Part 9 (2/2)
For the growth of that doctrine, ignorance was soil and fear was rain.
That doctrine came from the fanged mouths of wild beasts, and yet it is the ”glad tidings of great joy.”
”G.o.d so loved the world” He is going to d.a.m.n most everybody, and, if this Christian religion be true, some of the greatest, and grandest, and best who ever lived upon this earth, are suffering its torments tonight. It don't appear to make much difference, however, with this church. They go right on enjoying themselves as well as ever. If their doctrine is true, Benjamin Franklin, one of the wisest, and best of men, who did so much to give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny of G.o.d tonight, while he endeavored to establish freedom among men. If the churches were honest, their preachers would tell their hearts, ”Benjamin Franklin is in h.e.l.l, and we warn any and all the youth not to imitate Benjamin Franklin. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, with its self-evident truths, has been d.a.m.ned these many years.” That is what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say. Talk as you believe. Stand by your creed or change it. I want to impress it upon your mind, because the thing I wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of h.e.l.l I want to keep at it just as long as there is one little coal red in the bottomless pit. As long as the ashes are warm, I shall denounce this infamous doctrine.
I want you to know that the men who founded this great and glorious government are there. The most of the men who fought in the Revolutionary War and wrested from the clutch of Great Britain this continent; have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of G.o.d. The old Revolutionary soldiers are in h.e.l.l by the thousands. Let the preachers have the courage to say so. The men who fought in 1812, and gave to the United States the freedom of the seas, nearly all of them have been d.a.m.ned since 1815--all that were killed. The greatest of heroes, they are there. The greatest of poets, the greatest scientists, the men who have made the world beautiful and grand, they are all, I tell you, among the d.a.m.ned, if this creed is true. Humboldt, who shed light, and who added to the intellectual wealth of mankind, Goethe, and Schiller, and Lessing, who almost created the German language--all gone! All suffering the wrath of G.o.d tonight, and every time an angel thinks of one of those men he gives his harp an extra tw.a.n.g.
La Place, who read the heaven like an open book--he is there. Robert Burns, the poet of human love--he is there because he wrote the ”Prayer of Holy Willie;” because he fastened upon the cross the Presbyterian creed, and made a lingering crucifixion. And yet that man added to the tenderness of human heart. d.i.c.kens, who put a s.h.i.+eld of pity before the flesh of childhood G.o.d is getting even with him. Our own Ralph Waldo Emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to hear Methodist clergymen, scorned the means of grace, and the Holy Ghost is delighted that he is in h.e.l.l tonight.
Longfellow refined hundreds and thousands of homes, but he did not believe in the miraculous origin of the Savior. No, sir; he doubted the report of Gabriel. He loved his fellow-men; he did what he could to free the slaves; he did what he could to make mankind happy; but G.o.d was just waiting for him. He had His constable right there. Thomas Paine, the author of the ”Rights of Man,” offering his life in both hemispheres for the freedom of the human race, and one of the founders of the Republic--it has often seemed to me that if we could get G.o.d's attention long enough to point Him to the American flag, He would let him out. Compte, the author of the ”Positive Philosophy,” who loved his fellow-men to that degree that he made of humanity a G.o.d, who wrote his great work in poverty, with his face covered with tears--they are getting their revenge on him now. Voltaire, who abolished torture in France; who did more for human liberty than any other man, living or dead; who was the a.s.sa.s.sin of superst.i.tion, and whose dagger still rusts in the heart of Catholicism--all the priests who have been translated have their happiness increased by looking at Voltaire.
Glorious country where the princ.i.p.al occupation is watching the miseries of the lost. Geordani Bruno, Benedict Spinoza, Diderot, the encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a small compa.s.s so that he could put the peasant on an equality with the prince intellectually; the man who wished to sow all over the world the seeds of knowledge; who loved to labor for mankind. While the priests wanted to burn, he did all he could to put out the fire--he has been lost long, long ago. His cry for water has, become so common that his voice is now recognized through all the realms of h.e.l.l, and they say to one another, ”That is Diderot.” David Hume, the philosopher, he is there with the rest.
Beethoven, the Shakespeare of music, he has been lost, and Wagner, the master of melody, and who has made the air of this world rich forever, he is there, and they have better music in h.e.l.l than in heaven.
Sh.e.l.ley, whose soul, like his own skylark, was a winged joy--he has been d.a.m.ned for many, many years; and Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race, who has done more to elevate mankind than all the priests who ever lived and died--he is there; and all the founders of Inquisitions, the builders of dungeons, the makers of chains, the inventors of instruments of torture, tearers, and burners, and branders of human flesh, stealers of babes and sellers of husbands, and wives, and children, the drawers of the swords, of persecution, and they who kept the horizon lurid with the f.a.got's flame for a thousand years--they are in heaven tonight. Well, I wish heaven joy of such company.
