Part 15 (2/2)

** See Appendix L.

But I incline to the opinion that in the main this view of the case is unfair to the clergy, and that they have followed, in spirit if not literally, the dictates of the Bible as a whole. It is undoubtedly true that the Bible throughout holds woman as an inferior in both mental and moral characteristics; and upon this understanding of it the Fathers built the Church and crystallized the laws.

The Fathers of the Church were as a rule a bad lot themselves. All contemporaneous history and all internal evidence prove this fact: and when we remember that the ”Prophets” were almost to a man polygamists; that their belief and practices in this regard were of the order and type of Mormondom to-day, _and for the same reasons_; that they were slave-holders and slave-stealers; that they believed in a G.o.d of infinite cruelty and revenge--of arbitrary will and reasonless barbarity; and that they were licentious and brutal beyond description; it will be easy to understand the position which such men--with these beliefs, practices, mentality, and moral degradation--would accord to women. Every Bible of every people; every history of every race showing like civilization, will show you like results.*

*See Appendix M.

In the New Testament we find an effort to readjust old clothes to a new body, some of whose members had grown better and some worse in dogma and belief. Where women are _especially_ dealt with we find them commanded to ”be under obedience,” and always to subject their wills to the ways and wills of men; while the general tone and treatment are always based upon the a.s.sumption that she is an inferior, a secondary creation, and a subject cla.s.s.*

That this is the understanding of the Bible always recognized by the Church (and to-day questioned by only a very small minority who are shrewd enough to see the necessity of revamping it to fit the new public morality and civilization), all history attests; but the vehemence with which the doctrine has been a.s.serted the foregoing pages can only faintly indicate. **

But certainly, if for thousands of years the clergy have, as a body, misconstrued or misunderstood the spirit of their own book (to which they have always claimed to possess the only key), they should not blame those who to-day take issue with them upon their information, their dictates, their _basis of morality_, or their interpretations of the rights of humanity.

If, as they claim to-day, the Bible is the friend of women and no respecter of persons, a conclusion which it took them hundreds of years to reach, it has taken them too long to discover the fact for their guidance to be either a desirable or a safe one for humanity; and the millions of women they have degraded and oppressed in the past are certainly not an argument in favor of their infallibility now. ***

* See Appendix N.

** See Appendix O.

*** See Appendix P.

Let them give way to men who, claiming no right to divine authority or superhuman wisdom, speak in the interest of all humanity the best they know (always acknowledged to be subject to revision for the better); who are not bound back and r.e.t.a.r.ded by the outgrown toggery of the Jewish civilization of David and his time or the Christian dictators.h.i.+p of Paul.* Acknowledging themselves as false and oppressive interpreters of divine law for centuries past is but a poor recommendation of their ability or integrity for the future.

* See Appendix Q.

Whichever horn of the dilemma they accept, there is but one honorable course for the clergy to pursue, and that is to resign in favor of those who have all along been on the right track, without a pretence of divine guidance; who in despite of faith and f.a.got have made progress possible.

MORALS.*

* See Appendices T and V.

After my lecture on Men, Women, and G.o.ds, in Chicago, I was asked how it would be possible to train children to be good without a belief in the divinity of the Bible; how they could be made to know it is wrong to be and steal and kill.

The belief that the Bible is the originator of these and like moral ideas, or that Christ was their first teacher, is far from the truth; and it is only another evidence of the duplicity or ignorance of the Church that such a belief obtains or that such a falsehood is systematically taught.

It is too easily forgotten that morals are universal, that Christianity is local. Practical moral ideas grow up very early, and develop with the development of a race. They are the response to the needs of a people, and when formulated have in several cases taken the shape of ”commandments” from some unseen power. These necessary practical laws are by degrees attached to those of imaginary value, and all alike are held in esteem as of equal moral worth. By this means a ficticious standard of right and wrong becomes established, and a weakening of confidence in the valueless part results in damage to that portion which was originally the result of wise and necessary legislation.*

When children (of whatever age) do this or that ”because G.o.d said so,”

the precepts taught on this basis, even though they are good, will have no hold upon the man who discovers that their origin was purely human.

It is a dangerous experiment, and depends wholly upon ignorance for its success. A firm basis of reason in this world is the only solid foundation of moral training.

My Chicago questioner proceeded upon the hypothesis that what of valuable morals are contained in the Bible were a ”revelation” to one people, and that their value was dependent upon this origin. For the benefit of those who have been similarly** imposed upon, I will cite a few facts in as short s.p.a.ce as possible.

* ”Durable morality had been a.s.sociated with a transitory religious faith. The faith fell into intellectual discredit, and s.e.xual morality shared its decline for a short season.

This must always be the natural consequence of building sound ethics on the s.h.i.+fting sands and rotting foundations of theology. It is one of those enormous drawbacks that people seldom take into account when they are enumerating the blessings of superst.i.tion.”

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