Part 7 (1/2)

Even as late as 1878, it was resolved by the Woman Suffrage Convention at Rochester, N. Y., ”that as the first duty of every individual is self-development, the lessons of self-sacrifice and obedience taught woman by the Christian Church have been fatal, not only to her own vital interests but through her to those of the race.” Influences were already at work, however, which have made the relations of platform and pulpit comparatively friendly in this respect.

The women of the North showed their patriotism, during the great war, by establis.h.i.+ng and managing the Sanitary Commission, the Freedman's Bureau, and the Woman's Loyal National League. Important elections were carried in 1862 by the eloquence of Anna E. d.i.c.kinson, for the Republican party; and it has often since had similar help. The success of the Women's Christian Temperance Union and other partly philanthropic and partly religious organisations, has proved the ability of women to think and act independently. Many of their demands have been granted, one by one; and public opinion has changed so much in their favour, that they ceased long ago to encounter any general hostility from the clergy in the Northern States.

Even there, however, women still find it much too difficult for them to enter a peculiarly easy, honourable, and lucrative profession. Their elocutionary powers are shown on the stage as well as the platform.

Their capacity for writing sermons is plain to every one familiar with recent literature. Their ability to preach is recognised cordially in the Salvation Army, as well as by Spiritualists, Quakers, Unitarians, and Universalists. Much of the pastoral work is done by women, in actual fact; and more ought to be. The Sunday-school, choir, social gathering, and other important auxiliaries to the pulpit are almost entirely in female hands. Women enjoy practically the monopoly of those kinds of church work for which there is no pay; and their exclusion from the kind which is paid highly, in the largest and wealthiest denominations, looks too much like a preference of clergymen to look after the interest of their own s.e.x. The most orthodox churches are the most exclusive; and the same forces which are driving bigotry out of the pulpits are bringing women in.

This reform is one of many in which a much more advanced position has been taken by New England and the far West than by the South; and the American Transcendentalists led public opinion in the section where most of them lived. In Great Britain the struggle has been carried on in the interest of the middle and lower cla.s.ses, and under much opposition from the cla.s.s to which most admirers of philosophy belonged. No wonder that one of the keenest critics of Transcendentalism was prominent among the champions in England of the oppressed s.e.x. John Stuart Mill declared, in his widely circulated book on _The Subjection of Women_, that ”n.o.body ever arrived at a general rule of duty by intuition.” He held that the legal subjection of wives to husbands bore more resemblance, as far as the laws were concerned, to slavery, than did any other relations.h.i.+p existing in Great Britain in 1869. He did not argue from any theory of natural rights, but pointed out the advantage to society of women's developing their capacities freely. He also insisted on the duty of government not to restrict the liberty of any woman, except when necessary to prevent her diminis.h.i.+ng that of her neighbours. This last proposition will be examined in the next chapter. The fact that Mill's great work for freedom was done through the press, and not on the platform, makes it unnecessary to say more about him in this place.

II. Clergymen, like Transcendentalists, in England were generally conservative, or reactionary; and the friends of reform were much more irreligious than in America. Their appeal against the authority of Church and Bible was not to intuition but to science; and they were aided by Lyell's demonstration, in 1830, that geology had superseded Genesis. Working-men were warned in lectures, tracts, and newspapers against immorality in the Old Testament; and even the New was said to discourage resistance to oppression and efforts to promote health, comfort, and knowledge.

The most popular of these champions against superst.i.tion and tyranny was Bradlaugh. He began to lecture in 1850, when only seventeen, and continued for forty years to speak and write diligently. His atheism obliged him to undergo poverty for many years, and much hards.h.i.+p. He charged no fee for lecturing, went willingly to the smallest and poorest places, and was satisfied with whatever was brought in by selling tickets, often for only twopence each. He once travelled six hundred miles in forty-eight hours, to deliver four lectures which did not repay his expenses. Many a hall which he had engaged was closed against him; and he was thus obliged to speak in the open air one rainy Sunday, when he had two thousand hearers. At such times his voice pealed out like a trumpet; his information was always accurate; opposition quickened the flow of ideas; and he had perfect command of the people's English. His great physical strength was often needed to defend him against violence, sometimes instigated by the clergy. He had much to say against the Old Testament; but no struggle for political liberty, whether at home or abroad, failed to receive his support; and he was especially active for that great extension of suffrage which took place in 1867. His knowledge that women would vote against him did not prevent his advocating their right to the ballot; but it was in the name of ”the great ma.s.s of the English people” that he was an early supporter of the cause of Union and Liberty against the slave-holders who seceded.

