The origin of supernatural conceptions and development of religions from prehistoric times

THE ORIGIN OF
SUPERNATURAL
CONCEPTIONS

Hill1

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

00004247065

Class foL2.?

Book . ^l_

Copyright W

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT.

THE ORIGIN OF
SUPERNATURAL CONCEPTIONS

THE

Origin of Supernatural
Conceptions

AND

DEVELOPMENT OF RELIGIONS

FROM PREHISTORIC

TIMES

JOHN JAMES GREENOUGH

Boston

PUBLISHED BY THE AUTHOR

Address, Alton Place, BrookUne

1906

*u«£

LIBRARY of CONGRESS
Two Cooies Received

AUG 20 1906

CLASS Aft, XXc. NO.
COPY B, r

Copyright, iqob
By John James Greenough

All rights reserved

COLONIAL PRESS

Electrotyped and Printed by C. H. Simonds &* Co.

Boston, U.S.A.

To my fellow citizens I dedicate this work, a labor of love, the
result of nearly three - quarters of a century of careful investigation
and thought unbiassed by any preconceived theory or dogmatic as-
sumption. It is based entirely on the statements derived from the
earliest written legends of which we have any knowledge, logically
construed for the judgment of the critical and independent investiga-
tors who with the writer desire the highest good for their fellow men.

J. L C.

Alton Place, Brookline
Jan. 19, 1904.

Abou-Ben-Adhem (may his tribe increase !)

Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,

And saw within the moonlight of his room,

Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,

An Angel writing in a book of gold.

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,

And to the presence in the room he said,

" What writest thou ? " The vision raised its head,

And with a look made of all sweet accord,

Answered, " The names of those who love the Lord."

" And is mine one ? " said Abou. " Nay, not so,"

Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,

But cheerily still, and said, " I pray thee, then,

Write me as one that loves his fellow men."

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night

It came again with a great wakening light,

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed.

And lo ! Ben Adbem's name led all the rest !

— Leigh Hunt.

vh

Preface

The knowledge of the advent of man and his sta-
tus in the universe wherein he found himself prior to
the attainment of modern science, was derived from
traditionary legends evolved from the vivid imagi-
nations of the human brain attempting to interpret
the history of his creation, and the purpose of his
existence. It is apparent that those legends have
a fictitious origin, although they were assumed to be
divine revelations. There is a tendency in the hu-
man mind to retain its early impressions with great
tenacity; and it is difficult, and often impossible,
to unlearn the most illogical and preposterous falla-
cies that men have been taught as truths in their
earlier life while they seize with avidity every pre-
tension to reveal a future life they have learned to
believe in, but of which no man has any knowl-
edge or comprehension, except from the fabulous
traditions of unknown writers.

Up to a comparatively recent date no true solu-
ix

tion of the mechanism of the universe was achieved,
about which the writers of all prior histories and
legends called revelations were in entire ignorance.
To doubt the truth of these so-called revelations has
been deemed sacrilegious, and has often been vis-
ited with drastic punishment for the alleged profa-
nation. The present age has emerged from the
thraldom of this ancient bigotry, and finds no trace
in recent history of any supernatural act or com-
munication; which naturally engenders a doubt of
the truthfulness of the ancient traditions that is still
further confirmed by the fundamental errors to be
found in all traditional revelations.

With the above facts clearly established we may
venture upon a strict investigation of the ancient
writings, with no hesitation on our part in repudiat-
ing the narratives of supernatural occurrences of
which modern experience has no truthful example.

In investigating the superstitions that have per-
vaded the thoughts of man from a period anterior
to historic data, which have formed so much of the
traditional and written literature with which the state-
ment of facts has been inextricably interwoven, it is
difficult to trace the true origin of the myths of un-
known ages. While the supernatural events re-
corded in Eastern legends may be retained as illus-

Wxtfutt

trations of the creative power of the active imagina-
tion of the human mind, they have long since been
discarded as realities by the world of science.

There is a firm belief still retained by a large ma-
jority of men in the truth of traditionary miracles
and divine interposition, on which the dominant
religions are founded. We note that in religions
holding a common origin, there are numerous sects
and interpreters radically opposed to each other,
which in past times have produced dissensions and
bloody strife, and are still a source of polemic wran-
gling and waring disaster.

Before attempting to investigate the origin of re-
ligion, it may be well to fix a definite meaning to that
constantly employed word. We find in the modern
lexicons numerous meanings ascribed to the word
religion, that differ widely in their nature, and are
antagonistic in their purport. If by religion is meant
the healthful development of a right life, a practice
of conscientious duty to our fellow men, and abstain-
ing from all injustice, every right-minded man must
give it his approval. But if by religion is meant " a
system of faith in, and worship of, a divine being
or beings " (entirely beyond our knowledge, except
from the traditions of unknown authors of mystic
legends, unconfirmed), the modern agnostic disbe-

xi

WvtUtt

lieves. We have generally used the word religion in
the latter sense, as dogmatic, in the succeeding pages.

There are few noted scientists in modern times
who would not be classed as agnostics. They are
generally so entirely engrossed in the search for, and
development of, truth, which is making such won-
derful progress at the present day, that they have
no time to devote to discussions about current be-
liefs in religion, nor to the petty altercations of the
theologians over dogmatic interpretations and creeds,
which neither their authors nor interpreters have
any real knowledge of the truth of, and of which
there is no proof but vague tradition.

The mission of an iconoclast is not only displeas-
ing but perilous ; in attempting to destroy the time-
consecrated idols believed in for ages, he cannot
expect to escape vituperation, unfair criticism, and
opposition. Fortunately in these days he cannot
here be assailed with imprisonment, torture, or death.
Ostracism, anathema, and slander are the only
weapons left the fanatical force in America, although
severer penalties are still imposed elsewhere for dif-
fering from or opposing established faith.

Some fifty years or more ago, I was impelled to
write upon this subject; but I then felt that, in at-
tempting to destroy a delusion on which organized

xii

society was founded, and for which I had no efficient
substitute, I might weaken the organization of so-
ciety. This caused me then to delay further action,
but time has now convinced me that until the fabu-
lous is expurgated from human reason there is no
hope that any radical improvement in true culture
can be attained.

The hideous crimes that have been perpetrated
even in modern times, in priestridden nations, con-
clusively show that power alone is wanted to reenact
the barbarism of the Spanish Inquisition and the
prohibition of free thought. The incarceration of
an innocent girl in a nunnery, recently enacted in
Europe, for desiring to marry in opposition to the
will of her parents, where she was walled up for
twenty years in a living tomb by a brutal fiend, the
superior (who was made a brutal fiend by her fanati-
cal faith, until all the elements of humanity and
true womanhood were extinguished in her), is too
heartrending and revolting to be passed over in si-
lence. It must remain as an episode of a religion of
the nineteenth century.

The more recent offence of a French Jesuit was
brought to light in the courts in the present century,
where it was shown that a Jesuit priest called l ' Pere
Rouvirier " (his name should be execrated for his

xiii

WvtUtt

damnable arts) so wrought upon a sensitive neo-
phyte of wealth as to cause her to martyrize herself
until she died, suffering torture, that he might reap
the fruits of her wealth, which the enlightened
French court happily frustrated by annulling her
will. The sad history of this poor girl's sufferings
in mind and body is heartrending; and when we
learn that it was endured through the teachings and
instigation of this human monster under the guise
of divine instruction, we must condemn in the se-
verest terms a religion that produces such fruits.
But we hear the Protestants exclaim, * ' This is not
Christianity as taught by us." Unfortunately I
remember the incarceration in the last century of
Robert Taylor in Protestant England, because he
published his belief that the Christian religion had
no indisputable foundation for claiming a higher
morality or truth than any other, and the earlier
persecution of the Quakers and others in England,
Scotland, and America, remnants of which remain
of this repression in the legal interference with natu-
ral rights still extant. It may be well for modern
sectarians to investigate how far the acts of their
predecessors accord with the views that have been
produced in the moral code evoked by modern sci-
ence at the present day.

xiv

WttUtt

We see superstitions still active, like those which
misled the world in earlier times, engendering strange
aberrations of reason and common sense in this
enlightened age and country, culminating in the
knowledge that such gross impostors as Ann Lee, the
female Christ of the Shakers, Joseph Smith, the
prophet of the Mormons, Mrs. Eddy, the Christian
Scientist, and that audacious pretender, Dowie, have
all gathered hosts of followers, often highly intelli-
gent, who profess to believe in their divine mission ;
and there are not a few at this time who may have
serious dubitancy on the subject of their teachings
that are inclined to join them.

If it is assumed that any supernatural phenome-
non ever occurred in this world at any time, there
can be no insuperable barrier to a claim for its
repetition, or a belief in its accomplishment by any
pretender to divine inspiration and power.

I ask for no leniency or favor, and offer no apology,
for what I have written in the following pages. If
anything therein can be proved to be erroneous, I
shall gladly accept and acknowledge the correction.

J. J. Greenough.

Brookline, Jan. 19, 1905.

XV

Introduction

In this essay on the origin of the superstitions and
dogmas of the human race, I have attempted to
trace their derivation and development, through
man 's innate intellectual powers, which have evolved
ideas of a transcendent being actuating the creation,
— ideas that are deduced from the natural laws of
mental evolution.

My endeavor has been to show that there never
was a supernatural revelation, miracle, or other ab-
normal manifestation, from any spiritual entity, or
other source divine; and that all legends recording
phenomena of that character, with which the world 's
literature is filled, were derived from unexplained
natural phenomena, or the human imagination, be-
fore a true knowledge of the cosmos, or psychic laws,
was conceived.

I have suggested the probable origin of supernatu-
ral conceptions, from their primitive source up to
xvii

Xutt'oHuctioti

their development in historic times. A critical ex-
amination and analysis of the ancient records will
clearly show their source to be the human brain;
this is obviously apparent in the voluminous Indian,
Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian writings, and
through Grecian and Roman mythology, down to the
Christian era — an outcome of Alexandrian culture,
the mother of sectaries.

I have only sketched concisely some of the numer-
ous exhibitions of an early mental activity, for,
tempting as the subject is, it has been fully elabo-
rated by writers more learned and able than myself.

My first chapters are briefly introductory to an
extended investigation of Judaism and Chris-
tianity, past and present, and the primitive char-
acter of the Hebrews' God as depicted in the Old
Testament, upon which the Christian religion is
founded.

While carefully evolving a life of Christ from the
traditional narratives of his followers, as recorded
in the Gospels, that were written a hundred years
or more after his death by unconditional believers
in his divinity, we have produced a somewhat less
transcendent delineation of him who posed as the
Messiah of the Hebrews in the Gospels, and de-
clared himself " King of the Jews, ' ' for which he was
xviii

Xutrrtttctfon

tried by the Roman governor Pilate, found guilty,
and crucified.

Although all mention of Christ's belligerent acts
is omitted in the Gospels, with one notable excep-
tion, — when he entered the Temple at Jerusalem
with a host of followers shouting hosannas, who pro-
claimed him " King of the Jews, ' ' and drove out the
occupants, — yet his bellicose utterances and con-
stant movements with an army of catechumens,
thousands in number, indicate unrecorded overt
acts, which furnish the only rational reason for his
execution.

Entering upon this task with no desire to estab-
lish any unwarranted theory, but simply to elicit a
rational interpretation of a life record assumed to
be divine, drawn from the fragmentary records of
catechumens, that were written from tradition long
after the time the events were said to have occurred,
I have endeavored to reconcile and render intelli-
gible the great contrariety of teachings and acts re-
corded, that led up to, and account for, the cruci-
fixion ; which under any other theory would seem to
be baseless and inexplicable.

A candid examination of the teachings of the
gospel with the influence of a divine afflatus elimi-
nated, shows that the apothegms and proverbs are

xix

XtUrottuctfotf

mostly found in the teachings drawn from earlier
sources, anticipated by uninspired men long before
the birth of Christ, — notably the Hindu writings,
the Golden Rule of Confucius, and the moral teach-
ings of Pythagoras, — while some of the instruc-
tions in the Gospels seem inequitable and unprac-
tical, if not immoral.

My purpose is to convince my fellow men that
they have received at their birth all the revelation
that they will ever receive, in the fundamental power
to attain the knowledge they can compass by their
own exertions, or from the acquirements of their
compeers. On the proper use of man's mental pow-
ers will depend the best results for human advance-
ment. This is shown in the profound intellectual
and moral teaching of recent times, and the refined
culture evolved by the genius and learning of modern
civilization, due to scientific cultivation. Ancient
truisms are often used as texts, with the assumed
glamour of divine revelation, to base profound hom-
ilies upon. These could not have been achieved
until modern science burst the shackles with which
dogmatic religion sought to bind the free volition of
man, and his freedom of thought.

We believe the world is the home and field of labor
of the human race, and is governed by immutable

xx

Kutvotructtou

laws that no power of man can change. His duty
is to learn their purport, and avail himself of their
uses ; to neglect or evade this we assume is a crime.
It should be our highest aspiration to act benefi-
cently for the race, and for ourselves ; our lives are
a birthright for us to exercise our intellects upon,
and improve in knowledge and wisdom; by so do-
ing we shall render the highest and holiest tribute
of reverence to the genitor of our being, whose works
are our lesson, to be studied for the welfare of man-
kind, not to be ignored or neglected for ideal crea-
tions.

The universe which is spread before us we are
comparatively ignorant of. Let us seek to obtain
a knowledge of the attainable before we attempt to
fathom a hereafter that we can never know in our
present state, or obtain a knowledge of from the
crude and superstitious records of an anterior age.

In tracing the source from which the origins of
the superstitions of the world are derived, and the
innumerable ideal creations emanating from the fer-
tile imagination of man, we perceive the wonderful
power attained in this highly organized structure;
and the more minutely it is analyzed, the more per-
fect seems the adaptation of means to ends, as we
from time to time attain a true knowledge of them.

xxi

Knttrolrttttton

It is now clearly understood that, prior to any his-
toric record yet discovered, men were organized into
communities and nations, with governments and
laws restricting them to certain courses of action,
deemed to be proper and correct, and that there
were punishments enacted for a dereliction from
established law; right and wrong were determined,
not always, as we now think, equitably, but the belief
was established. Under these advancing forms of
civilization great cities and elaborate temples were
built, and structures and implements of defence and
aggression were devised, as the interests of different
nations became antagonistic. The beauty and gran-
deur of their structures evince a cultivation and luxu-
rious display marvellous to behold in these latter
days. While much of the outward and apparent
was appreciated and understood, the fundamental
principles and sources of the visible universe were
unknown, but as the nature of men 's mental powers
would not rest with unexplained phenomena, they
actively sought for a solution in their imagination;
the bolder and more active formed systems, that
were seized upon and elaborated from age to age by
credulous followers in their efforts to obtain an ex-
planation of the unknown.

The organization of communities and nations pro-
xxii

KtUtroiruttion

duced, through the inequality of individuals, rulers
who could dispense favors, and punish or reward
as their will dictated. With this experience before
them men formulated their conceptions of a power
or powers that created and governed the world they
lived in.

As they knew from experience that they could
obtain favors from their rulers by subserviency and
by the bestowal of gifts upon them, they had no
doubt of their efficacy with their supernatural rulers ;
and the more costly and elaborate the tribute, the
more acceptable would it be to the gods to whom it
was given. Thus was established an adulation and
worship, with the building of temples, and offering
of gifts and sacrifice to propitiate the divine powers,
that could in no other way be reached. This uni-
versal belief in an endless variety of forms comes
from an undeviating source, the natural phenomena
with which we are surrounded misinterpreted and
misunderstood. From time to time, as tradition in-
forms us, there have been men with transcendent
intellects, that have caught glimpses of the true cos-
mos and have based theories thereon ; but they were
imperfect and uncertain, although often containing
pertinent truths. The commencement of true knowl-
edge, imperfect though it still is, began within the
xxiii

Knttotruttfon

recent centuries. If we consider antiquity and uni-
versal belief a criterion of truth, there are over-
whelming descriptions of supernatural communica-
tion between a spirit world and man; but if a just
perception of the elements from which the legends
that chronicle the exhibition of the miraculous are
obtained, it will be seen that they all emanate from
a mistaken interpretation of cause and effect.

It is conceded that the Hindus were an exceed-
ingly intellectual and profoundly metaphysical peo-
ple, and elaborated a religion so transcendental as
to be beyond the scope of modern thinkers. They
had in their mythology numerous deities of varied
powers that to the modern thinker are but the vis-
ions of the meditative Brahman ; no one in Europe
or America believes in the divinity of Brahma or
Vishnu. So of the Egyptian cult, the concentration
of the intellect of a highly intelligent and cultivated
nation, with an elaborate theology, by whom, like
the Hindus, stupendous and costly temples were
built, more enduring than their religion, of which,
or their theomancy, there are now no believers.
Again the highly cultivated Greek, and the world-
conquering Roman, — their systems of religion were
in a high degree elaborate, ideal, and refined, the
keynote being justice, honor, probity, and especially
xxiv

Kntrotrttttfon

truth. The philosophers of Greece are quoted to-
day for their profound thoughts, — yet who believes
in their theology, or their graphic and poetical leg-
ends of the gods ? From almost all the ancient re-
ligions we learn there was one transcendent god
with subordinate gods for the multiplicity of human
attributes and wants; later these minor gods were
eliminated, and in their places angels and spirits
have been substituted, while in one of the modern
religions three gods have been by some theological
legerdemain resolved into one. We thus see that
there is no innate attribute of worship in man, but
simply an attempt to personify a cause beyond his
knowledge, and invest it with the very human love
of adulation experience has shown to be character-
istic of man's earthly rulers.

There is a singular predilection in man, apparent
to the careful investigator, to run in, and adhere to,
grooves of thought, with a persistent ignoring of all
adverse facts. This trait is intensified by early ed-
ucation, and is apparent in the persistent adherence
to the religion in which the individual has been
trained. If he was born of Hindu parents he will
be a believer in Brahma. If his parents were Jews,
or Mohammedans, his belief will be fixed in their
faith, while if the belief of his compeers is Christian,

XXV

Mutvoirurtiou

he will adhere tenaciously to that faith. Fortu-
nately for the advancement of the world, some
men are endowed with an unconquerable spirit of
investigation that bursts the bonds of theological
prohibition, and in the face of torture and death pro-
claim the tenets they believe founded in fact. As
the world grows wiser, the barriers against knowl-
edge are reduced, which by the Jewish legend was
the unpardonable sin that all mankind were cursed
for, until at the present time it is not generally penal
among the most enlightened nations to declare any
proposition that the propounder believes. No
greater proof can be adduced to show the utter un-
reliability of the ancient legends relating abnormal
supernatural and miraculous events, than the readi-
ness of men and women of recent times, up to the
present day, to follow after and believe in charlatans
and impostors of questionable character and stupid
pretence, under the guise of divine inspiration and
plenary revelation. Men are so anxious to hear from
the other world they have been taught to believe in,
that they will run after and follow any pretended
messenger that assumes to bring tidings therefrom,
the truth of which these impostors know their credu-
lous neophytes have no power to refute. It is sad to
note that the fundamental belief of all the various
xxvi

Knttoirttttfon

sectarists of the Christian Church, dominating the
highest civilization, furnishes the most potent argu-
ment to sustain the pretenders to supernatural rev-
elation ; for it is clear that if any supernatural revela-
tion, plenary inspiration, or other miraculous event
or communication was ever vouchsafed to man there
can be no denial that such an event is not only pos-
sible, but very probable, in a cultivated age more
capable of appreciating it than in former times. One
of the strongest reasons for doubting the truthful-
ness of all historic relations of supernatural events
or revelations is their utterly unprovable existence
in modern times, notwithstanding the positive as-
sertion of innumerable witnesses that are willing to
testify, and in some cases may believe in miraculous
events now taking place.

XXVll

Contents

I. Early Religions ....

II. The God of the Old Testament

III. Christ's Advent and Mission

IV. Christ's Character and Parables
V. Christ's Miracles and Resurrection

VI. The Sermon on the Mount

VII. The Christian Religion —John's Gos

pel

VIII. Christian Doctrine and Rule .

IX. The Christian Dogmas .

X. Christianity Compared

XI. " Revelations "

XII. Miracles ....

XIII. Our Present Knowledge

XIV. Our Present Status

XV. Recapitulation

XVI. The Genesis of Christianity

XVII. The Status of Human Attainment

XVIII. Man's Present Status .

Appendix

3i

56

98

122

132

144

151
172
196
209
223
230
240
247
254
267
278
287
295

The Origin of
Supernatural Conceptions

CHAPTER I.

EARLY RELIGIONS

When prehistoric man emerges from the nebulous
epoch and first appears in tangible form to the mod-
ern investigator, he is found surrounded by works
of elaborate art, in some particulars transcending
all the works of his successors in magnitude and
accomplishment. This shows a state of high cul-
tivation, that must have required untold ages to
have perfected. In critically examining these po-
tent remains of early attainments, aided by the re-
corded thought of primitive culture, we note an
elaborate perception and investigation of nature
with which the world teemed.

Modern investigation shows that there were upon
the earth hundreds of centuries ago monsters of pro-
digious size and hideous mien, many of which have
been recently unearthed. While some of these prod-

3i

&f)t ©rtflfn of

igies may not have survived the advent of man, he,
no doubt, gained his vivid pictures of the horrible
and awful from the realities he saw in nature. The
dragons and other apparent prodigies drawn by
Eastern nations were but exaggerations pictured
by imaginative minds excited by the marvels exist-
ent at the dawn of man's ingress, which may have
disappeared since that time.

Ages prior to any record that we have of men con-
gregated into communities they were governed by
matured laws, and ideas of right and wrong, of good
and evil, with a subserviency to ruling powers.
Their laws were at that early period united with
elaborate religious dogmas, upon which authority
was founded ; thus, the free thought of man had be-
gun to be subordinated to creeds and traditions that
have shackled and curtailed man's progress through-
out historic time.

In searching for the origin of the innumerable re-
ligious beliefs of the world, which ages have formu-
lated and consolidated into habits, and modes of
thought, that have crystallized into the usages of
advancing civilization with cultured people, an in-
vestigator should be sure that an antagonism to
existing creeds is based on an honest and sincere
desire to attain a higher civilization, and sounder

32

Sttiiertiatttval Qonttptiom

moral culture, than the present status affords.
While sweeping away fictitious cults, believed in
for ages, he should have in mind the attainment
of the highest standard in morals, and the greatest
happiness of all his fellow men. When a man
attempts to change the current of thought and
belief of the world he is surrounded by, with all
its vested rights and interests at stake, which to-
day form most potent factors in modern society,
the task is of Herculean proportions. But the truth
is cogent, above all other interests or assumed
rights, however ancient or consolidated, built upon
fictitious foundations.

