessary to live in such
a way that a dozen or more servants are required in a home to keep
it in order?
We believe the community in which all are independent and none
are servants is the ideal one. Why should not this be the ambition
of the race, to live in a manner that will leave others their
independence and encourage in them the desire for a home? Our
children all ought to be taught to work, and be made to work, and
not be brought up with the notion that they have the right to
expect others to wait upon them.
We do not wish to imply that one individual should not
consider it his or her duty to help another or to work for another.
What we desire to convey is this, that if people did more of their
own work, and waited upon their own wants more, they would not only
be doing what is best for themselves, but also what is best for the
community in general. For men or women to be dependent upon
servants and almost helpless without them, is not a condition to be
proud of, but to be ashamed of. The man who cannot harness or drive
his horse; the woman who cannot buy and cook a dinner for her
family, has not been properly educated.
The home in which there are the fewest servants is the
happiest home. The father that brings up his sons to work, to know
how to earn a living; the mother who teaches her daughters to cook,
to sew, to do housework, is doing them good, not harm. There are
too many know-nothings and do-nothings in the world. It is
honorable to be useful in this world, and it ought to be
dishonorable to be useless. Let us work for the day when we can get
along without servants; when life shall be so simple that each
family can do its own work. The servant system is but little
different from the slave system, and it ought to be abolished.
**** ****
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The money man gives to get him into heaven is what he ought to
use to improve the earth.
**** ****
The Unitarian walks with a cane, the Congregationalist,
Methodist, Presbyterian and Baptist go with crutches, the
Episcopalian has to be pushed about in an invalid's chair, while
the Roman Catholic crawls on his hands and knees and is led around
with a ring in his nose by a priest.
A HEAVENLY FATHER
It may pay some persons to talk about a heavenly father who
cares for his earthly children, but we prefer to get money in a
more honorable business. Honor bright, now, gentlemen of the
pulpit, did you ever see anything that convinced you that there is
a power in the universe outside of the human body, that cared a
snap for men, that showed any more love for a child than for a
crocodile? Tell the truth, and let us see how far apart we are on
this question.
We have no objection to being taken care of by a heavenly
father, or by any person or power that is wiser and kinder than
man. But we do not want to put our trust in such a being or power
and then, just when we needed most the help and counted on it, find
that we had been deceived. We admit the good that is in Nature, the
beautiful, the attractive, but we cannot put faith in the God of
earthquakes. When we listen to a bird's full-throated song, and
surrender ourselves in delicious rapture to the spell of its
wondrous melody, we are ready to acknowledge that a benignant power
gave life to this sweet little charmer, that can start such a flood
of joy in the human heart, but when in strolling among the meadow's
blossoms we are confronted with the repulsive head and ominous
attitude of the rattle-snake, we ask: Who made you? We admire
Nature in some forms, but detest it in others. We pick the rose
with a blessing on its perfect beauty and perfumed breath, but we
shun the white flower of the dogwood -- the poisonous hypocrite.
When the sky is fair and blue, and a smile is on the face of
heaven, we feel that only kindness and love sit enthroned above us,
but when the blue changes to black and the smile to a frown, which
grows deeper and darker until the whole heavens threaten
destruction to earth; when the heedless lightning, with brutal
stroke, fells at our feet a form we love, we wonder where the
kindness and love have gone that we saw only a few hours before.
Nature does not keep one mood long. She has made things fair and
things foul; she blesses, but she curses also; she wins us with
some temptation of beauty, and then punishes us for yielding; she
puts in our heart an angel of love, but she puts there, too, a
devil of hate; she caresses us one minute and kicks us the next;
she licks our hand, and then without warning she bites us.
**** ****
There is more power to-day in a drop of ink than in a ton of
powder.
**** ****
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A man may have respect for old age and not like to find gray
hairs in his butter.
**** ****
WORSHIP NOT NEEDED
The world will never throb with new life until the spell of
worship is broken. Nothing holds mankind down so much as veneration
for its idols. Shake off the lethargy that worship has brought upon
the soul. Live like men, and you need not worship gods. When we
live true to the soul we cease to ask for anything. Worship is
denial of self. Let us have no disputes about divinity. Let God
take care of himself. The light of the stars proves their
existence. The universe needs no counsel of defence. That which is
evident need not be explained.
The great question for us to answer is not what God wants, but
what men need. Let us live to our selves. Worship is interruption.
Let our life satisfy. Worship is apology. If we are doing our best,
what need to excuse our work? What good does it do to praise God?
That is the true love which obeys, not that which adores. We want
willing hands, not lifted ones. Worship is superfluous. It adds
nothing to the soul. It increases our cares, not our virtues. The
test of everything is, does it help man?
We challenge the church to prove its claim to man's support.
It throws a shadow upon the earth instead of letting more light
upon it. The priest is in man's way. Worship is a compliment to the
deity that he does not need, and a burden upon man which he is not
able to bear. Nature does not worship. She grows. Worship is
opposition to reform. It palsies the world's thought. It means
stagnation. It is difficult to get advocated what will correct
society, because mankind spends so much time in the church that it
has no time to spend in the theater of improvement. Worship is
hypocrisy's disguise. What a train of splendid deceit marches up
the aisles of the church! What a mask is worship, but the world can
see through it. When falsehood kneels in praise of truth; when
extortion and cruelty call God father; when meanness and vice are
the disciples of Jesus, and when crime and sin say, "Thy will be
done," the name of religion is a blush on the forehead of the
world.
**** ****
We would not dethrone the world's heroes. The more human
beings we can get the world to honor and respect the better
humanity will be, but when a man or woman has been for ages almost
worshipped by the world; when time, with its forgiving hand, has
erased deed after deed until naught else is left of the man or
woman but a holy memory, an unreal soul, whose virtues are as
ghostly as shadows cast by the moon, it behooves us to look with
unprejudiced mind at this phantom of existence and to see with
naked eye this object of adoration, for one may be certain that
beneath the idol's robes will be found a human form and with it all
the peculiarities of human nature.
**** ****
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WAS JESUS A GOOD MAN
We denied in the presence of a Christian, who wished to have
a religious talk with us, that Jesus was divine. This denial was
somewhat anticipated, we imagine, as the gentleman who challenged
our views was knowing to the fact that we did not pay pew rent
anywhere. But he thought to secure assent from us by saying, "You
will have to admit that Jesus was a good man." What constitutes a
good man? A good man is a man who is kind, loving, merciful,
reasonable, and just. Would a just man pay the laborer who had
worked but one hour as much as he paid him who had toiled all day?
Would a reasonable man curse a fig tree because it did not have
fruit on it out of season? Would a loving man say: He that hateth
not father and mother is not worthy of me" Would a merciful man
send those who did not agree with him into everlasting fire? Would
a kind-hearted man bring a sword rather than peace on earth?
The truth is, we do not know what kind of a man Jesus was.
Good men have been killed by bad ones, and bad men killed by good
ones. If Jesus was killed because he was a blasphemer the chances
are that he was better than those who put him to death, but if he
was killed because he sought to overturn the government and secure
the throne for himself, he may have been a very bad man. But by the
gospel-record we hold that Jesus was not a man for this age to
honor or imitate.
**** ****
HOW TO HELP MANKIND
There are various ways of helping the world, and all are to be
commended. Perhaps the way that costs the least, and consequently
helps the least, is the giving of good advice. This, we believe, is
about the poorest thing that can be given to man. It is a gratuity
on the giver's part which is never received quite as it is
bestowed. But it is usually born of good intentions, and so we have
to be thankful for it, even if we do not use it. To those who are
inclined, however, to render assistance to their fellow-beings, we
would say: Give good advice last, or, at any rate, give something
with it. There is no use telling a poor man where there is a good
restaurant when he has no money in his purse.
Another way of helping the world is the material way -- giving
something that will relieve its wants, pay its debts, or add to its
independence. The sympathy that takes the shape of dollars and
cents always reaches the heart. The rarest virtue in this world of
ours is generosity, and the rarest man is he who gives to the world
asking for no dividends but in the happiness of his fellow-
creatures. Money, when wisely bestowed, comes about as near the
shape of an angel as any earthly thing can assume.
But there are other ways of assisting the world, and while we
admit all the good that can be done with money, men and women need
to-day to be helped with truth, helped with justice. Mankind are
suffering from falsehoods, from wrongs as well as from ignorance,
from want and poverty. Those who are unjust to their fellows should
help them by dealing justly by them. Those who are keeping the
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world in darkness should help it by telling the truth. Truth and
justice are every man's right, and every man's due. You can help
the world by being just to it, by using your fellow-beings
honestly, squarely, justly. You can help it by telling the truth
and by concealing nothing that is true.
Man needs an education in unselfishness. He must learn to work
for himself without working against others. The advantage which a
man gains to-day is too often at the disadvantage of his brother or
sister. It is a poor victory which inflicts suffering. The true
measure of man's success is the joy his life confers upon the
world.
**** ****
The man who wants to be an angel is never in a hurry to begin.
**** ****
The man who gets on his knees has not learned the right use of
his legs.
**** ****
Ignorance is all that saves some people: if they knew more
they would do worse.
**** ****
ON THE CROSS
Christianity teaches that Jesus was divine. To admit that he
was not divine is to give up Christianity. In the light of this
teaching let us look at Jesus on the cross. After a brief, but
rather peaceful career, Jesus is arrested, tried and convicted as
a blasphemer, and sentenced to be put to death. It is said that he
died on a cross. How did he die? It is said by Christians "like a
God."
There have been brave deaths on the gallows and at the stake.
Men have died sublimely whom society has condemned as criminals. In
our day there has been as lofty heroism evinced in the face of the
most terrible of deaths as ever martyr of old manifested when dying
for his faith. We know that men have walked into the arms of an
ignominious death without a tremor, and with magnificent courage
shining in their faces.
Brave dying proves less than brave living. The sacrifice of a
lifetime shows the courage that commands our deepest admiration.
Some mother, some sister, or daughter who has offered herself for
years upon the hidden altar of duty has performed a deed beside
which a moment's suffering is as naught. But the average mind fails
to discern heroism, except where the suffering is apparent.
We will admit for the moment that Jesus died upon the cross.
We will allow all the pain and agony of such a cruel and terrible
death. We will let every picture of his suffering that has drawn
tears from the eyes of women be accepted as true. We would not rob
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the manner of his death of a single pang. It was merciless,
pitiless, devilish. Crucifixion is the essence of cruelty, the
refinement of torture, the invention of brutality. We acknowledge
all the horrors of the cross. We do not wonder that a man should
shrink from being nailed to its arms, but we do wonder that a God
should. We are not surprised that human weakness should cry out of
its breaking heart for sympathy and help, but we cannot understand
why divine strength should ask for pity or aid. If Jesus was God he
should have died in divine silence. The record of the last hours of
Jesus shows that he died disappointed. The cross proves that Jesus
was human. When he cried out: "My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me," a keener anguish pierced his heart than when the
cruel iron was driven through his flesh.
