Four modern religious movements

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FOUR MODERN RELIGIOUS
MOVEMENTS

BY
ARTHUR HAIRE-FORSTER

BOSTON

RICHARD G. BADGER

THE GORHAM PRESS

CoFYHioHT, 1919, BT Arthur Hairx Forster

All Rights Reserved

Reprinted by the kind permission of

The Teacher$' Assistant, Toronto

and Church Life

Made in the United States of America

The Gorham Press, Boston, U.S.A.

TO
C. E.

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CONTENTS
I

PAGE

Spiritualism 9

II

Christian Science 25

III
Theosophy 39

IV

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints ... 58

V

Christ the Word 72

VI

The Value of Death 77

VII

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift . . 86

FOUR MODERN RELIGIOUS
MOVEMENTS

FOUR MODERN RELIGIOUS
MOVEMENTS

SPIRITUALISM

A SPIRITUALIST ought to mean a person
who believes in a spiritual order or en-
vironment to which man should adapt himself if
he wishes to live the most real life. A material-
ist, on the other hand, is one who believes that it
is only necessary for man to adapt himself to this
present world since there is nothing beyond it.
The materialist " sets his mind on the things that
are upon the earth " because he has abandoned
belief in a spiritual order. Every Christian is a
spiritualist in the true sense of the term, but the
word is now used chiefly of one who believes that
the dead can and do communicate through me-
diums with the living. The first page of the
Spiritualist's Hymn Book declares that " Spirit-

9

lo Four Modern Religious Movements

ualism is the science of life; of the manifestation
of the spirit — the intercommunion of the people
of earth and those on the other side." On the
same page one of their principles is given as " the
proven facts of communion between departed
human spirits and mortals."

It would be better if the word spiritism were
used for this theory; this word is, in fact, so used
by the French. Spiritualism or spiritism may be
said to be the exaggeration of the Christian doc-
trines of immortality and the communion of saints,
but the exaggeration of a doctrine is often its
corruption as well; the history of the Church of
Rome contains many examples of that. How-
ever, as most modern spiritualists have had some
Christian training, though usually it is a stupid
and inadequate training, the corruptions are not
yet very evident.

Spiritualism, like most other modern religious
movements, is due to the Church's timidity, world-
liness and want of intelligent teaching and propa-
ganda. Spiritualists are uninstructed people look-
ing for what the Church has left out. A spiritual-
ist service consists in hymns, extempore prayer.

spiritualism 1 1

a trance address and " messages " from the
dead given by a medium to some of those present.
Seven or eight of the hymns in their book, are well
known to all Christians. " Nearer, My God, to
Thee," for example, is one of them. The trance
address is delivered by someone who professes to
be inspired by a departed spirit. I have listened
to one given by a pleasant and prosperous-looking
old man with a white vest, whose inspirer, we were
informed, was an Egyptian, dead many thousand
years. The subject was the parable of the Rich
Man and Lazarus, and soon became an appeal to
class jealousy. Spiritualism and a certain crude
Socialism are often found in close alliance. The
Rich Man of the parable, we were told, was in
hell because he was rich. It did not seem to occur
to the speaker or his inspirer that Abraham, who
in the same parable is in Paradise, was also a rich
man. We were also told that man is not fallen;
yet it was not explained how, in that case, priests
and rich men could be such villains as he repre-
sented them to be. The speaker also asserted
that Christianity is merely Indian Buddhism in a
new dress. This is a common theory among

12 Four Modern Religious Movements

many who know little about Buddhism and less
about Christianity. Altogether one felt that the
Egyptian might spend a few more centuries in
the spirit world in improving his logic before he
inspires anyone else.

The chief attraction at a spiritualist service Is
the " messages " from the dead given by the me-
dium. At one, for Instance, the medium alleged
that she saw spirit figures hovering over certain
persons and trying to give them advice. The ad-
vice was usually sensible enough — not to worry,
not to wear black, to be careful of someone's
health.

The " messages," however, do not always pro-
duce happy results. Raupert, in " The Dangers
of Spiritualism," tells of a widow living near Paris
who tied her two little children together and
drowned them in a dirty pond in order to send
them after another child which had died. This
little child had spoken to her, she thought, at a
seance and had told her that she was dull in the
other world. The mother was probably afraid
that her dead child might be lonely; the medium
had read what was In her mind and given it as a

spiritualism 1 3

message from the other world. Most of the
" messages " may be explained in that way, when
they are not mere guesses by the medium, for peo-
ple go to spiritualist services to hear and see
" signs and wonders; " they go as sensation hunt-
ers; if there are none to be had, then they must
be invented for them. No prodigy, no pay, is the
natural attitude, and this, of course, puts a pre-
mium on fraud. Modern spiritualism is generally
dated from 1847, when strange rappings were
heard in the house of a man called Fox, living in
the Township of Arcadia, New York State. The
great excitement which these rappings caused was
considerably cooled when one of Fox's daughters
confessed that she made them by cracking her
knee and toe joints. It was an unfortunate begin-
ning for a new religion.

Some years later the University of Pennsyl-
vania appointed a commission, the Seybert Com-
mission, to examine " Spiritualism." This exam-
-nation, it must be said, was not a complete one,
but the secretary reported, after several experi-
ments with mediums: " I have been forced to the
conclusion that spiritualism, as far at least as it has

14 Four Modern Religious Movements

shown itself before me, presents the melancholy
spectacle of gross fraud perpetrated upon an un-
critical portion of the community." Spiritualism
is not all fraud, but it flourishes because so many
are so easily deceived and because so few know
that its marvels can now be explained without sup-
posing that the dead are communicating messages.
In England many spiritualist societies were
formed in the middle of the last century and
" messages " were received from famous person-
ages. For example, in 1854 Shakespeare trans-
mitted a fragment of a play on " The Death of
Brennus." Here is one complete scene: "The
Seige of Crosium — Brennus: 'On, soldiers,
on!' (After an obstinate siege of six months,
Crosium is taken with an immense slaughter.)
Scene closes." Shakespeare can scarcely be said
to have improved as a writer of plays since his
death. A Newcastle (England) spiritualist circle
had twenty kings and seven queens appearing at
one sitting. Later on King David promised the
same circle elementary lessons in Hebrew, and
Noah gave interesting and curious details about
the earth before the flood.

Spiritualism 1 5

These incidents explain why Professor William
James once said that what mankind at large most
lacks is criticism and caution, not faith. But there
are phenomena in " spiritualism " which cannot be
explained by the fraud of mediums and the cre-
dulity of those who wait on them. In 1882 the
Society for Psychical Research was founded to in-
vestigate these mysterious phenomena. Bishop
Boyd-Carpenter of Ripon and Mr. Balfour have
been presidents of this society, as well as many
distinguished scientists and scholars. Some mem-
bers have come to the conclusion that the dead do,
under certain conditions, communicate with the liv-
ing; others say the evidence is insufficient. In any
case, the work of this society has shown that far
more proof of " messages " from the dead is re-
quired than that offered at an ordinary spiritualist
service.

It sometimes happens that the by-product from
the manufacture of some article becomes more im-
portant than the article itself, and this is true of
" spiritualism." Even if " messages " from the
dead are not proved, the investigation of alleged
messages has shown the marvels of the human

1 6 Four Modern Religious Movements

mind, especially of that part of it which is called
the subliminal self. Subliminal means below the
threshold. This subliminal self or under-mind
was " discovered " by F. W. Myers, the author of
a well-known poem on St. Paul. It is that tract of
the mind which operates in dreams, and indeed
the careful study of dreams has thrown much
light on many of the alleged facts of spiritualism.
An incident will show what this under-mind can
do — or rather perceive. It is condensed from
a story guaranteed by Miss Dougall in the recent
volume of essays called " Immortality," by Canon
Streeter and others.

" A Mrs. B., on her way to visit a medium or
clairvoyant, called on a Miss A., who during the
visit was thinking over certain striking events,
events which, however, she never mentioned to
Mrs. B. Mrs. B. soon returned and told Miss
A. that the clairvoyant had been very uninterest-
ing, having merely described a series of apparently
meaningless visions. Miss A. was amazed to find
that these visions were her own thoughts while
Mrs. B. was with her on her first visit. Stranger
still, the visions were introduced to the clairvoy-

Spiritualism 1 7

ant's consciousness by a Chinaman in fine apparel.
Now that morning Miss A. had been struck by the
sight of two Chinamen coming down the steps of
the Chinese Embassy in London; their Oriental
dress had made an impression on her mind."

This incident seems to imply that Mrs. B.'s " un-
der-mind " took, as it were, a photograph of the
thoughts in Miss A.'s mind, and this mind-photo-
graph was then developed by the medium in the
form of visions. A medium, in fact, gives a dra-
matic reproduction of what is in her client's mind,
just as a dream is a dramatic reproduction of what
has been in one's own mind during the day. Thus
we see how difficult it would be to prove that it is a
discarnate or disembodied spirit who is giving the
messages. The " revelations " of mediums and
clairvoyants may nearly always be explained as
readings from this life and no other. They might
all come from the medium's " photographing," so
to speak, other minds, and producing the results In
a trance-state, or else they might come from the
medium's own hidden memory. For this under-
mind, it seems, has an almost Infallible memory.
There is, for example, a case of an old lady who

1 8 Four Modern Religious Movements

spoke Hindustani in her delirium, though she had
left India at the age of four and had never learned
the language. In another case, the alleged spirit
turned out to be a character in a novel which had
once been read to the medium, and when the me-
dium makes a mistake, it has often been found that
the mistake already exists in the client's own mind.
So, as Mr. Hereward Carrington, an investigator
of spiritualist phenomena, says: "Spirit mes-
sages may be the result of the activity of the sec-
ondary consciousness of the medium active at the
time and passing itself off as a spirit — the super-
normal knowledge displayed being gained by
means of telepathy, clairvoyance and such super-
normal processes and woven together by the me-
dium's secondary consciousness to personate a
spirit." Telepathy, mentioned by Mr. Carring-
ton In this quotation, is the name for the fact that
one mind can receive impressions from another
mind at a distance without using the ordinary chan-
nels, such as speech; it Is a kind of mental wireless
telegraphy, and is regarded as proved by most in-
vestigators. Nearly everyone has had some ex-
perience of It; we can often know when others

Spiritualism 19

are writing to us or when something has happened
to one in whom we are interested. It has even
been asserted that children may be influenced for
good by whispering to them while they are asleep.
In this way suggestions may be given to their sub-
conscious minds which will afterwards bear fruit
in better living. It is not always easy to distin-
guish clairvoyance from telepathy. Clairvoyance
might be called " mental eyesight," as when a per-
son can tell what a card is without looking at it.