In looking backward through the maze of primi-
tive thought for a rational clue to the earlier stages
in the evolution of man's mental efforts, beyond the
limits of scientific proof, it may be permissible
to extend our theories into the unknown, if we are
guided by logical deductions from the storehouse
of accumulated facts, that are attested by a strictly
scientific investigation of known phenomena —
with the distinct understanding, however, that
every assumption may be controverted by a better
theory, if it can be adduced.

It would seem from the generally received laws
of evolution, that when the mental powers of man

33

ffii)fr ©Viflftl Of

had developed into thoughts and observations of,
and deductions from, his surroundings, he would
realize the fact that the numerous natural objects
of his cognizance were there by no cause within
his knowledge; from them he received his food
and, as he progressed, his shelter; they were avail-
able to supply his wants. Could the intellect of
man as now recognized long remain satisfied with
a passive reception of those goods — when by their
failures he suffered — without striving to find out,
or account for, their origin and source? The low-
est mental effort would suggest there was a power
beyond his cognition.

If this interpretation of the earliest denouement
of the active brain of developed man is correct,
no abnormal power is manifested in the poetical
legends, and historical aberrations evolved by the
imagination inherent in the human mind from a
misconception or distortion of facts.

In early childhood we have examples of the con-
structive power of the imagination, and brave tales
are evolved from fertile sources of child lore, of
which nursery rhymes are but an adulterated echo.
The primitive man had all the imagination of
childhood, with maturer mind, unrestricted by
modern culture.

34

As various objects appeared spontaneously, with-
out man's effort, it was obviously natural for him
to assume a being existed that produced them;
and as it was natural for him to assume that they
were created for his good, it seems to be indisputa-
able that he would seek to propitiate the unknown
power that made them. As these objects were
so various and distinct one from another, and as
his enemies were supplied with them as well as
himself, it would seem impossible for him to be-
lieve they were all produced by the same Deity;
therefore, his imagination readily supplied a host
sufficient for the purpose. Hence we find in the
earliest records the notable phenomena of nature
personified and deified.

In the earliest Hindu Vedas we can trace the
sublime conceptions of nature, causing, govern-
ing, and directing the objects provided, in accord-
ance with a seemingly ungoverned will in the author
that appeared capricious and anomalous. Thus
were noted devastating winds, storms, thunders,
earthquakes, volcanoes; to terrify man for his
assumed transgressions; sometimes to avenge him
against his enemies; and as menaces against the
human race for its derelictions. Such were the
aspects of nature to primitive man, sublime and

35

©D* ©ttfltn of

beneficent, or terrific and vengeful; personified
by fatherly care and paternal love, or stern and
unrelenting punishment, to suit the varying moods
of the gods.

By the every- day experiences of life man was
confirmed in the belief of an extraneous power
that produced the varied results so constantly wit-
nessed by him. This caused him to ponder and
construct, in his imagination, ideal gods, of a nature
and with attributes analogous to the human race.

As man's gregarious experience taught him to
propitiate the most powerful — a trait common
with all gregarious animals — he strove to placate
the unseen deity he could not cope with, which his
imagination had wrought into innumerable forms,
with attributes still more innumerable; while na-
ture's laws, acquired either by experience or innate
mental reasoning, caused him to organize a world
of spirits dominated by a supreme head, or God, —
a belief that has assumed control over the thoughts
and convictions of mankind in an endless variety
of forms, in striving to delineate the unknowable,
up to the present day, and which is as firmly ad-
hered to now as it was at the beginning of historic
time, with the assumed authority of supernatural
revelation.

36

Supernatural <&$nttptiimu

Thus at the dawn of human association the
organized communities, as appears from the ear-
liest records now extant, were striving for the un-
known origin of themselves and their surroundings
which caused them to build up vague theories of
antecedent powers that brought forth the various
objects with which they were associated, — things
not made by any power known to them. Thus
gods were elaborated with characteristics in accord-
ance with human experience, observation, and im-
aginings, formed by the untutored minds of the
authors, with attributes to suit the multiplex phe-
nomena noted.

The earliest records of human thought describe
the origin of man, whose mind not being controlled
by laws or facts, wandered ad libitum without re-
straint. Thus was conceived a spirit world, whose
habitat was above the immovable world we inhabit,
devoted to the gods who made them. These gods
being invisible were described and represented
with minuteness. None of the legends or sacred
writings that are claimed to be revelations, which
give a history of the origin of the world and its in-
habitants, with the heavens located above the ' ( fir-
mament," agree with the known facts of nature;
which proves that those assumed revelations were

37

mere human inventions, by authors ignorant of
the cosmos now undisputed.

In tracing the course of progressive thinking,
from the dawn of nebulous history to the present
time, the earliest recorded conceptions show a
belief in the existence of a superior power by whom
mankind was dominated, and rewarded as ac-
corded with its supreme ungoverned will, or pun-
ished, if not averted by the prayers and supplica-
tions of its worshippers, who could thus modify
its purpose.

At first the god seems to have been limited to
the individual or the family, originating the fetishes,
which were not the gods of other people. Subse-
quently clannishness elevated the tribal deity above
those of other tribes, which was a fruitful source
of many wars and much strife between contending
nations, waged to determine their assumptive claims
to territory and power. Finally the multiplicity
of gods came to be a source of sublime incentive
and art motive, with a ruling godhead over all,
in accordance with established human institutions.

Thus was the household god of primitive man
expanded by his creative imagination into complex
mythologies, that gradually culminated in a su-
preme creator. Such was, apparently, the evo-

38

lutionary source and development of human im-
pulse to worship.

The pertinent saying that ' ' an honest God would
be the noblest work of man" has never been ac-
complished; all the gods yet portrayed are mani-
festly the imperfect conceptions of man; they are
simply the embodiment of the highest compre-
hension of the age in which they were delineated.
The constant endeavor of man has been to formu-
late and materialize an originator of the world and
its concomitants, who was the author of his being.

The multitudinous nations that peopled the
Eastern world were fruitful in creating systems of
belief in gods and religious creeds, derived gen-
erally as we have said from natural objects, and
the observation of inherent phenomena, more or
less etherealized, but all resting on the assumption
that the earth was the stable centre of the visible
universe.

The records we now have of the earliest thought
are probably the Hindu Vedas. They are a re-
fined spiritual sentimentality, not exceeded in after-
time. Their aim was to teach men to live a pure
and blameless life, and by austerity and self-denial
to attain perfect happiness hereafter. A God,
the creator of all things, was formulated, who as-

39

Z$t (Bviain of

sumed various incarnations, and there were other
divinities who enacted innumerable spiritualistic
parts, in aid or punishment of humanity. The
civilization in which this religion culminated was
dominated by a priesthood, who taught its superi-
ority over all others, and inaugurated the doctrine
of castes with which Hindustan is cursed to the
present day. This religion predominated India,
whose wonderful temples — the remains of which
are still standing — dwarf all modern religious
structures, and even now display a grandeur unap-
proached in modern times. The temples through-
out India are as numerous as their religious dog-
mas, the metaphysical character of which we do
not propose to discuss. Many of their legends
have been plagiarized and adopted with modifica-
tions by subsequent religions down to the present
day, together with their moral teachings.

Succeeding the teachings of the Vedas came the
doctrine of Buddha, abolishing the castes, and in
many other ways improving the religion of his
followers. Buddha taught an equality of the hu-
man race, and controverted many objectionable
features of Brahmanism; he taught self-abnega-
tion, a pure life, and self-immolation, with an un-
natural abstention from all natural impulses, much

40

Sttjiemattttal Conceptions

of which has been practised by other religious dev-
otees in after-times.

The Egyptian mythology was developed into a
highly supernatural and metaphysical religion;
evolving a strict moral code, that exalted good-
ness and purity in this life — a record being kept
of each individual, to be brought forth at the judg-
ment of the deceased, to determine his future re-
ward or punishment.

The 125th chapter of the "Book of the Dead"
contains the oldest code of private and public mo-
rality. The catalogue of forty-two sins for which
punishment is prescribed furnishes an example
of moral discrimination and high purpose quite as
cogent as is found in any subsequent religions.

It is understood by eminent scholars that the
Egyptian religion is monotheistic, and that the
multiplicity of gods is only due to the personifica-
tion of his attributes and offices. M. Emmanuel
Rouge, a profound Egyptologist, says: "No one
has called in question the fundamental meaning
of the principal passages by the help of which we
are able to establish what ancient Egypt has taught
concerning God, the world, and man. I said God,
not Gods, is the Unity most energetically expressed ;
God, One, Sole and Only; no others with him —

41

Z$t ©tiflin of

he is the only being — living in truth — thou art
One and millions of beings proceed from thee —
he has made everything, and he alone has not been
made." "The clearest, the simplest, the most
precise conception." He adds: "How reconcile
the unity of God with the Egyptian polytheism.
History and geography will perhaps elucidate the
matter. The Egyptian religion comprehends a
quantity of local worships. The Egypt which
Menes brought together under his sceptre was
divided into nomes, each having a capital town;
each of these regimes had its principal god desig-
nated by a special name, but always the same doc-
trine which reappears under a different name.
One idea predominates, that of a single primeval
God. Everywhere and always it is one substance,
self- existent, and an unapproachable God."

The drawings, inscriptions, and papyrus manu-
scripts of Egypt, brought to light in recent years
by modern investigation, display deep research
of the human mind in its inquest for truth, joined
to a priestly desire for controlling the people, which
all history shows to be intuitive.

The casual instances of abnormal intellect, as
well as any other characteristics that have aston-
ished the world from time to time by a display of

42

Supernatural conceptions

profound knowledge and wisdom which seemed
superhuman ; the creation of the demigods, prophets,
and giants, exaggerated by tradition and imagina-
tion to account for the unknown, plunged in the
oblivion of antiquity were fruitful agents; the out-
come of this resulted in the mythologies that have
been developed in every aggregation of men, how-
ever barbarous, antique, or anomalous their leg-
ends.

The Greek and Roman mythologies, in their ef-
fort to create a higher mental elevation, elaborated
complex and poetical systems that raised high art
and poetry to an excellence hardly yet attained
in later times. The Greek sages reasoned with
profound sagacity on physical truths and mental
culture, with a keen perception almost prophetic.
Pythagoras, some six hundred years before our
era, declared God to be "neither the object of
sense, nor subject to passion; invincible, who is
not, as some are apt to imagine, seated above the
world, but being himself all in all, he sees all beings
that fill his immensity." Such was the advanced
teaching of Pythagoras, who inculcated a daily
investigation of our life and actions as a source of
improvement, which equals the sublimest teaching
of the foremost moralists.

43

2Tfie ©trifltn of

Confucius, some six hundred years before Christ,
announced the aphorism, "Do unto another that
you would he should do unto you ; and do not unto
another what you would not should be done unto
you; this is the foundation and principle of all
laws."

There are many ancient maxims showing a like
high attainment in morals set forth in the earliest
records, the fruits of man's mental processes, that
have not been excelled by any subsequent teach-
ings. They show the spontaneous outcome of
mind with its surroundings, aided by observation,
contemplation, and experience. To enhance the
authority of these sayings they were sometimes
attributed to divine revelation, while they were
often commingled with egoistic impulses and su-
perstitions, coupled with an intolerant desire to
extirpate adverse views in others, which led to
barbarous acts such as no other cause ever produced,
and from which men are now only partly freed
through the heroic warfare of modern science,
unaided by religion, which has burst the shackles
of restraining theology and antagonizing dogma.

The world has teemed from earliest times with
divers religions, each one asserting its claim to a
divine revelation, with miracles and divine com-

44

mands as its origin. Most of these religions are
subdivided into numerous sects, often differing
widely, and as bitterly opposed to each other as
to antagonistic religions. From earliest times
creeds have been the cause of contention and bloody
wars between rival sects, with virulent anathemas
and persecutions for deviations from the current
belief which have not been exceeded, if they have
been equalled, by any other incentive in the world's
history.

It is apparent there is no undisputed infallible
proof of the truth of any religion; they are all de-
veloped from legends more or less fabulous, or of
events assumed to be of supernatural origin, in
which the marvellous phenomena described an-
tagonize all the natural laws of the universe that
are now clearly established by the research of
modern science.

There is no axiom truer, than that every aver-
ment claiming to be a divine revelation, or the
word of God, must be in accordance with and in
no particular contravene the immutable laws of
nature, or the invariable course of the universe,
of which the ancients were entirely ignorant, but
which are now within the knowledge of every school-
boy. Has there ever been a religion promulgated

45

ffiijt Attain of

that can survive that test? Is there not ample
evidence that the originators of all existing relig-
ions, as well as those they have superseded, were
totally ignorant of the cosmology developed by
modern investigation?

A search into ancient traditions for the purpose
of ascertaining the mental culture of their authors
is interesting and instructive; but to adopt their
legends as facts would be credulous, while to give
their records of miraculous events an authorita-
tive meaning, in the light of present knowledge,
is mendacious. Modern theologians promulgate
ancient religious dogmas and creeds with the as-
sumption that they were derived from a super-
natural source (as if the ancients had some foun-
tain containing a knowledge, of which the later
and better informed ages are deprived), and that
these teachings by divine revelation transcend
modern science, and have achieved for man what
science is unable to do, proposing to impart to him
an assurance of future existence, while they are
shown to be totally ignorant of the status of the
present one; yet men still cling to the conception
of a future life, based on some crude and notably
erroneous narratives on which to rest their faith,
regardless of ascertained fact.

46

Supernatural QonttptiOM

The investigation of ancient legends displaying
human thought, by which we can trace man's slow
progress toward true knowledge (the light of which
is just beginning to dawn on us), is intensely inter-
esting; but to receive such a record as a divine
revelation is fallacious. Every fact, and every
legend, from whatever source it comes, should be
analyzed by the light of present knowledge.

Many systems of obsolete belief have left won-
derful monuments of massive grandeur that dis-
play the earnest faith of their devotees in the deity
and religion they were built to perpetuate; they
far exceed in magnitude, grandeur, and magnifi-
cence all the efforts of modern times.

At Ellora, in Central India, is located a mar-
vellous group of grotto temples that well illustrate
the intense religious ardor of their originators.
These excavations are hewn in a chain of moun-
tains within a circuit of six miles. There are many
large temples with occasional smaller ones between
them, all hewn from the solid rock, a hard red
granite, with primitive tools and the patient labor
of that early time. The largest of these structures
is called Kailasa (Siva's Paradise). It is a hun-
dred feet high and 142 feet long. On each side
of the colonnades at the entrance are large sphinxes.

47

A row of enormous elephants seems to sustain the
superimposed rock and produces an awe-inspir-
ing effect. The extent and number of these exca-
vated works can hardly be imagined, — entire
pyramidal temples standing in open courts, peri-
styles, staircases, bridges, chapels, porticoes, obe-
lisks, columns, tanks, and a great number of co-
lossal statues ten and twelve feet high. At the
sides of the temples there are chambers, appar-
ently for the priests, cut out of the solid rock, en-
closures surrounded by columns sustain three gal-
leries, one above another.

There are an immense number of small grottoes
seemingly intended to accommodate thousands of
pilgrims. On some of the walls are Sanscrit in-
scriptions, and all the surfaces, including the col-
umns, are covered with sculptures, some of which
are painted in bright colors still visible. Travel-
lers declare "the variety, richness, and skill dis-
played in these ornaments surpass all description."
Erskine says "the first view of this desolate relig-
ious city is grand and striking, but melancholy.
The number and magnificence of the subterra-
nean temples, the extent and loftiness of some, the
endlessness and diversity of sculpture in others,
the variety of curious foliage, of minute tracery,

48

Supernatural Conceptions

highly wrought pillars, rich mythological designs,
sacred shrines, and colossal statues astonish and
distract the mind. The empire whose pride they
must have been has passed away, and left no other
memorial behind it." This shows that advancing
knowledge begins to realize the folly of attempting
to perpetuate any dogmatic religion, which must
be temporary and fugacious, by colossal struc-
tures. In this particular the world will grow wiser,
notwithstanding the fanatical fervor of the mod-
ern idolaters who would again curse the world with
theological rule.

Ponderous temples representing bygone relig-
ions are of less account than formerly; they are
not needed for imposing primitive worship, with
its majestic processions and mystic rites, that have
lost their significance with people more advanced,
who cannot be so easily duped by pompous cere-
mony.

The intellectual world now generally under-
stands that in the order of creation there has been
a slow but constant development in organized life,
from protoplasm to man; and pari passu with the
advancement of structure there has been a pro-
gression of intelligence. This advancement can
be traced from the most feeble indication of respon-

49

ED* dbvisiu of

sive sensation up to the ever varying and con-
stantly increasing perfection of defined and cor-
rect thought attained by man. It is to be noted
that this advancement follows the acquisition of
a knowledge of undeviating natural laws, which
produces a more perfect development of thought
as structural perfection increases.

While the progress of mental expansion is thus
traceable, no cataclysm is found in its history;
no period is found in which any race or people
has been suddenly advanced from barbarism, or
a low degree of civilization, to a high perception
of right and wrong, by a new religion. In the in-
tercourse of man with his fellow man, no abrupt
development has been achieved in consequence
of belief in any religion or dogma taught by a su-
pernatural guide. When any rapid change in re-
ligion has been effected, it has been done by coer-
cion, or an unreasoning faith that shows a singular
tendency in the human mind to follow the pre-
tended seers of the unknowable. The neophytes
have rarely improved their morals with their ac-
ceptance of a creed; all real advancement is a
slow process of the reasoning powers, almost im-
perceptible, requiring mental effort and education.

New truths are received by mankind with re-
5°

Supernatural Groucqrttoua

luctance, which arises from a pertinacity engendered
by early training, that often takes centuries to re-
move after the facts have been proved by scientific
investigation; while a new religion, however fan-
tastic, that claims to be of spiritual and supernat-
ural origin, which treats of an unknown world,
with divine promises of a happy future life, is fol-
lowed with eager belief by unreasoning multitudes.

This predisposition to superstition, religious and
political leaders avail themselves of, by confirm-
ing the doubting, and exalting the mystical. Either
from a fear of disturbing the present order of so-
ciety, to the detriment of vested interests and leg-
islative enactments, or for venal and selfish pur-
poses, they succeed in misleading the credulous
and in retaining power.

The more extensive a research into the religions
elaborated by man is made, from the earliest times
to the present, the clearer the certainty appears,
that no comprehensible fact was ever attained by
him that was not entirely within the compass of
his mental reasoning powers, which required no
revelation from superhuman intelligence or other
abnormal source. It is apparent on critical in-
vestigation, that the world we live in, and the in-
finity of orbs we are surrounded by, were not de-

51

JCfje ©rfflfn of

signed for man alone, who is but an incident in
the multiplicity of living entities, — highest and
most perfect on this sphere, — but not controlling
the independent existences with which this world
teems, and with which the universe is probably
rilled, that have no dependence on man's advent
or status.

The preceding sketch of the advent of man clearly
shows certain indubitable facts from which subse-
quent events can be interpreted. We learn since
the development of man in his present stage of
mentality that great nations were aggregated, with
laws and moral codes in accordance with their
views, under which they were organized. The
Chinese claim an antiquity of some ten thousand
years, their tradition beginning with a mythic fable
of a derivation from the gods. Their subsequent
development was enriched with philosophical rea-
soning culminating in the profound teacher Con-
fucius, who gave to the world the golden rule of
strict equity by man to his fellow man. The Chi-
nese were a highly civilized nation when Europe
was in a state of barbarism.

In the populous territory of India a sect sprang
up which spread with unexampled rapidity, originat-
ing in the teachings of an ascetic, Buddha, which

52

Supernatural eoiutytioti*

was embraced by a larger number of people than
any other religion extant, and at the present day,
according to Prof. Max Muller, it is probably em-
braced by four hundred and fifty millions, or one-
third of the human race. This religion, a detail of
which we shall give hereafter, was promulgated
more than five hundred years B. c. It was preceded
by the Brahmanical faith that is still retained in
India by hosts of followers. These religions were
believed to have been inspired miraculously with
innumerable spiritual manifestations of their foun-
der, whose writings were believed to be inspired.

In an age of which we have no certain history, a
great nation was organized in Egypt, the remains of
whose temples and tombs still astonish the world by
their extent and grandeur ; fortunately much of their
written history has been preserved, from which we
learn the religion and moral teaching of that ancient
people, that has become extinct in modern times,
leaving only the monuments of its wonderful civili-
zation to succeeding ages. In later times we have
the Greek mythology, with its poetical anthology,
and the Roman gods and goddesses with which our
classical literature is filled.

The indisputable historical facts show us that the
human race attained its present status and has been

S3

indefinitely prolonged prior to historic time, which
modern investigation shows us has been extended
by a progression of evolution through unknown
myriads of years; and that from the earliest times
of which we have any trace the fully developed mind
of man has been striving to find out the origin of
creation, and the purpose of its existence. As these
questions were unanswerable, man's creative imagi-
nation began to formulate a first cause or causes, to
account for the tangible creation visible to him,
which has naturally resulted in the multiplicity of
dogmas that the subtle brain of man developed from
his varied contact with nature; hence the multitudi-
nous sects were elaborated with which man strove
to elucidate the unknown.

We have no clearer knowledge of the purpose of
this wonderful creation (so complete from beyond
microscopic minuteness to the unfathomable count-
less systems of spheres) than man had at the begin-
ning of history ; nor is it probable we will ever attain
an exposition of it in this world. The beginning and
end of time, of space, or matter, are equally beyond
man's perception. There is no term more flip-
pantly bandied by theologians and others than eter-
nity, a correct conception of which is entirely be-
yond the capabilities of the human mind, yet a

54

Supernatural <&onttptiom

knowledge of its purport is claimed by most
religions.

Passing over further details of the primitive aber-
rations of religious thought and action, with which
the world's literature abounds, we will direct our
succeeding investigations to the study of Jewish the-
ology and the Christian religion now dominant in
Europe and America, in which we propose to enter
into greater details, as they control the religious be-
lief of those nations in which the greatest advance
has been made in a knowledge of creation, a knowl-
edge attained by the successful war which science
has achieved against religious dogma that is now
struggling to reconcile itself with scientific truth to
retain the prestige which its dogmatists heretofore
strenuously repudiated.

55

arjje ©rffliti of

CHAPTER II.

THE GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT

The Jews were descendants of a nomadic race
that finally settled in Canaan, after driving out its
inhabitants, with great slaughter and cruelty toward
those whom they dispossessed. This tribe assumed
to have been held in servile bondage by the King of
Egypt, from whom they escaped, and led an itiner-
ant life without apparent purpose for many years.
They were a turbulent race, as appears from their
record, sometimes worshipping the God of Moses,
and at other times repudiating him. They traversed
desert countries and became a warlike people. Fi-
nally they emerged from the wilderness, and after
spying out the coveted land of Canaan, they took
possession of it under the dubious claim of a gift
from their God to their progenitor Abraham.