And that is the doctrine with which we are polluting the souls of children. That is the doctrine that puts a fiend by their dying bed and a prophesy of h.e.l.l over every cradle. That is ”glad tidings of great joy.” Only a little while ago, when the great flood came upon the Ohio, sent by him who is ruling in the world and paying particular attention to the affairs of nations, just in the gray of the morning they saw a house floating down, and on its top a human being; and a few men went out to the rescue in a little boat, and they found there a mother, a woman, and they wanted to rescue her, and she said: ”No, I am going to stay where I am. I have three dead babes in this house.”
Think of a love so limitless, stronger and deeper than despair and death, and yet the Christian religion says that if that woman did not happen to believe in their creed, G.o.d would send that mother's soul to eternal fire. If there is another world, and if in heaven they wear hats, when such a woman climbs up the opposite bank of the Jordan, Christ should lift His to her.
That is the trouble I had with this Christian religion--its infinite heartlessness; and I cannot tell them too often that during our last war Christians who knew that if they were shot they would go right to heaven, went and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly willing the men should go to h.e.l.l, provided they could stay at home.
You see they are not honest in it; they do not believe it, or, as the people say, ”They don't sense it;” they have not religion enough to conceive what it is they believe and what a terrific falsehood they a.s.sert. And I beg of every one who hears me tonight, I beg, I implore, I beseech you never give another dollar to build a church in which that lie is preached. Never give another cent to send a missionary with his mouth stuffed with that falsehood to a foreign land. Why, they say, the heathen will go to heaven anyway if you let them alone; what is the use of sending them to h.e.l.l by enlightening them. Let them alone. The idea of going and telling a man a thing that if he does not believe he will be d.a.m.ned, when the chances are ten to one that he won't believe it. Don't tell him, and as quick as he gets to the other world and finds it necessary to believe, he will say ”yes.” Give him a chance.
My objection to the Christian religion is that it destroys human love, and tells you and me that the love of your dear-ones is not necessary in this world to make a heaven in the next. No matter about your wife, your children, your brother, your sister--no matter about all the affections of the human heart--when you get there you will be alone with the angels. I don't know whether I would like the angels. I don't know whether the angels would like me. I would rather stand by the folks who have loved me and whom I know; and I can conceive of no heaven without the love of this earth. That is the trouble with the Christian religion; leave your father, leave your mother, leave your wife, leave your children, leave everything and follow Jesus Christ. I will not. I will stay with the folks. I will not sacrifice on the altar of a selfish fear all the grandest and n.o.blest promptings of my heart. You do away with human love, and what are we without it? What would we be in another world, and what would we be here without it?
Can any one conceive of music without human love? Human love builds every home--human love is the author of all the beauty in this world.
Love paints every picture, and chisels every statue; love, I tell you, builds every fireside. What would heaven be without love? And yet that is what we are promised--a heaven with your wife lost, your mother lost, some of your children gone. And you expect to be made happy by falling in with some angel.
Such a religion is demoralizing; and how are you to get there? On the efforts of another. You are to be perpetually a heavenly pauper, and you will have to admit through all eternity that you never would have got here if you hadn't got frightened. ”I am here,” you will say, ”I have these wings, I have this musical instrument, because I was scared.” What a glorious world; and then think of it! No reformation in the next world--not the slightest. If you die in Arkansas that is the end of you. At the end you will be told that being born in Arkansas you had a fair chance. Think of telling a boy in the next world, who lived and died in Delaware, that he had a fair show! Can anything be more infamous? All on an equality--the rich and the poor, those with parents loving them, those with every opportunity for education, on an equality with the poor, the abject, and the ignorant--and the little ray called life, this little moment with a shadow and a tear, this little s.p.a.ce between your mother's arms and the grave, that balances an entire eternity. And G.o.d can do nothing for you when you get there. A little Methodist preacher can do no more for the soul here than its creator can when you get there. The soul goes to heaven, where there is nothing but good society; no bad examples; and they are all there, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet they can do nothing for that poor unfortunate except to d.a.m.n him. Is there any sense in that? Why should this be a period of probation? It says in the bible, I believe, ”Now is the accepted time.” When does that mean?
That means whenever the pa.s.sage is p.r.o.nounced. Now is the accepted time. It will be the same tomorrow, won't it? And just as appropriate then as today, and if appropriate at any time, appropriate through all eternity. What I say is this: There is no world--there can be no world--in which every human being will not have an opportunity of doing right. That is my objection to this Christian religion, and if the love of earth is not the love of heaven, if those who love us here are to be separated there, then I want eternal sleep. Give me a good cold grave rather than the furnace of Jehovah's wrath. Gabriel, don't blow!
Let me alone! If, when the grave bursts, I am not to meet faces that have been my suns.h.i.+ne in this life, let me sleep on. Rather than that the doctrine of endless punishment should be tried, I would like to see the fabric of our civilization crumble and fall to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion broods and where even memory forgets.
I would rather a Samson of some unprisoned force, released by chance, should so wreck and strain the mighty world that man in stress and strain of want and fear should shudderingly crawl back to savage and barbaric night. I would rather that every planet would in its...o...b..t wheel a barren star rather than that the Christian religion should be true.