Recent experiments in clairvoyance and telep-
athy warn us that we cannot accept alleged spirit
messages too readily. It is safer to follow the
advice of the Greek poet Epicharmus, " Be sober
and distrustful; these are the sinews of the under-
standing," or of St. Paul, " Prove all things."

Spiritualism is growing in popularity owing to
the general spiritual unrest accentuated by the war.
Any system which promises to open communica-
tion with the departed is welcomed. But, as has
been pointed out, the evidence for the reality of
these communications is extremely doubtful.
Much more care and criticism is required than
such as is found at an ordinary spiritualist service.

20 Four Modern Religious Movements

The sorting of alleged messages is beyond the
power of most of those who attend these services.
Their infantile credulity hinders the discovery of
truth, for if everything be believed the true can
never be sifted from the false. As regards the
moral effects of spiritualism, it is difficult to reach
any conclusion as yet. The story of the early
Christian Church shows that a firm belief in im-
mortality leads to a belief in human brotherhood.
It might, indeed, be maintained that democracy
stands or falls with the belief in immortality. If
men no longer believe in a life after death they
will seize all they can in this world without regard-
ing the rights of others; the Germans and the Bol-
sheviki have shown us that. To believe in a hfe
after death is to lose the modern reverence for the
man of wealth, for as the Parable of the Rich
Man and Lazarus reminds us, the man of wealth
may be a beggar in the other world. But spirit-
ualists have not the monopoly of the doctrine of
a future life; it is a fundamental Christian belief
which the Church has allowed to fall into disuse,
and it is a health-giving belief only when it comes

spiritualism 2 1

with communion with God and not from sensa-
tional seances.

Then a standard is needed in morality as in
everything else, yet in spiritualism no standard is
apparent. When Jesus is mentioned, it is often in
a tone of patronage and of something like pity for
those who make Him the Master of Life. The
simpletons who run after the spirits will probably
soon lose the Christian spirit. They yield to the
flattering thought that they are broad-minded and
" freed from the fetters of orthodoxy." They
forget that orthodoxy means literally right-think-
ing, and they have not noticed that free thinking
is often very loose thinking indeed. Furthermore,
the effect of putting oneself in a passive state to
receive " messages " cannot be healthy. In his
book " Spiritualism and Insanity " Dr. Williams
writes: " There is the serious injury to the men-
tal organism which is bound to result from con-
stantly getting into the habit of forcing the will to
become perfectly passive." In the same work a
doctor is quoted as saying that in six months he
had twenty cases of insanity as the result of dab-

22 Four Modern Religious Movements

bling in spiritualism. Here, of course, it might be
objected that these persons would have gone mad
in any event, that they " dabbled in spiritualism "
because they were mentally deficient; however, the
fact is significant either way. Spiritualism is cer-
tainly a danger to that strengthening of distinct
personalities which is a necessary aim of Christian
discipline, and it is especially harmful to those
whose other interests are too few and whose in-
tellect is too narrow. None the less, the growth
of spiritualism is a valuable warning to the his-
toric church.

There is a story of a nurse who in her haste to
throw out the dirty bath water threw out the baby
too, so the Church, in throwing out abuses at the
reformation, may have thrown out, in some in-
stances, rightful uses. Spiritualism is perhaps her
punishment for this unwise eviction.

" The real cause," Miss Dougall writes, " of
the hold which spiritualism has on many religious
minds is the failure of the Church to realize in
practice the meaning of the communion of saints.
The mediaeval Church failed on account of the
un-Christian superstition which pictured the next

spiritualism 23

stage of existence as a state of mere torture and
punishment. The reaction of the Protestant
mind against mercenary prayers and ceremonies
to relieve the misery of the souls in purgatory was
healthy. But with this came in another supersti-
tion, that it was wrong to pray for the dead or to
believe in their fellowship with the living. In so
far as it is a reaction against this newer supersti-
tion, spiritualism shows a healthy instinct. But
the methods employed by spiritualists to bridge
with friendly overtures the stream of death ap-
pear to be mistaken, and therefore dangerous.
They are at best only a roundabout way of obtain-
ing a sense of companionship with those who have
passed on, since the same sense of companionship
might be obtained better and more easily by
prayer. Then, too, when this sense of compan-
ionship is attained in the spiritualistic seance or by
some private automatic means, it is inevitably
mixed with and confused by communications from
the inner mind of the medium or agent, which is
always subject to telepathic intrusions from —
none can tell whom."

If this be so, then the true answer to spiritual-

24 Four Modern Religious Movements

ism is to recover within the Church that victorious
attitude which marked the early Christians when
they faced the fact of death, and to recover too
their sense of companionship with their dead
which is shown in their prayers. Our mourning
and our tombstones do not exhibit this victory over
death: they look more like defeat.

Having ceased to pray for the departed, we
have come to think that they are really dead to us,
whereas they are, perhaps, nearer than we know.

I

II

CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

IN 1862 Mrs. Patterson, formerly Mrs. Glover
and afterwards Mrs. Eddy, went to consult a
doctor called Quimby at Portland, Maine. This
incident is the real beginning of Christian Science.
Dr. Quimby helped Mrs. Patterson by mental sug-
gestion, not by medicine, and gave her the idea
which she afterward developed into " Christian
Science." He described his method as follows:
" I give no medicine. I tell the patient his trou-
bles and what he thinks is the disease and my ex-
planation is the cure. If I succeed in correcting
his errors, I change the fluids of the system and
establish the truth or health. The truth is the
cure. The greatest evil that follows taking an
opinion for a truth is disease. . , . Disease is our
error and the work of the devil." This method,
he called " Science of Health." It is similar to
what is now known as " psycho-therapeutics," a

25

iS Four Modern Religious Movements

long word which merely means " mind-cure," or
treatment of the sick, by influencing the mental life.
It was familiar to Plato four hundred years before
Christ. " The well regulated soul," he wrote,
" by its authoritative power, maintains the body in
perfect health." Dr. Quimby had two other pa-
tients who borrowed and expanded his ideas.
One was J. A. Dresser, the leader of the " New
Thought " movement, the other W. F. Evans, a
Swedenborgian clergyman, who published a book,
"The Mental Cure," in 1869, six years before
Mrs. Eddy's more famous " Science and Health."
Quimby's theory was briefly " Disease is in its
root a wrong belief, change that belief and we cure
the disease." Mrs. Eddy went further and said
that bodies have no real existence, therefore, of
course, neither have their ailments. Strangely
enough she discovered " Christian Science " in
1866, the year in which Dr. Quimby died. The
relation of mind to matter and the nature of mat-
ter are old problems in philosophy and physical
science. Mrs. Eddy settled them very simply by
announcing that there is no such thing as matter.
A true philosophy should account for all the facts;

Christian Science 27

Mrs. Eddy threw any inconvenient facts away.
The human mind may be compared to a drunken
man on a horse who, in trying to avoid falling off
on the right side, falls off on the left. Material-
ism, the theory that matter is everything, was pop-
ular in her time; she swayed over to the other side
and fell off into the dogma that matter is nothing.
That we suppose there is a material world is the
result or creation of what Mrs. Eddy calls " mor-
tal mind." She does not make it very clear how
this " mortal mind," which is nothing and yet has
created the physical universe, came to be. The
search for an answer to this question in her writ-
ings has been described as " taking a long walk to
catch a mist." Matter, no doubt, is not so gross
as was once supposed. We are now told that it is
essentially " units of electric force." It is, in fact,
more easy to believe in matter as the manifestation
of mind than ever before, yet matter as a mani-
festation, as a " Divine Language " is very differ-
ent from matter as non-existent. Those who wish
to understand Mrs. Eddy's philosophy will find
a fair criticism of it in " The Truth and Error of
Christian Science," by Miss Sturge. Its philos-

2 8 Four Modern Religious Movements

ophy is one of the attractions of " Christian Sci-
ence " — for those who have not had a training in
philosophy.

The text-book of " Christian Science " is Mrs.
Eddy's " Science and Health with key to the Scrip-
tures," a book which has been issued in more than
four hundred editions. The cheapest copy adver-
tised costs three dollars, so that the poor are shut
out from the benefits of reading it, unless they bor-
row a copy, as I did. The Key to the Scriptures is
an explanation of the first chapters of Genesis and
some chapters of the Revelation. These are dif-
ficult parts of the Bible, but Mrs. Eddy says they
are transparent to her and proceeds to inform us
in the glossary of her book that the river Gihon
(Genesis 2:13) means " the rights of woman, ac-
knowledged morally, civilly and socially," while
the river Hiddekel is " Divine Science understood
and acknowledged." The Holy Ghost is also
" Divine Science," and so, as things which are
equal to the same are equal to one another, the
river Hiddekel must be the Holy Ghost. In addi-
tion, the 23rd Psalm and the Lord's Prayer are
explained. The Lord's Prayer is used at " Chris-

Christian Science 29

tian Science " services, but the reader inserts
Mrs. Eddy's " improvement " after each peti-
tion. For example, " Give us this day our
daily bread," means, we are told, " Give us
grace for to-day, feed the famished affections."
Christ, it seems, was too material for Mrs. Eddy.
If we must have an addition, the child's — in
Hans Andersen's story, is perhaps the truest to
the original meaning — " give us this day our daily
bread, with plenty of butter on it." Mrs. Eddy's
comment on the words of Jesus, " They shall lay
hands on the sick and they shall recover," is
" Here the word hands is used metaphorically."
Comment on this comment is scarcely needed.
Of the first part of the book " Science and
Health " Miss Sturge writes, " It abounds in con-
tradictions, not only to be found in the same page,
the same paragraph, the same sentence, but often
between two words used consecutively."