They consolidated and became a kingdom; and
by the theological teachings of their prophets they
lauded their God above those of other nations, al-

56

though they did not deny the existence of them. In
their traditions they were God's chosen people, es-
pecially favored by him above all other nations.
Their Scriptures, as they come down to us, were com-
piled, or written from traditions, after their return
from captivity in Babylon. They claimed descent
from Abraham, who was a nomad belonging to one
of the minor tribes of Asia, of which nothing is re-
corded showing any peculiar enlightenment, or a
connection with the more civilized and prominent
nations; no apparent superiority or special reason
is given why Abraham should have been selected by
God as his chosen favorite above all other people,
whose descendants he promised to make a dominant
nation. The Jews finally sublimated their God as
the Creator of heaven and earth, with attributes like
those described in the Babylonian legends and
myths of other Eastern nations.

The Jews were never a dominant nation, and
were at last conquered by the Babylonians, by whom
they were held captive for many years. Their rela-
tions with their captors were intimate, with full op-
portunity to become familiar with their literature
and sacred legends. On their return from captivity
Ezra gathered the traditions of his people and com-
piled their history. In those annals the legends of

57

&t}t #riflin of

their captors are largely interpolated, and modified
to harmonize with their own traditions.

Among the earlier conceptions of creation on rec-
ord, brought to light by research in modern times,
are those deciphered from Babylonian and Assyrian
tablets, in which is found a description of the creation
from which the accounts in Genesis were evidently
drawn. These were attributed to Moses, who, as
has been conclusively proved by modern investiga-
tion, was not their author. With these facts before
us much light is thrown on the other books of the Old
Testament, as a traditional compilation from un-
written legends. The precepts, laws, and usages set
forth in them are primitive, and not above the teach-
ings of uninspired sages in earliest times ; their mun-
dane origin is clearly proved by their dereliction from
the established facts of the known imiverse.

In a recently published work by a learned theolo-
gian, the Rev. Elwood Worcester, D. D., entitled
"The Book of Genesis in the Light of Modern
Knowledge,' ' he thus frankly writes: "As regards
the Book of Genesis, the general result of a century 's
work is something like this : Moses is not believed
to be the author of the Pentateuch ; the Pentateuch
is not the composition of any one man, nor of any
one time. It does not, however, consist of a number

of fragments thrown together haphazard, but of three
or four separate compositions, well denned and for
the most part easy to detach from one another, which
run through the entire Pentateuch and the Book of
Joshua." He says: "They contain statements that
so flatly contradict each other, that we are obliged
to choose one or the other, but cannot take both."
(Would it not be more rational to reject both?)

Doctor Worcester says : ' ' The composition by one
mind is unthinkable, unless the author wrote with
reckless haste and cared nothing about contradict-
ing himself half a dozen times in as many lines."
But what shall be said of the compiler who pub-
lishes these contradictions as divine teachings?
Doctor Worcester's version is, that they were good
stories which the compiler did not wish to spoil by
correction. Very well for the stories, but fatal to
their claim as revelations.

In comparing Genesis to modern thought, he says
of modern history : ' ' Everything therein occurs in a
perfectly natural way, and important events are hap-
pening on purely natural grounds. Such things as
the immediate interference of God, immediate mes-
sages from God, prophetic dreams, et cetera, are
never mentioned. We turn to Genesis, however,
and feel this difference. There God appears to men

59

constantly, under one form or another. He speaks
to them face to face. He makes clothes for Adam
and Eve. He appears to Jacob in a dream. He
curses one man and he blesses another. " This clear-
headed writer further says: "If a man to-day were
to write a history of our late war with Spain in the
style of the Genesis, it would be painful to us in the
highest degree, and we should set the writer down
either utterly deluded or as a daring blasphemer."
" While some may believe God has changed his
methods," Doctor Worcester says, "the educated
will find it less easy to believe God has changed so
much, than to believe man's views have changed.
What at one time seemed perfectly natural for God
to do, seems not only on natural grounds improbable,
but on moral grounds, for God to do to-day. We
prefer," says Doctor Worcester, "to preserve our
ideal untarnished by the soiling touch of Genesis."
Doctor Worcester states plainly that " the stories of
creation, of Paradise, the story of the fall, of Noah's
flood, and the Tower of Babel, are myths, and exist
in the traditions of other nations." He adds, how-
ever, "The truth does not lie in the supposed fact,
but in the lessons that are drawn from it." And he
asks the pertinent question, "What is the Book
of Genesis ? ' ' adding, strangely, ' ' We all admit, I

60

presume, that it is an inspired book! " — a myth, a
fable, inspired!

Are we sane — normally perfect mentally — or
is some organ of the brain possessed by Doctor Wor-
cester wanting, or atrophied in us, that we cannot
admit his conclusion logically? A mythic fable, al-
though believed in for ages as historical and in-
spired, is to us an untenable proposition. The
misconception of nature's laws and the known
order of creation displayed in Genesis has been a
fruitful subject of explanation, comment, apology,
and strained interpretation by learned theologians
and others, to harmonize it with the proved facts
of modern scientific investigation; but the devia-
tion of the legend from known truths is too appar-
ent to be successfully rescued from the category of
the fabulous.

This is the foundation upon which the Jewish
and Christian religions are based ; it is the source of
Biblical theology that is referred to as divine au-
thority in the succeeding books of the Bible. In
those books are found sublime thoughts and moral
maxims, like those displayed in preceding and con-
temporary religious records; but the attributes de-
picted of the Hebrew God display a primitive
and barbarous character difficult to reconcile with

61

the idea of an omnipotent Creator of the uni-
verse.

The tradition of the origin of the Jews corre-
sponds with the character and portrayal of their
God; with whom the gods of other nations were at
rivalry and war. After their captivity we note they
attributed to him the creation of heaven and earth,
and copied from the Babylonians their legends of
creation that we have seen in the record of their
literature, in which is related the six days1 creation,
so perspicuously stated that no special pleading
can claim for it a Hebrew origin, although a vast
amount of intellect has been expended in trying to
harmonize this legend with known fact.

If we carefully analyze Genesis it begins with the
creation by God. On the first day it is recorded he
created from chaos the earth, in utter darkness (how
chaos came to be is not told) ; he also created light
(from what source is not named ; it certainly was
not from the sun, which was afterward created).
He alternated light and darkness into day and night
(the cause of which is not stated), thus marking
time, and forming the evening and morning of the
first day.1 On the second day he divided the waters

1 There has been much discussion about the word day in the
Genesis, but the term is clearly defined in the commandments at-

62

Supernatural dtonttptiom

that covered the earth, by means of a " firmament "
which separated the waters that were raised up by
it from those that rested upon the earth.1 This fir-
mament God called "heaven;" this was the work
of the second day. On the third day the waters
below were gathered into one place, and the dry
land appeared, which God called the earth ; he also
created grass, herbs, and fruit-trees. On the fourth
day, after he had created light, he caused two orbs
to be placed in the " firmament " (on which the waters
were supported that were separated from the waters

tributed to God and given to Moses, to keep the seventh day holy,
in commemoration of the day on which he rested, after his six
days' labor. That meaning of the word was never questioned by
Jew or Christian, until science demonstrated its error. The
seventh day was observed by the early Christians, until the Em-
peror Constantine substituted by an edict, a.d. 321, the holy day
of the sun-worshippers for constrained worship. The edict is as
follows: " Let all judges and people of the town rest, and all the
various trades be suspended on the venerable day of the sun.
Those who live in the country, however, may freely and without
fault attend to the cultivation of the fields, lest, with the loss of
favorable opportunity, the commodities offered by Heaven be
destroyed." (Just, code, III., Tit. 12.) Constantine seems to
have been more rational than our modern legislators, realizing
the fact that nature ignores rest on Sunday. From that time
the Christian world has kept Sunday, ignoring the seventh day.
1 This description can only mean a fixed canopy, the empyrean,
bounding a space above the earth, retaining waters, and sustain-
ing heaven; this was its interpretation until science proved its fal-
lacy and banished heaven from that location.

63

2CJ)t <&xiQin of

upon the earth) ; one of these orbs was to light the
day, the other to light the night.1 On this fourth
day "he made the stars also" Such is the divine
revelation of the creation of the infinity of planets,
each one immeasurably bigger than this earth, the
formation of which was all accomplished on the
fourth day, ajter the creation of the earth.

Five days were expended upon this little orb,
and a part of one day on the rest of the creation !
(Could profound ignorance deviate further from
the known truth?) Great whales and all the other
inhabitants of the sea "the water brought forth
abundantly ; " those and every winged fowl were
created on the fifth day. On the sixth day God
made the beasts of the earth and cattle, " and every-
thing that creepeth upon the earth." And God
said, "Let us make men in our image, with domin-
ion over the fish of the sea, fowl of the air, cattle,
and every creeping thing."

In God's image man was created, and on the

,To give light to the world, according to the record, was the
only purpose the sun and moon were created for. The writer had
no idea of their comparative magnitude with that of the earth.
No mention is made of the most vitally important function of the
sun as the centre of this system, or its heat-giving and vivifying
power, which are wholly ignored. The sun, according to this
record, was created after the earth.

64

Stijietttattttral <&onttptiom

seventh day God rested from all his work, and he
blessed the seventh day because he then rested.

The legend says God made man in his image;
that is, in his shape and personality; an organized,
formulated being, like the gods of other nations —
of Hindustan, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. God
breathed the breath of life into Adam, and he be-
came a living man, without gestation or infancy.1

After preparing a garden for his habitation, in
which God planted two trees of forbidden fruit as
a temptation, and placed Adam therein, he then
said: "It is not good that man should be alone; I
will make a helpmeet for him." So he caused a
deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and purloined a rib
from him, of which he made a woman, and gave
her to Adam (no doubt a very happy exchange for
his rib, the loss of which he did not feel in his sleep).
At that time they were naked, and so ignorant were
they that they did not know it ; but, with a natural
craving for knowledge, they ate the forbidden fruit
that brought death as a penalty, and were enlight-
ened.2

1 To point out the radical difference between this account of
the creation and the facts of evolution, is a work of supereroga-
tion ; science rejects the story as fabulous.

2 The largest, oldest, and most active body of propagandists
now in the Christian Church teach that if Adam and Eve had

65

The introduction of the serpent to circumvent
God's command, though graphic, militates against
his omnipotence, and is clearly mythical. The in-
comprehensible feature of the incident seems to be
that God should desire to keep Adam and Eve in an
ignorance which he signally failed to do. The pun-
ishment of the serpent was unique: to crawl upon
his belly all the days of his life. (What the original
style of his locomotion was does not appear.) If
the numerous reptiles we now know that move in
that way are his descendants, we have another in-
stance of punishment for transmitted sin. This
fable, as interpreted by theologians, would not be
worth criticizing, but for the very serious conse-
quences to man, still believed in, of inherited sin
for Adam's transgression. "In Adam's fall we
sinned all," was the doctrine taught, and is not to

not eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge there would have
been no death in the world and mankind would live forever ! If,
however, this primitive pair had eaten of the tree of life first,
they would have escaped that penalty and have lived forever!
But they neglected their opportunity until God became aware of
their transgression, and ordered a guard for the tree of life, driv-
ing Adam and Eve out of the garden where they came so near
being co-equal with him. Whether the attributes conferred by
the tree of life would have descended to Adam's progeny as his
sin did (if he had had any progeny), we leave to the theologians
to determine.

66

Sttjjeruatmral <&<mttptiom

be doubted with safety by the elect ; it is the unques-
tioned belief, in the majority of Christian churches.
To seek for a logical reason for this irrational story,
which is still taught as the motive for God's irrevo-
cable decree of death to all mankind, and the raison
d'etre for Christ's advent, to be believed as an un-
questionable truth with unquestioning faith by all
true believers as a requisite for salvation would be
futile.

This ancient parable has evidently been mis-
construed by religionists and theologians. A ra-
tional interpretation shows that it is an attempt to
allegorize the advent of generation and its conse-
quent concomitant death — good and evil — as it
is called. The parable clearly illustrates the fact
that in the reproduction of life death must ensue,
and that the command of God to increase and mul-
tiply, for which he had especially organized all living
things, could only be continued by giving to each
a limited existence. Hence, what is made in the
parable a transmitted sin was in reality a necessity
prepared by God's special command; while to ac-
count for death, deemed an evil and curse, the story
of the transgression was fabricated, with its con-
comitant punishment. The unreasoning contra-
dictions in God's purposes involved had no weight

67

with the author of the legend, clearly displaying
its primitive character.

Passing over the crude, mythical legend of cre-
ation, with its stories of the Lord walking in the
garden in the cool of the day, and making gar-
ments for Adam and Eve, that the tree of knowl-
edge had not taught them to do; and his sons
courting the daughters of men (which has since
exercised the apologists in their effort to prove the
narrative divine) ; ending in the expulsion of our
disobedient ancestor, that entailed on modern the-
ology the dogma of original sin, and its sequent
a barbarous redemption by blood, a revolting ele-
ment for purification of a primitive age, we will
turn to some of the succeeding acts of God, as re-
corded in the Hebrew Scriptures, where the Noachian
deluge, drawn from Babylonian records, is described
with the episode of the bow in the clouds, first
displayed by God to seal his covenant with Noah,
as is claimed. To seriously criticize the fable
would be an act of folly ; it is sufficient to say that
the deeds there recorded could never have been
enacted without abrogating the immutable laws
that govern the universe. Like the story of the
creation, it was borrowed by the Jews from their
captors, and has been elaborated in various forms

68

Supernatural Conceptions

by primitive people the world over. It is simply
an ignorant and erroneous interpretation of mis-
understood natural phenomena.

The incomprehensible feature of these records
is God's favoritism toward certain persons singled
out from the rest of Noah's descendants, without
apparent reason, of whom he promised to make
a dominant nation for all time, whose God he would
be to the exclusion of all other people, fighting
against their adversaries. Such is the God of the
Old Testament, showing Abram to be the first
of these fondlings, whom he commanded to aban-
don his kinsfolk and go to the land he would give
him.1

Abram took his kinsman Lot with him, from
whom he afterward separated; and after numer-
ous vicissitudes he rescued Lot and the city of
Sodom, not then accursed, from their enemies.
When Abram wanted a confirmation of God's
promises to him, he offered a bloody sacrifice to
God, and then dreamed a confirmation ; yet Abram

1 It should be noted that this claim to a divine right of inher-
itance was written after the Israelites had taken possession of
the land of Canaan, and driven out its prior inhabitants, of whose
possessions they robbed them. The Jewish raiders claimed God
gave to their father Abraham this land, with the promise to
make Abraham's seed as the dust of the earth, innumerable.

69

W§t <©rf gin of

had to leave the land thus given to him, never to
return, and went into Egypt. There he was guilty
of deception and falsehood, which eventuated in
his becoming rich. This showed characteristics
that descended to his posterity in after-time.

The morals of Abram could hardly escape cen-
sure from the criminal or ethical code of modern
civilization. His treatment of Hagar would not
now be approved even in God's favorite ; although
at that time it seemed to impart immunity to the
elect in the transgression of every moral law.

Of this doctrine the Scotch Covenanters availed
themselves, well illustrated in "Holy Willie's
Prayer." God declared Abram perfect, and called
him Abraham in token thereof, binding himself
by covenant to Abraham and his seed after him,
giving to him and his seed the land of Canaan for
an everlasting possession, with a promise to be
their God, to aid them against all men. (The
world can now judge how far this promise has been
fulfilled.) The episode of the destruction of Sodom
so emphasizes the lack of omniscience in Abra-
ham's guest, as to stamp him quite human and
very impressible to Abraham's pleading.

A more vivid picture of a barbaric age than the
story of Lot can hardly be conceived; yet in very

70

&uptvwtuv%l eoiutptious

recent times it would have been heretical and im-
pious to advance a doubt of its truth, or that the
pillar of salt representing Lot's wife was not still
standing as a record of the truth of the story. Yet
this man Lot, according to the legend, was an in-
ebriate sot, who committed incest with his own
daughters, from the progeny of which nations
sprang. Such is the story of one of God's elect.

Isaac, a succeeding elect of the God of the He-
brews, was, from a human standpoint, far below
the rule of modern equity. In his old age he was
misled by the chicanery of Jacob and his mother
into blessing him, to the detriment of his brother,
whom Isaac thought he was blessing. It is singu-
lar that Isaac did not repudiate the fraud and
stranger still that God should sanction it.

The hermeneutic theologians declare the ways
of God to be inscrutable and just, though far above
our comprehension; yet the omnipotent Ruler
of the Universe sanctioned what we assume to be
evil. Thus God was controlled by Isaac's mis-
take, which he refused to correct, and adopted
Jacob as his next protege.

Jacob's vision of a communication with heaven
above by a ladder was based on the assumption
that the earth was stationary, and heaven located

71

above it, the common idea of that age, which mod-
ern science has dispelled. Jacob practised his sub-
tle course in his dealings with Laban, by whom
he had been deceived, in which they strove to over-
reach each other. Jacob, as was to be expected,
being the favorite of God, succeeded in outwit-
ing Laban, aided by his wife Rachel, who stole
her father's gods on leaving him. How Jacob's
God condoned this is not stated.

A notable act in Jacob's career was the deceit
and bad faith enacted against Hamor and his
people. Hamor made a treaty with the Israelites,
acting in good faith on his part, showing friendship
and a desire to fraternize with them; but when
the Israelites, by their deception, had rendered the
Hivites noncombatant, they rushed in and mur-
dered their allies. Such were the chosen people
of the Israelites' God.

The next favorite under the special care of
God was Joseph, who throughout his life had the
purest record of all God's chosen ones. He passed
through many trying vicissitudes with strict in-
tegrity. He was finally made ruler in Egypt, and
received his father and brethren there, and gave
them a home. The result of this immigration of
Jacob's family, after the death of their protector

72

Joseph, was a reduction to servile tasks and op-
pression, until rescued by Moses. The story of
their deliverance is one of the most contradictory
and illogical narratives in the Bible.

God, seeing the affliction of the Israelites in Egypt,
sent Moses to their rescue. He went reluctantly,
after much coercion, encouraged by God's turn-
ing his rod into a serpent. Moses and Aaron went
to Pharaoh and demanded the release of the Is-
raelites; but God frankly declared that he would
harden Pharaoh's heart, that he would not let
them go. This seems to have been done for no
apparent purpose but to afford an opportunity of
displaying God's power to Pharaoh. The demand
of Moses brought down severer tasks on the Is-
raelites, with a refusal to let them go, for the Lord
had hardened Pharaoh's heart that he might mul-
tiply his " signs and wonders." He tells Moses:
1 ' Pharaoh shall not hearken unto you, that I may
lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring out the chil-
dren of Israel with great judgments." When
Pharaoh asked them to show a miracle, Aaron
threw down his rod, as God commanded, and it
became a serpent; but the magicians of Egypt
threw down their rods and they became serpents,
proving that the magic of that feat was known to

73

them; but although Aaron's rod proved the strong-
est, the act as a miracle was destroyed. When
Moses and Aaron again demanded of Pharaoh the
release of their people, on his refusal they turned
the waters of Egypt into blood. This miracle the ma-
gicians readily imitated, showing it was not beyond
the power of their magic to compass, and was in
no way miraculous. The next attempt at miracu-
lous skill was producing frogs. The magicians
compassed that also, and produced frogs abun-
dantly. The frogs were probably not a gastro-
nomic delicacy then in Egypt, but a nuisance, so
Pharaoh agreed to let the Israelites go; but when
the frogs disappeared, Pharaoh, by God's direc-
tion, revoked his promise.

The next plague was lice and then flies infest-
ing the land of Egypt. The art of the magicians
could not descend to the production of these pes-
tiferous vermin, so Pharaoh consented to let the
Israelites go. But God had not done showing
his "signs and wonders" to Pharaoh; so he made
him still retain the Israelites through another series
of miracles, terminating in the destruction of the
first-born throughout all Egypt !

We will pause here to investigate these stupendous
miracles. God commanded Moses to demand of

74

Pharaoh the release of the Israelites, while at the
same time he caused Pharaoh to refuse to eman-
cipate them, for the purpose, as he frankly avows,
of displaying his might and power in a series of
miracles which were transcendently low, barbar-
ous, and vulgar; culminating in the horrible and
fiendish destruction of children and animals that had
in no way offended him, and were without power
to control or mitigate the decree of Pharaoh, which
in this case was the decree of God. If a more in-
iquitous act can be conceived by the most depraved
imagination, or one of more wanton cruelty and
injustice, we confess it is beyond our power of im-
agination.

When God had finished his display of wonders
and had executed his vengeance against Pharaoh,
whom he had caused to retain and oppress the
Israelites for that purpose, according to this ve-
racious revelation, he caused Pharaoh to assent
to the Israelites ' departure. Yet God had not
finished the exhibition of his marvels, so Pharaoh
was caused to remain unsubdued by all the plagues
under which he and his people suffered. This
gave another opportunity for a display of God's
power to finish the drama, ending in the destruc-
tion of Pharaoh's host in the Red Sea. Comment

75

JSCJje ©tiffin of

on this preposterous fable seems unnecessary. To
any one who cannot see the absurdity and incredi-
bility of the tale, reasoning is superfluous. It is
significant that no mention is made in Egyptian,
or other contemporary record, of any such potent
event, which could hardly have been omitted if
it had really occurred.

The Israelites left Egypt, it is related, after de-
spoiling, by God's command, their confiding neigh-
bors, the Egyptians, of their jewelry and other val-
uables, who inconceivably loaned them without
mistrust or unfriendly feeling toward their neigh-
bors, notwithstanding the terrible ordeal they had
passed through in the Israelites' struggle for free-
dom. (This betrayal of their friends may have been
the cause of the pursuit by the Egyptians after the
Israelites had absconded with the borrowed treas-
ure.) They wandered in the wilderness, or sparsely
populated regions, until they grew strong enough
for more ambitious conquests. When it finally ap-
peared that they had certain preemption rights in
Canaan, they proceeded to assert them by making
unprovoked war on the occupants of that country.

During the wanderings in the wilderness there
were, according to the record, many divine inter-
positions, as God led them by a pillar of fire at night,

76

and a pillar of cloud by day. Yet, with this visible
symbol of God's presence constantly before them,
they were dissatisfied and turbulent, often straying
after other gods, although assured that their God
was jealous and vindictive, visiting the sins of the
fathers upon the third and fourth generation. This
declaration of vengeance beyond the offender was
extended to the end of time in the descendants of
Adam, which is radically different from the code of
justice among enlightened people of the present
day. The painful efforts of theologians to harmon-
ize this crude dogma with modern ethics are pitiable
and fallacious, as in many other Biblical statements
contrary to proved facts.