The dogma of the divinity of Jesus should have died on the
cross, when the man of Nazareth gave up the ghost.
**** ****
The man who does no thinking before he acts does twice as much
afterwards.
**** ****
Adam may not have been so perfect after the 'fall," but he was
not so big a fool.
**** ****
EQUAL MORAL STANDARDS
Why are girls brought up with more care as to their personal
habits than boys? And why do women have fewer vices than men? It is
an undeniable fact that what is looked upon with indifference in a
man would be regarded with disgust, if not horror, in a woman. Boys
do things that would not be tolerated in girls. Why are there two
standards of behavior? Why is one sex held to stricter moral
account than the other? Why is a man allowed to do what is
condemned in a woman?
The average daughter is better behaved, has better personal
habits, than the average son. The average mother has fewer vices
than the average father. The average woman is less vicious than the
average man. Whose fault is it that this is so? It is somebody's.
Whose is it? It is time to find out. Have men fixed the standard
for women, and women for men? It is approximately true that either
sex is what the other demands of it. Women are too indulgent
towards the other sex. We believe it lies with them more than with
men to elevate the moral standard of the world.
A father would not take his daughter to places where he takes
his son, would not condone in her habits which he overlooks, if not
encourages, in his boy. Picture a father going to a saloon with his
daughter, and there treating her to a "Tom and Jerry," or a "beer,"
and then calling for cigars for two, and sitting there smoking
together for half an hour or so! A man will do this with his boy
but not with his girl. Why not? If it is right and harmless for
one, why not for the other? Is it true or not that what is right
for men is wrong for women?
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We ought to have only one moral standard. The sexes should be
held to like behavior. Men can have just as good habits as women.
We do not believe in forgiving in one what we condemn in another,
in allowing a young man to do with impunity what we will not
tolerate in a young woman.
If we are to have one standard of morals, which shall it be?
Shall it be the highest or lowest? Shall it be the standard for man
or for woman? Shall we permit women to do as men do, or shall we
insist that men shall be equally pure in personal habits with
women? The divided standard of conduct which now exists should be
done away with. Let us demand equal behavior of the sexes, and let
that behavior be fashioned after the highest moral demand of
society. We do not wish to educate boys to be girls, but we can
educate boys to have as good habits as girls have, which would be
a great gain to the world.
We must hold women largely responsible for the vices of men.
There is not a vicious habit which a man would not lay at the feet
of woman did she demand it. Not a man would tolerate in a woman
what a woman tolerates in a man. Let us have one moral standard for
men and women, for both sexes, and mete out to each the same
punishment for violation of its restrictions.
**** ****
AUTHORITY
The man that does what his reason says is right is the man
that should be honored by men. There can be no higher authority for
doing a thing than that it is right. It is not whether a thing has
ever been done before, but, Is it right? If there is no precedent,
then it is a duty to establish one.
How many accept the opinions of others because they fear to
question their authority! This regard for what other people think
and say is well enough only when it does not destroy independence
of thought and speech in ourselves. Another's opinion is not to be
respected when it is a fetter to our freedom.
We need not rehearse the evils which the world has borne on
account of its fear to do right alone. Man must have someone to
share the danger, to share the blame, but a dozen cowards are not
worth so much as one brave man, and right is no more right because
ten say it instead of one. A thousand felt what Luther said; a
thousand believed what Parker did. The best man in us is often the
one that does not speak. The truest belief of the heart is the one
never confessed. Man seldom comes to the surface. He rarely has a
call to be himself, but to be somebody that will please the world.
Man is obliged to make himself into a theological likeness; into a
political representation. It will be centuries before men can
assert themselves fearlessly without injury.
It is no easy matter for a man to set himself against popular
opinion and maintain his position. Every power is brought to bear
upon him that falsehood can invent and malice employ. A person who
refuses to acknowledge the authority of the hour asserts a higher.
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When a man slaps the world in the face he should have truth on his
side and courage to meet the stake and the cross. The majority
never forgives him who denies its judgment. The individual that
challenges the majority must prove his right of defiance. When a
man is greater or better than men he must pay the penalty. The
world cannot yet forgive anyone for excelling it. Authority when it
debases man should be disputed; when it denies man his rights
should be rejected.
It is plain to be seen, without illustration or example, that
man's authority is not found in his own mind. He has no history
that reaches beyond custom. Man begins with man so far as facts
prove. Society rests upon hearsay and religion upon tradition. A
claim has only to be made upon ignorance to be granted. This good-
natured world of ours would believe anything, or make-believe
believe it, to save its soul. It takes either a very shrewd man or
a moderately mean one to dodge every duty of life and remain
respectable. It is dangerous to go outside the beaten path, not
only on account of the persecution of the present but on account of
the folly of the future. The world can easily twist an action into
a law or a man into a God if profit hang on the end of its deed.
The authority of half man's actions to-day depends upon some
accident or fraud of the past. Man wants a little of the fabulous
yet in his meat and drink. He loves to think that Jesus is present
when he drinks his wine and eats his bit of bread, although it is
a mystery.
Popular opinion is the authority of most words and actions. We
speak to men as to children -- to please them. We tell them some
parable or fairy story instead of telling them their faults
honestly and trying to make them better. Most men begin by bowing
to public opinion and end by carrying it on their backs.
The authority of the world may be disputed without any of the
stars being thrown out of their course or any of the processes of
life being disturbed. The notion that all has been discovered that
is essential to the welfare of man is a mistaken one. The other
notion that the preservation of whatever is elevating and refining
depends upon the religious opinions of mankind, is equally
delusive. The authority of the Bible, of Jesus, of the church, has
been quoted until the world is prepared for a better. We might lose
the Bible and not lose our place in the ranks of civilization.
Jesus might be forgotten and man would still strive for a higher
life. The church might perish in a day and not a single particle of
goodness be lost. If we speak honest words, do honest work and live
honest lives, we need not ask for God's help or the help of
anybody. We do not give to immorality the hours we redeem from
superstition. We give to manhood and womanhood every hour which we
make natural and free. It is not necessary for a man to go to
church in order to be righteous. The world found assistance before
Jesus was born. There has always been saints outside of a convent.
We need no book holy that good counsel shall be valuable. The
highest authority is the highest human enlightenment. It needs no
priest back of opinion to give it force.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
Why does a man enter the Christian ministry?
**** ****
The reason that revelation is always made to the simple is
that the wise could not be imposed upon.
**** ****
There is no sadder grief than that which lies at the bottom of
a life that has been wrecked through deception.
**** ****
An organization that requires the suppression of facts and the
discouragement of knowledge in order to maintain its supremacy, is
the relic of a tyranny which our free age and our free thought are
in duty bound to remove from the earth.
**** ****
A CLEAN SABBATH
In a discussion with a lady, recently, upon the Sunday
question, after the various pros and cons had been set up and
bowled down, she exclaimed: "For mercy's sake, don't say any more
against the sabbath. Why, if it were not for Sunday, most people
would never wash themselves nor change their clothes." Sunday,
then, is to be established for the sake of cleanliness. The command
for keeping the sabbath should therefore read: Six days shalt thou
labor and do all thy work, and on the seventh day wash thyself and
change thy clothes. If people will not keep clean without a divine
command, we are in favor of cleanliness. We do not know of any
better use to put God's name to. Sunday is certainly the cleanest
day of the week. If people will make themselves clean and neat only
for God's sake, we are willing to endure a little superstition for
the blessing of cleanliness. But is. there any ground for the
assertion of the lady? As everyone knows, religion has produced the
filthiest specimens of humanity that ever offended the senses of
man. Dirt, and not cleanliness, was deemed next to godliness by the
saints of old. The filthier a human being became, the holier he
grew. It was regarded in the middle ages, that is, in the ages when
everything was sacrificed to religion, as almost a sin to keep
clean. It was waste of time to care for the body. It was taught
that it was holier to worship than to wash. Nor did these dirty old
saints of old go nasty entirely on their own authority. They were
nasty for Christ's sake. They went unclean because Jesus had
encouraged nastiness. He believed more in clean hearts than in
clean hands. He taught his disciples that "to eat with unwashed
hands defileth not a man." Dirty Christians are still plenty, but
civilization prevails over superstition and the reign of dirt is
doomed. The follower of Jesus quotes his master to defend his
filthy condition in vain to-day. The gospel of decency has been
preached, and what is manly and womanly is honored more than what
is godly and pious. Clean infidelity is preferable in good society
to nasty piety. There may be honor in rags, but there is none in
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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dirt. Soap and water cost less than religion, but are worth a
thousand times as much to the world. If Romanism required its
devotees to take a bath instead of going to mass, it would confer
a greater boon upon the world.
**** ****
No man gets estimated for exactly what he is, and it is lucky
he doesn't.
**** ****
A great many men and women are remembered for what somebody
has said about them.
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HUMAN INTEGRITY
It is hard for a man to be a man. It is easier to be almost
anything else. We do not find the reason for what we do in
ourselves, but seek it in someone else, or somewhere else, Manhood
is not our standard of action. Human integrity is generally looked
upon as an eccentricity. We almost despise a person who is more
upright than the conventional man. Throughout society there runs a
stream of circumstance upon which lives float like chips. The man
who turns against this stream, and seeks to stem it, is looked upon
as a madman or a fool. Everybody admits that the world is hardly
going right, but everybody goes with it. The current of human life
can be turned into a larger channel by a larger man. Mind follows
mind.
We do not demand the truth; we do not insist upon the right;
we are satisfied with less than integrity. It is not in a spirit of
carping that we say this, but because it is true. Let us glance at
the world as it lies before us. Theories pass for facts, faith for
evidence. We assert without knowledge; we are positive without
proof. Man is condemned for not believing, although living a pure
and noble life; he is praised for believing, although living a
selfish and cruel life. Men are not judged by human nature, but by
opinions which are uppermost in public esteem. Men and women are
bad according to the standard of one age; good according to that of
another. Theologies, which may be wrong, condemn men who may be
right. Justice is never man's precedent. The world quotes Moses,
David, Paul, Jesus, to defend its conduct or prove its guilt.
Authority is another's opinion. Law is what has been done and
sanctioned by mankind. The decision of one court binds another. One
text is quoted to prove another. A man's act is made a rule of
life. We say, to defend ourselves: "He did it." The world's power
of attorney is in its own handwriting. Our appeal is to some one
else. We get our politics from our fathers, our religion from our
mothers. The church is preaching what others believed.