I think it is better to love your children than to love G.o.d, a thousand times better, because you can help them, and I am inclined to think that G.o.d can get along without you. I believe in the religion of the family. I believe that the roof-tree is sacred from the smallest fibre held in the soft, moist clasp of the earth to the little blossom on the topmost bough that gives its fragrance to the happy air. The family where virtue dwells with love is like a lily with a heart of fire--the fairest flower in all this world. And I tell you G.o.d cannot afford to d.a.m.n a man in the next world who has made a happy family in this. G.o.d cannot afford to cast over the battlements of heaven the man who has built a happy home here. G.o.d cannot afford to be unpitying to a human heart capable of pity. G.o.d cannot clothe with fire the man who has clothed the naked here; and G.o.d cannot send to eternal pain a man who has done something toward improving the condition of his fellow-man.
If he can, I had rather go to h.e.l.l than to heaven and keep the company of such a G.o.d.
They tell me the next terrible thing I do is to take away the hope of immortality. I do not, I would not, I could not. Immortality was first dreamed of by human love, and yet the church is going to take human love out of immortality. We love it; therefore we wish to love. A loved ones dies, and we wish to meet again, and from the affection of the human heart grew the great oak of the hope of immortality. And around that oak has climbed the poisonous vine, superst.i.tion.
Theologians, pretenders, soothsayers, parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken all that hope, and they have had the impudence to stand by the grave and prophesy a future of pain. They have erected their toll-gates on the highway to the other world, and have collected money from the poor people on the way, and they have collected it from their fear. The church did not give us the idea of immortality; the bible did not give us the idea of immortality. Let me tell you now that the old testament tells you how you lost immortality; it does not say another word about another world from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse in Malachi. There is not in the old testament one burial service.
No man in the old testament stands by the bed and says, ”I will meet them again”--not one word. From the top of Sinai came no hope of another world. And when we get to the new testament, what do we find there? Have thy heart counted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of the dead. As though some would be counted unworthy to obtain the resurrection of the dead. And, in another place: ”Seek for honor, glory, immortality.” If you have got it, why seek for it? And in another place: ”G.o.d, who alone hath immortality;” and yet they tell us that we get our ideas of immortality from the bible. I deny it. If Christ was in fact G.o.d, why didn't He plainly say there was another life? Why didn't He tell us something about it? Why didn't He turn the tear-stained hope of immortality into the glad knowledge of another life? Why did He go dumbly to his death, and leave the world in darkness and in doubt? Why? Because He was a man and didn't know.
I would not destroy the smallest star of human hope, but I deny that we got our idea of immortality from the bible. It existed long before Moses existed. We find it symbolized through all Egypt, through all India. Wherever man has lived, his religion has made another world in which to meet the lost. It is not born of the bible. The idea of immortality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the rocks and sands of fate and time. It was not born of the bible. It was born of the human heart, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.
We do not know. We do not prophesy a life of pain. We leave the dead with nature, the mother of us all, under a seven-hued bow of hope.
Under the seven-hued arch let the dead sleep. ”Ah, but you take the consolation of religion.” What consolation has religion for the widow of the unbeliever, the widow of a good, brave, kind man who lies dead?
What can the orthodox ministers say to relieve the bursting heart of that woman? What can the orthodox ministers say to relieve the aching hearts of the little orphans as they kneel by the grave of that father, if that father didn't happen to be an orthodox Christian? What consolation have they? I find that when a Christian loses a friend the tears spring from his eyes as quickly as from the eyes of others.
Their tears are as bitter as ours. Why? The echo of the promises spoken eighteen hundred years ago is so low, and the sound of the clods upon the coffin so loud, the promises are so far away, and the dead are so near. That is the reason. And they find no consolation there. I say honestly we do not know; we cannot say. We cannot say whether death is a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the spreading of pinions too soar or the folding forever of wings; whether it is the rising or the setting of sun, or an endless life that brings rapture and love to every one--we do not know; we can not say.
There is an old fable of Orpheus and Eurydice: Eurydice had been captured and taken to the infernal regions, and Orpheus went after her, taking with him his harp and playing as he went; and when he came to the infernal regions he began to play, and Sysiphus sat down upon the stone that he had been heaving up the side of the mountain so many years, and which continually rolled back upon him. Ixion paused upon his wheel of fire; Tantalus ceased in his vain efforts for water; the daughters of the Danaidae left off trying to fill their sieves with water; Pluto smiled, and for the first time in the history of h.e.l.l the cheeks of the Furies were wet with tears; monsters relented and they said, ”Eurydice may go with you, but you must not look back.” So he again threaded the caverns, playing as he went, and as he again reached the light he failed to hear the footsteps of Eurydice, and he looked back and in a moment she was gone. This old fable gives to us the idea of the perpetual effort to rescue truth from the churches of monsters.
Some time Orpheus will not look back. Some day Eurydice will reach the blessed light, and at some time there will fade from the memory of men the superst.i.tion of religion.
Ingersoll's Lecture on ”Blasphemy”
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