Yet, in spite of Mrs. Eddy's cheap and confused
philosophy, or perhaps we should call it metaphys-
ics, many are cured by " Christian Science."
This, however, does not prove the truth of her
theories, as she seems to imagine. Mental heal-

30 Four Modern Religious Movements

ing can be traced back for three thousand years
and has been connected with the strangest theories.
For example, in the seventeenth century, Valentine
Greatrakes healed many in Ireland without medi-
cine, though he maintained that all diseases were
due to evil spirits. The theory is not of great con-
sequence, though, of course, a true theory is bet-
ter than an absurd one. What matters is the pa-
tient's faith. The power of an idea, if it be
firmly held, can cure many diseases. " Christian
Science," says Sir William Osier, " is probably
nothing more than mental suggestion under an-
other name." The mind of man has more power
than is generally admitted, and is wider than we
are aware of. It may be compared to an iceberg,
of which the greater part is under water. This
unknown part, this undermind, which is at work
in our dreams, is also at work on our health, and
suggestions given to it from our conscious waking
minds or from others can rouse it to heal, for
mind and body are most closely connected, as may
be seen when someone blushes as the result of a
thought or of another's word. A patient may be
literally " saved by hope," hope inspired by an-

Christian Science 31

other's words or by his own faith. This is the
truth which Mrs. Eddy seized upon and distorted.
She tried to make a monopoly of a universal prin-
ciple. The mistake, often a disastrous mistake of
the Christian Scientists, is to apply this principle
to all cases. A simple operation might have
saved many who have become permanently
maimed or who have died under Christian Sci-
ence treatment. So Dr. Stephen Paget in his
book, " The Faith and Works of Christian Sci-
ence," can say of them, " They bully dying women
and let babies die in pain; they rob the epileptic
of their bromide, the heart cases of their digitalis;
let appendicitis go on to septic peritonitis, gastric
ulcer to perforation of the stomach; compel them
who should be kept still to take exercise and with-
hold from all cases of cancer all hope of cure.
To these works of the devil they bring their one
gift, wilful and complete ignorance, and their nurs-
ing would be a farce, if it were not a tragedy."
Drugs, according to " Christian Science," only act
because they are expected to have certain effects;
but drugs act on frogs — what are the metaphys-
ical or religious theories of frogs? Would a

32 Four Modern Religioiis Movements

Christian Scientist take an ounce of prussic acid
and trust to his belief that it would have no effect,
to save him? Doctors, it is true, do not give
drugs as much as they used to do; but for certain
diseases, certain drugs are always given, because
the doctor knows that drugs, like mental sugges-
tion, are means by which nature may be helped
to do the work which nothing can do for her.

Dr. Paget quotes one rather ludicrous case, sent
him by a doctor to illustrate Christian Science
methods. The doctor was consulted by a man
who had, for nearly a year, been treated by Chris-
tian Scientists for deafness without any improve-
ment. He examined the ear, removed a pledget
of cotton and some wax, and the hearing was
promptly restored.

An American doctor wrote to Paget, " I should
say I had seen about a hundred cases in which the
only chance for cure had been lost through the
Christian Science treatment."

At the end of " Science and Health," and also in
Christian Science papers, there are testimonies by
those who have been cured through Christian
Science. No doubt many of these cures are genu-

Christian Science 33

ine, but they are not due to anything peculiar to
Christian Science, They might occur equally well
in the Church if that body had not forgotten the
truth which Mrs. Eddy has distorted. Yet, in
studying these testimonies of cure, it is impossible
always to be sure that the patient really suffered
from the disease of which he claims to have been
cured. " There are few things," says Dr. Porritt,
'* upon which so little reliance can be placed as a
patient's own estimate of his symptoms or the
nature of his illness. Knowing this, doctors
rarely treat themselves."

These testimonies of cure make Christian Sci-
ence resemble a new patent medicine, advertised
with pictures of those who have tried it and re-
covered. But neither Christian Scientists nor the
patent medicine advertisers give us a list of those
who have tried their treatments and not recovered.
" There is," says Dr. Paget, " but one way to
get at the truth about a new method of medical or
surgical treatment, every case must be reported."

In theology Mrs. Eddy revived, though prob-
ably without knowing it, the heresy of Cerinthus,
a theory about Jesus which the Church rejected as

34 Four Modern Religious Movements

an insufficient and misleading interpretation. St.
John is said to have written his gospel in answer
to Cerinthus. " The word became flesh and
dwelt among us " was not spiritual enough for
Cerinthus and Mrs. Eddy. In the Herald of
Christian Science for April, 191 8, there is pub-
lished a sermon of Mrs. Eddy's. Here is a sen-
tence from it, "Jesus was not Christ; Christ was
but another name for God, and it was an honorary
title bestowed on Jesus for His great goodness.
In the original texts the term God took its origin
from the word good — hence the term Christ
Jesus, a good man."

The only explanation which I can see of this
astonishing sentence is that Mrs. Eddy is confus-
ing the Greek word Chrestos, good, with the
Greek word Christos, Christ or Messiah or An-
ointed. But theological speculation without a
knowledge of Greek has led far greater minds
than Mrs. Eddy's into absurdities. Christian
Scientists are increasing in numbers and will in-
crease much more unless the Church emphasizes
the truth which, mixed with many errors, Mrs.
Eddy taught. Christianity is a gospel for the

Christian Science 35

body as well as for the soul. This has often been
overlooked, and in the Christian Science move-
ment the Church is suffering the vengeance of a
forgotten truth. In fact, almost all sects are due
to the Church's neglect of some part of the Cath-
olic Faith. " When the historic Church forgets,
new bodies arise to remind her." Amongst oth-
ers, doctors are stimulating the Church to action.
In the British Medical Journal of June 1 8th, 19 lo,
Sir Clifford AUbutt wrote: " Probably no limb,
no viscus is so far a vessel of dishonour as to be
wholly outside the renewals of the spirit."

Sir Dyce Duckworth, who was senior physician
at St. Bartholomew's, London, for many years,
has said, " I will express my opinion that our 20th
century Christendom is generally lax and feeble
in offering earnest prayers for the sick in all stages
and for a blessing on the remedial means em-
ployed. We should look to a Higher Power than
that of man to aid at the bedside. ... I see no
objection to the practice of unction and laying on
of hands by Christian ministers for those who de-
sire it." Even the Bishops of the Lambeth Con-
ference of 1908 declared that " sickness has too

36 Four Modern Religious Movements

often exclusively been regarded as a cross to be
borne with passive resignation, whereas it should
have been regarded as a weakness to be overcome
by the power of the spirit." A bishop, it may be
mentioned, is instructed at his consecration to
" heal the sick," yet we seldom hear of them do-
ing it.

The Communion Service, again, is plainly in-
tended to be a strengthening of the body as well as
of the spirit, as the words " preserve thy body "
indicate. In some of the old liturgies, this is even
clearer, for example, " make all who communicate
to receive a medicine of life for the healing of any
sickness " is a prayer in Bishop Serapion's Sacra-
mentary. The New Testament has many allu-
sions to God's power to heal the body. " The
prayer of faith shall save the sick " St. James
writes.

This part of Christianity can, no doubt, be ex-
aggerated. Bodily health is not everything; its
absence may be a benefit. St. Paul's mission to
the Galatians was the result of an illness. St.
Paul was not healed, though he was given strength
to bear his " thorn in the flesh." After all, as Dr.

Christian Science 37

Paget asks, " Are we worth being well? " How
would we use perfect health if we had it? Yet,
none the less, Christ showed Himself as a Healer
of men's bodies and we sometimes sing in church,
" Thy touch has still its ancient power."

Christian Science, then, reminds us that Chris-
tianity is a gospel for the body; there is also
something to be learned from a Christian Science
service. The whole congregation is the choir,
there is a period for silent prayer, and many may
think it a good point that there is no sermon.

Among Christian Scientists women are re-
garded at least as men's equals. They have got
rid of the Oriental attitude to women which still
lurks in the Church as a part of her Jewish heri-
tage. Their theology Is " heretical," yet there is
among them a sense of the presence and spiritual-
ity and law of God which, like the note of a great
bell, brings quiet into their lives. They show that
nervous strain can be removed by lifting the mind
In meditation on the Universal Life of God.

Three books written to expose the errors of
Christian Science mention these good points in it:

( I ) As a novel and militant heterodoxy

38 Four Modern Religious Movements

against a narrow and inadequate orthodoxy it is
forcing men from the old ruts.

(2) It has changed the tone of life of many
self-pitying people.

(3) It exhibits "The victory of mind over
its tyrants, fear and anger."

A Frenchman once said that the ancient Ro-
mans conquered the world because they could
learn from their enemies and because their sol-
diers kept their sacramentum or military oath.
This remark is not without its meaning for the
Christian Church.

Ill

THEOSOPHY

ATHEOSOPHIST has been compared to a
man who fights with his back to a spring
door, behind which he can disappear when the in-
terview becomes unpleasant. That is to say, when
any doctrine of his is found indefensible, he has
only to declare that it is no part of Theosophy.
Theosophy, in fact, is more like a cloud than a
creed, it is vague in outline and changeable in
form, perhaps, too, it keeps the sunshine from
those who are under it. One doctrine, however,
is found in all Theosophical books and is, I think,
held by all Theosophists. This doctrine is Re-
incarnation. " The doctrine of Reincarnation,"
says Mrs. Besant, a leading Theosophist, " is the
very core and essence of Theosophy." Reincar-
nation means " that the growth and development
of the human soul is accomplished by means of
successive returns to physical life with intervening
periods of rest." It differs from transmigration,

39

40 Four Modern Religious Movements

which means the return of human beings as ani-
mals, as well as in the bodies of men and women.
Reincarnation is therefore merely an improvement
on transmigration, and belief in transmigration
seems to develop, when an ethical religion, a re-
ligion with a standard of conduct and a system of
rewards and punishments, comes in contact with a
decaying Totemism. The underlying idea in
Totemism is that of a life shared in common by
the human and animal creation.