The mind still leans. Only a few could stand without a
support. The props of the world keep it from failing. Men are not
upright of their own strength. No man's action is the patent of
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manhood. The world does not ask, "What virtues are yours?" but,
"What creed do you accept?" A dozen agree and call some one else a
doubter, a Freethinker, an Infidel, an Atheist. To be able to stand
alone is to be blamed by those who cannot do so.
Man must learn this, that he has no greater strength than his
own; that he has no higher duty than to obey the behest of his own
nature. When we forsake the world's follies and shams we shall find
something better. We are never abandoned until we have been
abandoned by ourselves.
When we refuse to do our duty we must still expect Nature to
do hers. The sun and moon do not stand still at man's command. It
is greater to keep one's integrity than it is to gain the whole
world.
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It is harder to live when those we love are dead.
**** ****
The trouble with divine revelation is that we do not know who
did the business.
**** ****
A person has not much excuse for living who can make no better
use of life than passing it in a nunnery.
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Men talk of alleviating the aching hearts and souls of the
world, but if they would relieve the aching backs and arms of men
and women by being kinder to those who toil, there would be fewer
suffering hearts for their sympathy's consolation. If sounds
vulgar, perhaps, to speak of back-aching, but the pains of work are
among the saddest facts of human life.
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IS IT TRUE
There is a lot of sentiment going around the world strangely
at variance with human action. No one lives as he professes to
believe, as he says he thinks. Men declare a thing to be true but
act as though they wished it false. It is frequently stated that:
"Honor and shame from no condition rise,
Act well your part, there all the honor lies."
Who believes it? Did Pope when he wrote it? Does a person that
reads it? I doubt it.
It ought to be true, perhaps, that men should be respected,
honored, and praised just as much for carrying a hod well as for
writing a poem or acting Hamlet well, but it is not so regarded.
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A man as a man may be just as worthy, just as honorable, just
as much deserving the respect of his fellows who uses a pick and
shovel on the highway, but it is a fact that the common laborer as
such is not respected nor honored as much as the man who pays him
for his labor. All the honor may lie in doing well whatever he has
to do, but it is what a man does, not how he does it, that receives
the honor of the world, just the same. Probably thousands of women
are acting well their part as washerwomen in Boston at this time,
but are they honored as Sarah Bernhardt is for acting Cleopatra?
Would wealthy women pay ten dollars to see a woman scrub a floor,
even if she could scrub better than any woman who ever scrubbed
before? We guess not. There is the point.
There is no such epitaph as this on the marble of the world:
He acted well his part as a coal-heaver. It is true that Lincoln is
pointed to as having been a rail-splitter when a young man, but had
he never been anything else he would not have had a monument an
inch above the ground. It is not Garfield the tow-boy, but Garfield
the statesman, the President, that is honored.
It is a fact that merit is not always appreciated, but it is
equally a fact that no merit is seen in the common occupations of
life. A person might wear his fingers to bones in what is regarded
as menial employment, and all his giant labor would not call forth
a single word of praise. A dollar or two a day is all the reward
the world gives for manual labor. No one sees heroism in farm work,
in kitchen work. No one contributes money to erect a statue to the
hod-carrier. Work is not honored. The man or woman who is obliged
to work in order to live is regarded with pity or contempt by those
who live upon the labor of others.
It is not true that all the honor lies in doing well whatever
we have to do. Such a saying is as false as to say "Ask, and you
shall receive." Honor is not given gratuitously. It has to be
earned. But it is a fact that we do not honor all labor, all
virtue, equally.
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KEEP THE CHILDREN AT HOME
Fathers and mothers want to see their children grow up into
good, moral, respectable men and women. How to insure this
desirable result is a serious problem. It is seen that the school
is not sufficient to insure character, nor does the church exert
sufficient influence to guide the feet in right paths.
We have the deepest faith in what the school is doing and
trying to do, and would help it in every way to promote the
instruction in those branches of knowledge which are deemed
essential to a sound and useful education, but we cannot fail to
see that the school, however much it may assist the child in the
formation of good habits, is not of itself competent to build up
character. The school cannot take the place of the home, nor can
the teacher do the work of the parent. We believe that the best way
to have good boys and girls, and therefore good men and women, is
to have good homes for them to live in. If parents gave more
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attention to making their homes attractive to their children, they
would not be so apt to seek amusement in other places. The more a
child is kept at home, the more certain it will be to escape the
evils of life. A good home is the first and most powerful factor in
forming the character of children.
There is too much thought given by parents generally to the
church and too little to the home. They shirk their duty and their
responsibility, and pray God to look after what they neglect. With
the father at work and the mother at mass, the children will be in
the street. Those parents who put the home above the church are
throwing around their children the best influences that earth
affords. When children are left to the care of God they too often
fall into the hands of the policeman. Let the path between the home
and the school be well worn, but never mind if the grass grows in
the road that leads to the church.
The child will usually love home if home is made lovely. If
parents wish to drive their children into temptation, let them shut
the sunshine of joy out of the house, forbid the playing of games,
burn up the pack of cards that is found in one of the boy's rooms,
call a ball-room the "devil's headquarters," and pronounce a
malediction upon all youthful sports. It is easy enough to drive a
boy or girl out into the dark. Put out the lights at home. Those
parents who know the evil influences of the world will make their
homes bright and beautiful and then keep their children there as
long as they can.
**** ****
The doctrine of salvation by faith is a libel on justice and
has done more to undermine the virtue of the world than vice
itself.
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TEACHER AND PREACHER
There is one great change which we hope to see brought about
in the near future, because we think it ought to be brought about
as a matter of justice. It is this: the elevation of teachers above
preachers. Civilization, and all that this word stands for to-day,
depends more upon the school than upon the church. It is the
teacher and not the preacher that trains the growing minds of our
children, that builds the structure of character for future men and
women, and gives to the young the sacred touch that keeps them in
right paths. The world does not half appreciate the work done by
the school teacher, while it exaggerates out of all proportion to
its worth, the work done by the preacher. The church may fall, but
if the school stands, liberty will remain; the paths of knowledge
will be free; the brow of civilization will still shine white
against the skies of life, and the glorious cup of learning be
pressed to the thirsting mouth of youth; but should the school
fall, though the church might stand, all this would be reversed; --
liberty would be driven from the earth, the highways of knowledge
would be closed, civilization would fade into the night of the
"dark ages," and the thirsting lips of life be fed with Bible
scraps and the logic of dead creeds. The teacher is the mighty
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power in this republic, the truest friend of our nation's
institutions, the one person above all others that this country
should honor and reward. One teacher is worth a thousand priests;
one school, a thousand churches.
The person whose duty it is to direct the education of the
young holds the scepter of a nation's destiny, and the school
teacher occupies the most important station to which one can be
elected. We fear that the profession of teaching is not rightly
prized by the American people, and we are sure it is not justly
rewarded. No class in the land are paid so poorly, according to the
service they perform, as our school teachers, while no class should
be paid so well. Far more valuable to our government is the teacher
than the preacher, and yet the salary of the latter exceeds the
former in every city and town in the land. This should be changed.
Preaching a superstition is no benefit but an injury to a people,
while training the mind to read, to think, to gather knowledge is
the highest service which one can perform.
We have the greatest respect for the men and women who have
prepared themselves for the high office of teacher, and we would
see them rewarded for their labor as it deserves. The hope of a
country is in the right education of its people, and the way to
secure such education is to encourage the teacher by showing a just
appreciation of his or her labors. So we say, put the school above
the church, the teacher above the preacher.
**** ****
FEAR OF DOUBTS
We cannot help thinking that Goethe showed lack of courage
when he said: "I will listen to any one's convictions, but pray
keep your doubts to yourself, I have plenty of my own!" It seems to
us that only a coward is afraid of doubts. If our convictions are
false is it not better to know it and correct them? Doubt is the
way to truth. It is the attitude of the mind that wants to know
things just as they are. They who are unwilling to be deceived are
the ones to doubt, to inquire. Let us hear all the doubts of the
world, for they are knocks at the door of knowledge. To accept
without question is to be the willing dupe of imposition.
The doubter is the safe man; the man who can be depended upon.
He does not build upon a foundation of guesswork, and the structure
he erects will stand. Let us not fear doubt, but rather fear to
have falsehood passed for truth.
**** ****
There is no authority that can be quoted against a man but the
authority of some other man.
**** ****
Nine times out of ten the man who declares that God is tender
to the sparrow that falls is not the man to buy a winter's coal for
a poor widow.
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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
75
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
BIBLE-BACKING
There is less backing one's thoughts with the Bible than
formerly. The world is getting weaned from this book. The idea is
gaining ground that, if anything is true, it can support itself.
When a man leans on God he is so much less a man. Mental
uprightness disdains the Bible's support. Honest thought can defend
itself without appealing to divine authority.
Once a man hardly dared speak unless he quoted from the
Scriptures a line or verse that ran parallel with his speech.
To-day men say what they think, without caring whether Moses,
or David, or John, agree with them or not. We have reached a
healthy independence. We have commenced to trust our convictions.
Such a stage of intellectual development is not favorable to the
divinity of one's thoughts. The report of one mind is no more
divine than that of another, and no more to be trusted, only as it
is more accurate. There is a higher standard than the word of God
for this age that is, the word of truth. Whosoever speaks truth can
face the world alone.
When a man needs to go to the Bible to sustain his argument he
has a weak argument. When a dogma does not commend itself to human
intelligence it is useless to declare it infallible. It will die,
even though it be professed a thousand years. It can be accepted
only by ignorance and avowed only by hypocrisy.
Any man who will quote a Bible-text to defend his opinion in
the sense that such text proves his opinion true, proves himself a
dolt. A Bible-text is only a human opinion, and as humanity
surpasses it in the evolution of experience, it loses its authority
and force. We have learned that human reason does not need to be
backed by the Bible, and we have learned also that the Bible does
need to be backed by human reason, or it has no value.
**** ****
The heart that can deride misfortune confesses its own
deformity.
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When we are satisfied with the present we do not think of the
future.
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The more mystery is encouraged, the more deceit can impose
upon the human mind.
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If wisdom and diamonds grew on the same tree we could soon
tell how much men loved wisdom.
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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
76
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
BEGGARS
We have come to look upon the poor beggar as a nuisance; upon
the man who comes to our doors for food or clothes as one who has
no claim upon our charity. The common beggar is, as a rule, a
worthless character, but let us be fair to him. He asks for but
little; seldom for more than a bite, or for a few pennies. The poor
beggar has only himself to enforce his appeal, and often he is an
injury to his own cause. A dirty, ragged, vice-stained wreck of
humanity is a poor argument to offer for sympathy or help. The man
who begs in the name of man, and with that name rubbed in the dirt
besides, gets little for his asking.