In 1866 he became president of the National Society of Secularists, who believe only in ”the religion of the present life.” Most of the members were agnostics; and one of Bradlaugh's many debates was with Holyoake, the founder of secularism, on the question whether that term ought to be used instead of atheism. The society was so well organised that only a telegram from the managers was needed to call out a public meeting anywhere in England. Among Bradlaugh's hearers in America in 1873 were Emerson, Sumner, Garrison, Phillips, and O. B. Frothingham. He won soon after a powerful ally in a clergyman's wife, who had been driven from her home by her husband because she would not partake of the communion.

Mrs. Besant began to lecture in 1874, and with views like Bradlaugh's; but her chief interest was in woman suffrage. Both held strict views about the obligation of marriage; and their relations were blameless.

Bradlaugh's place in history is mainly as a champion of the right of atheists to sit in Parliament. He was elected by the shoemakers of Northampton in 1880, when oaths of allegiance were exacted in the House of Commons. Quakers, however, could affirm; and he asked the same privilege. As this was refused, he offered to take the oath, and declared that the essential part would be ”binding upon my honour and conscience.” This, too, was forbidden; but there was much discussion, not only in Parliament but throughout England, as to his right to affirm. His friends held two hundred public meetings in a single week, and sent in pet.i.tions with two hundred thousand signatures during twelve months. The liberal newspapers were on his side; but the Methodist and Episcopalian pulpits resounded with denials of the right of atheists to enter Parliament on any terms. Among the expounders of this view in leading periodicals were Cardinal Manning and other prominent ecclesiastics. They had the support of the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as of many pet.i.tions from Sunday-schools. Public opinion showed itself so plainly that Brad-laugh was finally allowed by a close vote to make affirmation and take his seat. He was soon forced to leave it by an adverse decision of the judges, but was promptly re-elected.

Again he offered in vain to take the oath. After several months of litigation, and many appeals to audiences which he made almost unanimous, he gave notice that he should try to take his seat on August 3, 1881, unless prevented by force. It took fourteen men to keep him out; and he was dragged down-stairs with such violence that he fainted away. His clothes were badly torn; and the struggle brought on an alarming attack of erysipelas. A great mult.i.tude had followed him to Westminster Hall, and there would have been a dangerous riot, if it had not been for the entreaties of Mrs. Besant, who spoke at Bradlaugh's request. His next move was to take the oath without having it properly administered. He was expelled in consequence, but re-elected at once.

Thus the contest went on, until the Speaker decided that every member had a right to take the oath which could not be set aside. Bradlaugh was admitted accordingly, on January 13, 1886; and two years later he brought about the pa.s.sage of a bill by which unbelievers were enabled to enter Parliament by making affirmation. The Irish members had tried to keep him out; but this did not prevent his advocating home rule for Ireland, and also for India. From first to last he fought fearlessly and steadily for freedom of speech and of the press. His beauty of character increased his influence. Mrs. Besant is right in saying: ”That men and women are now able to speak as openly as they do, that a broader spirit is visible in the churches, that heresy is no longer regarded as morally disgraceful--these things are very largely due to the active and militant propaganda carried on under the leaders.h.i.+p of Charles Bradlaugh.”

III. Similar ideas to his have been presented ever since 1870 to immense audiences, composed mostly of young men, in Chicago, New York, Boston, and other American cities, by Robert G. Ingersoll. Burning hatred of all tyranny and cruelty often makes him denounce the Bible with a pathos like Rousseau's or a brilliancy like Voltaire's. He was decidedly original when he asked why Jesus, if he knew how Christianity would develop, did not say that his followers ought not to persecute one another. In protesting against subordinating reason to faith, Ingersoll says: ”Ought the sailor to throw away his compa.s.s and depend entirely on the fog?” Among other characteristic pa.s.sages are these: ”Banish me from Eden when you will, but first let me eat of the tree of knowledge!”... ”Religion has not civilised man: man has civilised religion.”... ”Miracles are told simply to be believed, not to be understood.”