The denunciations against making graven images
of other gods, or worshipping them, were terrible
and emphatic, and the Israelites were under the
most solemn obligations to refrain from the wor-
ship of any god but Jehovah ; yet when Moses went
up to meet God on Mount Sinai, and received the
table of stone on which the ten commandments
were written, together with God's verbal instruc-
tions, as he delayed to come down, people began
to wonder, and going to the high priest Aaron said :
1 ' Up, make us gods, for as for this Moses, the man
that brought us out of the land of Egypt, we wot

77

&?)* <©*ijjtn of

not what has become of him." Then Aaron took
from them their golden jewels, without a protest
against their infidelity, and, keeping on the popular
side, he made them a golden calf, which they re-
ceived from him as the god that had rescued them
out of the land of Egypt. And he built an altar
before the new god he had made, and proclaimed
a feast, at which he offered burnt offerings and
peace-offerings from the people, saying, "These be
thy gods, oh, Israeli which have brought thee up
out of the land oj Egypt" This shows the value the
[sraelites and their high priest Aaron placed on the
Jehovah, of which such wonders are related.

But their transgression was too great for Moses'
God, who bid him not to interfere, and he would
consume them in his wrath. But Moses, more pol-
itic, did interfere, and showed superior acumen,
notwithstanding the flattering promises held out to
him of becoming the founder of a nation ; and he be-
sought the Lord his God to turn from his fierce
wrath, "and repent of this evil against thy people,"
telling him to remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel,
to whom he had sworn he would multiply their seed
as the stars of heaven. "And the Lord repented of
the evil which he thought to do unto his people."
Then Moses went down and slew about three thou-

78

sand men obnoxious to him, as a modified revenge
on the worshippers of Aaron's golden calf.

But Aaron, the head and front of the offending,
and its instigator, escaped punishment. This may
account for Moses allaying the wrath of God that
would have jeopardized the life of his brother.
Moses persuaded God to forgive the rest of the
people, which included his brother Aaron. The in-
timacy between the Lord and Moses was phenome-
nal; he " spake unto Moses face to face, as a man
speaks unto his friend." This seems to traverse
the declaration of God when urged by Moses to
show him his glory. "Thou canst not see my face,"
said God, "for there shall no man see me and live."
But he offered Moses a compromise, telling him to
stand upon a rock, and while he passed by he would
put him in a cleft of the rock, and cover him with
his hand; "and I will take away mine hand and
thou shalt see my back parts, but my face shall not
be seen." When God came, in accordance with
this declaration, Moses made haste and bowed his
head until the Lord had passed, and he then saw
God's "back parts." Moses built a tabernacle by
command of his God that was furnished sumptu-
ously, showing his unlimited control over the people
and their purses.

79

&%t #rffl(n of

The Israelites wandered many years, according
to their legends. In following the description of
their inconsistent, bloody, and barbarous acts, it is
a relief to the benevolent reader to know that no
mention is made in the writings of any contempo-
rary nation of this primitive cruelty recorded in the
Jewish Scriptures, where the aim seems to be to
chronicle the marvellous works of their God, and
exalt him above all others in might, regardless of
equity or justice. The law under Moses was bar-
barous and rude, such as a primitive people in their
condition would be likely to enact of their own un-
instructed volition; while it is claimed that those
laws were dictated by command of the God that
Jews and Christians believe in, as the Creator of
heaven and earth. How far the characteristics of
this God have been copied in later times by his wor-
shippers we leave for their investigation.

Joshua, the doughty leader of the Israelites in
despoiling the Canaanites, was appointed by Moses,
and became ruler over the hosts of Israel. His
career, described in the Pentateuch, was as mar-
vellous as that of his predecessor, and was filled
with the supernatural. Under Joshua, the walls of
Jericho were thrown down by the blowing of rams'
horns, although his army compassed the city with

80

&u»tvMtux%l Qonttptiom

the magic number seven times. His next notable
adventure was the defence of the Gibeonites; on
which occasion he commanded the sun to stand still,
1 ' and the sun stood still in the midst of the heavens,
and hastened not to go down for about a whole
day," that the Israelites might slaughter their op-
ponents. The author of Joshua can hardly extol
him sufficiently, or his command over the heavenly
bodies. He truly says of that prolonged day, that
there was no day like it, either before or after it
(which we can readily believe). And as if realizing
that his story was incredible, the author adds in
confirmation, "Is this not written in the book of
Jasher?" Now all we know of Jasher is a similar
reference to him in Samuel 2 : 1, 18. Jasher seems
to need a sponsor as much as the author of Joshua
to establish his veracity. Although we have no
knowledge of him except the use of his name as
authority for this impossible story, which has been
received as a fact by Jews and Christians down to
the present day. Perhaps the marvellous story of
the fall of Jericho came also from Jasher, as that
certainly needs the proof of cumulative evidence to
render it probable.

In what light would the civilized world now con-
sider the fiendish destruction of a conquered people,

81

W§z <&viQiu of

such as was accomplished by Joshua with the ap-
proval, and by the command of God ? Yet we have
heard his acts commended in this civilized age by
theologians.

According to the record Joshua fought a war of
extermination against an unoffending people, to
rob them of their lands, under the delusive pretence
of his God's approval. God seems to have been
on the side of his chosen people, who combined re-
ligious fanaticism with long training, regardless of
the equitable rights of others; but the justice and
morality of the act is more than doubtful, quite be-
yond the dictates of civilization or the power of
reason to approve.

From the utterances of Joshua in his old age, it
is evident that other gods than that of Israel were
recognized by him as existent, although he believed
his God to be the most puissant ; yet in dereliction
of their prohibitive creed, the Israelites were led
away to worship the gods of other nations. While
the prevarication, vacillation, and inconsistencies
of Israel's God pervade the books of the Old Tes-
tament, the ignorance of their authors about the
world's true history precludes the assumption that
they are vicariously inspired records, and proves
their unreliable character as divine revelation.

82

Supernatural <&ontt»tionu

These Scriptures undoubtedly contain historical
facts, just precepts, and truthful maxims, with no-
table examples of purity and morality, like most of
the earlier sacred records of other people ; these are
the accumulation of ages, formulated by the attri-
tion of contact with the world in social relations;
they do not exceed their antecedents, and are com-
mingled with the grossest barbarisms.

The prophecies of Jeremiah, which were written
after the events they assumed to have foretold were
enacted, record the accusations of the Lord against
the kings and people for their transgressions, espe-
cially for their worship of other gods, numerous as
the number of their cities, and he declares a list of
sins for which they deserve destruction.

God tells Jeremiah that he will bring Nebuchad-
nezzar to fight against the Israelites, and he declares
he will fight with him, with anger, fury, and great
wrath, without pity or mercy — amiable God !

Among the wrongs to be reformed we find " Woe
unto him that useth his neighbor's service without
wages, and giveth him not for his work," a broad
hint to modern capitalists. The prophecies of Jere-
miah as the word of the Lord excel in the ' ' horrible
and awful;" they are preposterously bombastic
with his "roaring" and "howling" fury. The as-

&3

Kty <©riflitt of

sumption that Vs. 5 and 6, Chap. 23, Chap. 31, v.
22, and Chap. ^: 15 refer to Christ, nothing but
unreasoning fanaticism could compass; Israel did
not dwell in safety under him.

The fact appears to be, beyond all successful
contradiction, that the God depicted in the Hebrew
Scriptures was a vacillating, vengeful, barbarous
creation, delighting in bloody sacrifices. He not
only allowed, but commanded, most horrible atroci-
ities in exterminating war, and despoiling nations
by his chosen people to get possession of their heri-
tage and lands ; murdering their defenceless women
and children, and with bestial lust saving the vir-
gins as spoils. The only pretence for this was a
gift from God, whom they often neglected to wor-
ship; who never enlightened, conciliated, or pro-
tected their victims. But, strangest of all, the Is-
raelites themselves, with all their God's miracu-
lous favors showered upon them, and with the
threat of condign punishment meted out to them
by the wrath of God if they forsook him, frequently
repudiated their divine benefactor, in whom they
apparently placed little reliance, except under
the stringent control of Moses, or some other po-
tent ruler to coerce them. Even Aaron, the first
high priest of their God and consecrated to his

84

service, who, as is said, had witnessed all his mira-
cles in Egypt, where he was an actor, repudiated
his worship, substituting a golden calf for the idol-
atrous worship of the people, who rejected their
God's divinity and the legends glorifying him, to
worship an idol as their deliverer from Egyptian
bondage. These nomads paid very doubtful rev-
erence to the God of Moses, and often ignored him ;
this would be inconceivable if the wonders told of
him ever occurred.

The narrow dogma that all goodness of act and
thought comes from the direct interposition of
God, and all evil from a devil, or false god, which
then seemed specious, we discard, and apprehend
now that every thought and act of man is of his
own independent volition, and produces a normal
result under unvarying law. The God of Moses
by his barbarity, vacillation, and impulsive acts,
so frankly recorded of him by that primitive and
uncultivated people engrossed in superstitions,
seems to antagonize the conception of an omnis-
cient being by any sane man not besotted with a
faith that discards reason and annihilates com-
mon sense.

The wars, building of altars, and destruction of
nations, recorded in the Hebrew Testament, un-

35

garnished by the supernatural and divine glamour,
are not unnatural events, or out of the course of
human effort and aspiration in an early and uncul-
tivated age, whose highest attainment was clannish
devotion. The most noted prophets were shrewd
tacticians, governing by their power to utilize the
superstition of their catechumens; this to the un-
biassed critic is very apparent; their policy was
sophistical, and, while often denunciatory, it was
generally used to conciliate or incite their adhe-
rents to some valiant or desperate act, such as
Moslem fatalists sometimes display. In certain
cases of gross wrong they became the champions
of the right; notably, when Nathan reprimanded
David, which required some courage, as the mode
of delivering it evinced.

The prophecies were generally written after the
assumed fulfilment of the event, and were often-
times as ambiguous as a Delphic oracle; they
have been received with as great faith, and as
little reason, as were the noted sayings of the
priestesses of that marvellous shrine. This is not
so strange when we see at the present day a belief
in the fulfilment of dreams and prognostications,
to the wonderment of the superstitious, who ignore
the facts of science. This tendency of the human

86

Supernatural eotuejitlous

mind is taken advantage of by charlatans and
pretenders in their various callings, while many
sincere people are led astray, from misreading nat-
ural phenomena: this appears in Christian Sci-
ence, palmistry, reading of character, conversing
with the dead, and fortune-telling, with which the
world is teeming. No doubt there is much psy-
chical and mental knowledge yet in abeyance for
coming science to analyze and explain, but the
theories of mystics, Gnostics, theosophists, and
Mormons are the offspring of mental aberrations
of the imagination or the delusion of chicanery.

If the maledictions of Ezekiel are not magnified
by his mysterious, startling, and very sensational
vision, the Israelites were abnormally depraved
and incorrigible, far exceeding the pagan nations
by which they were surrounded; and what must
strike the investigator with astonishment is, that
the sole purpose and interest of the Creator was
centred in this contumacious nation, for whom
he sought to destroy the rest of mankind, who were
— if he was the Creator of all things — his off-
spring.

There were so many so-called prophets among
the Israelites, all of whom, as the times required,
uttered promises and denunciations, cunningly de-

87

acfir ©rtfliti of

vised to incite the people to action, this had an
effect on that superstitious nation, and on succeed-
ing generations of more enlightened people, who
still believe in their inspiration. But as we grow
more enlightened these prophecies are losing their
force; men are not so easily duped by them; yet
we have monitions now and then that men of credu-
lous temperament are still influenced by them, al-
though the unwavering light of science is gradually
illuminating the world, and dispelling the ancient
illusions.

The accumulated wisdom acquired by modern
research, utilized by ratiocination, and the civiliza-
tion attained through mental acquirements from
earlier ages, has been improved and refined by
human advancement due to natural causes, con-
stituting the status of modern culture; while a
belief in the supernatural legends of antiquity has
generally retarded advancement, by stubborn faith
in the fabulous chronicles on which men still place
reliance.

The story of the God of the Hebrews is handed
down to modern times with strained and varying
interpretations, in the effort to harmonize it with
advancing knowledge and to identify it with the
unknown cause of the visible creation, although its

88

Sufletnatttral Qonttptiom

authors had no conception of the true origin of the
universe. This is the God still worshipped as an
entity.

The legends composing the Old Testament of
the Christian Bible we have briefly, and in part
only, analyzed; it contains many moral maxims,
aphorisms, precepts, and prophecies, for the guid-
ance of the Israelites in their worship and social
relations, to ensure their salvation, similar to teach-
ings found in all the ancient religions.

We have only sought to show the mythological
character of the Jewish God, surrounded by hosts
of angels and spirits serving him and executing
his commands, which is in accord with most of
the earlier religions that personify God as an en-
tity of a defined form, living in a circumscribed
heaven, at a fixed place, attended by his servitors.

When Ezra returned to Jerusalem, after the
captivity in Babylon, he undertook the restoration
of the ancient faith of the Israelites. He found
the priests and people had married with neigh-
boring nations, and had children by their wives;
this dereliction from Mosaic law he at once made
war upon, and forced them to abandon their wives
and children that were not of God's chosen people,
who must not be contaminated with Gentile blood.

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&%t ©rifliti of

This is the teaching of the Old Testament con-
servators.

In the foregoing brief epitome of the Jewish
Scriptures, left by Ezra and others, we have omitted
many incidents showing the mundane character
of the God of Israel, as we deem a further illustra-
tion unnecessary to establish the fact that he should
be placed in the category of the other mythological
deities.

The story related of Samuel as judge in Israel,
who with reluctance consented to appoint a king
to supersede his rule; and by divine guidance he
made an unpropitious choice in Saul for king,
whose only preeminence seemed to have been his
stature; Saul was followed by David, "a man after
God's own heart," whom Saul attempted to kill.
David in youth was a renowned warrior. His
distinguishing charasteristic, which ingratiated him
with God, was an unbounded capacity for wor-
ship and adulation, exhibited by fanatical hom-
age. Before he came to the throne he displayed
many traits of a fanatical, bold, and magnanimous
warrior; he forbore under strong provocation to
kill Saul, because he was "the Lord's anointed ;"
he possessed great power for political intrigue and
finesse; he killed Goliath and married the king's

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Supernatural <&outtptiouu

daughter ; he escaped from the king's wrath, and
avoided killing him when he was in his power.

David as a warrior pursued a course of slaugh-
ter, as Joshua had done before him. When liv-
ing with the Philistines, after flying from Judea,
he added two wives to his harem, to replace the
king's daughter, who had been taken from him.
The story of David, like that of Joshua, might have
been taken from that nebulous book of Jasher,
which would account for the superhuman char-
acter of the record. David was made King of
Judea by command of God, and King of Israel
after Saul's death. He was devout, worshipping
God fantastically, dancing naked before the Ark.
He debauched Uriah's wife, and then tried to con-
ceal his iniquity by recalling Uriah home to father
his offspring; but Uriah was faithful to duty, and
the nefarious attempt failed. This caused David
to order his victim slain in battle. He then took
the woman he had debauched, and whose husband
he had slain, to wife. By her he had a son, who
according to the legend was the wisest man in Bib-
lical history. In this case God omitted to visit
his father's sin upon him; he escaped the penalty
through God's favoritism in condoning his father's
foul iniquity; which showed that immunity may

9i

Wfyt ©tffltn oC

be obtained for the most atrocious crimes by ob-
sequious worship — a maxim that has been often
followed in modern life.

Solomon, notwithstanding his iniquitous origin,
prospered beyond all the other Kings of Israel,
and has come down to us not only in Bible tra-
dition, but in Arabian tales, with genii and afrites.
In Bible tradition Solomon performed many nota-
ble acts; he built the Temple at Jerusalem and
beautified the city. The fame of his wisdom was
ideal ; the proverbs attributed to him rival in mag-
nitude his harem with its seven hundred wives —
all princesses — supplemented by three hundred
concubines; an even thousand in all. How in-
significant our modern Mormon Saints appear
beside this multitudinous polygamist, endowed
with heavenly wisdom, under the special favor
and approbation of the God of Israel. Among
the striking instances displaying an aberration of
the imagination, is the attributing to such utter-
ances as are found in the second chapter of Isaiah
an allusion to occurrences in after- ages unwarrant-
ably distorted into a prophecy foretelling events
that were for that purpose made to correspond
with them, and the result of their coming. The
prophecy in the fourth chapter has never been

92

fulfilled — perhaps it is still expected to be after
a lapse of two thousand years; if any reference
to the coming of Christ can by fanatical imagina-
tion be connected with the commencement of this
prophecy, the conclusion precludes any reliance
upon it; there has never been an abrogation of
natural law, or a gathering of the Jews as predicted.
It must be a vivid imagination derived from pre-
conceived ideas that can connect a " foundation-
stone in Zion" with any reference to Christ.

The rhapsodical utterances of Isaiah can hardly
be accepted as a prophecy inspired, with nothing
but unwarranted assumption to connect it with
Christ. Isaiah was a Hebrew believing in the pre-
dominating power of the Hebrew God and a com-
ing Messiah, who had been traditionally promised
them to elevate their race to power as his chosen
people, to rule over the rest of mankind ; all of which
subsequent history has dissipated.

Jeremiah prophesied a king to reign over his
people prosperously, practising judgment, and exe-
cuting justice righteously, on earth — " and in his
days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell
safely." This evidently means the gathering of
the Jews into an independent nation; which has
not yet taken place, nor is it likely to hereafter.

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STJje ©riflin of

When the return of the Jews from captivity was
promised by God, according to the record, he de-
clared he would build them up as at first — " In
those days and at that time, will I cause the branch
of righteousness to grow up unto David, and he
shall execute judgment and righteousness in the
land." This is claimed to mean Jesus, but he
certainly did not fulfil the prophecy.

The Rabbi Joseph Kranskopf notes this at-
tempted reference of Isaiah's prophecies to the
Gospels. He defines prophet to mean, in Hebrew,
speaker, preacher, pleader, interpreter, counsellor,
admonisher, poet, rhapsodist.

Dean Stanley says that down to the seventeenth
century, prophecies were used in English in the
sense of preaching or speaking; "from that time
they acquired the Greek meaning of foreseeing or
foretelling future events. " In Biblical times that
meaning was foreign.

The functions of Biblical prophets were plainly
those of preachers, or reformers and exhorters,
and of statesmen and patriots. They were the
counsellors of kings when they governed justly,
and their bitterest opponents when they tyrannized
the people. They were coadjutors of priests that
ministered righteously, and were their foes when

94

Supernatural (touttpiiouu

they degraded their calling. The foreseeing and
foretelling of future events was not a characteris-
tic of Biblical prophets, whose foretelling related
to things in the immediate future and in no case
referred to remote after-times; they were often
optimistic utterances of their authors to incite
their people to action. There is no historical or
logical right to torture the words of Isaiah into a
prophecy of something to happen hundreds of
years after his death. They could not possibly
have applied to any other events save such as took
place during, or prior to his time, or expected soon
to follow as logical consequences of existing states
of affairs, or as sweet dreams or fond ideals.

A proper answer to the question, as to what the
events may have been referred to by Isaiah, Rabbi
Kranskopf says, necessitates a knowledge of the
times, and that as the Book of Isaiah has not less
than two authors of different periods to which it
is to be attributed, they were a century apart, —
the Assyrian and Babylonian periods. Rabbi Krans-
kopf then shows that Isaiah, to fortify Ahaz and
reassure the cowardly king, says the child soon to
be born of a young woman is to be named Immanuel
(God with us), "and the land thou abhorrest shall
be forsaken of both her kings." Such is the true

95

3Tf)t ©trtfltn of

explanation of the first Messianic prophecies; the
Hebrew young woman being translated virgin.
The cognomen Immanuel, Christ never attained.
The other prophecies are clearly shown to refer
to historic events of that age, having no relation to
the subsequent birth of Christ, which happened
hundreds of years afterward.

The rabbi clearly shows that the prophecies
quoted in the New Testament from the Old, and
about which so much pains was taken to perform
acts to "fulfil" them, in no way relate to Jesus, and
can by no possibility be connected with him. (See
Luke 22 : 36.)

The plain story of this nomadic people seems to
be, that, after leaving Egypt (if they did really origi-
nate there), they were weak in numbers, and wan-
dered in sparsely settled countries, and they grad-
ally multiplied into a formidable host. As they
gained strength they crowded out the inhabitants
of more populous regions, until they reached Ca-
naan, where, as we have related, by direction of
their leaders, they attacked the inhabitants, and
barbarously exterminated them under the assump-
tion that God had given the land to their ancestor;
and they took possession of the country under
that nebulous claim upon which they subsequently

96

Supernatural <&ontt»ttimu

shaped their legends. After these wandering tribes
settled in Canaan, they consolidated into a nation,
and conquered other people. The records now
called Mosaic were compiled subsequently to their
" captivity" in after-times, from their own tradi-
tions and the chronicles of their captors the Baby-
lonians, as appears from discoveries in recent years
among the ruins of that city, in which is found the
original legend of creation paraphrased in Genesis.
A survey of the historical facts pertaining to the
advent of the Hebrew nation, and its tribal rela-
tions, shows us a minor people surrounded by
nations much greater and more advanced in cul-
ture and civilization; which eventually lapsed into
an appendage of the Roman Empire, and owes
its prominence in modern times to the advent of
the Christian religion, which originated in it, and
attained a marvellous power in the decadence of
the Roman Empire, that has dominated the most
advanced nations of the present day.

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&%t ©tiflin of

CHAPTER III.

CHRIST'S ADVENT AND MISSION

Some nineteen centuries ago we find the Jews
were under the rule of a Roman governor, with
a freedom to worship their God that was accorded
to most of the Roman colonies subject to its domi-
nation. The Jews had previously, as we have seen,
been conquered by the Babylonians, with whom
they lived for many years in captivity, and had free
access to their literature and records. Of these the
author, collaborator, or editor of Genesis availed
himself in narrating the history of the creation of
the world, which so closely follows the Babylonian
account as to leave no doubt that it is a plagiarism
from that source, modified to suit the religious
traditions of the Jewish hierarchy of five or six
hundred years before.