We do not like any beggars, but we need to understand that it
is not the man in rags, who asks for a piece of bread or meat, that
is the only beggar in the world. There is another and more
dangerous beggar that we open our doors to, and treat with
politeness and respect, and whose appeals we honor; it is the well-
dressed beggar who asks for the money which the arm of labor has
coined from its strength, who takes not pennies where he can get
dollars, and who enforces his appeal with the name of God; it is
the ecclesiastical beggar, whose hand is stretched out to take the
earnings of toil, or the profits of trade; whose hand would as soon
take little from poverty as plenty from affluence.
The rich beggar is a worse enemy to society and to the nation
than the poor beggar. It is the priest, and not the tramp, whose
begging we need to scorn. The man who asks for food in the name of
hunger, for help in the name of want, makes, at least, an honest
appeal to our generosity, but the man who begs in the name of God
is an impostor. The tramp's appeal is the truth -- the priest's is
a lie. God never yet commissioned a human being to beg for him, and
the person who uses the divine name to enforce his demand is little
better than a thief.
**** ****
In the paths of our life may be seen the foot-prints of our
ancestors.
If you are poor, be thankful that you have the power of
bettering your circumstances by bettering yourself; if you are
rich, do not forget that you have the means of doing good, a luxury
that is too seldom indulged.
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Men need nothing so much to-day as self-reliance; courage to
stand up manfully for the right, all alone, daring everything for
an idea, without prop or pay, counting not the cost, but seeing
only the grand result which would follow its triumph and working
for that with single purpose and courageous fidelity.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
77
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
HABITS
Habit makes the man, but man makes the habit. It is here where
we want to get in a word. A habit seems a little thing in itself,
but it is the most terrible tyrant that rules the world. And it
does rule it, say what we will. Now, it is essential in this life
of ours to start right if we are going to come out right. And the
best thing to start with is a good habit. It is just as easy when
a young man is forming his habits to form good ones as bad ones.
Good habits are not expensive. A virtue does not cost a quarter as
much to support as does a vice.
We sometimes wonder how it is that a being with brains, with
intelligence, with reason, could ever become a slave to habit. It
does not seem possible that a MAN cannot order his conduct. But we
must recognize facts. Men are victims of habits. They do not
perceive that they are bound until they try to be free, and then
the strong power of habit asserts itself. How does this terrible
despot conquer the mind, the will, the man? What is this invisible
force that drives the strongest and the brightest with a whip of
iron? it is only an act repeated again and again, but it has become
a second nature, a part of the man, and it has conquered, by the
power of reinforcement by repetition.
The only way to be superior to bad habits is never to acquire
them. Do not do the first bad act. Stop before you begin to go
wrong. The time when a man is saved is when he is young. The time
to plant or sow is in the Spring. The harvest depends upon the
seed. We cannot pick figs from thistles. A bad habit will end in a
bad life. Watch the feet of the boy and the man's will not need
watching. We must begin with the young, and see that right habits
are acquired in early life.
It is only a foot from a good habit to a bad one, but it is a
mile back again. We may lose in an hour all we have made in a year.
We can undo in a day what we have done in a lifetime. A habit is a
plant of which an act is the seed. It will bear fruit if it be a
good act, but ashes if it be a bad act. It is the first step that
starts the race. To start right is the best way to go right and to
end right. Never let a bad habit fasten to your life.
**** ****
It takes the shingles from the widow's cottage to put paint on
the house of God.
**** ****
Many persons who claim that they are "clothed with
righteousness" do not seem to have got very good fits.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
78
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
CAN POVERTY BE ABOLISHED
Is poverty a malady of the individual or of society? To answer
this question is to determine how to treat the disease. If the
individual is alone responsible for being poor, then he alone is to
apply the remedy; but if society is to blame for poverty, then must
society take the steps to effect a cure. Poverty is an evil. A
human being who is starved physically is starved mentally and
morally. Civilization begins when man has risen above want. Man is
only a brute when all of his energies are absorbed in the effort to
get bread.
In the present state of society we have dependence and
independence; a few have escaped from the burdens of toil, but the
many are still slaves to physical wants. But the few enjoy their
independence at the expense of those beneath them, and oftentimes
by inflicting wrong and injustice upon their fellows. Such a
condition ought not to be allowed. Prosperity is the accumulated
efforts of mankind. No man has created all the benefits he enjoys;
no one has sowed all that he reaps. The rich man to-day is rich
because he has, by advantageous circumstances, obtained possession
of more than his share of the world's wealth, or because he has
inherited what others have obtained in the same way, or because by
thrift and economy and good luck he has succeeded in getting money
and keeping it.
But what makes the poor man? Not one thing, or one condition.
He is the victim sometimes of his own follies, vices or laziness,
although he is often not to be blamed for his poverty. There are
individual cases where doubtless destitution is the child of
misfortune, but the general poverty of the world, and of this
country in particular, cannot be charged to any such account.
In our land there is a balance every year to the credit of
wealth, but is it not true that this balance finds its way to the
pockets already filled, rather than to those that are empty? What
diverts the products of labor from the hands of labor? Find out
that, and then we will begin to give labor its due. There is enough
produced every year to make every person in the land better off at
the end of the year. Why are so few richer, and so many poorer, or,
at least, no better off? There is one thing sure, -- labor, thrift,
economy, virtue and good habits are to be commended and encouraged,
while idleness, vice, profligacy and bad habits are to be condemned
and discouraged. We do not look to any external change in society
for a remedy for poverty, but rather to an internal change in man.
It is not social revolution that will help the world, but humanity
-- the willingness to do what is right.
**** ****
"It rains on the just and the unjust," but rarely just enough
on either.
**** ****
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
79
IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC GOD
Cicero said that "men, having exhausted all the mad
extravagances they are capable of, have yet never entertained the
idea of eating the God whom they adore." The extravagance which was
beyond the contemplation of the Pagan mind, is an every day affair
with a large part of the Christian world. The Roman Catholic eats
his God every week, and Catholics have been guilty of this
religious cannibalism for centuries.
In the celebration of the eucharist, which is a service
commemorative of the death of Jesus, bread and wine are used in
Protestant churches as emblems of the body and blood of the
crucified one. But in Roman Catholic churches the real presence of
Jesus is seen in the "host," which, in itself, is a little wafer of
baked flour and water, but when consecrated by the priest and
offered as a sacrifice, during mass, becomes the actual body of
God. According to Roman Catholic doctrine, dough is changed to
Deity by the mumbling of a few Latin words over it by a priest.
When the priest swallows the consecrated wafer he really swallows
this God he adores.
There is an absurdity which the doctrine of transubstantiation
is accountable for, which cannot be paralleled among all the
religions of heathenism. Not only does this doctrine make it
possible for one God to be eaten by one priest, but for thousands
of gods to be thus devoured. The Roman Catholic religion teaches
that God is manufactured out of flour and water by a pastry cook.
Every time a wafer is turned into a "host," a God is made.
Were there a tribe in Asia or Africa guilty of such ridiculous
practices as are witnessed in the Roman Catholic church,
missionaries would be sent out to them. It seems to us, that if
people know no better than to believe that when the priest swallows
a little lump of bread he is actually swallowing the body of a
person who lived eighteen hundred years ago, whom they look upon as
God, they are not intelligent enough to be ranked in the army of
progress and civilization.
**** ****
No one is to blame for what no one knows.
**** ****
It is singular that people want to live another life when it
is so hard to live this.
**** ****
A church that sets up a religious faith as more essential than
purity, than kindness, charity or goodness, is a dangerous
institution.
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Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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IS THE BIBLE WORTH READING
HUMAN CRUELTY
The mosquito inflicts his sting upon the place whence he draws
his life. Not unlike this venomed insect is the person who, through
malice, wounds the feelings of a human being. There seems to be in
certain organizations the poison of hatred, and woe betide those on
whom it falls. The heart that can take delight in saying cruel
things, in raising, unkind doubts or starting unpleasant thoughts,
ought never to have had a human face to hide behind. Such an
individual ought to crawl in its native shape that it might be
crushed under the heel of scorn.
The only way to treat a human viper is to keep away from it,
ignore its presence, and to shut the ears to its venomed hiss. We
know of no more cruel occupation than wounding human hearts and
human feelings.
**** ****
A great many men believe in providence until they get caught
in a railroad accident.
**** ****
Treasures well used on earth will help the world more than
treasures laid up in heaven.
**** ****
INFIDELITY
When the minister wants to frighten his congregation he draws
a picture of infidelity. The infidel has been used for years to
scare weak-minded persons into accepting Christianity. Outwardly
the infidel is painted like a man, but the world is warned not to
trust to appearances, for the infidel is not what he looks to be;
he is "a fiend in human shape;" he is "a moral monster," and a
mirror in which everything bad and vicious can see its face.
We do not wonder that a minister paints the infidel in black.
He has hurt the minister's business, and so must suffer for what he
has done. But we do wonder that so large a part of the world is
frightened at the word "infidelity."
It is a fact that an infidel would never be known if he
himself did not disclose his character. To conceal his infidelity
he has only to keep still, to hide behind silence.
Infidelity is nothing more or less than intellectual fidelity,
and an infidel is a man too honest to disguise his real thoughts
and convictions. Had the infidel not been honest he would still be
in the church, a hypocrite, to be sure, but this could not affect
his religious status at all. Intellectual and moral uprightness is
the distinguishing characteristic of modem infidelity. The modem
infidel trusts his brain and his heart; he accepts as true what
appeals to his reason, and makes known his convictions as though to
conceal them were a vice or a crime.
Bank of Wisdom
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The infidel gains nothing by avowing his convictions; on the
contrary, he is condemned for making them known. The Christian
presumes upon the right to damn infidels here and to teach that God
will damn them hereafter. It is in the face of a fate, in many
instances cruel, that a man acknowledges that his honest thoughts,
his honest convictions place him in antagonism to the popular
faith, and yet he is denounced, rather than praised, for his brave
action
Infidelity is the proof of an honest man. Hypocrisy cannot
hide in its shadow. Every man in the Christian church may be a
hypocrite, a knave, a pretender professing its faith, while
laughing inwardly at its foolish superstitions, but every man who
espouses infidelity must reveal his true character, must show
exactly what he is.
A dishonest or hypocritical infidel is an impossibility. There
is nothing to be gained, but much to be lost, by confessing one's
disbelief of the Christian dogmas. It is the man who prizes self-
respect above the world's approval who takes the fate of infidelity
-- be it what it may.
**** ****
Don't put too much faith in the man who wants to know the
distance to the nearest church before he has written his name in
the hotel register.