Mrs. Besant asserts that Christ accepted Re-
incarnation. The proof she offers is that he
told his disciples that John the Baptist was Elijah.
The saying referred to is in St. Matthew 17:12
and 13 and certainly does not mean that the
Baptist was Elijah reincarnate, but rather that he
prepared the way for Christ " in the spirit and
power of Ehjah." See St. Luke 1:17. Further-
more the saying suggests that the treatment of
John by Herod and Herodias was, as it were, a
repetition of the treatment of Elijah by Ahab and
Jezebel. Theosophists also say that St. Matthew
16:14 implies a belief in reincarnation, but the re-
turn of great historical figures at particular crises

Theosophy 41

is not reincarnation, even supposing that such a
return ever really happened. Another proof of
belief in reincarnation is found by Theosophists in
St. John 9 :2. The question there might mean
that the people held that doctrine; it does not show
that Christ did. More probably, it is an example
of the Jewish belief that even an unborn child
can commit sin.

Theosophists maintain that reincarnation ex-
plains the inequalities of life. Our condition in
this life is, they say, the result of our past lives
and our condition in future lives will depend on
our conduct in this one. Conduct is a seed which
we sow in one life and must reap in the next.
This law of cause and effect is known as Karma,
pronounced Kurma, a Hindu word meaning action.
Like much else in Theosophy it is borrowed from
India, where it has been accepted from about the
sixth century before Christ up to the present day.
It is summed up in the Hindu proverb :

" Who plants mangoes, mangoes shall he eat,
Who plants thorn bushes, thorns shall wound his
feet."

42 Four Modern Religious Movements

The Christian parallel is the doctrine that
" what a man sows, that shall he also reap." The
difference consists in a conscious reaping in this
hfe or in the spirit world of what one has sown, —
as for instance David did in the Old Testament
story or the rich man in Christ's parable and the
theory that we must pay for unknown, unremem-
bered acts in another life on earth. Karma in its
working, Is as if a father were to wake his chil-
dren in the middle of the night and whip them
silently for forgotten faults of the past day. This
would be a method of education of doubtful value.

The following points may be noticed in connec-
tion with the doctrine of reincarnation and the
theory of Karma which Is closely bound up with it.

( I ) There is no satisfactory evidence. The-
osophists say that sudden friendships and infant
prodigies are evidence, but If It be true, there
should be more of both and infant prodigies are
prodigies only in music and numbers, not in science
or philosophy. This merely means that the oper-
ations of the mind that have to do with numbers
are often developed early. It may be mentioned
that reincarnation does much to deprive children

Theosophy 43

of their charm and freshness. According to this
theory, a child Is only like an old man who has lost
his memory. Mrs. Besant says that she was a
Brahmin, that Is, a member of the Hindu priestly
caste, In a previous life; we have only her own
word for this and If it be true, he must have been
a Brahmin of evil life, for in Hinduism, It Is a
punishment to be reborn as a woman. ( 2 ) It im-
plies that there are no disturbing elements, as if a
seed must grow no matter what the soil and
weather be; this is unscientific. In real life the
consequences of actions are Indeterminate and
vary greatly according to circumstances. (3) It
leads to callousness and fatalism. If Belgian chil-
dren, spitted on German bayonets, are only reap-
ing the fruit of sins committed in their past lives,
why should we be indignant at such outrages?
The Germans are only the agents of these chil-
dren's already determined destinies. We may, of
course, by helping others, make good Karma for
ourselves, we may " acquire merit," but help ren-
dered from that motive Is a cold and calculating
thing. (4) In India, It puts caste on a religious
basis, and caste or the system of strict class dis-

44 Four Modern Religious Movements

tinctions Is one of the great social evils of that
country. Reincarnation and Karma cannot, there-
fore, be logically held along with belief In a real
brotherhood of man, though Theosophists try to
combine these doctrines. (5) It Is materialistic;
if evil is to be rewarded by poverty and good by
prosperity, then the moral and the material are
hopelessly confused; we are back among the Ideas
which the Book of Job was written to refute.
Moreover, according to the theory of Karma,
Jesus must have committed atrocious crimes In a
previous life to deserve a life of poverty ended by
crucifixion. (6) It implies that evil governs the
world, else why Is release from Karma the aim of
Hindu religion. This last fact seems to show that
Hinduism Itself is an Implied criticism of the doc-
trine of Karma. (7) It gives no help in account-
ing for the origin of evil; it only puts the origin
further back. (8) It opposes the teaching of
Jesus, who declared that we cannot argue from
calamity to guilt. Suffering follows sin, but ow-
ing to the unity of mankind, the suffering falls on
the Innocent as much as, even more, than on the
guilty. (9) It has no great influence on charac-

Theosophy 45

ter, because it is vindictive not reformatory, and
therefore it is a method of punishment which civ-
ihsed men have abandoned. This is well ex-
plained in the essay on Theosophy by Miss Dou-
gall in " Immortality and other Essays." Sin is
removed, she argues, when the injury is made
good and the sinner made righteous, but the suf-
fering of the sinner does not do this, not even
when he knows the reason of his suffering. It is
personal influence that leads to that repentance or
change of mind which really removes sin. Sin-
ners become more degraded the more they sin,
they do not necessarily suffer more and so the doc-
trine of Karma is bad psychology and bad " jus-
tice " too, for according to it, the suffering be-
comes more and more severe, while the sufferers
become more and more unable to profit by it.
(10) It leaves no room for any real union be-
tween the individual purposes of men and the uni-
versal purpose or meaning of existence. It rep-
resents us as men in separate cells in a prison, each
working out his term; that is, it is an unsocial sys-
tem. It makes expiation, judgment, the only pur-
pose of the world process; it is therefore un-Chris-

46 Four Modern Religious Movements

tian, for Christianity affirms that God's purpose is
not to dispense judgment, but to educate a race of
beings into likeness to Himself. (11) It leaves
no room for forgiveness and so between the doc-
trine of Karma and the gospel of the Love of God,
there stands a great gulf fixed. Compare, for in-
stance, the last three verses of the 8th Chapter of
Romans with this Hindu folk song composed by
a believer in Reincarnation and Karma.

" How many births are past, I cannot tell.
How many yet to come, no man can say,
But this alone I know and know full well.
That pain and grief embitter all the way."

The author of a pamphlet " Elementary The-
osophy " writes that " Reincarnation simply but
grandly solves for us the riddle of the painful
earth." It may for some people, yet the evidence
is quite inconclusive and it is not clear why man
must come back to earth again and again for his
spiritual benefit, with a new body and no memory
of past mistakes. The doctrine seems greatly to
overrate this earth as a field for spiritual growth.

Theosophy 47

(See Karma and Redemption, by A. G. Hogg, of
Madras.)

Theosophists are not content with belief in rein-
carnation and Karma. They have drawn up a
time-table, as it were, of the round trip through
thousands of lives. " A Primer of Theosophy "
tells us that " the process of evolution upon the
earth, as well as all other worlds, is by seven suc-
cessive waves of life-giving energy, which it has
been agreed to call rounds and during each of these
stages of evolution, seven races, with many sub-
divisions, inhabit the earth. . . . Four times that
great wave of evolutionary force has swept over
the earth and four great races have passed away.
The present humanity is the fifth division of the
fifth race." There are indeed more things in The-
osophy than are dreamt of in heaven or earth.
When It is asked: What is the evidence for all
this, the answer is that it is the teaching of Mahat-
mas. Mahatmas or Initiates or Adepts or Mas-
ters are beings who have evolved to great heights,
but remain in touch with humanity that they may
help its development and teach Theosophists.

Madame Blavatsky, a founder of the Theo-

48 Four Modern Religious Movements

sophical Society, said that she used to meet some
of these Mahatmas in Tibet and she professed to
get letters from them. After her death, her suc-
cessor (Mrs. Besant) received letters in the same
hand writing and welcomed them as from a Ma-
hatma, until she satisfied herself that they were
being forged by Mr. Judge, another leader among
Theosophists. On this incident, which led to a
division in the Theosophical Society, the Westmin-
ster Gazette of October 29th, 1891, commented
thus : " It is a queer enough spectacle to see Mrs.
Besant who regretted that her strict intellect could
not accept miracles on the Christian evidence
greedily swallowing the precipitated revelations
of the Mahatma.

This theory of Mahatmas gave Madame Bla-
vatsky trouble too. " Every earnest Theoso-
phist," she writes in the " Key toTheosophy," " re-
grets to-day from the bottom of his heart that
these sacred names and things have ever been men-
tioned before the public and fervently wishes that
they had been kept secret within a small circle of
trusted and devoted friends."

Theosophists have taken this hint and talk more

Theosophy 49

now of their own investigations made on super-
physical planes and less of revelations from Ma-
hatmas. The results of these investigations are,
some of them, interesting enough. However, it
is necessary to examine carefully the evidence for
their reality, to consider the qualifications of those
who make the investigations, to ask how their dis-
coveries agree with what we know already.

Though the English may be questionable, the
sentiment is sound in the following paragraph
from an Indian paper, the Indu Prakash: " Even
if Mahatmas and their specially favoured asso-
ciates of lower planes, moving among us do exist,
we, for one, would strongly deprecate any sane
man of healthy Intellect surrendering his reason
and conscience unto them, and becoming merely
the gramophones repeating time-worn shibboleths
as so many parading Theosophists do."

The motto of the Theosophical Society:
" There is no religion higher than truth," is one
that must appeal to all Christians for, as Pascal
said, " The first of all Christian truths is that
truth must be loved above all," yet when " The
Key to Theosophy " Interprets the parable of the

50 Four Modern Religious Movements

vine and the branches In St. John 15 by asserting
that " each branch represents a new incarnation "
we are forced to conclude that truth is one thing
and Theosophical truth another and a different
thing.

Modern Theosophy is the result of contact be-
tween the Orient and the West. Theosophists
are usually people who have been attracted by
Oriental religious systems, especially Hinduism,
and who have then made for themselves a kind
of essence out of all religions and named it The-
osophy. Their theory is that all religions are
essentially one, that behind all differences there is
an inner meaning, a " secret doctrine " which only
good Theosophists know. " Theosophy," ac-
cording to a Primer of the subject, " is the body
of truths which form the basis of all religions and
which cannot be claimed as the exclusive posses-
sion of any." Hence it is sometimes called " the
religion of religions."