The Pentateuch, from whatever source derived,
and however compiled, is the basis upon which
the New Testament rests; it is constantly referred

98

to in the Gospels, and was often quoted by Christ
and his followers authoritatively. With this fact
determined, we have examined the Gospels, from
which we have endeavored to educe a rational and
consistent life of Christ, consonant with the his-
torical legend, in which all particulars of his bel-
ligerent acts that are clearly indicated are studiously
omitted. We have eliminated the miraculous and
supernatural incidents, of which there is no evi-
dence except the traditional credence of his fol-
lowers, recorded by authors unidentified more
than a century after the events narrated had
occurred.

Among the Jewish legends there was a tradi-
tion that a Messiah was to come to free them from
all evils. The title of Messiah (anointed) was
applied to their anointed kings ; but the one that
was to come was to be transcendently above the
others in power and glory. The prophecies about
this coming Messiah were uttered, doubtlessly, to
keep up the spirits of the downtrodden people.
They announced the coming of a king who would
be to the Israelites salvation, freeing them from
the assaults of other nations, and the troubling of
the wicked within their community. The Messiah
was to be of and from the Jews, and was to in-
L Of v.. 99

augurate a nation transcending all other nations.
This tradition engendered several claimants from
time to time, the most conspicuous of whom, so
far as we know, was Jesus Christ, whose mission
was by him declared to be to the Jews alone ; under
the title of "King of the Jews" thus appropriating
all the Messianic passages in the Old Testament
recognizing a Messiah as referring to him, for which
he was subsequently deified by his proselytes.

All that we know of the life of Christ is contained
in the New Testament ; written mostly by unknown
authors, whose accounts were derived from the
traditions of his sectarian followers. They cannot
be traced back to an earlier date than about the
beginning of the second century after his death;
and it is important to note here that no allusion to
the life of Christ is found in any contemporaneous
record, or any mention of abnormal or miraculous
phenomena that took place in the vicinity of Jeru-
salem during his life, or at his death ; and it is sig-
nificant that all the adverse writings of subsequent
times down to a recent period have been ruthlessly
destroyed. So significant was this fact deemed to
be, that, in after-time, several clumsy forgeries were
perpetrated by monks of the middle ages, notably
those attributed to Pliny the Younger, and Josephus ;

IOO

Sujiewatttval Qonttptionu

but the frauds have been noticed and exposed by
modern critics.

There is a variant relation of the advent of Christ
in the different Gospels which, as we are dealing
with the assumption of the supernatural, it be-
hooves us to strictly analyze. In Matthew it is
stated that after Mary was espoused to Joseph she
was found with child, which caused Joseph to
determine to put her away privately, not to expose
her; but he had a dream in which an angel as-
sured him the Holy Ghost was the father, and she
was pure. Joseph was told to call her son Jesus,
and that he would save the people from their sins.
Now all this was done, the Gospel says, that the
saying of a prophet might be fulfilled; in other
words, this was done to fulfil a prophecy, although
the prophet referred to called him Emmanuel.

In Luke we are told Gabriel the angel appeared
to Mary, and told her the son she would conceive
should be called Jesus. He further told her he
should be great and called the Son of the Highest,
who would give him the throne of his father David
(evidently a temporal throne), and "he shall reign
over the house of Jacob forever;" "and of his
kingdom there shall be no end.,, (This prophecy,
history shows us, has not been fulfilled.) After

IOI

Si)* <©tifliti Qt

this Mary assented to the proposition of the
angel.

Mark and John fail to relate this miraculous
conception, which closely accords with the story
of the advent of Buddha and of Krishna, told
ages before, as we learn from recorded history.

The Gospel of St. Matthew being probably the
most authoritative version of the current legends
of the history of Christ, and in nearest accord with
the earliest traditions, we shall follow it gen-
erally in our exposition of his life and acts.

According to the Gospel of St. Matthew, Jesus
Christ was the son of the God of the Hebrews
(although he always declared himself to be "the
Son of Man"). He was circumcised and educated
as a Jew, and accepted Jewish traditions in the
Hebrew Scriptures as a divinely instituted author-
ity.

Christ's genealogy is traced in Matthew's Gospel
from David down to Joseph (the husband of Mary,
Christ's mother), through whom he derived his
pedigree as "son of David," while the Gospel de-
clares him to be the supernatural son of God, con-
ceived by Mary while a virgin. After his birth,
we are told, his life was sought by Herod, resulting
in a slaughter of children to destroy him.

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Supernatural ©ouceptiims

These incidents are an apparent plagiarism from
the tradition of Buddha, written centuries before
Christ's birth, and well known at that time through-
out the East. Apart from the plagiarism, it is
more than doubtful if a Roman ruler would have
issued such a monstrous and senseless edict, of
which there is no mention made in Roman or Jew-
ish history. This shows the nebulous character of
the entire record. It is obvious that the only com-
petent human witness for the miraculous concep-
tion was Mary, from whom there is no direct tes-
timony; but she repeatedly called Joseph Christ's
father, while he invariably called himself the "Son
of Man." We leave this enigma for the theolo-
gians to explain.1

There is nothing marvellous or unusual related
in any accredited life of Christ up to his thirtieth
year, during which time he seems to have lived in
unrecorded obscurity This is a strange hiatus
in the life of "the only begotten Son of God," sent

'The life of Christ, shorn of its supernatural embellishments,
shows a being full of the characteristics of humanity, and many
of its weaknesses, with a knowledge only commensurate with the
age in which he lived. His moral teachings were, as recorded,
similar to those of earlier sages, many of whose aphorisms were
attributed to him, such as the Golden Rule of Confucius, uttered
centuries before his birth.

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8Cf)t ©ttflfn of

into the world as the only Saviour of men ! It was
a long period of preparation compared with the
time employed by him in active labors that ended
his career.

Tradition says he was born during a journey of
his parents, in Bethlehem, in accordance with an
ancient prophecy. There was nothing abnormal
in his gestation or parturition. He came into the
world a helpless infant, was nursed by his mother,
and grew from infancy to maturity by the slow
process of human development, in which only a
single episode is recorded, — that of talking with
the doctors in the Temple. This was not a re-
markable incident in the life of a precocious boy.
On that occasion, the legend says, when his parents
missed him and returned in search of him, they
found him in the Temple, sitting with the doctors,
hearing them, and asking them questions; which
it is related astonished them by his understand-
ing and answers. As this was the first demonstra-
tion of his intellect, it would have been transcen-
dently valuable to have a record of his sayings on
that notable occasion, on which there was an op-
portunity to announce his vocation and divine
afflatus, that would have indicated his future career
as "Messiah" and "King of the Jews." He made

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Supernatural Qtrnttptiom

no announcement there of his Messianic mission
or future teaching. Beyond the capacity of a pre-
cocious boy nothing appears in this incident.

When he was found by his parents, he expressed
no regret for their anxiety, but asked why they
sought him, saying, "Wist ye not that I must be
about my father's business?" (We have no rec-
ord that he was ever about it afterward until he
was thirty years old.) His parents did not commend
his mystical excuse, notwithstanding their assumed
knowledge of his divine origin. Although this in-
cident is made an important factor by Biblicists,
in proof of his divinity, the result on that occasion
was a reproof from his mother, "Son, why hast
thou dealt so with us? behold, thy father and I
have sought thee sorrowing." Mary always spoke
of Joseph as the father of Christ, who was circum-
cised under Jewish law, and brought up with the
rest of Mary's children in the family of Joseph,
without any noticeable distinction. He was known
in Nazareth as the son of Joseph, and it is nowhere
recorded that Joseph or Mary ever announced him
to be of superhuman origin during his youth, or
afterward; nor does it appear that the people of
Nazareth ever entertained such an idea, or knew
anything of his miraculous conception, or the won-

i°5

W§t ©riflUi of

ders related of his birth which, if they had occurred,
they could not have been ignorant of. When the
father and mother of Jesus found him in the Temple,
and he had given a reason that they did not approve
for his escapade, they took him home with them,
"and he was subject unto them." Whether this
means that they chastised him for the trouble and
anxiety he had subjected them to, or not, must be
left to conjecture, aided by a knowledge of the
customs of those times. It is certain we have no
account of his ever repeating the offence again, how-
ever pressing he conceived his father's business
to have been.

From the historical incidents recorded in the Gos-
pels, there seems to be no reasonable doubt that
at the beginning of his public career Christ en-
deavored to incite the Jews into rebellion, under the
guise of the traditional Messiah that was expected
to emancipate them, and establish them in an in-
dependent kingdom. In this enterprise he was aided
by his cousin, John the Baptist, who appeared in
a unique garb, feeding on primitive food, to rouse
the superstitious people into a crusade that alarmed
the authorities. These relatives, Jesus and John,
obviously acted in unison on a preconcerted plan,
and followed out a similar line of policy; first

1 06

gathering the people together, under the assump-
tion that John was the forerunner, to announce
the advent of their expected Messiah. John gath-
ered a multitude of people from all the country
round about Jordan, baptizing those who believed
the "kingdom of heaven" was to be established,
with the coming Messiah as the ' ' King of the
Jews." T During this initiatory movement, Jesus
appeared, and was baptized. At this time he had
a vision, serving to confirm their neophytes in
the belief that he was the Messiah that the
prophecies foretold would appear to liberate
them.

But the time had not come for Jesus to act, so
he retired for a season, while John continued his
propaganda. It is related that Christ then went
into the wilderness, to be tempted by the devil,
the reason for which is not apparent. It is certain
the fiend proved very inadequate and short-sighted
if an entity; but if a figure of speech, to indicate
Christ's mental state at that time, the incident illus-
trates his very human proclivity, with aspirations
for power and glory that may have disturbed his
meditations, as he was about to assume the role

1 Baptizing was evidently a mode of pledging the people to
fight for Jesus to make him king.

107

art)* (©rifltn ot

of "King of the Jews." Either way, he had the
resolution to repel the temptation, and a careful
forbearance to abstain from an acrobatic leap, in
the fallacious expectation of being borne up by
angels.

At first the mission of these religionary-polit-
ical leaders was exclusively to the Jews; and not
until later and more disastrous times was there an
inclusion of other people by his followers. After
John and Jesus succeeded in collecting thousands
of followers, Jesus admonished them to be ready
to suffer all things, and lay down their lives in
his cause, assuring them that they would thus
secure eternal happiness, while a failure to act
would involve them in everlasting misery.

After John the Baptist was beheaded, Christ fled
away to the Sea of Galilee, avoiding Nazareth,
where he might have been traced; he thus escaped
a like fate. He continued organizing his proselytes,
and chose twelve disciples. He then preached the
''kingdom of heaven" about to be established,
which he taught in the synagogues of all Galilee,
"and great multitudes followed him from Galilee,
Jerusalem, Judea, Decapolis, and beyond Jordan."
This organized army of adherents he addressed, as
we have seen, on a mountain, where they were gath-

108

ered into companies; and he instructed them, as is
recorded in the fifth chapter of Matthew.

In his Sermon on the Mount, delivered to a host
about to follow him to Jerusalem, Christ tells them
it is blessed to be meek, submissive, and enduring,
for his sake, for which they will be richly rewarded.
He admonishes them that they must act, to be effi-
cient. He denies the imputation that he has come
to destroy the Mosaic law (this would be meaning-
less if he was not engaged in a war against the rul-
ing powers). Knowing his followers were Jews
who believed in the law, which they would not help
destroy, he endeavored to amplify it, declaring,
in an extravagant figure of speech, that heaven and
earth should pass away before any portion of the
law should pass. He exhorts his followers to be
meek, humble, and obedient, living in harmony and
avoiding litigation. In hyperbolic language, he
enjoins non-resistance of injury, with an anomalous
admonition to pluck out an eye, and cut off a hand,
if it offends. No normal man of to-day believes in
non-resistance of evil, or submission to injury. That
injunction was evidently a temporary admonition,
to keep his ignorant and unruly followers from en-
gaging in contention, to the detriment of the cause
in which they were engaged. While there are

109

doubtless some moral aphorisms in the Sermon on
the Mount, it was evidently not intended for gen-
eral application, but was addressed to a rude army
about to engage in a religious war. His purpose
was evidently to inculcate strict obedience and fidel-
ity to his cause, with the fear of hell-fire for dere-
liction, and to prepare them for a conflict that was
about to be initiated. It is addressed to an igno-
rant host, and is filled with advice as to their con-
duct in trying times, soon to take place, tempered
with a little wholesome flattery, and with strenu-
ous admonition and command, to prevent their get-
ting into quarrels that would divert them from the
main purpose of establishing his kingdom. He
charges them to take no thought for the morrow,
for they would be taken care of, and could supply
their wants by taking the godsends. He taught
them strict obedience to his commands, and encour-
aged them by declaring that those who obey and do
will be rewarded; while those who merely say to
him, "Lord! Lord!" and do not act, he will not
recognize or receive into his "kingdom of heaven,"
to be established.

In sending out his disciples to obtain recruits, he
cautions them not to go to the Gentiles, but "to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The Gen-
no

Supernatural eonccimous

tiles were evidently beyond the purpose of his mis-
sion as "King of the Jews." His constant injunc-
tions of secrecy were frequent and suggestive for
war; otherwise they were meaningless. To carry
out his secret instructions, he says, "What I tell
you in the darkness, that speak ye in the light ; and
what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye on the house-
tops."

All mention is carefully avoided in the Gospels
of any warlike deeds which were unsuccessful; but
John was apprehended and cast into prison for his
demonstrations, the assumed cause for which is
not very rational, — a belligerent intent is more
probable. It is obvious that Jesus Christ and John
the Baptist were striving to establish a " kingdom
of heaven," with Christ as the promised "Messiah "
and "King of the Jews" which tradition foretold.
From the declarations of Christ we learn that he
was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
and the belligerency of his mission and the uncom-
promising warfare in which he told his followers he
was about to engage are clearly set forth by him.
He says, ' ' Think not that I am come to send peace
on earth : I am not come to send peace, but a sword.
For I am come to set a man at variance with his
father, and the daughter against her mother, and

in

the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and
a man's foes shall be those of his own household."
"He that loveth father or mother more than me
is not worthy of me." And he declares that he who
stands by him "shall in no wise lose his reward."
Can there be a shadow of a doubt that this is a war-
like speech to an army of followers about to fight
to make him " King of the Jews?" In addressing
his followers on that occasion, he strenuously ex-
horts them to action, depicting the dangers they
are to meet in the coming contest, charging them
to be valorous, and threatening them with terrific
penalties if they evaded their duty. He says to them,
"Fear not them which kill the body5 but are not
able to destroy the soul; but rather fear him who
is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."
That this host was to be armed is clearly shown
by Christ's injunction to sell even their garments,
if necessary, to purchase a sword. (Luke 22 : 36.)
He also declared (Luke 14: 26), "If any man
come to me, and hate not his father, and mother,
and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters,
yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.
And whosoever does not bear his cross,1 and come

1 It is evident that Christ did not at that time use the word
cross, as it did not then signify the symbolical meaning given to

112

Supernatural (fronttptiom

after me, cannot be my disciple." " Whosoever he
be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, can-
not be my disciple."1 At this time of turbulent
activity, Christ had to check the aspiring bickerings
and jealousies of his disciples respecting their status
in the kingdom about to be inaugurated. In this
he used finesse, making obedience, with humble and
diligent servitude, the acme of merit. When his
disciples asked what position they were to have in
his kingdom, he disclaimed the power to decide
upon their relative claims to promotion, which he
declared was the province of his Father in heaven, —
well out of their reach.

When he gave command to the host under him
to move on to the invasion of Jerusalem, a disciple
said to him, * ' Lord, suffer me first to go and bury

it after his crucifixion, by the Gospel writers. The unlearned
multitude he was addressing on the mountain would not have
understood a metaphorical allusion. Christ's injunction, no
doubt, was, to arm themselves for an entrance with him into
Jerusalem and the Temple where he was about to lead them.
The word cross was undoubtedly used in the Gospel for arms,
to disguise the belligerent character of that expedition which
terminated so disastrously.

1 Much as these passages have been distorted into a spiritual
meaning, they are a blunt declaration that his followers are to
fight in his undertaking to make him " King of the Jews " and
establish a " kingdom of heaven " in Jerusalem. His followers
were too ignorant to appreciate spiritual teaching.

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my father," but Jesus said to him, ' ' Follow me, and
let the dead bury their dead." This most unfeeling
answer could only have been made by a commander
at a strenuous time for immediate action, as it would
otherwise have been barbarous, senseless, and use-
lessly cruel if uttered in a time of peace, while it
involved an absurd impossibility.

With an army of followers Christ started from
Jericho for Jerusalem. They were enthusiastic in
the belief that he was the promised Messiah, and
that he would become the King of the Jews. As
they approached the city, in order to enter it in
greater state, he was mounted on an ass, on which
garments of his followers were laid; and in their
enthusiasm, they threw down their clothing for him
to ride over, strewing branches also in the way.
' ' And the multitudes that went before, and followed,
cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David ! Blessed
is he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! Ho-
sanna in the highest ! And when he was come into
Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, Who is
this?" (Showing the raid was unexpected by the
people of Jerusalem.) And his followers said,
' ' This is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth ! And
Jesus went [with his host] into the Temple of God,
and cast out all them that sold and bought in the
114

Temple, and overthrew the tables."1 When the
chief priests and scribes saw this incursion of a
fanatical host upon the Temple, they were alarmed
and displeased; and they asked Jesus if he heard
the cries, "Hosanna for the Son of David," and he
answered, ' ' Yea," and said the stones would cry
out if they did not, showing his full assent to the
demonstration, which was clearly a usurpation of
authority by force of arms; very unlike the role of
the Prince of Peace.

He did not remain in that dangerous position
overnight, but drew off and went out to Bethany,
returning the next day, at which time a miracle is
introduced on the way, denoting his impetuosity of
character, that was also displayed elsewhere, espe-
cially under a triumphal achievement. He went to
gather figs from a tree by the wayside, but finding
no fruit on it, he, being hungry, was evidently dis-
appointed and angry, so he vented his wrath upon
the unfortunate tree, condemning it to perpetual
barrenness; and the tree died. The senseless char-
acter of this miracle does not seem to impress the

*The assumption has been that Christ alone, by his own
puissance, drove out the occupants of the Temple, as is indi-
cated in the fabulous Gospel of John, which version is evidently
chimerical. He was backed by an army of followers, too strong
to be resisted at that time by the authorities.

"5

8T!)t ©rifliti of

modern theologians, or to detract from the as-
sumption of Christ's divine perfection. He assured
his followers they could not only do the like, but
remove mountains and cast them into the sea, ij
they had faith and doubted not.1 What this had to
do with the mission of a redeemer of men's souls,
or a divine instructor, must be left to men more
profound in casuistry than we pretend to be for a
solution. When Jesus again took possession of the
Temple, surrounded by his followers, the chief
priests and elders came to him and asked by what
authority he thus invaded the Temple, and who
gave him authority to do so? To this, as he was
backed by a formidable multitude, he refused to
give an answer, which they, as custodians of the
Temple, had a right to demand.

The length of time that he kept possession of the
Temple is not stated, but he held forth there for
some time, during which he uttered virulent philip-
pics against the Pharisees, while he bid his followers
to observe and do what they taught (well knowing
that they taught the Mosaic law). He adjures
them not to follow their acts, which were opposed to
his assumptions. His warfare against the Phari-
sees and scribes, his strongest opponents, was very

A very pertinent if.

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Sttjieruattttal Couccjiftotts

bitter; as well as against the priests of the Temple,
who all repudiated his claim to the Messiahship,
well knowing the danger of such a rising against
Roman authority.

The maledictions that he hurled at those in
authority and all others that opposed him, show
a vindictive spirit, hardly in accordance with a
Saviour of souls preaching peace and forgiveness
of enemies. We have seen that spirit indicated in
the destruction of the fig-tree, and in his repri-
mand of Peter; it was dangerous to thwart him
in anything. There is no account of the expulsion
of Jesus with his followers from the Temple; but
that they were driven out as soon as the authori-
ties obtained a force sufficient to expel them, is
clearly indicated in the sequel. Before he left,
his lamentations were very great; he threatened
doom to Jerusalem for its bloodshed and a destruc-
tion of the Temple. While he " would have gath-
ered her children as a hen gathers her chickens
under her wing," he tells them, "Ye shall not see
me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that
cometh in the name of the Lord." He said also,
"Verily I say unto you, all these things shall
come upon this generation." While history
has shown these statements to have been erro-

117

8TJ>* (BviQin of

neous, they coincide with the character of their
author.

In whatever way his retreat from the Temple,
and from Jerusalem, may have been effected, we
next find him hidden on the Mount of Olives and
his army of followers dispersed; there his disciples
came to him privately to learn when all the things
he had told about should come to pass ; what would
be the sign of his coming, and the end of the world.
Instead of a categorical answer, he tells them not
to be deceived or troubled when they hear of wars,
and nation rising against nation, as those things
must come to pass; with famine, pestilences, and
earthquakes in divers places ; * ' then they shall
deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you>
and you shall be hated of all nations for my name's
sake, but he that shall endure unto the end shall
be saved." "When ye shall see the abomination
of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet,
stand in the holy place, then let them which be in
Judea flee into the mountains, let him in the field
not turn back to take his clothes; woe to all that
are not able to go, but pray ye your ■ flight be not
in the winter; for then shall be great tribulation,

1 The italicized pronouns show that his auditors were to wit-
ness all this while living.

Ii8

Supernatural cr-ouctpttott*

such as was not since the beginning of the world
to this time, no, nor ever shall be." He warns them
not to be deceived by false Christs ; he tells them
that on his coming "the sun and moon will be
darkened, and the stars shall jail," etc., "and the
heavens be shaken." (This clearly proves that
Christ was ignorant of the organization of the
universe.)

He concludes by averring, "Verily I say unto
you, this generation shall not pass, till all these
times be fulfilled." "Heaven and earth shall pass
away, but my words shall not pass away." He
tells them that no one knows when this is to hap-
pen but his Father only (this relieved him from set-
ting a time and clearly shows his inferiority to his
Father), but it would be before that generation
should pass away. He cautions them to watch vigi-
lantly, and be ready, "for in such an hour as ye
think not the Son of Man cometh." It is evident
that at this time disaster had come upon him;
his followers had left him, and his disciples came
to him privately to learn when the aid from heaven
that he had been promising them would come.
He evades the question by saying his Father in
heaven alone knows, and he does not know, but it
will all take place during their lifetime; and then

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8E!)* ©rifllti of

he expatiates on his advent in the clouds, with
lightnings, and a blotting out of the sun and the
moon, accompanied by a shower of stars; pyro-
technic phenomena to strike terror into the hearts
of his adversaries, and display his omnipotence
to his followers.