**** ****
ATHEISM
What is called atheism is not a light, flippant assertion, but
a calm, thoughtful conclusion. It is a conviction which human
experience and human reflection have generated. Atheism is not the
irresponsible opinion of moral debauchery; it is the outcome of an
intelligent consideration of Nature and life. The atheist has been
honest with himself and with the world. He has made a careful
survey of the universe, as far as he is able, and has canvassed the
facts of life which have come within the range of his observation,
and he has candidly declared the result of his study and freely
related the reasons for his conclusions.
Atheism is the universe as science finds it and as interpreted
by human understanding. It is an attempt to state the simple truth,
to give a fair likeness of things, to photograph facts. Atheism is
denial of nothing true, of nothing good, of nothing that can be
proved. We see no good reason for abusing the atheist. His opinions
don't make him a bad citizen or a bad man. He is as moral as his
Christian neighbor, and is as ready to help a fellow-being.
In countries where atheism is a crime, hypocrisy is more
honored than integrity.
**** ****
A great many who expect to hear the angels sing always get
near the stage at a comic opera.
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**** ****
CHRISTIAN HAPPINESS
Christians are constantly telling "how happy their religion
makes them," how happy they feel "since they found Jesus." We will
take them at their word and believe that they are just as happy as
they say they are. What has their religion done for them, what has
Jesus done for them, that they should be so happy? They will answer
that they have been saved, that their souls have been rescued from
destruction. Without going into the question whether they need to
be saved or whether their souls are in any danger of destruction,
let us see what kind of happiness the Christian enjoys. The great
song of Christians is: My soul is saved. The Christian is happy on
his own account alone; he rejoices in his own good fortune; he is
pleased to think that he is out of it. The Christian's happiness is
a purely selfish feeling. In his exultation is no thought of
another's condition, of another's lot.
If some are saved, others are lost, for all do not accept the
Christian faith, all do not find Jesus. The Christian can be happy
while others are miserable; he can rejoice while knowing that
others are in peril; he can exult over his own salvation while
seeing others going to destruction. This is a fiendish happiness,
a devilish joy. For one to be happy while knowing that a brother or
sister is lost shows a hard, selfish, cruel heart.
Think of the Christian mother being happy for having been
rescued from her burning home in whose fatal flames her children
all perished! Think of the Christian father filled with joy at his
escape from the sinking ship in which his wife and babe sailed to
the port of death! Think of a Christian man or woman exulting over
their good fortune in not having a disease which took away those
who were nearest and dearest! Such joy, such happiness, as this is
not human, it is brutish.
The Christian is welcome to all the happiness his heartless
religion affords him. I want none of it. Such a religion would
drive me mad.
The loving heart is happiest in the joy of those it loves; it
is happy in seeing others happy, but there could be no joy for it
to be saved while those it loved were lost. Christianity is a
heartless religion, a cruel faith, a selfish scheme, and it is for
those who care more about being saved than saving others.
**** ****
The highest freedom is the freedom to say what we believe to
be right.
**** ****
It was a childless woman who said: The happiest woman is she
whose bosom pillows the sweet head of a child.
**** ****
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WHAT GOD KNOWS
We see in Christian papers a great deal about what God knows.
How does any one know what God knows? It has been the habit, where
man lacked any particular knowledge, of saying, "God knows." But
what is the good of God knowing anything if he keeps his knowledge
to himself? If he will not tell what be knows, how is man improved
or benefitted by all the wisdom in the divine cranium? What is
known by the inhabitants of Venus does the inhabitants of earth no
good. But let us come down to facts. Is there any proof that God
knows anything? Let men own up, and not try to deceive themselves
or others any longer. What God knows nobody else knows.
There is no evidence that God knows what man does not, and it
is bare assumption only to ascribe knowledge to deity. It is first
necessary for man to know that there is a God, before endowing him
with mental wealth or attributes. The Christian practice of saying
that "God loves man," and that "God cares for man" has no basis of
facts to stand upon, and it is only pious conceit that indulges in
such statements.
There is nothing in the universe but the universe itself;
nothing in the universe that reveals a God. The earth does not, the
sun does not, the moon does not, and not a planet or star reveals
the existence of a God. All these reveal their own existence; so of
a flower, of a tree, of a man. It is only divinity that can reveal
the existence of divinity. Who has seen or heard this divinity? No
one. Men have said, or men have made other men say, that they have
seen God, heard God, and talked with God. But they lied. No human
eye ever saw the divine form or features; no human ear ever heard
the divine voice; no human being ever had any knowledge of a divine
being.
It is a waste of words to talk about God and what he knows and
what he does. No man knows that God does anything, that God knows
anything, or that there is a God.
**** ****
Blessings on the man who first dared to doubt.
**** ****
The improvement in ways of travel and methods of labor has
altered our reverence.
**** ****
Every kiss of love imprinted by a mother's lips on the face of
her babe gives the lie to the Christian doctrine of total
depravity, and every gift which the heart of pity lays in the hand
of misfortune brands this doctrine as false and a libel on our
human nature.
**** ****
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THE MEANING OF THE WORD GOD
I do not deny that the word "God" has today a moral and
religious meaning which is derived from his supposed beneficence,
but this idea is not the one that I find at the bottom of the
Christian faith. I object very seriously to the attempt, which is
being made by certain interested parties, to represent the God of
Christianity better than he is. This word loses its terror when we
realize that it stands for an unknown quantity. It is the attempt
to account for what we cannot understand; the effort to explain the
universe. The word "God" is a definition of human ignorance. It
represents what we do not know. This word does not stand for a
person, an object, or a thing. It is an idea that we can have no
idea of, a thought of what one cannot think. People who use the
word "God" do not know what they are talking about. The word fits
nothing that has yet been discovered. Theology is the science of
what no one knows anything about. It does not belong to the family
of knowledge. When the hands of theology are laid on a man's head
his brains are consecrated to do nothing. Every time a minister is
made, a man is lost. Nothing disgraces American civilization more
than the theology preached in Christian churches. It is worse than
childish; it is old-womanish. The dark ages cast their shadows
across the bright skies of the twentieth century, and the relics of
that benighted time, the priests, are still walking the streets,
like ghosts of bad deeds.
Every theology ends in a creed. A creed is the night-cap of
religion. It is a sign that the intellect is asleep. When faith is
in, sense is out. A man with a creed has bought the coffin for his
mind. The rest of his life will be a funeral service for the dead.
A creed is the grave of thought. When a person subscribes to
certain articles of belief, he has no further use for his brains.
It does not require any mental exercise to believe. Belief does not
signify any process of intellectual assimilation or digestion. When
a man joins a church, he makes his last will and testament. When
reason abdicates in favor of credulity, crime becomes a saint, and
folly a martyr. Too much faith makes a Pocasset tragedy. The
foolishness of trying to make God intelligible to human
understanding is shown in the creeds of Christendom. The dogma of
the trinity ought not to pass to any further generation. It is not
the "likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is
in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth."
**** ****
WHAT HAS JESUS DONE FOR THE WORLD
A great deal is said about "what Jesus has done for the
world." We wish some of those people who, repeat this statement
would take ten or fifteen minutes and tell us just what Jesus has
done for the world. It would puzzle the most ardent admirer of the
Galilean reformer to point out anything that Jesus ever did to help
man in this life. There is too much of this thoughtless, senseless
praise of Jesus. Not a Christian on this earth but what owes a
thousand times more to his father and mother than he owes to Jesus,
but who ever heard one acknowledge it? We could name hundreds of
men who have lightened the labor of the world by their inventions.
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Did Jesus do anything of the kind? We can name hundreds of men who
have made the homes of mankind brighter and more enjoyable by their
genius and toil. Did Jesus do anything of the kind?
The imaginary service which this imaginary person did is of no
consequence to the poor, to the workers, to the starvers. What the
poor man wants is not a Savior for another world, but a helper for
this world, and the person who lessens the poverty and misery of
earth is worth a thousand times more to humanity than Jesus.
We are told that Jesus died for man. Well! What of it?
Socrates died for man. Bruno died for man. Emmet died for man. John
Brown died for the black man. Every day somebody is dying for man.
Why emphasize the death of Jesus more than the death of another?
The fact that Jesus died does not help you or me. He could have
helped us far more by living, if he had lived wisely and well.
The great fact in regard to Jesus is this: He does not touch
this age; its aspirations, its interests, its reforms, its work,
its spirit. We are living contrary to Jesus, contrary to all he
taught and did. He is left behind, outgrown, and, consequently,
whatever he did is of no value to this age. His star is set. He has
had his day. Instead of trying to bring about a kingdom of poverty,
a millennium of idleness, the world is striving for a kingdom of
plenty and a good time for everybody.
Everything connected with Jesus has been exaggerated. The man
himself has been exaggerated, his words have been exaggerated, his
performances have been exaggerated, and his importance has been
exaggerated. He has been given a character that he is not entitled
to, and his teachings have been clothed with a value which they do
not possess. Jesus has been passed for more than he is worth. Let
his name no longer bear the stamp of divinity. Let his deeds no
longer be called miracles. The real Jesus of fact would be a very
ordinary man.
**** ****
THE AGNOSTIC'S POSITION
Some avowed Liberal writers are engaged in abusing the
Agnostic. One looks upon him as a fool, while another considers him
a hypocrite. One pities him for his ignorance, the other abuses him
for confessing it. I side with the Agnostic. I sit down with the
ignorant. I take my place in the class of "I-don't-know." The
difference between people is this: Some don't know, and some don't
know that they don't know, and the rest wont admit that they don't
know.
It seems to me that the Agnostic's position is an honest one.
He is asked the question; Is there a future life for man? What
shall he answer? If he does not know whether there is not, why
should he not say so? To say: I believe there is, is not an answer
to the question. He must say, I know, or, I do not know. On this
question are we not all Agnostics?
**** ****
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The foolish and cruel notion that a wife is to obey her
husband has sent more women to the grave than to the courts for a
divorce.
**** ****
ORTHODOXY
There is as much perfumery in petroleum as there is
righteousness in orthodoxy. Its dead theology and make-believe
piety have no value only to the priest. Orthodoxy survives only by
right of possession. Turn it out of the churches and it would never
re-enter them. The church to-day is a hospital for sick dogmas.
Every Christian doctrine is a cripple; not one can walk or stand
alone. Orthodoxy has put a false valuation on things. It calls a
man good who goes to church, offers a prayer in public and accepts
the Bible as the word of God; it calls a man bad who stays at home
and enjoys himself with his family on Sunday, who eats without
asking God to bless his food, and who does not expect to go to
heaven on the vicarious railroad.
The thirty-nine articles of orthodoxy are only the ashes of
the mind.
**** ****
Honesty is never seen sitting astride the fence.
**** ****
A handsome bonnet covers a multitude of sins.