Ingersoll is not merely a destroyer but an earnest pleader for what he calls the gospel of cheerfulness and good health, ”the gospel of water and soap,” the gospels of education, liberty, justice, and humanity. He regards ”marriage as the holiest inst.i.tution among men”; but holds that ”the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more; and that is the right to be protected.” He believes fully ”in the democracy of the family,” and ”in allowing the children to think for themselves.” He is not so much interested as Bradlaugh was in political reform and social progress, but has often taken the conservative side; and his speaking in public has been more like an occasional recreation than a life-work. Some of his lectures have had an immense circulation as pamphlets; and his Biblical articles in the _North American Review_ attracted much notice. He is never at his best, however, without an audience before him; and he sometimes writes too rapidly to be strictly accurate.

IV. A better parallel to Bradlaugh is furnished by Mr. B. F. Underwood, who was only eighteen when he began to lecture in Rhode Island. The great revival of 1857 was in full blast; and he showed its evils with an energy which called down much denunciation from the pulpit. He spoke from the first as an evolutionist, though Darwin had not yet demonstrated the fact. To and fro through the Connecticut valley went the young iconoclast, speaking wherever he could find hearers, asking only for repayment of expenses, and sometimes failing to receive even that. His work was interrupted by the war, in which he took an active and honourable part. When peace was restored, he studied thoroughly the _Origin of Species_ and the _Descent of Man_; and he began in 1868 to give course after course of lectures on Darwinism in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. The new view had been nine years before the public, but had received little or no support from any clergyman in the United States, or any journal except _The Investigator_.

For thirty years Mr. Underwood has been busily propagating evolutionism on the platform, as well as in print. No other American has done so much to make the system popular, or has reproduced Herbert Spencer's statements with such fidelity. He has taken especial pains to prove that ”evolution disposes of the theory that the idea of G.o.d is innate,” as well as of the once mighty argument from design. He has said a great deal about the Bible and Christianity, but in a more constructive spirit than either Bradlaugh or Ingersoll. He has discredited old books by unfolding new truth. Among his favourite subjects have been: ”What Free Thought Gives us in Place of the Creeds,” ”The Positive Side of Modern Liberal Thought,” ”If you Take away Religion, what will you Give in its Place?” ”The Influence of Civilisation on Christianity.” He has always shown himself in favour of the interests of working-men, and also of women's rights and other branches of political reform. During the twelve years ending in 1881, he lectured five or six times a week for at least nine months out of twelve, often travelling from Canada to Arkansas and Oregon. Occasionally he spoke every night for a month; but he has seldom lectured in summer, except when on the Pacific coast.

His lectures in Oregon in 1871 on evolution awoke much opposition in the pulpits. Two years afterwards he held a debate in that State against a clergyman who was president of a college, and who denounced evolution as in conflict with ”the Word of G.o.d.” Such views were then prevalent in that city; but in 1888 it was found by Mr. Underwood to have become the seat of the State University, where the new system was taught regularly.

Underwood, like Bradlaugh, has always challenged discussion, and he has held over a hundred public debates. The first was in 1867; and some have occupied twenty evenings. Most of his opponents have been clergymen; and a hundred and fifty of the profession were in the audience at one contest in Illinois in 1870. How much public opinion differs in various States of the Union is shown by the fact that nine years later the doors of a hall which had been engaged for him in Pennsylvania were closed against him, merely because he was ”an infidel.” His friends broke in without his consent; and he was fined $70. The first lecture which he tried to give in Canada was prevented by similar dishonesty.

Another hall was hired for the next night at great expense; but much interruption was made by clergymen; and when suit was brought for damages through breach of contract, the courts decided that bargains with unbelievers were not binding in Canada.

Both Bradlaugh and Underwood have usually spoken _extempore_, but both have been busy journalists. The American agitator wrote as early as 1856 for both _The Liberator_ and _The Investigator_. His connection with the latter paper lasted until the time when a serious difference of opinion arose between those aggressive unbelievers who called themselves ”freethinkers,” or even ”infidels,” and those moderate liberals who belong to the Free Religious a.s.sociation, and formerly supported _The Index_. This journal came in 1881 under the management of Mr. Underwood.