At that time he evidently saw his cause had
failed, and that his life was in peril; but he still
determined to keep up the illusion with his followers
to the last. Unfortunately for him, while he and
John had great proselyting powers, they neither
of them possessed the talent or following of a Mo-
hammed, Alexander, or Napoleon, with their able
generals. While in his retreat on the Mount of
Olives, he knew he would not be arrested on the
Feast of the Passover, so he ventured into Jerusa-
lem with his disciples to keep that feast, in accord-
ance with his Jewish training. Judas, who had
been bribed to aid in his arrest, was with them at
the celebration of the Passover. After the supper,
and their retreat into hiding, he, well knowing their
place of refuge, guided an armed posse to their
haunt to arrest Jesus. This shows two important
facts: that he was hiding from the officers of the
law, and was without sufficient force to resist them.
When Christ was taken into custody, after some
120

Sttjimiatttral <&tmttptiQM

attempt at resistance by his followers, he was
brought before the high priest, evidently for his
taking forcible possession of the Temple; but as
the Jews had no power to punish him, he was
turned over to the Roman authorities, on the graver
charge of assuming to be the " King of the Jews,"
about which the account says there was much
false swearing, but Jesus acknowledged the charge.
For that crime, as it was deemed, he was executed ;
and, that there should be no misunderstanding
about the reason for his punishment, Pilate caused
it to be blazoned upon his cross in three languages,
— Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, — ' ' This is Jesus,
the King oj the Jews." Thus ended the visible ca-
reer of the man that his followers afterward deified,
and worshipped as the Son of God, and subse-
quently as one of the paradoxical triune Godhead.

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ffitye ©rifltti of

CHAPTER IV.

Christ, who it is assumed descended from David
through Joseph, the husband of his mother, whom
she called his father, was, as we have seen, a cir-
cumcised Jew, and lived in his parents' family
with his brothers and sisters; no notable differ-
ence was recorded of him until he was about thirty
years old, and there was no rumor in Nazareth
of his miraculous birth; nor did Mary or Joseph
proclaim it. When he announced himself as the
" Messiah " and "King of the Jews," neither his
father nor mother, brothers nor sisters, joined his
crusade; nor did they ever after aid him in his
mission. Not only did his family disapprove of
his course, and that of John the Baptist, by keep-
ing aloof from them, but his mother and brethren
sought to dissuade him at the height of his ambi-
tious career, and were repudiated by him,1 as we
have seen.

1 Matt. 12, v. 47, etseq.
122

Sttptrnatttral Conceptions

There is perhaps no clearer proof against the
divinity of Christ than the fact that his mother
never aided him by her presence, or declared her
belief in his divine mission,1 which was clearly
repudiated by his whole family; this caused him
to utter the aphorism, "A prophet is not without
honor, but in his own country, and among his own
kin, and in his own house."

The habits of Jesus were in strong contrast with
those of his coadjutor, John the Baptist, who was
an abstainer from self-indulgence like the seers
of old ; but Jesus was fond of good living, and was
a wine-drinker; he patronized feasts, and asso-
ciated with publicans, striving to make himself
popular with the people; he defended his course
with adroitness, as ministering to the needy. Christ's
teaching was according to the spirit of the age,
mostly in parables, with a certain latitude and
ambiguity, and his acts were in many particulars
at variance with the law, which he declared shall

1 The story recorded in the Gospel of John, of his mother at
the cross, is clearly refuted by the other three Gospels, in addition
to the fact that she had a husband and children, who were better
able, probably, to care for her, and more in unison with her, than
a disciple of Christ. John's Gospel is clearly an excogitation
from the brain of an imaginative Pauline fanatic who probably
wrote that weird book called " Revelation," that is only the reve-
lation of the author's morbid invention.

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&§t ©rfflin of

not in one jot or tittle pass away "till heaven and
earth pass away." He did not hesitate to dese-
crate the Sabbath in the eyes of the law-abiding
Jews, and justified it by referring to the act of
his ancestor David, who ate the consecrated show-
bread, which was not lawful. His freedom of ac-
tion on the Jewish Sabbath might be imitated by
modern Christians with advantage by copying the
freedom of their divine master, instead of forcing
unwilling people to keep holy the day of the sun-
worshippers, as ordered by the Emperor Constan-
tine in dereliction of the Jewish Sabbath.

The prophetic sayings and fabulous legends of
the ancients were introduced for the instruction
of the people; they were often significant and
pertinent, and were frequently attributed to noted
seers, to give them currency; they were sometimes
made to assume a prophetic character, by declar-
ing that they had been uttered by prophets anterior
to the facts they were made to announce, or by
enacting what it was assumed the prophets fore-
told; such sayings were innumerable, and could
be appended to the traditions of any divinity,
prophet, or sage to whom omination was attributed ;
the facility of thus enhancing the wisdom of a re-
vered archetype, by appending a wise saying to
124

his traditional wisdom, was easy, and difficult of
detection; in the Gospels are described acts that
were frequently performed for the purpose of ful-
filling a prophecy.

What portion of the parables that are attributed
to Christ were really uttered by him can never
be known; they are all derived from traditionary
recollections, that no one pretends were written
down at the time of their utterance. Such a para-
ble as the sower and the seed was adapted to the
occasion, and hardly needed an interpretation.
When asked why he spoke in parables, Christ's
answer was enigmatical: that his hearers should
not understand; and he then uttered his most
unjust aphorism, "Whosoever hath, to him shall
be given, and he shall have more abundance: but
whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away
even that which he hath." What a maxim this is
for the inculcation of the grossest injustice among
men. The parable of the tares, and those that
follow it, do not excel those of more ancient sages
in moral teaching. It is asserted that Christ's
utterance of parables was made to fulfil the say-
ings of some prophet ; a reason for many other acts
in the New Testament. The comparisons of the
kingdom of heaven to a treasure, to the finding of

I25

©J)* ©tiffin of

pearls, to a net, are not sufficiently striking for
criticism; they indicate heaven as a circumscribed
space, above the firmament, as do all Christ's
sayings, and there is a significant denouement,
that all the sinners are to be cast into a fiery furnace,
1 'where there shall be wailing and gnashing of
teeth," and this to all eternity. Who can wonder
that such teaching should make fiends of man-
kind ! It is so very easy, if not equitable, to serve
all grades of sinners alike.

In his own city, Nazareth, Christ's preaching
made no proselytes, for his kinfolk and neighbors
repudiated him; this caused him to utter the la-
ment that a prophet had no honor in his own coun-
try and in his own house. (Pity, but they knew him !)
Christ was very appreciative of the good opin-
ion of others, and he resented opposition with
great vehemence; when he met his disciples, as is
said on one occasion, and asked, "Whom do men
say that I am?" and on being informed asked,
1 ' But whom say ye that I am ? " Simon Peter said,
"Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God."
It evidently pleased Jesus, who said, "Blessed art
thou, Simon- B ar-jona : for flesh and blood hath
not revealed it to thee, but the Father which is in
heaven." He then declared, "Thou art Peter, and
126

<Sttj)amatttral (foucqmous

upon this rock I will build my church; and I will
give unto thee the keys of heaven.' ' He also gave
Peter dominion over earth and hell, so great was
his satisfaction and confidence in him. But when
Jesus afterward spoke of his death, and Peter,
to whom these great powers were given, contro-
verted him, it evidently excited his indignation
against the disciple on whom he had bestowed
such unprecedented power, and turning on him,
he said, " Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art
an offence unto me: for thou savorest not the
things that be of God." What a change in the
divine Saviour's views of the disciple he had so
exalted when he dissented from his predictions out
of extreme love for him ! This was a warning les-
son to the disciples not to be so indiscreet, as it was
evident laudation was more agreeable to Christ
than dissent. His invectives against the scribes
and Pharisees who opposed his claim to Messiah-
ship, and the cities that repudiated him, were scath-
ing and vindictive, in which burning in hell-fire
was a staple punishment.

In his teachings Christ indorses that old Baby-
lonian fable of the flood and of Noah's ark, to il-
lustrate the unknown time of his coming, and he
charges his disciples to keep diligent watch there-

8Tfjf ©rifltn of

for. If it was not to happen in their time, the in-
junction was a gross deception on their credulity.
The constant watchfulness of his followers he fur-
ther emphasized by the parable of the ten virgins.
It is probable that at this time, while he foresaw
his impending fate, he desired to keep his disciples
together for further aggression, under the illusion
of his returning with heavenly forces to aid them.
After his capture he boasted of his divine position
before the high priest, and was sent by him to the
Roman governor for trial. Before Pilate he was
accused of claiming to be the * ' King of the Jews ; "
whatever evidence was adduced on that occasion
we have no record of, but Christ himself acknowl-
edged the charge on which he was condemned and
executed.

The episode of Pilate's repudiating the sentence,
or that Christ suffered death for his religious teach-
ings, is disproved by the legend blazoned by Pilate on
the cross. Christ's antipathy to the Jewish hier-
archy, on account of their opposition to his claims
as " Messiah" and " King of the Jews," descended
to his followers, and pervaded their traditions;
hence the Christian antipathy to the Jews down
to the present day.

In reviewing the parables attributed to Christ,
128

Supernatural €oticej)tiou8

they were evidently introduced to elucidate some
matter under discussion, and were not intended
for universal application, which the ingenuity of
modern theologians have adapted them to; and
unadorned, or exemplified under the light taught
by modern culture, they are of no higher charac-
ter than the aphorisms current at that period. There
is nothing more misleading than the assumption
of divine teaching in the texts used by modern
theologians, educated in the high-toned equity
and morality taught by neoteric science and learn-
ing, from which our highest moral teaching comes.

When Jesus had given his envoys secret instruc-
tions and commenced recruiting in the cities, the
disciples of John, who was then in prison, came
to him, and questioned him to know if he was the
one who was to come, or if they should look for
another; thus indicating that a movement was
anticipated, the director of which they were seek-
ing. Jesus satisfied them, and on their departure
he uttered flattering encomiums on John, saying,
"This is Elias, which was to come," premising,
"if you will receive it," indicating the incredible
character of the assertion, and the great strain on
their credulity.

The recorded teachings ascribed to Jesus were,
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8TJ)t ©ttfltn of

as we have seen, largely by parables, a mode of
teaching by fable always current in the East, used
for inculcating dogmas and morals by their sages
in early times; the world was full of them, ready
to be attributed to any teacher as their author,
who was often nebulous.

There is nothing about those ascribed to Christ
more potent, as we have indicated, than those de-
rived from other sources. He claimed to be the
Jewish Messiah, and "King of the Jews," in a
" kingdom of heaven" to be founded by him; this
was magnified by Paul into a Saviour of mankind.

After the reception of the delegation from John,
Jesus went to his own home, among his relatives
and acquaintances, where he was repudiated;
and "he did not many mighty works there because
of their unbelief." It was useless to display won-
ders where the audience so well knew the actor;
it is unquestionable that his relatives rejected his
supernatural and divine claims, and did not intend
to be involved in his crusade to make himself * ' King
of the Jews." Could better evidence be adduced
that his family did not believe in his supernatural
advent or mission? Neither his father, mother,
brothers nor sisters were among his followers;
the only one of his kinfolk that joined in the con-
130

Sttpmtatttral eouccjmous

spiracy was his cousin, John the Baptist, his co-
adjutor in the demonstration. There can be no
doubt that the mother of Jesus would have been
one of his most prominent and devout followers
if she knew or believed that he was conceived in
her virginity, through the direct interposition of
divine power.

131

Zfyt dfrviain ot

CHAPTER V.
Christ's miracles and resurrection

The most important factors for belief in the
divinity of Christ are the assumption of his resur-
rection and power to work miracles; if there was
any novelty in this assumption, it might appear
significant, but the history of every prior divinity
conceived by man shows them to be equally gifted ;
therefore, it behooves us to examine into the char-
acter and proof of the miracles ascribed to him,
and judge of the avowed purpose and results,
as recorded in the New Testament, to determine
their value.

All the miracles recorded of Jesus Christ were
local and circumscribed in their purpose; they
were for the personal advantage of individuals,
and were only bestowed on believers; they were
temporary, and seemed to have been displayed
to guarantee his assumptions to control and coun-
teract the established laws of nature; while the
132

great wonders and mighty power he claimed to
possess, of calling hosts of angels to protect him,
were never displayed, to antagonize the acts of man.
He declared that he could, if he so willed, bring
legions of angels to fight for, and protect him, yet
in his greatest need and requirement, he received
no such aid; which, apart from his personal pres-
ervation, would have gone further to convert the
world than all the preaching of himself and his
successors; in fact, his dogma received but little
aid in its dissemination until the Emperor Constan-
tine, in great peril, realized the advantage a body
of fanatics would be to him in his contention with
his enemies. This gave a standing to the sect
that enabled them at a later day to dogmatize and
subdue Rome, and subsequently to dominate and
barbarize all Europe; which caused the terrible
warfare between it and science in the contest for
freedom of thought in search of truth, that has
culminated in modern civilization.

"The most general and often repeated miracles
recorded of Christ were, the healing of the sick
and decrepit of sundry complaints and infirmi-
ties, in which casting out devils was the most promi-
nent. Most of these miracles were of a promiscu-
ous physical character, not mental, while some
133

Qfyt #tifltn of

are described with detailed precision. Possession
of devils has now faded out of the category of dis-
eases under the light of modern culture, but was
then believed in with unquestioning faith by Christ's
Jewish followers, and by Christ, himself a Jew.
Before the birth of Christ, and ever since, men have
appeared who claimed to possess miraculous powers
to heal diseases and to raise the dead. That hal-
lucination has been assumed by fanatics, charla-
tans, and impostors, down to the present time,
and is now believed in by a large number of intel-
ligent people in this enlightened age, although the
assumption is shown on investigation to be falla-
cious. The instances in which Christ is said to
have raised the dead were inconspicuous, generally
unnoticed, and of private interest; it was often
performed as a reward for unquestioning belief
in him.

While the stories of miracles achieved by Christ
do not differ in their characteristics from those
of his predecessors, some of them exhibit an ap-
parent want of equity, malevolence, and favorit-
ism, or as an aid to social fellowship, incongruous
in a Messiah, and not prompted by his universal
mission.

The miracle of the fig-tree cannot be truthfully
J34

construed otfierwise than as malevolent; no other
purpose was accomplished by it. The miracle
of raising Lazarus from the dead appears as an act
of personal love and friendship; Lazarus, so far
as Christ's recorded mission was concerned, was
unimportant, and afforded no aid to the cause;
so of the widow's son. The healing of the cen-
turion's servant was a reward for obsequious faith,
with no result except the chance of winning the
Roman soldier to his cause. The exodus of a le-
gion of devils from a crazy man into a herd of swine
by Christ's command, with license to drown the
unoffending brutes, served no other apparent pur-
pose than to beget the hatred of the populace
where the miracle was enacted, for which he was
driven away by the incensed people. The con-
troversy over this miracle, between the grand old
statesman Gladstone, a faith-ridden fanatic, and
Professor Huxley, the scientist, shows us the power
of early teaching over reason and common sense
in the highest intellects, giving us warning not to
put faith in the ipse dixit of the most noted author-
ity, unaccompanied by proof, without careful in-
vestigation.

When Jesus heard that John the Baptist was
beheaded, and hastened away to a place of safety,

i35

2M)e ©rtfliu of

he was followed, as we have seen, by multitudes
of men, and performed one of his two analogous
miracles, the feeding a host to surfeit with inade-
quate provisions, with a surplus of several baskets
full over a sufficiency. This miracle indicates in-
cidentally that he had an array of thousands of
followers at that time with him. The duplication
of this miracle appears to weaken its probability,
but it may be that those who hunger after the su-
pernatural will not be surfeited with the second
repast; the most important fact historically is the
narrative showing that he had an army of men
with him.

When his disciples next met him, he asked them,
as before related, "Whom do men say that I am?"
with his laudation and reproof of Peter.

Jesus cautioned his followers against pretenders,
and gave them a graphic description of the advent
of the " Son of Man," comparing it to lightning com-
ing out of the east and shining to the west. He
tells them that immediately after the tribulations
he had described, " the sun shall be darkened, and
the moon shall not give her light, and the stars
shall jail from heaven, when shall appear the sign
of the ' Son of Man ' coming in the clouds of heaven
with power and great glory. And he shall send
136

Supernatural <&onttptiom

his aiigels with great sound of trumpet to gather
the elect from the four winds, from one end of
heaven to the other." He tells them, "when they
see these things, they will know the time has come."
He then goes on to declare in unmistakable lan-
guage, " Verily I say unto you, this generation shall
not pass , until all these things are fulfilled; heaven
and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not
pass away." He admonishes them to " Watch there-
fore : for ye know not what hour your Lord doth
come ; for in such an hour as ye think not the ' Son
of Man' cometh." In the preceding quotations the
extent of Christ's knowledge in relation to the phys-
ical world, and his idea of a circumscribed heaven
above it, to and from which he and the angels were
to travel, as appeared in Jacob's dream, and de-
scending on clouds to earth, clearly show his entire
ignorance of the physical world. I have italicized
the sentences quoted to which I would call partic-
ular attention, showing the unquestionable error
of Christ's declarations.

When Christ instructed his disciples how to know
him from a false Messiah, he tells them he will
come with wondrous heavenly phenomena that
our present knowledge shows to be an impossi-
bility; his prognostication of the time when these

i37

events were to happen was not verified. All this
clearly demonstrates that Christ had no knowl-
edge beyond that of his compeers about the uni-
verse; there can be no doubt he believed this earth
to be a stable, immovable body, and that there
was a habitable place above the " firmament,' '
where heaven was supposed to be, in which ' ' God
the Father" resided enthroned in glory. He dis-
tinctly names the ends of heaven, and he declares
his purpose to fit up mansions there for the saints,
thus materializing and circumscribing, not only
heaven, but God, who resided therein; whom he
learned from Genesis had the configuration of man,
who was made in his image, and consequently
he was a personality. Christ's view of heaven,
and its place in nature, is established by his declara-
tion that the stars would jail; those little scintil-
lating sparks in the firmament created in one day,
as is told in Genesis, that were to fall without dis-
turbing the immutable earth, on the coming of the
"Son of Man" to judge this little world, to him
the stable centre of creation. There can be no doubt
that he thought the fall of the stars to the earth
would enhance the sublimity of the advent. We
need not trace the legend further to establish the
fact that Christ was ignorant of the true cosmos.
138

Supernatural <&outtptiom

We have seen that Christ assured his disciples
they "will see" the destruction of the universe
during their lives; and he admonishes them to
watch, as they did not know when this would hap-
pen. He says, " Verily I say unto you, there be some
standing here that shall not taste death till they
see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom." He
thus commits himself in the clearest and most
unmistakable language, that neither theology nor
sophistry can torture into a metaphysical or spir-
itual meaning of the statement modifying the plain
declaration. Time has clearly proved that none
of the phenomena described by Christ as about
to take place materialized in that generation, nor
has it since then, for nineteen hundred years. The
old legal maxim, jalsus in uno jalsus in omnibus,
may be here applied with significant force.

It is obvious from the story told in all the Gos-
pels that there were persistent feuds and warfare
between Christ and the Jewish authorities, the
priests, Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes, against
all of whom he hurled anathemas for opposing him.

When his first recorded belligerent act occurred,
on his notable entrance into Jerusalem trium-
phantly seated on an ass, a host of thousands of fol-
lowers paid him divine and kingly honors, calling

i39

him "King of the Jews" as he entered the Temple
and took possession with his army and drove out
its occupants; all the events immediately follow-
ing this act of usurped sovereignty are not recorded,
but he then had a sufficient following at his com-
mand to temporarily overthrow the legal authori-
ties; while the legends of his varied fortunes are
enveloped in a cloud of miracles, such as have been
attributed to all of the ancient deities, his expul-
sion from the Temple is not described.

Before and after the decapitation of John the
Baptist, Christ was aggressive; subsequently, after
he had taken possession of the Temple and had
been ejected therefrom, his later discourses shadow
forth monitions of his coming fate. True to Jew-
ish customs and traditions, he prepared to keep
the Passover with his disciples at a supper which
proved to be his last ; at this feast, after he had of-
fered them the wine- cup to drink, he is reported
to have said, " This is my blood shed for the redemp-
tion of sins." Here is the first announcement of
his adherence to the old levitical law of a bloody
sacrifice to an inexorable God. It was uttered when
all hope of becoming king had vanished; and he
then declared he would not taste wine again until
he drank it anew with his disciples in his Father's
140

kingdom, an illusion he still kept up, giving them
to understand that when they were in his Father's
kingdom, they would be amply supplied with a
solace of the wine-cup.

After the supper, as before related, he and his
disciples went out to his retreat on the Mount of
Olives, to escape observation; but Christ was
evidently apprehensive, for Judas, whom he sus-
pected, was not with them. Judas knew their
place of refuge, and the characteristics and pur-
poses of Christ's disciples; consequently, he in-
vaded their retreat with a strong force of armed
men to arrest him, with a preconcerted signal to
ensure his capture. Christ's followers at first made
belligerent demonstration, but Jesus, probably see-
ing the futility of it as is told, forbade them. He
was then taken into custody and carried before
the high priest. All his adherents dispersed except
Peter, who had the boldness to follow his master
in disguise before the tribunal of elders, where the
chief priest adjured Jesus, saying, "By the living
God, tell us whether thou be the Christ, the Son
of God." He answered affirmatively, and boasted
that they should see him hereafter, "sitting on the
right hand of power, and coming in the clouds
of heaven;" this the high priest deemed blasphemy,

141

He was then taken before the Roman governor,
Pilate, before whom he was tried and condemned to
death, not for the assumption of divinity, but for the
attempt to enforce his claim to be the ' ' King of the
Jews." As no detail is given of the evidence against
him, we cannot judge of its character; but we are
informed that he confessed to Pilate that he claimed
to be ' ' King of the Jews," and offered no evidence
to deny the charge of his usurpation, which under
Roman law incurred the penalty of death. The
story that the witnesses were false, and that they
proved no infringement of the law, — that Pilate
found no cause for the sentence, and that he de-
clared, washing his hands, that Christ was innocent
and a just person, — is so entirely unlike what we
know of the universal course and policy of Roman
rulers, as well as of Roman law, that the statement
appears wholly incredible, especially as it is founded
on the nebulous traditions of Christ's catechumens
and apologists orally acquired through several gen-
erations of vague legendary lore. Such a vacillating,
wayward administration of justice found no place
under Roman rule. The offence for which Christ
was crucified was unmistakably blazoned by Pilate
upon his cross.