" The Key to Theosophy " asserts that it is
" the essence of all religion and of absolute truth."
What may perhaps be called the Bible of Theoso-
phists is " The Secret Doctrine," by Madame Bla-

Theosophy 5 i

vatsky. As an example of how Theosophy illum-
inates Christianity, this quotation from Volume I,
page 574, of " The Secret Doctrine " is worthy of
notice: "When He (Jesus) is made to say —
' I ascend to my Father and your Father ' — it was
simply to show that the group of his disciples and
followers attracted to Him belonged to the same
Dhyani Buddha, ' Star,' or ' Father,' again of the
same planetary realm, as He did." This reminds
one of the student who said that he had mastered
his textbook and hoped soon to be able to under-
stand the notes explaining it.

The Theosophlcal theory that we can find the
highest common factor or greatest common meas-
ure of all religions and make from it a universal
religion was popular in the eighteenth century, but
is not easy to maintain now, because it is in essen-
tial points such as the ideas of God and of Salva-
tion that religions differ most.

For instance, the moral teaching, the Ethics of
Christianity and Buddhism are like in many re-
spects. Some Buddhist sayings are very Christ-
like, such as " Hatred does not cease by hatred at
any time, hatred ceases by love " and " What is

52 Four Modern Religious Movements

the use of platted hair, O fool ! What of the rai-
ment of goatskins? Within thee there is raven-
ing, but the outside thou makest clean," yet when
the doctrines of God and salvation are compared,
the difference is complete. Christian salvation is
fellowship with God in the voluntary service of
absolute good; Buddhist salvation is Nirvana, the
state of a blown-out flame, meaning either utter ex-
tinction or a passive state of mind which some
people might say resembled idiocy.

The Christian works for the Kingdom of God,
the Buddhist works for his own Nirvana, a great
distinction. Again Buddha recognised no su-
preme God, while Christianity is nothing else than
an overwhelming, exultant idea of God. It may
not now be said that Christianity is an enclosure
containing all truths, while in other religions there
is nothing but falsehood, yet the Christian must be
able to show that Christianity is the focus which
draws all the rays of truth and beauty from other
religions and fulfils all that is worthy In them.

Theosophists are the most tolerant of people,
a natural result of their notion that the secret doc-
trine of all religions is the same. Christians, how-

Theosophy 53

ever, believing that Christianity is the crown and
goal of other religions must be intolerant. Chris-
tianity, in one single point, is like Pan-Germanism;
it aims at world-dominion. Every missionary is
a proof of the intolerance of Christianity, and so
it is not surprising that Theosophists are unfavour-
able to Christian missions. In the " Key to Theos-
ophy," we read of " those sincere but vain-glorious
fools, the missionaries, who have sacrificed their
lives in the South Sea islands or China. . . .
What good have they done? They went in one
case to those who were not yet ripe for any truth;
and in the other to a nation whose systems of
religious philosophy are as grand as any."

This statement may be compared with the testi-
mony of Darwin, the naturalist, after his visit to
the South seas. " The lesson of the missionary
is the enchanter's wand " and also with the testi-
mony of the United States ambassador to China in
1895. "No one can controvert the patent fact
that the Chinese are enormously benefited by the
labours of the missionaries in their midst."

Opposition to missions Is not the only way in
which Theosophists show their " tolerance."

54 Four Modern Religious Movements

Fraud and immorality are no bar to high office in
the Theosophical Society. One of the two found-
ers of this Society was Madame Blavatsky, the
daughter of a Russian called Hahn. This
woman, the author of the " Key to Theosophy "
gave exhibitions of magic in India. They at-
tracted great attention until the Society for Psy-
chical Research held an investigation in Madras in
1884 and pronounced the performance to be
fraudulent. The case may be read in Volume 3
of the Proceedings of that Society. Theoso-
phists, however, are too tolerant to allow this to
dim her light and Madame Blavatsky is regarded
by them with almost as much reverence as is Mrs.
Eddy by Christian Scientists.

In her " Key to Theosophy " this question and
answer is found: "Enquirer — Do you believe
in prayer and do you ever pray? Theosophist
— We do not, we act instead of talk." Madame
Blavatsky certainly could act.

I have heard a Theosophical lecturer say that
one must be careful in quoting Madame Blavatsky
as she approved of blinds or camouflage in her
statements. Here is an instance: The glossary

Theosophy 55

of the Key contains an explanation of the word
Christ or Chrestos as Madame Blavatsky prefers
it. In this note, Lactantius, a Latin writer of the
third century, is quoted as saying in his fourth
book, chapter 7 : " It is only through ignorance
that men call themselves Christians instead of
Chrestians." The only sentence in book 4, chap-
ter 7, which in the least resembles this quotation is,
" But the meaning of the name Christ must be set
forth on account of the error of the ignorant, who
by the change of a letter are accustomed to call
him Chrestos." Madame Blavatsky's pretended
quotation is therefore the exact opposite of what
Lactantius said. This is indeed camouflage. Let
this suffice for the character and accuracy of Ma-
dame Blavatsky. Those who wish to learn more
about her will find an account in " A Modern
Priestess of Isis," by Solovyoff (translated by W.
Leaf).

Another light among Theosophists is Mr. C.
W. Leadbeater. This man was guardian of a
Hindu boy, Krishnamurthi, who was being trained
to be a new Messiah. The father of the boy took
an action to recover possession of him and won

56 Four Modern Religious Movements

his case. The report of the trial said, " In regard
to Mr. Leadbeater, His Lordship observed that
in the witness box he admitted that he held what
his Lordship would only describe as frankly im-
moral opinions. No father could be obliged to
confide in the promises of such a person." Mr.
Leadbeater has written a book called " The Chris-
tian Creed " ; one gem may be extracted from this
work. " The clause usually translated — suffered
under Pontius Pilate — should be rendered — He
endured the dense sea." Theosophists often re-
semble that Irish judge of whom it was said that
he would believe anything except an article of the
Christian Faith.

That short and simple clause — suffered under
Pontius Pilate - — marks one of the great distinc-
tions between Christianity and Theosophy and
also between Christianity and Hinduism, the nurs-
ery of Theosophy.

To Hinduism, God is reposeful intelligence; to
Christianity and to the religion of the Old Testa-
ment, God is essentially will. He fulfils Himself
through historical acts. Christianity might be
termed the religious Interpretation of history, it is

Theosophy 57

concrete — not abstract, It centres on the fact of
Christ who " suffered under Pontius Pilate " at a
certain date in a certain province of the Roman
Empire. Bishop Westcott once expressed it thus :
" The thoughts by which other religions live are
seen In Christianity as facts of human history."

St. Paul's use of the word Theosophy In I Cor-
inthians 1 :24 well summarises the difference be-
tween Christianity as the historical religion and
that vague and cloudy system known as Modern
Theosophy. " We preach Christ crucified," he
writes, " a stumbling-block, to the Jews, sheer folly
to the Gentiles, but for those who are called,
whether Jews or Greeks, a Christ who is the
Power of God and the Wisdom of God." The
Greek for " Wisdom of God " is Theosophy.

IV

THE MORMONS OR LATTER DAY SAINTS

AT Cardston, in Southern Alberta, the Mor-
mons have built a " million dollar " temple
to be the centre of their propaganda in Canada.
Much of the land in the neighbourhood has passed
into their control and they will probably own more
before long. Alberta, as may be seen from the
map, is the part of Canada nearest to Utah, their
headquarters in the United States. Who, then,
are the Mormons? They are the followers of
Joseph Smith, Junior, a native of Vermont, who
was born in the year of Trafalgar, 1 805, and was
murdered by a mob at Carthage, 111., in 1844.

" The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day
Saints is," said Smith, " the only true and living
church in existence. All other religions are
wrong, all other religious bodies are corrupt."
He asserted that the gospel was taken from the
earth in the third or fourth century, and only re-
stored through himself.

58

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 59

Joseph Smith was not remarkable for modesty,
Indeed, in his later hfe, he rivalled the Kaiser in
his claims. In 1843 ^^ announced, "I know;
more than all the world put together. ... I com-
bat the error of ages. ... I solve the mathe-
matical problems of universities with truth, dia-
mond truth, and God is my right-hand man."

The success of the Mormons is largely due to
arrogant claims such as these, for the majority of
mankind is credulous and uncritical. As the
White Queen says, in " Alice Through the Look-
ing Glass," by drawing a long breath and shut-
ting one's eyes, one can believe impossible things.

Why are the followers of Joseph Smith, Junior,
called Mormons? From Mormon, a general and
historian, who is said to have flourished in Amer-
ica in the fourth century after Christ and to have
written an abridged history of his race, which was
buried by his son Moroni and discovered in 1827
by Smith, who translated it into English.

This abridged history is now known as the Book
of Mormon. The name Mormon, Smith ex-
plained, is derived from the Egyptian word, mon,
meaning good, with the addition of more, con-

6o Four Modern Religions Movements

tracted to mor, hence Mormon means more good.
It may be mentioned that the English word,
" more," was not in existence in the time of Mor-
mon's alleged existence, and even if it were, how
did Mormon's father and mother come to know
English? According to Smith, the Book, of Mor-
mon was written on gold plates in " reformed
Egyptian " characters and translated by him, with
the aid of the Urim and Thummim; the latter,
from his description, seem to have been very sim-
ilar to two prisms of a chandelier. A copy of
some of the characters on these plates was shown
to Professor Anthon, a distinguished American
classical scholar. In a letter to the Rev. Dr.
Coit, dated April 3rd, 1841, Professor Anthon
says of these characters: "A very brief exami-
nation of the paper convinced me that it was a
mere hoax, and a very clumsy one too."

A transcription of these characters is still in
existence, and it may be seen that they could easily
have been formed by Joseph Smith from a recol-
lection of the Indian symbols cut on tombstones in
his neighbourhood, and from the astronomical
signs which are often found in a farmer's almanac.