IDEAS OF JESUS
There is a vast difference between knowledge of the Bible and
knowledge. A person may know all there is in the Bible, and not
know but little. In fact, so much of the Bible is either pure
fiction or doubtful history that one is not sure when he has got
hold of what is reliable. Probably no person whose name appears in
the Bible is less a historical figure than Jesus. As we see him in
either gospel he is more the product of the artist than the work of
the biographer. He is less a human being than the character of a
drama.
Had Jesus been pictured as a man, who was born as men are
born, who worked as men worked, who lived and died as men live and
die, then there would be less divergence in the views entertained
respecting him. To-day, the Jesus of Galilee is looked upon as
either a God or a tramp; a divine Savior or an impostor; the
perfect man or a lunatic.
The reason of this is that the gospels are found, as it were,
photographs of all those characters labelled Jesus. A person with
no fixed idea of what Jesus was, whether human or divine, whether
a Christ or a madman, would be unable, after reading the gospels to
come to any intelligent conclusion as to what he was. He certainly
could not accept the statements of the authors and regard Jesus as
a man.
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We fail to understand how anyone can read the New Testament
story of Jesus and not regard him as a myth. No being ever lived on
earth and performed the miracles recorded in the gospels. That is
just as sure as the light of the stars. Miracles are not evidence
of divinity, but of falsehood. Where we read that a man was raised
from the dead we know that somebody has written what is not true.
How human beings, who are possessed of ordinary intelligence, can
accept the accounts of miraculous events in the four gospels as
records of actual facts surpasses our comprehension.
Those persons who see in the words of Jesus evidence of his
divine character, see in such words, when in the mouth of any other
person, proof of insanity.
There are contradictory ideas of Jesus contained in the
gospels. He is spoken of as a man, as a Christ, as a son of God,
and as God himself. Now, he could not have been all these. Which
was he? Was he God? Was he the son of God? Was he the Christ or
King of the Jews? Was he the son of Mary and Joseph? Was he a man?
Or was he neither?
Our opinion is that Jesus is a myth, that no such being as is
painted in the New Testament ever lived. This seems to be the only
rational idea of Jesus.
**** ****
THE SILENCE OF JESUS
A Christian minister not long ago spoke upon the subject:
"When the Bible is Silent." He said a great many silly things about
his subject, but not one sensible one. This preacher wishes us to
believe that when the Bible is silent it is because we cannot hear.
He said the silence of Jesus before Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod,
shows that Jesus knew they would not have understood his words if
he had answered them. He further said that Jesus "treated each with
whom he came in contact according to the spirit that was in him."
Is it not more likely that Jesus knew he could not impose upon
these men as he could upon his ignorant, superstitious followers,
and hence dared not speak? Is not his silence a confession of his
weakness? Had he been able to answer Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod,
think you he would not have done so? Of course he would. It is a
little singular that the most momentous questions ever put to Jesus
were not answered by him. The very things the people wished to know
he did not reveal. Why not? Why, because he could not.
Should we to-day pronounce a man wise and good who professed
to possess knowledge that would benefit, if not save, the world,
but who refused to impart that knowledge? We reckon not. We should
either denounce him as the foe of man or else as a charlatan.
When Jesus was taken before the high priest, Caiaphas, and was
asked about the charges against him, he "held his peace."
When he was asked by Pilate, "What is truth?" Jesus was
silent; and when Pilate again asked, "Whence art thou?" Jesus "gave
him no answer."
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When Herod "questioned with him in many words," "he answered
him nothing."
What are we to infer from this silence? What the minister
wishes us to infer, or that Jesus saw that he was unable to
maintain his claim and so sought refuge in silence?
The silence of Jesus condemns him. He was in duty bound to
prove that he was the Christ, the Son of God, as he claimed to be,
or else have imposter written on his forehead.
The world will some day grow large enough not to be fooled by
a minister. When it does, Jesus will take his place where he
belongs, -- in the graveyard of the gods.
**** ****
DOES THE CHURCH SAVE
The church pretends to save man from a hell hereafter, but
does it do so? How are we to know whether it does or not? We cannot
take its word for it. We want the proof. We do not want to pay for
work unless the work is done. We do not want to believe in order to
be saved, unless we are sure that the church can deliver the
salvation it takes pay for. The world has taken the promise to save
long enough. It has not seen a single soul that has been saved, nor
does it know for a fact that a single soul has been saved.
Is it not time that the church showed that it can do what it
claims to do? We want salvation demonstrated. Let the church
produce a specimen of its work; let it exhibit a soul that it has
saved, or let it publish the affidavit, duly subscribed and
affirmed, of a soul that has escaped the fate of hell through the
efficacy of faith in Jesus. Anything less than this is deception,
is imposition, is false pretense. Either this should be done by the
church or else it should go out of the salvation-business
altogether.
It is astonishing how long the priest has carried on his
trade. Here is a man who claims to deal in the affairs of another
world for which he demands pay in this world, but he does not show
that he carries out his part of the agreement. Men have been paying
the priest for thousands of years, for doing what it is impossible
to prove has been, or can be, done. Can anything more stupid than
this be imagined? The business of saving man's soul is a cheat, a
fraud. Every priest and minister who preaches that man can be saved
from hell hereafter by believing in Jesus, or anybody else, is
preaching what they know nothing about, and they are doing it for
the money in it. The church is cheating man, defrauding him,
practicing upon his ignorance, his superstition, his fear.
Religion, as far as it relates to any other life than this, has no
foundation. Its God no one knows anything about; its heaven and
hell no one has ever seen, nor does anyone know where they are; its
whole business is run on fictitious capital.
The only thing that the church has saved so far is itself.
**** ****
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FREETHOUGHT PRECEPTS
The strong should be gentle to the weak.
The rich should not oppress the poor.
The prosperous should be generous to the unfortunate.
The self-reliant should give a hand to the helpless.
The educated should pity the ignorant.
The virtuous should not be cruel to the vicious.
The beautiful should be kind to the plain.
**** ****
SAVE THE REPUBLIC
Which shall it be, Christianity or the Republic? It is
apparent that the Christian church under a purely secular
government, where justice is granted to all and where favors are
allowed to none, cannot long survive. The Christian church in this
country to-day is the worst foe of our free republic that exists
within its borders. If the state survives it is plain to us that
the church must perish, and the church can only flourish on the
ruins of free institutions. We may have Christianity with a certain
form of human government in America, but if the principles embodied
in the Declaration of Independence and the rights implied in the
national constitution are to survive, then we cannot have
Christianity in this land.
The next conflict in our nation is to be between secularism
and ecclesiasticism, between men who love liberty and priests who
uphold tyranny, between the lovers of our republic and the foes of
secular institutions. This conflict is nearer than the public
imagines; in fact, it is already going on, and the growth of
sentiment in the next generation in favor of human freedom and
human rights will determine whether secularism will be upheld in
our nation, or whether the reign of ecclesiasticism is to be
dethroned.
The work of the Christian church throughout the land is to
prevent the spread of secular principles and to hinder the further
secularization of the government. This is the only hope of saving
Christianity. If the state will not continue to exempt church
property from taxation, to uphold the Christian sabbath, to
prescribe prayers and Bible-reading in the public schools, to
enforce the oath in courts of justice, and to otherwise lend its
aid and support to the Christian religion, there is no chance of
this religion resisting the spread of science and the arguments of
rationalism.
Every victory won by Christianity is a nail in the coffin of
this republic. Our government at the present time is a travesty of
free institutions. Where does the freethinker have equal rights
with the Christian, equal freedom, equal justice? He is obliged to
take a Christian oath or have his word discredited in court; he is
taxed to help support Christian chaplains in the state prisons, in
the legislatures, and in the army and navy; he is made by law to
pay the taxes on church property which is no benefit to him; he has
to send his children to schools where religious services are
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conducted that to him are false and foolish, and in many other ways
help maintain a religion that he considers more injurious than
beneficial to the world.
The church in this country is not working for the good of the
nation; it is working to save itself. What they, who love our free
land, should do, is to make the government secular in every part,
and compel Christianity to take its grasp off of the nation's life.
We must destroy Christianity if we would save the republic.
**** ****
A WOMAN'S RELIGION
The Christian church of to-day is the church of women. Woman
is certainly the better-half of Christianity. She is the minister's
right bower. The Christian soldier is an Amazon. The first at the
prayer-meeting, at the donation party, at the missionary
convention, at the Sunday service, at the altar, at the Sunday
school is woman, and the last is woman, too. Without its female
members, adherents and workers the Christian church would be an
abandoned wreck within a week. It is true that men give money to
the church, but they do it generally to please the women or at
their solicitation.
The Christian religion is a female religion. It is emotional
piety. There is nothing robust, independent about it, nothing that
appeals to strength, intellect, reason. It is a vine, not an oak.
Even its chief idol was fashioned for female worship. The songs of
Christianity were written for women to sing, rather than men. The
God of Christianity is a father, its savior is a young man, and its
angels are all of the masculine gender. The Christian heaven is a
he-kingdom, as far as its administration is concerned -- a sort of
celestial harem -- for certainly ten women go there to one man, if
the membership of the church determines the election of candidates
to heavenly bliss. The two favorite hymns at the prayer-meeting,
the two that are sung with most feeling, are "Jesus, lover of my
soul," and "Nearer, my God, to thee."
Religion was invented to catch women. The priest is the spider
and woman the fly. Upon the altar of every faith woman has been the
sacrifice. Religion claims its female victims in this age just as
surely as when the Hindoo widow was sent to join her dead husband
on wings of flame. Woman to-day is not killed to appease a God, but
she is still made a fool of by the priest. The spirit of the
offering is the same, the form, only, is different. The foundation
of every Christian church is woman; the salary-raiser of every
Christian minister is woman. Woman is the keystone in every arch of
Christian endeavor that spans the earth. She is "the bright,
particular star" of the church's hope. Men are not so easily caught
by the Christian scheme of salvation as women. They want to see
some return for their money on earth. It is the woman who is caught
in the religious toils; it is the woman who is the slave of God,
the victim of priest and minister.
**** ****
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The declaration that will kindle enthusiasm in the human
breast most quickly is that a new way has been discovered to get
rich.
**** ****
THE SACRIFICE OF JESUS
A great deal has been written, preached and said about the
great sacrifice which Jesus made for the world. We deny that he
made any such sacrifice as is claimed for him by the Christian
church. In fact, we cannot see, find or learn from any record of
the New Testament that he made any sacrifice at all. This whole
idea about the sacrifice of Jesus depends upon a theological
assumption.
Jesus had no earthly honor, position or estate to sacrifice,
even had he been disposed to offer such for the good of mankind.