In the foregoing account of the trial and the exe-
142

Supernatural Qonttptiom

cution of Christ we have followed the first three
Gospels as the most unbiassed authority ; the fourth
Gospel is evidently the work of a mystical, fanati-
cal Paulist, in which statements are made regardless
of fact, and clearly deviating from the other accounts
in a way that renders it more than doubtful ; notably,
the account that the mother of Jesus was near his
cross, a thing which would not have been permitted
by the executioners, and which controverts the other
accounts of the crucifixion, wherein particular men-
tion is made of the Marys who were present ' ' afar
off," but do not allude to Christ's mother as being
there, an incredible omission if she was present.
This story in the Gospel of John was evidently a
figment of the writer's brain, who thus deduced the
homily attributed to Christ at the last supper. The
inscrutable writer evidently drew upon his imagi-
nation to sustain his theology, as in his fabulous
opening chapter.

H3

®tje (©vtfltn of

CHAPTER VI.

THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT

The Sermon on the Mount was evidently, as we
have seen, a homily addressed by Christ to his un-
trained, ignorant followers about to engage in per-
ilous undertakings, exhorting them to be patient
and content under the great privations and difficul-
ties they were about to encounter. It gave them as-
surance of ample reward in the untold future, inter-
spersed with judicious praise, with an injunction to
act. l ' Ye are the light of the world ; ye are the salt
of the earth." He taught a code of non-resistance,
and used an exaggeration of speech which, but for
a belief in his divinity, would be deemed absurd,
advising them if their eyes or hands offended (what-
ever that may mean), to destroy them, — not to con-
trol or guide them, but to "cut them off," to pre-
vent their whole body from being ' ' cast into hell."

After this exaggerated utterance, he charges them
not to resist evil, thus teaching a code of non-resist-
144

Stumrnattttral <&onu»Uom

ance that would serve to prevent his followers from
contest detrimental to his cause. This, although
not then a new doctrine, has never been practised
by any cultivated people. Such an act would now
be considered imbecile, if not criminal. Again, we
read in this sermon his exhortations to his followers
to take no thought what they should eat, drink, or
wear; which, if intended for the exigencies of his
army, may have been politic, but if intended for a
guide in ordinary life, is contrary to a sound theory
of human economy. A thoughtful care for the fu-
ture is the soul of virtue and prosperity in the indi-
vidual and in the nation. These aphorisms seem
to have been the utterances of fanaticism, or to have
grown out of the exigencies of his situation, and
have been the unfortunate source of much mistaken
piety in sects that have sprung up under their in-
fluence. It may be said of these specimens of
Christ's exhortations, that what is true and good
had long before been inculcated, and what is new
and exceptional is neither good nor true. The par-
ables are like the fables of earlier origin uttered to
illustrate moral truths. Whether they are correctly
attributed to Christ or not is a matter hardly worth
discussing. They elucidate no new truths, but their
introduction as teachings was a great temptation

i45

©Jje ©tiflfn of

for a subsequent narrator to insert them into the
legend.

No argument would suffice to controvert the mir-
acles with one who believes in their credibility;
while the assumption that they were possible, or had
any existence in fact, cannot be proved by any ad-
missible evidence.

In the abnormal acts related of Christ we can
only mark the character of the phenomena and the
events that caused them. The first miracle re-
corded of him, that we note, is the blasting of a fig-
tree, obviously in revenge for his disappointment.
In this advanced age it seems wayward and unrea-
soning, yet theologians try to palliate the act; and
good, just, intellectual thinkers, desirous that truth
should prevail, are so handicapped by their belief
in Christ's divinity that they allow their reason to
be held in abeyance, because they have had the
dogma instilled into their minds from infancy, and
dare not doubt it. So far many of the conscientious
and good acolytes of all the ancient faiths would
have sacrificed their lives in defence of their religion
and in the adulation of their gods, while men who
have cast off the glamour of superstition see the
errors and defects of all the gods described by man,
from whose imperfect mint they have been coined.
146

Supernatural (fronttptiom

The next miracle, which requires much greater
credulity to believe, is the story of the casting out
devils from a crazy man living among the tombs,
and causing them to enter a herd of swine. For-
tunately this malady of the bedevilment of men to
deprive them of their senses has totally disappeared
in these enlightened days, and the potency of its
introduction has become obsolete. The grossness
of this story would seem to carry its own refutation
with it, but one of the most conspicuous statesmen
in England has in recent days, as we have seen,
attempted to champion it against the destructive
assaults of a far more able foeman than myself.
As I feel assured that he has failed to maintain the
reality of the fabulous account that Professor Hux-
ley has so clearly annihilated and consigned to the
realms of fiction, where it belongs, I need add noth-
ing further to refute it.

Another miracle, the turning of water into wine,
was an act performed at a wedding-feast, simply in
furtherance of a social festival. This appears to
have been a prostitution of divine power, on a mis-
sion, as is claimed, for the salvation of mankind,
frittered away in dereliction of his vicarious ap-
pointment as Messiah and Redeemer of the world.
This miracle, and his declaration that he would
i47

Wfyt ©rtflttt Of

drink wine in heaven thereafter, are sore thorns in
the sides of the overzealous temperance advocates,
showing that Christ was unquestionably a drinker
of wine and bon-vivant.

He manifestly feared the influence of other aspir-
ants for the Messiahship on his followers; and
when his disciples asked him what was to be the
sign of his coming and the end of the world (which,
he assured them, and they evidently believed, would
be in their time), without answering their questions
he dilated on the manner of his coming, picturing
a most marvellous display of wonders, with a sound-
ing of trumpets by angels, and a general destruc-
tion of the universe to proclaim his advent. In this,
as in all his other declarations, he is made to call
himself "the Son of Man,"— not the Son of God
(thus declaring he had an earthly father), which is
certainly significant, showing he avoided making
that claim. He declared, as we have seen, that all
the wonders he had described were to happen dur-
ing the lifetime of that generation. Such a descrip-
tion would be deemed farcical if it were not believed
to be the utterance of Deity, yet wise, learned, and
good people have faith in his hereafter coming.

On this rhapsodically dramatic second coming,
with a blast of trumpets, accompanied by angels
148

and a fall of stars, he was to judge all mankind and
divide them into two groups, the sheep and the
goats, — the saints and the sinners, — between
which he was to draw a sharp line, and, on the
principle of his parable of the laborers in the vine-
yard, he would reward the sheep of all degrees of
goodness equally; and the goats he would hurl in-
discriminately ' ' into everlasting punishment pre-
pared for the devil and his angels," — described
elsewhere as everlasting fire. Such is the picture
of the dispenser of Christian justice given by his
biographer, who as well as himself lived in a primi-
tive, ignorant, and superstitious age, above which
their ideas did not rise.

To explain the failure to make good the assertion
that he would appear, as he said he would, has ex-
ercised many profound and brilliant intellects; and
when such authorities were received on their own
ipse dixit, their dictum was sufficient. But modern
science repudiates all dogmatisms unsupported by
facts, discarding their theories, sophistic reasonings,
and subterfuges employed to reconcile the known
fact with the false declaration.

Christ had achieved his popularity with the lower
strata of the populace, and had obtained a follow-
ing, which seems never to have attained proportions
149

sufficiently formidable to endanger the government.
But the story culminates in a record of miracles,
healing of the sick, raising of the dead, and casting
out devils, all of which was common in prior East-
ern mythologies.

x5o

Supernatural Qonttptiontt

CHAPTER VII.

THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION — JOHN'S GOSPEL

Having briefly set forth some of the salient
features in the life of Christ and his teachings,
drawn from the meagre record in the Gospels, in
which mysticism pervades the story, that shows
an evident evasion of his belligerent acts and their
failure, by a suppression of facts, it is interesting
to analyze the religion based upon it, premising that
the histories of the world record the establish-
ment of innumerable religious dogmas, which are
often based upon seeming trifles. Such grand and
wide-spread religions as are based on the Hindu,
Buddhist, Egyptian, Grecian, and Roman mythol-
ogies were the outcome of generating incidents,
facts, and suggestions drawn from the phenomena
of nature, or the events of social relations, that
impressed themselves upon the primitive mind,
events materialized in the imagination and devel-
oped from nuclei apparently inconsequent and

151

frivolous. From such an origin was the Moham-
medan religious faith developed in later times,
that spread further and embraced a larger number
of proselytes than the Christian religion has done,
and in less time.

In our country sectarian dogmas have sprung
up with wonderful vitality in the midst of an en-
lightened community; witness the sect of Shakers,
believing in the second advent of Christ in the per-
son of a female (Ann Lee), and the more recent
Mormon faith, with a host of earnest believers,
ready to peril life and comfort for the cause, which
originated in the most absurd pretensions that could
well be elaborated. Yet they resulted in sects
which a few years earlier would have developed
a new nation. And now, that barefaced fraud
Dowie pockets millions of dollars while deluding
a multitude of followers.

We thus see that no bounds can be anticipated
for human credulity and fanaticism. We may
note, however, that the records of abnormal and
supernatural appearances have become less fre-
quent as the world gets more enlightened ; although
many learned men of to-day, as well as a vast ma-
jority of the people in the most advanced coun-
tries, believe in supernatural occurrences that

J52

Supernatural <&onttptiom

tradition relates happened centuries ago. No
number of witnesses would cause the world of sci-
ence to believe in their occurrence at the present
day. A man who should pretend now to have a
divine mission would attain as much apprecia-
tion by the ignorant as Christ, the son of a Naz-
arene carpenter, did in Judea, with as many fol-
lowers as tradition gives him. The most absurd
pretender still has followers; and so it will ever
be until men learn that there never was any reve-
lation or abnormal miraculous phenomenon imparted
to man at any time jrom any source.

In carefully reading the record of Christ's teach-
ings, we are impressed with the fact that, while
there is no indication that he knew anything of
the true cosmology of the universe, there are many
passages that show his entire ignorance of it. It
is clear that he pictured heaven as a determinate
place above the " firmament" which surmounted
the world; that the sun and moon could be dark-
ened as a readily achievable act ; and that the stars
(the little spangles that dotted the great arch over
us) could jail. Wonderful destruction of the uni-
verse was to take place in consequence of the com-
ing of the " Son of Man" to judge mankind in this
little planet. To him the earth was immovable,

*S3

and that he and hosts of angels would descend upon
it from the great arch over it, where heaven was
located, on clouds; that heaven, though circum-
scribed, was big enough to hold all the saints.

Christ's idea of the universe was that of the age
in which he lived; and if the Revelation of St.
John was inspired by the same authority, we know
what Christ had in his mind when he was made
to speak of the mansions that he was going to pre-
pare for his disciples and the saints, in that heav-
enly abode. It would be a work of supererogation
to further illustrate Christ's total ignorance of the
universe. When he talked of the stars falling,
how little did he know about those ponderous orbs
that sink this little world into insignificant dimen-
sions in the creation. Can there be stronger proof
of the fabulous character of these narratives ?

It is clear that the warfare between Christ and
the sect of Pharisees and all others in authority
was very bitter; but the details of the controversy,
or any overt acts arising therefrom, are, as we have
before said, carefully suppressed. Of Christ's
trial, there is too meagre an account to justify us
in the formation of any judgment as to the equity
of the sentence that culminated in his execution.
We learn incidentally he so offended the Jewish
iS4

Supernatural Qonttptionu

authorities that they deemed him more criminal
than a robber; in their eyes he had desecrated the
Temple. If his offence was only a dereliction from
the established religion, here are innumerable re-
cent examples under Christian dispensation of exe-
cutions for a like offence.

Christ was tried before a Roman tribunal, that
would not have condemned him for a religious of-
fence against the Jewish authority if nothing else
was brought against him. Christian tradition de-
clares that the witnesses against him were false,
although little is recorded of what was proved,
but they do admit that there was no rebutting evi-
dence offered, and that Christ acknowledged to
Pilate that he had claimed to be "the King of the
Jews." For this offence alone he was executed, so
far as the record shows. By what "cantrip sleight"
his followers could build up the theory that he
died for the salvation of man, especially for men in
after-ages, with which the event had no logical
connection, is cause for amazement, while the
dogma involves the barbaric tenet of human sac-
rifice, such as was practised in the Mexican relig-
ion when that country was discovered.

Founded on this legend of human sacrifice, —
however perpetuated, — this sect sprang up and

155

gained strength in that chaos of political evolutions
and theological isms, during the later Roman Em-
pire. It nourished under the patronage of Hadrian,
coupled with the adhesive fanaticism of its fol-
lowers ; and finally attracted the notice of Constan-
tine, who was at that time in a controversy with
the dominant priesthood. He took this rising
sect under his protection, for political reasons, and
established its power. The controversy about Con-
stantine's conversion is unfortunate for Christian-
ity, as his infamous character added but little pres-
tige to it in a moral point of view. His policy in
establishing the power of this sect was the curse of
Europe throughout the dark age of its history, up
to the time when knowledge and science — of
which it was the pronounced and active foe —
gained a partial victory over it through many
martyrs.1 Fortunately, liberty of thought has
gained an independence and right, not due to any
teaching of Christianity, but to the triumph of the
veritable truths of science, and the promulgation
of the right to investigate all subjects, and announce
the facts about them, against any taboo of the
theologians.

1 Of this we have a full account from the laborious researches
of that learned historian, the Hon. Andrew D. White.

156

Sttpewattttal <&outtption&

As dogmatic power was acquired, doctrines were
formulated by rival factions in the Christian Church ;
all clamoring for the right to regulate belief in
accordance with the interpretations of their sev-
eral sects, which arose even in the first century.
This produced acrimonious feuds, each sect striv-
ing for ascendency in the warfare that finally cul-
minated in the domination of the Roman Church, —
Providence being, as usual, on the side of the domi-
nant faction. That Church governed all Europe
for centuries with a beastly fanaticism, till at last
nature displayed to the unsuppressible mind of
men truths that dogmatism could not refute, al-
though their first announcement brought implaca-
ble punishment upon the audacious offenders.

Singularly enough, one of the most virulent feuds
in the Church was about the status of Christ. One
sect believed him to be a divinely inspired son of
man, as he invariably declared himself to be, and
that he was secondary to God the Father, being
subject to his will, as he said he was. The adverse
sect claimed that he was equal, coexistent, and
very God, from the beginning of time, as is asserted
in St. John's Gospel.

The mystical sayings of the Gospel of St. John
(whoever that writer may have been) are the source

i57

of innumerable interpretations, which they have
received from learned theologians and fervent lay-
men without number, each interpreting to suit
his own creed. The fact would seem to be that
the Gospel was concocted by a mystic, filled with
the errant traditions of Christ, who wrote out his
own metaphysical interpretations, with nebulous
historical accounts for a basis. The whole at-
mosphere of that Gospel is so radically different
from the other Gospels, and so full of metaphys-
ical rhapsodies, as to show a rescript of the author's
cogitations rather than a statement of facts. The
interpretation of this book has been a rich working
mine for theologians; it gives them scope ad lib-
itum to develop sectarianisms of adverse char-
acter, all established by some weird sayings, the
author of which is unknown

The Gospel according to St. John was evidently
written to sustain the dogma first announced by
St. Paul, who antagonized St. Peter and most of
the disciples of Christ. Paul expanded the Jewish
Messiah into a deity embracing the whole human
race. He abnegated the rite of circumcision that
every believing Jew held to be indispensable, and
without which Christ could not have obtained a
following.

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Sttjmruattttal eoiutjitioug

This Gospel begins with a mystical appellation
to designate Christ. The author goes on to claim
for him attributes and powers that Christ himself
never claimed, making him, instead of God the
Father, the creator of all things; centring life
even in him. This unwarranted elevation of Christ
is the foundation of the subsequent enigmatical
doctrine of the Trinity, and is not confirmed by any
recorded expression of Christ.

The generation of Jesus related in Matthew is
ignored in John; the subject was evidently too
mundane to receive the notice of this rhapsodic-
ally metaphysical writer, who introduces him as
the Word through John, whose name is appended
to the Gospel.

John's unique garb is not alluded to, but he is
made to announce the advent of Christ, as infinitely
superior to him. The appellation of Messiah is
ignored in this statement, but he makes John ex-
claim, on seeing Jesus, " Behold the Lamb of
God, which taketh away the sins of the world."
No such expression is found in any of the other
Gospels. It is the theology of Paul, not of Jesus.

The advent of the apostles is made to commence
at this time, quite differently from the other accounts,
when Nathaniel is made to say, ' ' Thou art the Son

i59

2Tf)t ©tiflttt Of

of God; thou art the King of Israel." Jesus tells
him he shall see greater things than the fig-tree;
that, " Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the
angels of God ascending and descending upon the
Son of Man." r

The introduction of the episode of the marriage
in Cana of Galilee was evidently interjected to bring
Jesus into contact with his mother, no mention
of which is made elsewhere. Apart from the puerile
and inconsequent character of the miracle, there is
abundant evidence that his mother did not believe
in his divinity. The statement that his mother and
brethren went with him to Capernaum is either a
creation of the author, or an unreliable tradition.
The rejection by Christ of his mother and breth-
ren is omitted, and the collection of a large host
of the followers of Jesus, who went with him to
Jerusalem, where the writer describes him as alone
driving out of the Temple those who sold oxen
and sheep and doves, and the changers of money
sitting : " When he had made a scourge of small
cords, he drove them all out of the Temple, and
the sheep and the oxen ; and poured out the changers'

1 As these boasts, put into the sayings of Jesus, never culumi-
nated, they have been given a spiritually metaphysical interpreta-
tion by theologians.

160

Suj)*ruatutral (bonttptiom

money, and overthrew the tables." We have quoted
this passage at length as a remarkable example
of suppressio veri, no mention being made of the
host with him, clearly with the design of exalting
his hero into a god. There can be no better proof
of the total unreliability of the author. It is not
surprising that when, as recorded, Jesus boasted that
if the Temple in which they were was destroyed, he
would raise it up in three days, the writer, in ac-
cordance with a subsequent tradition, attributed
the saying to allusion by Christ to the resurrec-
tion of his body ; but that record was written long
after Christ's death, an afterthought.

In recording what is assumed to be Christ's
sayings, we can easily see they were written after
the consummation of the life of Jesus, such as the
lifting up of the serpent by Moses compared with
his execution. Most of the sayings in the third
chapter of John are but the lucubrations of the
writer, or vague tradition, of no value as history.

In the narrative of the Samaritan woman at
the well, the Jewish proclivity of Jesus comes
fully out, in which the national prejudice is appar-
ent. When he was teaching among his neighbors,
they said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph,
whose father and mother we know? How is it
161

2Ti)e ©tiflin of

then that he saith I came down from heaven?"
This was said by those who knew him, and his
father and mother; if they had ever heard of his
miraculous conception, they would not have thus
spoken.

We will not comment on the cannibalistic pic-
ture in the sixth chapter ; it may be construed to suit
the faith of those who believe in the divinity of
the record. He sometimes alienated his followers
by his sayings. When he told them, ' ' No man can
come unto me except it were given unto him of my
Father," many of his followers went back and
walked no more with him. He asks his disciples
if they will go away, but they stood by him. At
that time he kept out of Judea in Galilee, fearing
the Jews would kill him. The seventh, eighth,
ninth, and tenth chapters of John are filled with
sayings, altercations, bickerings, and boastings,
but no word of teaching, the point being, that all
that believed that he was divine were good, all others
were sinners; while on the part of the Jews his
pretension to be the son of God was blasphemy.
It is more than doubtful if the declaration of the
Son of Man means, even in John, that he was the
son of God, any more than all good men are; only
that as he was assumed to be most perfect, he was
162

more emphatically entitled to the cognomen. But
we are here trenching on ground we would avoid;
we do not intend to engage in the war of the theo-
logians; the author of John was evidently on the
side of Christ's divinity, although he records a
number of sayings that refute it.

The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, seated on
an ass, as related in John, differs in time, and radi-
cally in manner, from the other Gospels, showing
the dubious character of the legend; but it dis-
plays him in the role of ' ' King of the Jews." The
attempt of the writer to weaken that demonstra-
tion by ignoring the army of invaders with Jesus,
in recording the supernatural, is not successful.
Jesus, accompanied by a host of followers, invaded
Jerusalem and the Temple, to the surprise of the
priests and the people. This is toned down by
John into a casual meeting of the people gathered
for another purpose, who incidentally heard of his
coming, and flocked out to meet him; but this
version is traversed by the other Gospels. The
separating his entry into Jerusalem from his host
of followers and his driving out the occupants of
the Temple alone was evidently for the purpose
of magnifying his puissance by the statement that
he alone drove them out.

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The dictum attributed to Christ in the twenty-
fourth verse of the twelfth chapter would not be
accepted as truth by modern agriculturists ; it is an
error of speech uttered to illustrate self-abnega-
tion. If a belief in Jesus was essential to salvation
it was unfortunate that the fulfilment of the saying
of Esaias was a bar to the belief of those who were
present with him; but the pains taken to fulfil
ancient prophecies throughout the New Testa-
ment is a proof that it was considered important.

No attribute is more strongly declared in this
Gospel than that all who believe undoubtingly on
Christ shall have the power to work miracles.
He himself is made to declare it in repeated say-
ings; yet no one pretends that any such power
exists in modern times, except a few unprincipled
charlatans, that in every age are found deceiving
the credulous, aided by a very universal belief in
the existence of miracles in past ages.

Throughout the whole Gospel of John the say-
ings are self-laudatory, and are intended to bind
the followers of Jesus to his personality rather than
to any specific line of morals, to follow his example ;
while but little is recorded of his acts except his
miracles, benefiting certain individuals with whom
he chanced to come in contact, of whom noth-
164

Supernatural (bonttptiom

ing is subsequently related. He certainly did not
originate any great work to benefit mankind. The
great purpose seems to have been his proselyting,
as well as that of his followers. We hear of no marked
change in civilization of his followers over their
compeers. The whole body of the Gospels' theol-
ogy is comprised in the third verse of the seven-
teenth chapter, "This is life eternal, that they
might know thee the only true God, and Jesus
Christ, whom thou hast sent." Jesus is made in
John to say, " I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do." What work did he accom-
plish ? At his death he left a few poor, ignorant fish-
ermen, whose neophytes numbered but a small frac-
tion of the Jewish people. Until the conversion
of Paul, — that happened after Christ's death, —
there was no attempt by Christ's disciples to dis-
seminate his doctrine among Gentile people. The
churches beyond Judea were all circumcised Jews,
but Paul seeing the deleterious effect of such a
limited restriction, after some contention with the
original adherents of Christ, succeeded in estab-
lishing a new dogma that Christ died for all man-
kind who believed him to be divine. This version
of Christ's mission the writer of John's Gospel has
attempted to sustain by his weird defining of

165

Stye Obvisiu of

Christ, in language only to be interpreted by learned
metaphysicians, and assigning to him what he
evidently never dreamed of, — the creation of the
universe. Such preposterous sayings we can hardly
attribute to Christ; they are evidently the morbid
lucubrations of their fanatical author.