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 6i

The original gold plates were, unfortunately, re-
moved by the angel who revealed them to Joseph
Smith, Junior. The doctrines of the Book of
Mormon are those popular in Smith's part of the
country when he was a boy. He grew up in a
turmoil of sects, and it is not surprising that, when
there were so many confusing doctrines around
him, he should have thought of establishing a sect
of his own, and that fragments of these various
doctrines should have found their way into his
book. The book indeed is full of " local colour."
Beginning in 1826, there was a widespread anti-
Masonic crusade in the States; in the Book of
Mormon, published in 1830, there is a violent at-
tack on secret societies. Moreover, the main idea
of the Book of Mormon, that the Red Indians are
the descendants of the ten lost tribes of Israel, was
very popular in Smith's time, and was the subject
of many books and sermons. Again, the dream
of Lehi, in the Book of Mormon, is remarkably
like a dream of Joseph Smith's own father, related
in " Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith and
his Progenitors," by his mother, Lucy Smith.
A Mormon elder says of the Book of Mormon :

62 Four Modern Religious Movements

" In its pages there are no anachronisms and no
contradictions." " Take away the Book of Mor-
mon and the revelations," Joseph Smith declared,
*' and where is our religion? " " We believe the
Book of Mormon to be the word of God," is the
eighth of the Mormon articles of faith.

These are rash statements, for several glaring
anachronisms have been pointed out by Bishop
Jones of Utah. The Book professes to be an ac-
count of — ( I ) The Jaredites, who left the tower
of Babel at the time of the confusion of tongues
and came to America in barges, but owing to in-
ternal dissensions became extinct; (2) The Neph-
ites, a colony of Jews under Lehi, who left Jeru-
salem in the first year of Zedekiah, 597 before
Christ, and landed on the western coast of South
America. After the death of Lehi, these people
divided and were known as Nephites and La-
manites. The Nephites established prosperous
commonwealths, but the Lamanites fell under
the curse of darkness, became dark in skin
and degenerated into the Red Indians, who are
their lineal descendants. The final struggle be-
tween these two peoples resulted in the destruction

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 63

of the Nephites about 400 A. D., but not before
their records had been abridged by Mormon and
hidden by his son, Moroni, for Joseph Smith to
find and translate in the nineteenth century. As
Bishop Jones shows, this remarkable story has
some equally remarkable flaws. For example, the
Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah, chapter 48-54,
as being among the writings carried away from
Jerusalem in the first year of Zedekiah, but these
chapters could not have been written until nearly
fifty years later, so the Nephites must have car-
ried away writings which were not yet in existence.
Again, the Nephites, who left Jerusalem about 600
B. C, according to the Book of Mormon, had in
America synagogues " built after the manner of
the Jews." Now, synagogues are not mentioned
among the Jews until 200 B. C, so once more the
Nephites seem to have succeeded in bringing from
Jerusalem something which was not there; in this
case, the synagogue system. These are only two
points, and there are several other impossibilities
in the Book of Mormon. It is, indeed, a very
shaky foundation on which to build '* The only
true and living church in existence." The theory

64 Four Modern Religious Movements

that the Book of Mormon Is based on an unpub-
lished story by a man called Spaulding has strong
evidence to support It and has not been disproved
by the discovery in Honolulu of a manuscript story
by Spaulding which does not resemble the Book of
Mormon, for Spaulding wrote more than one ro-
mance. The evidence may be read in " The True
Origin of the Book of Mormon," by Shook (Stan-
dard Pub. Co., Cincinnati).

Mormons are of two kinds: The Utah Mor-
mons and the Iowa Mormons. The Iowa Mor-
mons, who call themselves " The Reorganized
Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,"
separated from the Utah Mormons on the ques-
tion of polygamy or plural marriage. They have
a church In Toronto and one of their bishops used
to preach throughout the winter on Sunday even-
ings In one of the city theatres. The sermon was
usually " scriptural," with scarcely any reference
to Mormon fancies, perhaps a hurried allusion to
the restoration of the gospel to earth in 1830 —
the birth year of Mormonlsm. There also were
on occasions some plaintive remarks on the fact
that the papers will not report his sermons, some

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 65

appeals to patriotic sentiment and for a large col-
lection, and a reminder that there would be a bap-
tismal service during the week at the Mormon
church. Some inoffensive hymns were sung from
the " Saints Hymnal," but not the one in which the
Book of Mormon is referred to as " Truth's tri*'
umphal car." Now these Reorganized Mormons
declare that they are the true followers of Joseph
Smith, the founder of Mormonism, and their claim
has been upheld more than once by the courts of
the United States. Brigham Young, who led the
Saints to Utah in 1847 ^^^ who had at least nine-
teen wives, they describe as a usurper who fastened
polygamy on the church. This raises the ques-
tion " Who introduced the doctrine of plural mar-
riage among the Mormons?" If Joseph Smith
did, then the Reorganized Mormons are not his
true followers, for they reject polygamy. The
evidence shows that towards the end of his career
Joseph Smith, like Mohammed, became a polyg-
amist, but was too timid openly to make polyg-
amy a doctrine of the Mormon Church. One
fragment of the evidence may be given. Eliza
Snow, one of Brigham Young's wives, wrote a

66 Four Modern Religious Movements

" Biography of Lorenzo Snow," her brother. In
this book she says: "The prophet Joseph had
taught me the principle of plural or celestial mar-
riage and I was married to him for time and eter-
nity. In consequence of the ignorance of most of
the saints, as well as people of the world, on this
subject, it was not mentioned, only privately be-
tween the few whose minds were enlightened on
the subject." In 1852 there was published by the
Mormon Church a " Revelation on the eternity
of the marriage covenant, including plurality of
wives. Given through Joseph the seer, in Nau-
voo, Hancock county, Illinois, July 12th, 1843."
This document, too long to quote, is pronounced
a forgery by the Reorganized Mormon Church,
yet it is quite in Joseph's style, it agrees with his
own practice, and the allusions in it to his first
wife, Emma, are very natural. For instance:
" And let mine handmaid, Emma Smith, receive
all those that have been given unto my servant Jos-
eph . . . and again, verily I say, let mine hand-
maid forgive my servant Joseph his trespasses."
One purpose, in fact, of the message is obviously
to make Emma keep quiet, and who but Joseph

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 67

would have so useful a revelation? The doctrine
of plural marriage was introduced by Joseph
Smith (though secretly), because he liked the
practice of it and so did other Mormon elders —
but how were women to be won over? First, of
course, by telling them that it was a revelation
from God, and secondly, by telling them that by
marrying a Mormon elder, they gained a sure
passport to heaven.

A woman's point of view in the matter of polyg-
amy is expressed in a book which is perhaps the
best antidote to Mormonism in existence. The
writer, Mrs. Stenhouse, was the wife of a Mor-
mon elder and she published her experiences under
the title " Tell it All," or " An Englishwoman in
Utah." Mrs. Stenhouse became a Mormon in
1849 while in England. Soon after, there came
rumours of polygamy among the Mormons in
America, but their missionaries vehemently con-
tradicted these charges. For example, John Tay-
lor, a Mormon apostle, said at a public meeting in
France in reference to the accusations of poly-
gamy, " These things are too outrageous to admit
of belief." At the time he uttered these words.

68 Four Modern Religious Movements

he had four wives living in Salt Lake City. Mr.
and Mrs. Stenhouse settled in Utah about 1857,
but left the Mormon Church about the year 1870,
having had enough of its despotism and absurdity.
Another account of Mormon polygamy may be
found in " New America," by Hepworth Dixon,
who visited Salt Lake City in 1867 and was enter-
tained by Brigham Young and other prominent
Mormons. " In my opinion," Dixon wrote,
" Mormonism is not a religion for women, it low-
ers her in the social scale. . . . The Mormon
women know very little and feel an interest in very
few things." " Women at Salt Lake City are
made to keep their place." Dixon also gives an
interesting opinion about Joseph Smith. " Had
Smith," he says, " lived long enough for the facts
of his career to become known, many persons think
that among a people keenly alive to humour, he
would have found no lasting dupes."

Owing to the intervention of the United States
Government, the Utah Mormons gave up polyg-
amy, officially in 1890. Yet it has been stated
by non-Mormons that unofficially it is still prac-

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 69

tised and would probably be revived openly if the
Saints gained sufficient political power.

The first converts to Mormonism outside Amer-
ica were for the most part English and Welsh
Methodists. Times were bad in England in the
middle of the last century, hence the promise of
lands and houses in this world, as well as salva-
tion in the next, won many to the new sect. Some
were drawn to Utah by the announcement that
God was about to destroy the Gentile or non-
Mormon world, and that safety could only be
found in the valley of the Salt Lake. The pros-
perity of the Mormons in Utah was due first of all
to their own industry, and secondly to the discov-
ery of gold in California about 1849. This
brought thousands to the West, and gave the Mor-
mons a market for their produce.

Mormons are very ready to quote the Bible in
support of their doctrines. They regard the Bi-
ble, however, as if it were a Chinese picture, that
is, with no perspective — all is viewed on the same
level. They do not reahze that though God is the
same, man's knowledge of God is different from

70 Four Modern Religious Movements

generation to generation — Jeremiah, for exam-
ple, had a greater and wider knowledge of God
than Samuel. Even if we follow them in the
foolish habit of quoting isolated Bible texts, some
of their principles can be refuted by texts. We
read for instance, in i Timothy, chapter 3, verse
2 : " The bishop must be the husband of one
wife " ; yet the Mormon bishop, Lee, who was exe-
cuted for his share in the Mountain Meadows mas-
sacre, had 18 wives.

George Townsend concludes his book on the
"Conversion of Mormons" with these words:
" We believe that the preaching in Utah of the
historic gospel and of a more reasonable and spir-
itual faith will put to shame the old Mormonism
and compel further eliminations and further sub-
stitutions. The Latter Day Saints have an ad-
miration for the good and true as well as other
men, and if the lives of our church people are more
clean and kind than those of the Mormon people,
if our ministers are more courageous and intelli-
gent than the Mormon ministers, if our church
has in It more of the idealism ,and heroism of
Jesus than the Mormon system, if our religion

The Mormons or Latter Day Saints 71

gives purer light to the soul in its aspirations after
the Divine than does the Mormon religion, then
there will be little need to decry Mormonism, for
its eclipse will be manifest to all seeing eyes and
it will stand convicted and condemned by the minds
and consciences of its own votaries."