Not only is there no evidence of any tangible renunciation possible
by Jesus, but there is no proof and no sign that Jesus possessed
even the spirit of sacrifice. We challenge the Christian admirer of
Jesus to point to a single act of this hero that can honestly be
called a sacrifice. We know of no such act. We have studied the
gospels to find such an act, and we have studied them in vain.
When a mother sees her boy pinned to the timbers of a wrecked
car where the scalding steam must escape into his face and destroy
his life, and to save her boy, voluntarily stands where this steam,
with its hot breath, will take her life instead of her boy's, this
mother makes a sacrifice that is apparent, real. Such an act is
sublime, grand, beyond heroism. Such an act wipes the Christian
slander of total depravity from human nature. Such an act makes us
almost worship the heart great enough to perform it.
Jesus did no such things as this. He braved no danger for
another. He did not walk in the path of peril to save the life of
friend or fellow. On the contrary, he seemed bent on a selfish
mission, inspired by a purely personal ambition. He did not say:
This world is suffering from oppression; I will lay down my life to
make it free. He did not seek to destroy the throne and the scepter
that bear so heavily on the poor and weak; but he sought a throne
and a scepter for himself that he might rule the world.
Jesus sacrifice himself for the world! No! He demanded that
the world sacrifice itself to exalt him! A poorer specimen of self-
sacrifice could hardly be found in all the historical out-of-the-
way places that we know anything about. Jesus had nothing to give
up, nothing to renounce, nothing but his life to offer to the
world, and this, even when it was taken, did the world no good.
The only incident in the whole career of Jesus which has been
construed as a sacrifice was his crucifixion, but this was not
voluntary on the part of the victim. Jesus, in dying, made no
sacrifice. He surrendered his life at the command of a political
power; he did not offer it for the world's advancement. Jesus was
the sport of circumstances, the victim of a cruel fate. He played
for high stakes and lost. He was an adventurer, and suffered the
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penalty of failure. Taking the account of his career in the gospels
as true, it is totally barren of any lofty, sublime action for the
good of the human race. He did not throw his efforts into the
public strife to elevate the condition of the majority, but he
loaded himself on the shoulders of his followers to ride into
divine greatness. Like hundreds of others, he threw the dice of
political chance and was beaten.
In following the gospel steps of the deluded Nazarene we are
not sure which are his and which are not, but take all the stories
as true which his devoted disciples have told about him, they do
not reveal a mind consecrated to any lofty purpose. He was working
to establish the "kingdom of heaven," but nobody knows what that
is. He talked about his "father in heaven," but nobody knows who he
is. He had no practical ideas, he did no practical work. History
would have written this man's name among the unfortunate victims of
political revolutions, if it had preserved it at all, which is
doubtful, but Jesus was made by priest-craft to play a leading part
in a theological drama, and religion has immortalized his name.
But it is a false part that Jesus has played. No such
character has any reason for existing. The necessity for any human
offering to God does not exist. The idea of an atoning sacrifice is
a relic of a barbarous faith. It is time to take Christianity off
the stage. It is an insult to the twentieth century.
The silly, sickly superstition of the sacrifice of Jesus
should be left to die. It sprang from falsehood and has no basis in
fact, in reason or in truth.
**** ****
FASHIONABLE HYPOCRISY
There is nothing more inconsistent than for the rich to praise
Jesus. There is dishonesty in every word that the wealthy speak in
approbation of the poverty-preacher of Galilee. Jesus was poor,
almost a beggar. He had no house, no home. But more than this, he
did not see the good of such things. He did not tell his disciples
to work and try to improve their earthly condition. There is no
sound, sensible advice for a man to follow, who has to live and
support his family, to be found in the so-called teachings of
Jesus.
It is simply hypocrisy for a man who is rich or well-to-do,
and who is living to add to his wealth or to increase his comforts,
to pretend to honor Jesus. The truth is, Jesus did not do anything
that deserves the honor of those who are trying to fill the earth
with flowers of happiness, who are laboring to make brighter the
homes they live in, and who are sowing the seeds of plenty and joy.
Jesus did not do what this age regards as best for man, and he did
not teach the philosophy which the wisest men to-day apply to human
life.
Now, was Jesus right or wrong? That is the question. It is
pure nonsense for the people of this country to claim to respect
Jesus. We cannot respect a person who does what we think is
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foolish, or we cannot do so and have any self-respect. We are right
or think we are, and Jesus was wrong; or else Jesus was right.
Which is it?
The whole world, Christian and unbeliever alike, is living
contrary to the precept and example of the New Testament preacher.
Is every person on earth doing what he believes to be wrong; doing
what he believes to be injurious to himself; doing what he
considers will end in disaster and misery; doing what he feels will
bring suffering and sorrow upon humanity? Not a bit of it. Every
man is doing what he believes to be right when he is working to get
out of poverty and degradation; when he is trying to better his
condition in society; when he is improving his home and giving his
family more blessings, more enjoyments.
We unhesitatingly declare that Jesus was wrong. It is
impossible to make poverty popular. There is not an argument in its
favor. Poverty has not a single blessing. It is a curse, pure and
simple, everywhere and for everybody. It is not to be praised; it
is to be condemned and got rid of. It is the father of vice and the
mother of suffering. It sheds more tears than grief. It cuts more
throats than crime. It breaks more hearts than cruelty. It is the
one great giant evil of earth. It is the foe that every Knight of
Labor is sworn to battle. Every heart that loves another is pledged
to drive poverty off the earth. This monster devours more children
than disease, and tortures the aged more than pain. Want is a
flood, a drought, a famine, a pestilence. It is a prison, a work-
house, a convict's cell. It is the hell of the twentieth century.
Can we praise Jesus and be honest? No! Jesus and his gospel of
poverty are not in harmony with the work, the love, the desire of
this age, and for any one who is living above want, on the walls of
whose home is the sunshine of peace and comfort, to pretend to
honor Jesus or to follow his teaching, is to be guilty of
hypocrisy!
**** ****
When religion comes in at the door common sense goes out at
the window.
**** ****
The churches erected in the name of God will ere long be
tombstones to his, memory.
**** ****
Churches do not stand for moral influence. Not a Christian
minister preaches salvation by good behavior. What a poor business
Roman Catholicism would do among men if it advertised to save only
those who were temperate, upright, intelligent and moral.
**** ****
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THE SATURDAY HALF-HOLIDAY
It is pretty certain that the laborer is here after to have
more time for himself. That fact is already settled, and the demand
will be conceded sooner or later. Eat, work and sleep is the
ancient trinity of slavery. The modern life demands leisure; the
opportunity for enjoyment and self-improvement. How it is best to
be secured is a question about which there is a variety of
opinions. One of the plans to give the workingman more time for
himself is that of the Saturday half-holiday. We see no particular
advantage in this over the eight-hour-for-a-day's-work plan.
It seems to us that if laborers worked eight hours a day and
had Sunday for a holiday instead of a holy day, all their
requirements would be better answered than in any other way. We do
not need a day nor an hour when either work or play would be a
crime, and before any other portion of the week is set apart for a
holiday, let Sunday be made free to enjoyment and recreation.
There is the eternal bugbear of religion to oppose this
scheme, but that is all. The minister, who under free trade on
Sunday would be obliged to close up his business, is in favor of a
Sabbath law of protection for sermons and prayers, but why should
a few clergymen who have six holidays in the week and only one
work-day, be favored against millions of toilers, who work six days
in the week and are liable to be arrested if they do not go to
church on the seventh day? Not a Saturday half-holiday but a Sunday
whole-holiday is the first rational step towards justice to the
workingman. There is very little in the average Sunday service that
is instructive and nothing that is entertaining, and it is based
upon the erroneous notion that man owes something that he knows
nothing about, a debt of worship one day in seven. Man's brain
should be emancipated from the superstition that there is a God in
the universe that requires him to sacrifice his own good to divine
vanity. Work is holier than worship, and to play is better for man
than to pray.
Man wants leisure to enjoy himself, not to worship God. He can
have it when he becomes sensible enough to demand it.
**** ****
THE MOTIVE FOR PREACHING
Why does a man enter the Christian ministry? Why do men preach
the Christian faith? There is some reason for doing so. What is it?
We have been told that the men who adopt the profession of
preaching for a living make a sacrifice of personal advantage by
doing so; that these men, had they entered any other profession,
could not only more readily achieve greatness, but could also make
more money. We do not believe it. As a rule, we believe that the
men who are getting a living to-day as ministers, earn more money
and enjoy more fame, than they could get in any other business or
calling. Ministers are not martyrs. That idea needs to be given up.
There is another idea that people have entertained too long,
and that is, that all the young men who graduate from a divinity
school are intellectual giants. Brains are not the capital of the
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pulpit. We gladly acknowledge the exception to what we have stated
as a rule, and are not only willing, but anxious, to testify to the
occasional brilliant preacher. We are speaking of the overwhelming
majority and not of the conspicuous few.
Most men go into the ministry because they think they can get
a living more easily by preaching than by doing anything else. The
pulpit is founded not on spiritual sands, but on an earthly rock.
It is the salary that makes it attractive,
Now, let us look at the facts in the case. The work of the
minister is less than the work of the average laborer, and the pay
of the preacher is more than the pay of the average mechanic or
working-man. Here is the key to the pulpit for a lot of young men.
A young man who has a taste for reading and loafing, and no genius
for work, sees a chance to employ what talent he possesses by
studying theology, and we venture to say that nine out of ten of
the candidates for the ministry enter the profession from purely
business, or, if you will, mercenary motives. The Lord does not
pick out preachers. They pick themselves out.
There is just as much striving for the loaves and fishes among
ministers as among other men; and the religious society that pays
the largest salary is the vineyard that has the most applications
for the job. We do not say that preachers are worse than other
professional characters, but that they are human. They preach for
money, and where the highest salary is there will the ministers be
most anxious to go.
We do not wish to cut anybody's wings, but when we read that
certain new-fledged preachers are about to "work for the Lord," and
that they have "entered upon God's chosen profession through their
love of saving souls," we want to correct the statements. They are
going to work for themselves the best they know how, having entered
upon their duties, not so much because they love their fellow-men,
as because they love the good things of this world.
The truth is this, the motive for preaching to-day is the pay,
and the religion of the pulpit is to say nothing that will cause a
panic in the pews.
**** ****
Man's history is below his life, his destiny above it.
**** ****
All that secularists ask is that their thoughts be met fairly
and honestly, and that the world accept what will lead it in the
highest and surest way.
**** ****
If a person can join the salvation army corps and still be
respected by his fellow-beings, he ought to be at liberty to enlist
in the ranks of reason and common sense and not forfeit respect.
**** ****
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God has done nothing for men and women except to scare them
out of their wits.