His colleague, Rev. W. J. Potter, was nominally his equal in authority; but I know, from personal acquaintance with both gentlemen, that the real editor from first to last was Mr. Underwood. It was mainly due to him that much attention was given, both in the columns of the journal and in the meetings of the a.s.sociation, to efforts for secularising the State. He was in charge of _The Index_ until it stopped at the end of 1886. In 1882 he held a discussion in Boston with the president of Williams College, and Professor Gray, the great botanist, on the relations between evolution and ”evangelical religion.” About four hundred orthodox clergymen were present. In 1897 Mr. Underwood was still in his original occupation. Early that year he lectured in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Ma.s.sachusetts, and Canada. He now believes, like Emerson, in ”a higher origin for events than the will I call mine.”

V. The difference of opinion among liberals, just referred to, grew out of the agitation for a free Sunday, which had been begun by Frances Wright in 1828. A call for ”an anti-Sabbath convention” in Boston was issued by some Transcendentalists in 1848, when men had recently been imprisoned in Ma.s.sachusetts for getting in hay, and in Pennsylvania for selling anti-slavery books. Churches were closed on Sunday against lecturers for any reform, however popular; and even the most innocent amus.e.m.e.nt was prohibited by public opinion. Only a moderate protest had any chance of a hearing; but Garrison and the other managers insisted in the call that ”the first day of the week is no holier than any other,”

and refused to allow anyone who did not believe this to speak. Very little was said about what the Sunday laws really were; but most of the time was occupied with arguments that the Sabbath was only for the Jews, and that keeping Sunday is not a religious duty. This last a.s.sertion called out an earnest remonstrance from Theodore Parker; but his resolutions were voted down. The Garrisonians insisted, as usual, that the big end of the wedge ought to go in first; and their convention was a failure. Twenty-eight years went by without any protest of importance against Sunday laws in America.

Meantime the Free Religious a.s.sociation was organised in Boston by Unitarian clergymen who were indignant at the recent introduction into their denomination of a doctrinal condition of fellows.h.i.+p. The first public meeting, on May 30, 1867, called out an immense audience. Emerson was one of the speakers; and he held his place among the vice-presidents as long as he lived. A similar position was offered to Lucretia Mott, but she declined on the platform. Her reason was that practical work was subordinated to theological speculation by the announcement in the const.i.tution that the a.s.sociation was organised ”to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellows.h.i.+p in the Spirit.” These phrases were altered afterwards; but the a.s.sociation has always been, in the words of one of its leading members ”a voice without a hand.” Free religious conventions have regularly increased the confusion of tongues in that yearly Boston Babel called ”Anniversary Week”; and there have been many similar gatherings in various cities; but not one in four of these meetings has given much attention to any practical subject, like the use of the Bible in the public schools. A vigorous discussion of the Sunday laws of Ma.s.sachusetts took place in 1876, under peculiar circ.u.mstances to be described in the next section; but there was no other until 1887.

_The Index_ started in 1870; but it was largely occupied with vague speculations about theology; and its discontinuance in 1886 left the a.s.sociation without any organ of frequent communication among its members, or even an office for business. Dr. Adler, who became president in 1878, tried to awaken an interest in unsectarian education, and especially in ethical culture; but he resigned on account of lack of support; and the Ethical Culture societies were started outside of the a.s.sociation. Comparatively few of its members took any interest in the pet.i.tions presented by its direction to the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature in 1884 and 1885, asking for taxation of churches, protection of witnesses from molestation on account of unbelief, and rescue of the Sunday law from giving sanctuary to fraud. The president acknowledged in 1892 that there had been a ”general debility for practical work.” There seems to have been a lack of energy among the managers; and some of the members were too anxious to preserve their individuality, while others had too much regard for ecclesiastical interests. The Parliament of Religions next year, however, showed what good the a.s.sociation had done by insisting continually on fellows.h.i.+p in religion, and keeping its platform open to Jews, Hindoos, and unbelievers, as well as to Christians of every sect.

VI. Prominent among the founders of the Free Religious a.s.sociation was Francis E. Abbot, who lost his place soon after as pastor of an independent society, because the Supreme Court of New Hamps.h.i.+re decided, on the request of some Unitarians for an injunction against him, that his opinions were ”subversive of the fundamental principles of Christianity. He was the first editor of _The Index_; and there appeared in April, 1872, his statement of what are generally recognised as

”THE DEMANDS OF LIBERALISM

”1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempt from just taxation.

”2. We demand that the employment of chaplains in Congress, in State legislatures, in the navy and militia, and in prisons, asylums, and all other inst.i.tutions supported by public money, shall be discontinued.

”3. We demand that all public appropriations for educational and charitable inst.i.tutions of a sectarian character shall cease.