V

CHRIST THE WORD

NEARLY five hundred years before Christ,
there hved in Ephesus, a philosopher, by
name Heracleitus. He is described as having
been " above all men, of a lofty and arrogant
spirit." When found one day by his fellow citi-
zens playing dice with some children in the temple
of Artemis or Diana, he said to them, " Is it not
better to do this than to meddle with public affairs
in your company? " Such remarks secured for
Heracleitus the solitude which he desired. In his
own time, he was called " the obscure," and as only
fragments of his writings remain, he is now more
obscure than ever. The essence of his teaching
was that " all things flow, nothing abides," and
Heracleitus is coming to his own again for this is
also the essence of the teaching of Monsieur Berg-
son, the most famous of modern philosophers.
M. Bergson speaks of life as a great movement,

72

Christ the Word 73

carrying us along in its course, as an unceasing
becoming which preserves the past and creates the
future, he teaches, in short that reality is a flow-
ing. According to Heracleitus, this flowing of all
things is unified and guided by the Logos. (Lo-
gos is a Greek word which may be translated
either " thought " or the utterance of thought,
namely " word.")

" This Logos," he wrote, " is always existent,
. but men fail to understand it . . . for although
all things happen through this Logos, men seem as
if they had no acquaintance with it." Again,
" Although the Logos is universal most men live as
though they had a private inteUigence of their
own."

" Men are at variance with the Logos which is
their most constant companion."

Again, " Wisdom is one thing, it Is to know
the thought by which all things through all are
guided."

About two hundred years after Heracleitus the
Stoic School of Philosophy was founded at Athens,
by Zeno. The Stoics are mentioned in the seven-
teenth chapter of Acts and It Is worth noticing

74 Four Modern Religious Movements

that two heads of this school came from Tarsus,
the city of St. Paul.

The head of the Stoic school after Zeno, its
founder, was Cleanthes; he had been a pugilist and
was once arrested by the Athenian police for hav-
ing no visible means of support.

In his hymn to Zeus, written about 300 B. C,
Cleanthes sings of a single everlasting Logos,
" This," he says, " all the wicked seek to shun, un-
happy men, who ever longing to obtain good, see
not, nor hear God's universal law, which wisely
heeded would assure them noble life. They haste
away however, heedless of good, one here, one
there, some showing unholy zeal in strife for hon-
our, some turning recklessly toward gain, others
to looseness and the body's pleasures."

Three hundred years after Cleanthes and this
time in Alexandria, the city of Apollos, a Jew
called Philo, wrote once more of the Logos in
these terms.

" The Father who created the universe has
given to his . . . most ancient Word a pre-emi-
nent gift to stand on the confines of both and sep-
arate that which had been created from the crea-

Christ the Word 75

tor. And this same Word is continually a sup-
pliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mor-
tal race which is exposed to affliction and misery
and is also the ambassador sent by the ruler of all
to the subject race."

Within the lifetime of Philo, Jesus of Nazareth
lived in Palestine, there is no evidence however
that Philo ever even heard of Him.

So in Asiatic Ephesus, in European Athens, in
African Alexandria, men wrote of the Logos up
to the time of Christ. The Logos did not mean
exactly the same to all of them, to Heracleitus it
meant the unifying principle of the world process,
to the Stoics, it meant the universal reason which
makes nature orderly, to Philo it meant the medi-
ating principle between God and the world; the
idea of the Logos was however common in those
centuries.

About the year lOO A. D., the author of the
fourth Gospel took the Logos-idea into Christian-
ity, used it as a bridge, someone has said, by which
Christianity might march into the heart of the
Greek world, and, according to tradition, it was in
Ephesus, the city of Heracleitus, that St. John

76 Four Modern Religious Movements

wrote " In the beginning was the Word or Logos,
— and the Logos became flesh and dwelt among
us."

This identification of Jesus Christ with the Lo-
gos has been called " The most important step
that was ever taken in the domain of Christian
doctrine." By it Jesus of Nazareth was declared
to be the manifestation in time and space of the
ruling principle of all things, to be in fact the utter-
ance of the Life which is eternal.

VI

THE VALUE OF DEATH

A JOURNALIST tells of travelling in France
some years ago and finding in a village an
innkeeper who was a man of one subject — Death.
He could not understand how people were able to
be interested in anything else. When the jour-
nalist returned a few weeks later, the innkeeper
knew his subject better — for he was dead. This
man was probably avoided on account of his mor-
bid conversation and yet he may have been more
sane than his neighbours after all : for no silence
and no sentiment can prevent death. It is the one
quite certain experience for everyone. Indeed, it
may be said that all religions owe their existence
to these two things, the certainty of death and the
uncertainty of everything else. Religions show
the attempt to find something fixed in the midst of
change and death.

77

yS Four Modern Religious Movements

Change and decay in all around I see
O Thou who changest not
Abide with me.

is an appeal from all religions. Buddhism is
the exception which proves this rule, for Buddhism
teaches that the search for something fixed is vain
and therefore total extinction should be man's
goal.

Death is the one certainty and yet in spite of its
certainty, the thought of death has very little prac-
tical effect upon us. We seem to have a great
faculty for suppressing disagreeable ideas.

One of Christ's most famous stories is on this
forgetfulness of death. It is about a man who
planned a prosperous future for himself and died
the same night. In making up his accounts, he
had left death out. The famous series of car-
toons known as " The Dance of Death " is
prompted by the same observation: that we are
inclined to leave Death out of account. In these
pictures Death is shown coming to all classes of
men and women just when he is not expected and
not wanted.

The Value of Death 79

But the fact of death is now being forced upon
the world and the questions grow more insistent.
Do the dead survive? What does death mean?

In speculating on the question of survival and
happiness after death, some are impressed by the
analogy of birth, the event most like death of those
we know. Birth is a death to one kind of life,
but also an entrance into another. Man, it is
argued, lives not once but three times : the first
stage of his life is continual sleep, the second sleep-
ing and waking by turns; the third, waking for
ever. In the first stage, he lives in the dark alone,
in the second stage he lives, associated with, yet
separated from his fellowmen, in the third, his
life is interwoven with the life of other spirits.
In the first stage, his body develops itself from its
germ, working out organs for the second stage ; in
the second stage, his mind develops itself from its
germ, working out organs for the third stage.
The act of leaving the first stage for the second, we
call birth, that of leaving the second for the third,
we call death. Our way from the second to the
third, the way of death, is not darker, it is argued,
than our way from the first to the second, the way

8o Four Modern Religious Movements

of birth. One way leads us forth to see the world
outwardly, the other, perhaps, to see it inwardly.
And just as the infant, though alive before its
birth, is bhnd and deaf to the light and music of
this world, so, it is argued, are we, though alive,
blind and deaf to the light and music and freedom
of the world whose entrance is Death. ^

Then there are those who say that they have
penetrated this other world, that they have here
and now communicated with the dead and many
of those who believe this cannot be called feeble-
minded or fraudulent.

Most men, perhaps, have a reasonable certainty
of survival after death, but not a scientific cer-
tainty, the evidence, from the necessity of the case,
awaits verification, it seems to them more in ac-
cordance with a rational scheme of things that men
should survive death than not. This is the poet's
argument. Nature is a rational system, an intel-
ligible order. Shall man, he asks,

" Man her last work, who seemed so fair,
Such splendid purpose in his eyes,

1 " On Life after Death " — Fechner.

The Value of Death 8i

Who roU'd the psalm to wintry skies,
Who built him fanes of fruitless prayer "
Shall man " who suffered countless ills,
Who battled for the True, the Just
Be blown about the desert dust
Or sealed within the iron hills."

This argument reminds us that belief in survival
and happiness after death is a consequence of
belief in God and in God's justice. That is the
way in which the Jews arrived at the belief. It
grew strong in a time of persecution. The suffer-
ings of their martyrs in the time of Antiochus
Epiphanes (170 B. C.) compelled them to believe
in future happiness for the dead, otherwise
God was not fair, there was no justice in the order-
ing of the Universe. God must be still their God
and God is not a God of the dead but of the living.
If God exists, they argued, those who were the
instruments of his purpose could never cease to
exist.

And the Christian belief developed from the
Jewish, fortified by the Resurrection of Christ.
The belief of the Christians in the Resurrection

82 Four Modern Religious Movements

of Christ taught them that the Christian life is
God's purpose and therefore it triumphs over
death. The Christian Hfe, the life of one united
to God's purpose, the life of one who does God's
will, is eternal, that is the Christian faith. Other
ways of life may survive death, it is not certain
that they will be everlasting, the Christian way of
life is the only real way of life and therefore the
only eternal way of life. Eternal life is, perhaps,
a moral achievement. " In your endurance," said
Christ, " ye shall win your souls."

If the important thing be a certain way of life,
of conduct, which is eternal because it is the Divine
way of life, then death has a meaning and a value.
It helps this way of life. Death seems to be es-
sential for the education of man's spirit. The
spirit of man, we know it well these years, has
risen to its greatest height in the very presence of
natural death and we have the amazing paradox
of Christianity that the highest revelation of God
is a Man willingly dying on a cross. This idea,
the value, the necessity of Death, for the moral
life is developed in a striking way in an unfinished
novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

The Value of Death 83

" What a blessing to mortals," a character in
this novel says, " what a kindness of Providence
that life is made so uncertain; that death is thrown
in among the possibilities of our being; that these
awful mysteries are here around us into which we
must vanish. For without it, how would it be pos-
sible to be heroic, how should we plod along in
commonplaces for ever, never risking anything?
For my part," he goes on, " I think that men are
more favoured than the angels and made capable
of greater heroism, greater virtue, and a more
excellent spirit than they, because we have such a
mystery of grief and terror around us; whereas
they, being in the certainty of God's light, seeing
his goodness and his purposes more perfectly, can-
not be so brave as poor weak men have the oppor-
tunity of being and sometimes make use of it.
God gave the whole world to man, and if he is
left alone with it, it will make a clod of him at last;
but to remedy that God gave man a grave and it
redresses all and makes an immortal spirit of him
in the end." ^

In this passage Hawthorne suggests that Death

2 Quoted in Edward Caird's " Balliol Addresses."

84 Four Modern Religious Movements

may be the great guardian, the great inspirer of
the moral, the heroic, the Divine life.