**** ****
THE CHRISTIAN'S GOD
Man is like the God he worships, and history shows that the
Christian church has been as cruel as its God. A Christian minister
damns just as his God does. He sends every free soul to hell just
as his God does. He demands obedience just as his God does. The
tyranny of heaven is repeated on earth and every tyrant quotes God
for his authority.
Think of the Christian superstition demanding recognition and
acceptance! It seems almost incredible that a man can be found in
this age to preach such glaring inconsistencies and absurdities,
such a ridiculous faith, such injustice and cruelty, as the
Christian religion stands for. We can hardly believe our own ears
when we go inside of a Christian church. We cannot understand how
this terrible superstition has obtained possession of the mind, nor
how human beings can be so blinded and apparently stultified! Were
there on this earth a judge who should pronounce sentence upon a
person on account of his religious belief, mankind would brand the
name of that judge with the deepest obloquy. He would be stripped
of his robe of office and disgraced forever in the eyes of every
true man and woman on the globe. His deed would be a black spot on
the page of history and his memory a burden to the world.
Put this judge on the throne of the universe and you have the
Christian's God.
**** ****
INDIFFERENCE TO RELIGION
The pulpit complains that people are indifferent to religion.
Why shouldn't they be? It is about time they were indifferent to
it. Our wonder is, that the people tolerate a single priest or
church on earth. Of what benefit is religion to mankind? Come now,
ye that uphold religion, tell us what it does to make the world
better, nobler, truer? Why should man worship God? Why should he
build thousands of costly churches all over the earth, and pay
priests and ministers large salaries to preach and pray in these
churches?
If the churches were the humblest buildings in the land; if
the ministers and priests were paid no more than carpenters or
spinners, if there were any agreement between what religion
professes to be and what it is as matter of fact, then less could
be said in the way of condemnation of religion. But think you that
men who live in hovels can respect men who preach in palaces as
followers of the man of Nazareth? The thing is too ridiculous. The
world is beginning to see how it has been humbugged, and it is
becoming indifferent. It may in time become indignant. There will
then be occasion for ministers to be alarmed.
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But just now the people have reached a condition of utter
indifference respecting religion. They don't care for it. They
don't care to build it up or tear it down. They don't care whether
it is good or bad. They don't care anything about it. Some regret
this state of things; we rejoice in it. It shows that the people
are thinking, and when the people think long enough they will find
what is true and right.
**** ****
SUNDAY SCHOOLS
Of all the stupid things we meet with, Sunday school lessons
are the stupidest. There seems to be only one way to account for
this, and that is that stupid persons are connected with Sunday
schools and can comprehend only stupid things. It seems to us as
though a bright boy or girl at the age of twelve years ought to be
able to overthrow every argument employed in a Sunday school to
bolster up the Christian superstition. The lessons taught in them
are adapted to undeveloped brains, and the literature one gets from
their libraries is of that variety that is calculated to discourage
any robust independence of mind. We believe that any religious or
theological instruction is a positive injury to the young; that it
is utterly wrong to instill into the immature mind ideas of God, of
a future life, of heaven and hell, of angels and devils. All that
we know about God is what we don't know. The same may be said of
other branches of religion. How much better it would be to teach
something useful, something of importance, something real, true!
Parents owe it to their children to save them from being taught the
false and foolish dogmas of Christianity. False education is the
bane of humanity, and the falsehood that is learned in Sunday
schools poisons and deforms the life of man as long as he lives.
Fear of God -- the most terrible specter that ever haunted the
human soul -- is a product of the Sunday school. The victims of
this fear can be counted to-day by millions. This one fact ought to
be sufficient to condemn this nursery of superstition and evil.
There is no earthly reason to fear God, and other reasons should
have no weight. The black shadow of fear which darkens the whole
earth is the result of faith in God. The catechisms used in the
Sunday schools are mostly filled with pious trash. The questions
and answers they contain are written out of ignorance, written,
too, in most cases, for the purpose of making the intellect the
slave of the priest and minister. There is no mystery so shallow as
a theological mystery, because it is founded on deception. The only
mysteries that the human mind can contemplate with real wonder are
the sublime mysteries of Nature, the mysteries of life and death,
of sand and star, of flower and feeling. Before these great,
overwhelming mysteries, that everywhere surround us, the petty
ideas of Gods and devils, of saviors and mediators, of heaven and
hell, are trivial and cheap. We condemn Sunday schools, because
they do not teach what is real, what is true, what is necessary to
a noble human life on earth; because they inculcate superstitions,
and elevate the belief of religious dogmas above scientific and
useful knowledge; because they put God above man, heaven hereafter
above the home here, and the performance of religions duties above
the life of honesty, purity and love. Sunday schools are the
poorest schools on the face of the earth, and there is only one
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excuse for their existence, and that is to perpetuate the church,
to keep alive the superstitions upon which it was built and upon
which the clergy depend for a living.
**** ****
Our duty to the god of christianity is to bury him.
**** ****
Nothing from nothing and nothing remains,
Nothing from nothing and nothing is the same.
**** ****
If the factory pays taxes and the church does not, it follows
that the church will some day own the factory.
**** ****
When christian ministers stand up in their pulpits and say
"Let us pray," if they would sometimes vary the invitation and say:
Let us laugh, they would do their congregations more good.
**** ****
GOING TO CHURCH
Every little while some minister wakes up to the fact that a
large proportion of the people of our cities do not go to church,
and he blames the people for this state of affairs. Nobody blames
men and women if they keep away from the theater, from the library,
from the art gallery, from the public park; in fact, it is
generally admitted that people can exercise their own judgment in
visiting these places and not be liable to censure on the part of
anybody. Not so, however, when they keep away from the church.
Why does a man go to the theater? Obviously because he is
pleased by the performance he witnesses there. Why does a man not
go to a church? Obviously because he is not pleased with the
performance he witnesses there. The notion that men and women are
to go to a place where they do not like to go, where they derive no
pleasure or profit but as a matter of duty is about all the
argument for church-going that can be advanced to-day. We admit
that man should do his duty, no matter how disagreeable it may be.
We cannot shirk our responsibilities on the ground that they are
irksome or unpleasant. But is it man's duty to go to church? That
is the question. If it is, then he should go. Who is to decide the
matter? Of course priests and ministers will say that everybody
ought to go to church. But what for? Is it a man's duty to go to
every church, or only to some particular church? We are told that
we shall be better for going to church. To which church? The Roman
Catholic would not admit that a man would be better for going to a
Methodist church, and the Methodist would not advise a person to go
to a Roman Catholic church to improve his mental or moral
condition. Who shall decide the matter where we shall go to church?
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In going to the theater, we do not always go to the same
place, nor to hear the same play, nor to witness the same actors;
nor do we always visit the same gallery or park when we desire to
see paintings or statuary, or to enjoy the flowers and general
beauties of Nature. Why should men join one church and go to it all
their lives? Why should men hear only one kind of religion
preached? Why should men listen all their lives to the preaching of
one set of dogmas?
Supposing a man were to go once or twice a week for fifty
years to see one tragedy or comedy played, would he be a better
judge of the drama than if he had seen during that time a hundred
tragedies and comedies? The man who goes all his life to one church
is made a denominational or sectarian bigot. Is the object of
churches to make bigots? That is about all they have made up to
date.
We hold that it is not man's duty to go to any church, to
belong to any church, or to support any church. There are no
religious duties. Man is under no obligation whatever to worship
God. Churches must be placed upon the same ground as other places
of instruction and amusement, and if they cannot be supported by
legitimate patronage then must they be given up. If a man goes to
church to hear a minister, let him pay for it like a man, but if he
is not pleased with what he hears he need not go again.
The notion that there is anything of greater value to be had
in the church than elsewhere cannot be defended. This idea does not
fool people of any sense. The pulpit has no divine message for the
world, but generally talks about what no one knows anything about.
Intelligent people who do not go to church have come to the
conclusion that they can derive more pleasure from other sources.
That is about the reason why they do not go to church.
**** ****
We cannot go ahead without leaving something behind.
**** ****
The convent is opposed to all that is sacred in human nature.
**** ****
WHO IS THE GREATEST LIVING MAN
Written November 19, 1893.
My answer is Robert G. Ingersoll.
One gets the conviction of this man's superiority by simply
being in his presence. The outer man makes the impression of
greatness upon the mind.
It is not the silent assertion of a splendid form however,
that persuades us. A large body serves to accent and emphasize a
large mind, but heroic physical proportions are not essential to
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greatness. The king of men to-day is not he who, like Saul, "from
his shoulders and upward is higher than any of his people." Dr.
Watts truly said: "The mind's the standard of the man."
But we cannot think of Robert G. Ingersoll with a diminutive
physical equipment. His ample form radiates the man. But it is the
royalty of his intellect that makes him great. It is in the kingdom
of mind that he is master. Every mental tool fits his hand. He has
wit, learning, imagination, eloquence, philosophy, and that rare
quality, sense. He is a great lawyer, a great orator, a great poet,
and a great man. He is too large for conventionalities, too large
to respect what smaller minds have declared right, what weaker
minds have made holy.
The intellectual grandeur of the man is no less apparent than
his moral fearlessness. He is greatest where most men are little --
in the face of a powerful and domineering superstition. He knows
that the highest manhood makes the trappings of religion but the
playthings of feeble minds.
His love of liberty is only equalled by his passion for truth,
and he listens to the timid whisper of doubt with the chivalrous
attention that others give to confident faith. He strips things of
their clothes, of fashions, of falsehood, of pretension, and
demands that they stand for what they are and no more. He has the
sincerity of greatness and his mind wears the white robe of
spotless integrity.
Above all living men he possesses the power of utterance. He
has the highest literary instinct, and never marries a mean word to
a noble thought. He uses language as Phidias used marble. He is the
literary artist of the age, and knows all the colors in the brain.
He can make words laugh and weep.
This man has a large heart. He is filled with human sympathy.
He does not care for gods, but he pities men. The springs of
feeling feed the mighty rivers of thought that cross the continent
of his mind. There is about him the warmth, the kindness of summer
-- Nature's season of forgiveness.
He has the highest philosophy -- that of cheerfulness. The
clouds never cover all his sky. He is the apostle of good humor,
and preaches the gospel of sunshine to dry the tears of the world.
He is true to himself, loyal to his head and his heart, and
upon his brow shines the jewel of self-respect.
Robert G. Ingersoll has the greatness of genius. It is useless
to try to account for an intellectual giant. Dowered by Nature,
parents are of small account. We cannot find the secret of his
marvelous power by digging in a graveyard.
**** ****
Man is what he is, because his origin was what it was.
**** ****
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God cannot be put into the national Constitution without
putting liberty out of it.
**** ****
We do not want holy books, but true ones; not sacred writings,
but sensible writings.
**** ****
**** ****
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
**** ****
The Bank of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
us, we need to give them back to America.
**** ****
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