Furthermore it is death that gives dignity to
even the most ignoble, to even the most fashion-
able life. Every life is redeemed from littleness
when we remember that Death awaits it. At the
moment of death each one of the crowd is left at
last with himself alone, the prompters are gone,
he or she must at last be entirely real and un-
affected. In itself we can imagine death to be a
purgatory, a cleansing, a restoration to real val-
ues, a startling reminder that a man's life con-
sisteth not in the abundance of the things which
he possesseth, nor in his position in society, but in
what he is in himself alone. This is the dignity
of Death, the dignity which death gives to even
the meanest and most ignoble lives. In death,
man, perhaps for the first time, meets with him-
self and with the values not of the world, but of
God.

So, then, if moral values are the only eternal
values and if death be necessary in order to hold
us to these values, then, perhaps Socrates was

The Value of Death 85

right when he suggested that death may be the
greatest of all goods to man, for Death Is the
opportunity of greatest victory to man's uncon-
querable spirit.

VII

THE RELIGIOUS OPINIONS OF DEAN SWIFT

SWIFT seems to have decided that whatever
else he might be called, he would never be
called a saint; there is little doubt that he delib-
erately showed his worst side to the world; no de-
scription fits him so well as Bolingbroke's " a hypo-
crite reversed." He professed to be a misan-
thrope. " Principally," he wrote to the poet
Pope, " I hate and detest that animal called ' man.'
The chief end and purpose to myself in all my
labors is to vex the world rather than divert it."

He once suggested that now and then beasts
may degenerate into men. And yet Addison sent
him " Travels in Italy " inscribed to " Jonathan
Swift, the most agreeable of companions, the tru-
est friend, and the greatest genius of his age," and
when he was Dean of St. Patrick's he helped the
poor of Dublin with generous and judicious care.

He described himself as

S6

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 87

" A clergyman of special note
For shunning those of his coat."

Yet he wrote often and at length in defence of
the clergy against unjust attacks and inadequate
salaries. The attacks he met by reminding his
readers that the clergy were taken from the laity,
there was no other material available; it was not
surprising, considering their origin, that some vices
still clung to them.

Much that Swift wrote is coarse and indelicate,
but it is worth noticing that he nearly always
makes indecency and vice either disgusting or
ridiculous, and no criticism of him is fair which
neglects his chronic physical ailment, his loneliness,
and his knowledge that he was going mad. " At
best," he once said, " I have an ill head and an
aching heart."

It is his morbid dread of being thought pious
or benevolent, it is his revolting realism which
makes Swift's religion of special interest. The
religion of one who is always feeling that he must
"set an example" is seldom interesting — even
as a farce. There is no " keeping up appear-

88 Four Modern Religious Movements

ances " in the religion of Swift. He tried, in
fact, to prevent any appearance at all. He re-
fused to let his light shine before men.

It is possible, however, to deduce his position
from some of his writings, A few of his sermons
are published: " On the Trinity," " On Mutual
Subjection," " On the Testimony of Conscience,"
"On Brotherly Love" (a curious subject for
Swift to choose) ; " On Doing Good," (A Sermon
on the Occasion of Wood's Project) , " On the Ex-
cellency of Christianity in Opposition to Heathen
Philosophy," '' On False Witness," " On the Poor
Man's Contentment," " On the Causes of the
Wretched Condition of Ireland," " On Sleeping
in Church."

Swift thought very little of these productions
himself. " Here," he said to Dr. Sheridan, " are
a bundle of my old sermons. You may have them
if you please. They may be of use to you; they
have never been of any to me." According to
Mrs. Pilkington's memoirs, he once said to her
husband : " I never preached but twice in my life,
and then they were not sermons but pamphlets."
Mrs. Pilkington asked him what might be the sub-

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 89

ject of them. He told her they were against
Wood's half-pence. Swift never formed the habit
of magnifying his ecclesiastical performances. O
si sic omnes. His Thoughts on Religion have also
been preserved and, in addition, a few letters and
essays on the clerical profession and the Christian
faith.

From these remains it appears that Swift con-
sidered the Incarnation to be the essence of Chris-
tianity.

" Since the union of Divinity and Humanity,"
he wrote, " is the great article of our religion, it is
odd to see some clergymen in their writings of
Divinity wholly devoid of humanity."

How this union was effected and how there
could be three persons in one God were questions
to which Swift offered no answer. He may never
have read Bishop Butler's sermon On the Igno-
rance of Man. He would at any rate have en-
tirely approved of that discourse.

All of Swift's doctrinal statements might be
said to be on the text, " We see but in part and we
know but in part."

As he expressed it in his Letter to a Young

90 Four Modern Religious Movements

Clergyman: " For my part, having considered
the matter impartially, I can see no great reason
which those gentlemen you call the free thinkers
can have for their clamor against religious mys-
teries, since it is plain that they were not invented
by the clergy, to whom they bring no profit nor
acquire any honor; for every clergyman is ready
either to tell us the utmost he knows, or to con-
fess that he does not understand them; nor is
it strange that there should be mysteries in divinity
as well as in the commonest operations of nature."
Along with this emphasis on mystery in religion
there is that " appeal to reason " which is so char-
acteristic of the eighteenth century. " A plain,
convincing reason," he wrote, " may possibly oper-
ate upon the mind both of a learned and ignorant
hearer as long as they live, and will edify a thou-
sand times more than the art of wetting the hand-
kerchiefs of a whole congregation, if you were
sure to attain it." " I do not see how this talent
of moving the passions can be of any great use
towards directing Christian men in the conduct of
their lives, at least in these northern climates,
where I am confident the strongest eloquence of

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 91

that kind will leave few impressions upon any of
our spirits deep enough to last to the next morn-
ing, or rather to the next meal." He told with
approval of a man who made it a rule in reading
to skip over all sentences where he saw a note of
admiration at the end.

Swift is not often thought of as a Pastor pas-
torum, yet he had very definite ideas on what
the " life and doctrine " of the clergy should be.

In the Letter to a Young Clergyman already re-
ferred to, he makes a suggestive remark on the
use of heathen philosophers: "Before you en-
ter into the common insufferable cant of taking all
occasions to disparage the heathen philosophers,
I hope you will differ from some of your brethren,
by first inquiring what those philosophers can say
for themselves."

He thought the clergy spent too much time with
each other. " In my humble opinion," he wrote,
" the clergy's business lies entirely among the
laity; neither is there perhaps a more effectual
way to forward the salvation of men's souls than
for spiritual persons to make themselves as agree-
able as they can in the conversations of the world,

92 Four Modern Religious Movements

for which a learned education gives them great ad-
vantage, if they would please to improve and ap-
ply it. . . . Let some reasoners think what they
please, it is certain that men must be brought to
esteem and love the clergy before they can be
persuaded to be in love with religion."

With this end in view, he suggested that the
clergy — except the bishops — should dress like
other men.

He must have excepted the bishops owing to
the speechless awe with which he professed to re-
gard them.

" It is happy for me," he wrote to the Bishop
of Clogher, " that I know the persons of very few
bishops, and it is my constant rule never to look
into a coach, by which I avoid the terror that such
a sight would strike me with."

Among the defenders of Christianity, Swift oc-
cupies a peculiar place. He presents no apology,
but satirizes " free thinkers " and their methods.

His Argument to prove that the abolishing of
Christianity in England may, as things now stand,
be attended with some inconveniences and per-
haps not produce those many good effects proposed

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 93

thereby is an excellent example of restrained irony.
He explains that he is only defending nominal
Christianity, real Christianity " having been for
some time wholly laid aside by general consent as
utterly inconsistent with our present schemes of
wealth and power." Of church services he asks :
'* Where are there so many conveniences and in-
citements to sleep?" Why then abolish them?
As to the clergy: " What an advantage and fe-
licity it is for great wits to be always provided
with objects of scorn and contempt in order to ex-
ercise and improve their talents," and " If Chris-
tianity were once abolished how could the free
thinkers, the strong reasoners, and the men of
profound learning be able to find another subject
so calculated in all points whereon to display their
abilities? What wonderful productions of wit
should we be deprived of from those whose genius
by continual practice hath been wholly turned
upon raillery and invectives against religion?"
" Nor do I think it wholly groundless," he goes on,
" or my fears wholly imaginary that the abolishing
of Christianity may perhaps bring the Church into
danger," " Furthermore," he argues, *' the abo-

94 Four Modern Religious Movements

lition of Christianity might disoblige the allies who
were all Christians " — the argument was writ-
ten during Marlborough's campaigns. Finally he
offers, as an amendment, that instead of the word
" Christianity " may be put " religion in general "
as a thing to be abolished. " For of what use is
freedom of thought if it will not produce freedom
of action, which Is the sole end, how remote soever
in appearance of all objections against Christian-
ity."

Swift consistently maintained this doctrine, now
so unpopular, that In their opposition to Christian-
ity, men propose no other end than that of fortify-
ing themselves and others against the reproaches
of a vicious life. " It being necessary for men of
libertine practices to embrace libertine principles
or else they cannot act in consistence with any rea-
son, or preserve any peace of mind." " Whether
such authors have this design, this much Is cer-
tain," he acutely remarks, " that no other use is
made of such writings." So he insists on finding
out from what quarter objections to religion come.
" If any man," he argued, " should write a book
against the lawfulness of punishing felony with

The Religious Opinions of Dean Swift 95

death, and upon inquiry the author should be
found in Newgate under condemnation for robbing
a house, his arguments would not very unjustly
lose much of their force from the circumstances he
lay under. So, when Milton wrote his " Book of
Divorces," it was presently rejected as an occa-
sional treatise, because everybody knew he had a
shrew for his wife. Neither can there be any rea-
son imagined why he might not, after he was blind,
have writ another upon the danger and incon-
venience of eyes." -

I think it was Mr. Asquith who said that free-
thought was incurably sloppy and had better be
named loose-thought. Swift held that free-
thought was no thought at all. The faith of
Christians he considered, was but as a grain of
mustard seed compared with the faith of those
" free-thinkers " who accepted the absurdities of
certain anti-Christian books in order to confirm
themselves in their perverted tastes. His conclu-
sion is that those who are against religion must
needs be fools, and therefore we read in Exodus
that of all animals God refused the first born of
an ass.

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