When Jesus had finished his acts of self-lauda-
tion in the Temple that so offended the Jews, he
was expelled therefrom; as the writer mildly ex-
presses it, "he went forth with his disciples over
the brook Cedron, where there was a garden,
into which he entered." That this was a place of
hiding to which he escaped is made manifest by
the statement that " Judas, who betrayed him, knew
of this place," and went there accompanied by a
band of men and officers, with lanterns, torches,
and weapons, showing it was by night, when, as
Judas knew, he would not be strongly guarded;
notwithstanding the weakness of his guard, they
did attempt resistance, which Judas evidently
expected, as he brought an armed force with him.
The band had a captain and officers, who took
Jesus and bound him and led him away.

After a somewhat minute relation of incidents
before the high priest, and the episode of Peter,
who had been given the keys of heaven, denying
166

Supernatural (fronttptiom

any knowledge of him, there is but a meagre account
of the trial of Jesus before the high priest and
Pilate, — the most important crisis in Christian
history, — leaving the event in a nebulous state
best adapted to the imaginative construction of
subsequent believers.

Jesus had evidently in the eyes of the Jews dese-
crated the Temple with his host of followers that
the authorities were for a time unable to resist.
This was deemed by them a heinous crime which
they had no power to punish; so he was turned
over to the Roman governor upon the charge of
trying to make himself King of the Jews in dere-
liction of Roman law. What the proof was that
established the charge is not made more clear in
this than in the preceding Gospels; and while
Pilate might not have thought the insurrection
formidable, he evidently considered it worthy of
death, especially as under Jewish law he would
have been executed for taking possession of the
Temple. But Pilate meant to have it clearly under-
stood that Jesus was not executed for any infringe-
ment of Jewish law, but for an infraction of the Ro-
man law, by assuming to be King of the Jews. This
he emphasized by a legend in three languages
displayed on the cross, that all might understand.

167

2Cfje (©irfflfn of

The author of this Gospel introduces an episode
which, if there were no other proof, would clearly
show the total unreliability of this record ; he states
that the mother of Jesus and his disciple stood by
the cross with two other Marys, and Jesus con-
versed with them, while the other Gospels omit all
mention of his mother at the execution, but they
distinctly mention the three Marys, of whom his
mother was not one, that " stood afar off," evi-
dently too far to speak with him ; and we know that
under Roman rule his relatives would not have been
allowed to approach him; and further, the husband
of Mary and her children living were probably bet-
ter able and more likely to care for her than any
disciple of Christ would be.

The Roman Church inculcates the dogma that
" the Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy
Ghost is God," and yet there are not three Gods,
but only one God. This mystic triune God is still
adopted by a majority of the Christian sects, and
although common sense repels the contradiction,
faith unreasoning accepts it and theologians teach
it. This inconceivable dogma was combated by
some of the earliest Christians, but the weight of
power was against them; and after fearful martyr-
dom they were silenced. That was established in
1 68

Supernatural <&QtittptioM

an age when fire and fagots were more potent ar-
guments than reason. In later days the heresy that
Christ was subordinate and the emissary of God is
now allowed a place unmolested through the ame-
liorating influence of modern civilization that an
earlier Christian age would not have tolerated.
The struggle to make three persons, each a very
God, one God, was a fearful strain on common
sense controlled by faith, which appears to the un-
biassed onlooker like credulity and superstition.

While the role of iconoclast is undesirable, and an
offence to worshippers, never inuring beneficially or
happily to an earnest and sincere destroyer of the
idols of those for whose benefit and welfare he is
seeking, he receives for his reward vituperation and
slander. But if the present civilized world is in
this new country to make a distinguished advance
in science and the elevating morals of high culture,
it must abandon the fetish of the Hebrew God and
the superstitious worship of his immaculate Son;
and with them the fables of supernatural appear-
ances, miracles, and revelations, that have all origi-
nated in the fertile human brain, bewildered by
multiplex supernatural phenomena that have been,
and still are, promulgated.

Waiving further details of the anomalous tradi-
169

©D* <&viQln of

tional record of the life of Christ found in the Bible,
that has for so many centuries dominated the belief
of the most advanced nations, unsupported by any
collateral or contemporary evidence, which still
maintains a place in the educated world due to the
aberration of early education (a formidable antag-
onist to independent thought and investigation) ;
aided by a reluctance to disturb the established
order of things that for centuries has been control-
ling the thoughts and acts of men ; and the fear that
it might create disorganization in the social world
by destroying the current interests, established priv-
ileges, and prerogatives of individual, national, and
preeminently the theological organizations.

So far has persistent iteration and reiteration
claimed the Christian religion as a synonym for
goodness and virtue, and the guardian of morality,
that it is generally believed in by Christians, while
the converse is asserted to be immorality and abom-
ination. An examination of this claim by unbiassed
and disinterested investigation will show that a belief
in the divinity of Christ has no relation to morals,
as has been fully shown in the annals of the dark
ages of European history. The corrupt Popish su-
premacy — the horrors of the Inquisition — and the
prolonged struggle of knowledge and truth for a

170

Supernatural (fronttptiom

place in the world, with the antagonism and acts of
the churches against liberalism, have proved peril-
ous to the champions of free thought.

If Christianity now appears in the r6le of morality
and philanthropy, it derives its true status of mod-
ern goodness, not from its teachings displayed when
it had full power, but from modern science declar-
ing independence for thought. It has now changed
its tactics, that required submission to its dogmas
by force of implacable punishment, and is compelled
to content itself with ostracism and moral suasion
generally, for its opponents in this country, thanks
to the foresight of the founders of our independence.
But even here there are restless bigots that are cov-
ertly striving to drag the government into a recog-
nition of their dogmas for a national religion,
against which the founders of the Republic care-
fully guarded the Constitution. The sinister attacks
of Christian dogmatists heretofore on the policy of
nations have been the cause of many, if not most,
of the wars that have disturbed the peace of the
world.

171

©!)* ©tijjttl of

CHAPTER VIII.

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE AND RULE

It is interesting to inquire what the fundamental
doctrines are that form the basis of the varied
Christian beliefs. We are met here with an endless
confusion of dogmas, that have most of them passed
through the fire of persecution, vituperation, chas-
tisement, and anathema from fellow Christians, for
believing, or not believing, certain creeds or tenets
deemed essential to salvation. As the times for
penalties to life and limb for adverse opinions have
gone out of fashion, and fines and imprisonment
have nearly disappeared for transgressing canoni-
cal laws, we may venture to look a little into the
present Christian cults, well knowing that we may
be criticized by the numerous sectarians, each of
whose several creeds is assumed to be the true
one.

Christianity has no raison (PStre if the story in
172

Stmmiattttal <£ouujitious

Genesis is not true, wherein Adam and Eve ate the
fruit from the forbidden tree in search of knowl-
edge of good and evil, that God especially desired
they should not acquire. If there had been no orig-
inal sin, a Redeemer would have been unnecessary.
Why this temptation should have been put in the
way of the beings God had made in his own image,
if he intended to keep them in ignorance, is an
enigma, but, stranger still, why he should desire to
keep them in ignorance of good and evil is a prob-
lem quite too deep for us to solve. We leave it to
the theologians, knowing that it is a dogma strictly
adhered to at least by the Roman Church, followed
by Protestants generally, with facile casuistry when
uncomfortable truths antagonize their doctrines.
The tenet of original sin through Adam's disobedi-
ence is a fundamental proposition upon which the
religion of Christianity is founded ; hence, the neces-
sity for a Redeemer, a Saviour.

The Jews' tradition that a Messiah would appear
to redeem them from the thraldom of a foreign
ruler was not a redemption from God's wrath, but
from the power of men. Christ assumed, as the
record shows, to be the promised Messiah, and was
hailed as such by his followers; "a great multi-
tude " shouting, and announcing him as " King of
i73

Eftt ©rifliti of

the Jews." With regal status he entered the Tem-
ple with an army of followers, and drove out its oc-
cupants, as we have seen, much to the horror of the
priests and others in authority. He declared that
he came for the salvation of the Jews alone, and
grudgingly performed a miracle for an outsider.

He believed the Babylonian account of the crea-
tion copied in the Jewish Scriptures was true, as
well as the wondrous tales of the prophets and
kings. While he announced himself to be the " Son
of Man," he in no case claimed a miraculous pro-
genitor. If he was a descendant of David, as it is
claimed he was, he must have been Joseph's son, as
he was declared to be by his mother, and was under-
stood to be by others. He began his public career
as " king " in Jerusalem, and his mission was on
Jewish territory during his short active life. The
meagre record tells but little except his preaching
and his miracles, although crowds are reported as
following him. All overt acts committed by them
under his sanction were failures, and are carefully
omitted. We only know incidentally from his own
lips that he came for war, not peace, indicating a
fierce civil contest, and his subsequent acts were
deemed sufficiently criminal to merit death, which
was awarded him by the Roman governor. The
i74

character given of his offence, which was blazoned
upon his cross, shows that he tried to inaugurate a
kingdom. His utterances after his cause was lost,
if correctly reported, avail nothing in explanation
or expiation of his guilt. The healings and resur-
rections recorded of him are more numerous than
those of modern Christian Scientists, — even Mrs.
Eddy herself and the numerous herd of uneducated
healers that have beguiled the credulous in modern
times have not exceeded him.

After Christ had been some time dead, a sect of
Nazarenes sprang up under the leadership of Paul
that began to deify him, and in that superstitious
age they magnified him into a god. The dogma
was propounded that as all the world had sinned
through Adam, to the great offending of God, Christ
came to redeem it, and reconcile the offended Father
with his offending people, after innumerable nations
had come and gone. Strange as this dogma is, they
went still further and, in accordance with the doc-
trine of the Jews and other barbarous nations, they
attributed a sacrifice of blood necessary for salva-
tion, to account for Christ's execution, and claimed
that he laid down his life to save sinners ; while their
acknowledged and received tradition showed that
he laid down his life for assuming to be " King of

*75

£fje <&vi£in of

the Jews," and had taken active means to make
himself so.

The theory that Jesus died for sinners is made
a fundamental doctrine; and prayers and suppli-
cations go up to-day to " the Saviour who died for
our sins." In order to glorify him, much spiritual
and metaphysical glamour has been made to sur-
round a very plain tale; and the intellectual abil-
ity of many of the highest, purest, and most tran-
scendent minds has been exhausted in aggrandiz-
ing him. The unaccountable phases of human
hallucination frequently cause surprise to those
who approach the mental problem from distinctly
different points of view. We often hear the high-
est expositions of morals and culture, from men
whose learning and clear perception of the best
achievements of man have been acquired from
profound personal observation, preached from in-
consequent Bible texts, under the hallucination that
the inspiration came from the divine words of an
unknown author, whose knowledge and ability
were as far below the modern teacher as is the
distance in time between them.1

1 1 once saw an exposition of this in a sermon, written to prove
the fallibility of inspiration from Biblical texts, which was de-
veloped from the old nursery rhyme, "Jack and Jill." This text
176

Supernatural eotuevtious

There is not a person in these times, having a
knowledge of the admitted facts of science, who
does not know that the account of the creation in
Genesis, and especially so much of it as relates to
the creation of man, is fabulous, as it does not
agree with the known truths of the world's history.
All efforts to reconcile it with fact, such as the
puerile attempt to construe the day of Genesis
into an indefinite period of time, are too prepos-
terous for argument. So of the " sons of God"
cohabiting with the daughters of men, to produce
an abnormal race that never existed. That old
fable was rife in legends antecedent to the Hebrew
account thousands of years. With such evidence
as every schoolboy possesses, the fabulous char-
acter of Genesis is shown. Yet the Christian
world clings to the God there depicted, with the

was very closely adhered to, but expanded into a symbolic pre-
sentation of human life, its aspirations and failures. The present
civilization attained by modern culture is not, and never could
have been, developed from Christianity. It is the outcome of
independent thought bursting through the trammels of religion's
bigotry, from which the present advance in a knowledge of na-
ture and the universe produces a higher standard of humanity
that is now developing. Of the real creator, or first cause, we
know nothing beyond its visible works, — it certainly was not
the God of the Jews, nor was it possessed of any of the mutable
or vacillating attributes ascribed to that God.

177

JJTJ)* ©rifliti of

steadfastness of a Hindu Brahman; for upon it
rests the whole foundation for the assumption of
the divinity of Christ, and his conjectured mission.

No wise man objects to any teaching of goodness
that may be found in the Bible. It is the false
God, stained with crimes and wickedness, that
disfigures it with myths of supernatural, mystical,
and barbarously fanatical events, that are the
crude figments of the brains of uncultivated men,
which should be eliminated from belief, stultify-
ing as they do the noblest efforts to enfranchise
the human mind.

The strange and illogical doctrine that one man
can sin for another, coupled with the equally ab-
surd conception that one man by his crucifixion,
for what his judges and his executioners believed
to be his crimes, could thereby free men from their
sins, seems to the unbiassed mind of common
sense to be so preposterous as to require no argu-
ment to refute it. But the superstition still lingers,
that the "word of God," as the Bible is called, is
of divine origin and is infallibly true; and for that
reason must be believed, however much common
sense rebels against it. This is strenuously con-
troverted, but "reason is fallible," say the the-
ologians, and we are thus encountered by the para-
178

doxical problem of a seemingly false and absurd
tradition, handed down to us through ages of primi-
tive fallible men with an authority not to be ques-
tioned by an enlightened era of fallible men, whose
knowledge of the universe is transcendently greater
than the authors or propagators of the nebulous
record. A keen observer of anthropological phe-
nomena remarks that one of the most singular
things in a museum devoted to that science is the
wonderful tendency of the human mind, when once
it has got into a groove, to stick there; the object
of scientific investigation is to run counter to that
tendency.

The deluge of healings, miracles, resurrections,
and other wonders brought in to embellish the his-
tory of "God's chosen people" were of such com-
mon, every-day repetition in ancient times as to
lose their improbability in uncultivated minds
before the era of Christ's life, and ceased to be
doubtful phenomena to the crowd of believers
who it is assumed witnessed them. The epidemic
of devils, which is happily extinguished as a disease
in modern times, was then so fearfully prevalent
as to enable Christ to perform his most strikingly
characteristic miracles.

This strange and illogical religion was intro-
179

W§t ©trfflfn of

duced and perpetuated by the strong arm of power,
crushing out every vestige of opposition, adverse
proof, and criticism attempted; until the burst-
ing forth of scientific discovery ultimately severed
the bonds that confined the human mind within
the shackles of authority, under penalty of death.
Now, through the persistent force of accumulated
acknowledge and demonstrated facts, we are en-
abled to investigate unmolested, except by ostra-
cism and vituperation, every problem and fact
discovered by emancipated research, so long anath-
ematized as sacrilegious.

We have seen in man's earliest contact with
nature, that his endowment of ratiocination
prompted him to inquire into the cause of the vis-
ible phenomena by which he was surrounded,
and to search for the cause of the various objects,
good and bad, with which he came in contact.
This prompted him to picture in his imagination
a superior being invisible to him, of vast powers,
capable of producing works so much beyond his
comprehension. In the course of time numerous
strange and unaccountable appearances produced
in him a belief in the supernatural, that assisted
his imagination through the phenomena of dreams,
which materialized in his brain into real entities
180

Supernatural erouctpttous

that took shape as gods and devils, in accordance
with the originator's power of thought; thus de-
veloping hallucinations of miracles, revelations,
and other wonders with which such beings were
assumed to be endowed. It is a significant fact
that no such phenomena have ever taken place
within the personal knowledge of any unbiassed,
enlightened, intelligent, and truthful individual
now living; they never happen at the present day
in the face of impartial investigation, but only in
the traditionary past.

There is no authoritative record of Christ known
of earlier date than the second century after his
death; certainly none of the copies of the Gospels
extant were written before that time. They are
chronicles named for, and claimed to be accord-
ing to, certain disciples, by unknown authors.

There is a persistent effort to connect the Chris-
tian dogma with all the modern acts of philanthropy,
charity, and education (to which we have seen it
was an early foe), together with all the amenities
of modern culture, that are the fruits of neoteric
advancement in science, dominating all branches
that are connected with social economy. Many
noble men and women are firm believers in Chris-
tian doctrine, and are desirous to glorify it by their

181

&%* ©tiflfn of

self-sacrificing and benevolent acts; but the true
impulse comes from their own refined natures,
aided by the experience they have attained from
the spread of true knowledge and science, that
shows them their just relations to the world, and
their place in it, imparting to them a clearer insight
into the real claims, duties, and rights of mankind
toward their fellow men, which they unwittingly
attribute to Christianity.

In all ages, and in every known religion, there
have been enthusiasts and martyrs. Innumera-
ble devotees have yielded up their lives rather
than abjure the dogmas they believed to be true;
while their executioners, quite as fanatical, thought
they served God by destroying them. We are
still cursed with the residuum retained by religion
that pervades many sects. Some men have immo-
lated themselves without regard to the logical
consequences, or the good or evil to the rest of
the world, all to glorify God; as if their acts could
do so. In this particular the Hindus, and many
savage tribes, exceed the Christians; but the hor-
rors of martyrdom inflicted by the Christian Church
have equalled, if they have not surpassed, all other
religions. Such persecutions continued down to
the days of the evolution of modern science, that
182

Sujimiatuval ©otuejjtious

included with its battle for the cosmology of the
universe a war for the freedom of thought.

The contest for the emancipation of mankind is
not over yet. The fanatical religionists are still
persistent here, urging the Congress and State
legislatures to pass ecclesiastical and sumptuary
laws; which they have succeeded in doing in Sab-
batarian and other like legislation, in direct con-
travention of the Constitution of the United States
and the Declaration of Independence. The framers
of the Constitution took care to keep out of it a
declaration that this was a Christian nation, or
that we had any national religion. They de-
clared that every one should have the right to wor-
ship as his conscience dictated, whatever his relig-
ion might be. But this right has been ruthlessly
trampled on in most of the States, and by Congress.
By enacting Sunday restrictions, for which they
have not the plea of their God's command : by such
legislation they outrage the rights of seventh-day
Christians, Jews, and all other religionists who
keep other days of the week holy, and who be-
lieve they have God's command to work on Sun-
day. The law compelling them to observe the
Christian Sunday under penalty for its trans-
gression clearly violates their rights. But this is

183

2TJ)t ©trtfltn of

not all: the fanatics, not content with freedom
to worship their God, unmolested, as their con-
science dictates, are striving, not openly but co-
vertly, to bind the nation to the adoption of their
religion, and bring the government under their
domination. When that is accomplished can any
one doubt, if either of the Christian sects gains
ascendency (the Roman Catholic, for instance),
that it will expunge all the others if it has the power,
as it has done in former times ?

Our forefathers had the wisdom to see that re-
ligious controversy was a fruitful source of most
of the wars and contentions of the world; and
they determined to eliminate that cause from this
land of liberty. They consequently ignored it in
the Constitution, and cut off the right to legislate
on that subject. This paved the way to real lib-
erty, and with it real peace. But we see a con-
stant creeping in of seemingly harmless innova-
tions. As God is not named in the Constitution,
a legend has been put upon our coin, "In God
we trust." From a Christian point of view this
should be sacrilegious; from an agnostic point
of view it is silly and unmeaning. To place the
legend upon medals is a question of aesthetic taste,
but to blazon upon " filthy lucre" the hallowed
184

Sttjifvuatttral &<mttptiQU&

name of God, to be bandied about by the most
depraved, whose motto would be, "In grog we
trust," to be passed over barroom counters by inebri-
ate ruffians for their drinks, is more than question-
able. This same holy legend is also made the pur-
veyor that secures a welcome in bawdy houses and
gambling dens ; and is nowhere more fervently wor-
shipped than by burglars and pickpockets, to say
nothing of its power to lure innocence from virtue.
It may well be asked what good this legend is ex-
pected to effect by being placed upon the coin of
the realm. The conspirators did not expect any,
per se, but hoped to enter the thin point of a wedge
into legislation, by which they could drive home
the whole body of sectarianism, and finally to be
strong enough to enforce religious legislation upon
the people, which is expressly prohibited by the
Constitution. The world has had a dire experi-
ence under ecclesiastical rule, and should guard
against the peril of a repetition of it. Such sinis-
ter chicanery is characteristic of religious dogma-
tists, against whom all liberty-lovers should keep
careful guard in future legislation.

The curse of all nations has been theologic rule.
The attempt to govern the thoughts and acts of
men by creeds and dogmas, enacting laws in ac-

185

cordance with the particular creed of the major-
ity, and forcing others to comply with their nar-
row tenets, is the outcome of bigotry, constantly
attempted, and should be carefully guarded against.
In former times any dereliction from the prescribed
rule was visited with penalties of the most rancor-
ous type; often inflicted on persons of the pur-
est character, whose consciences would not permit
them to comply with the laws of their ecclesiasti-
cal oppressors. In a city under the rule of the
Scottish Kirk (that has been called the wickedest
city in the world), beadles searched the streets
on Sunday during religious services to arrest all
persons found out in the thoroughfares, and com-
pelled them to attend religious services. Penal-
ties have been enacted against all secular employ-
ment on Sunday in modern states under Chris-
tian domination, in imitation of the old Levitical
law regarding the Sabbath (Saturday), which most
Christians disobey. For this there is no pretence
of divine command, such as the Jews claim for
their Sabbath. All interference with the rights
of man is demoralizing; and being religious leg-
islation, it is forbidden by the Constitution. This
is of no avail, however, against the rulings of a
sectarian court. The attempt to make men good
186

Sttjimiatttral <&onttptiam

by legislative act is abortive. Goodness has its
seat in the intellect, and does not consist in acts
of worship, or the observance of a holy day fic-
titiously appointed by a politician. Until the
intellect is reached, no reform is possible; and all
constraining and restraining laws, except those
that prevent men from harming their fellow men,
are reprehensible.

It is said that the Emperor Napoleon declared
that France would become either republican or
Cossack. It can be said with equal certainty that
the United States will free itself from Christian
domination, or it will be governed by the Roman
Church under the rule of a Roman Pope, as is
now boastfully asserted by Romish priests. That
will end the constitutional liberty of the people.

While showing in this incomplete sketch, upon
which volumes might be written, that the evolu-
tion of the human mind is based upon and directed
by the observation of its natural surroundings,
evolved from man's powers of ratiocination, there
is no admissible evidence that he ever received
any extraneous aid from a supernatural source.
History is full of wise, just, and profound sayings,
uttered in the earliest stages of man's escape from
barbarism; brilliant flashes of intellect emanated

187

©f)t ©tifltn of

from dull clouds of popular concepts. These shin-
ing meteors of ancient thought were comprehen-
sible by men without divine interpretation, and
served to advance them on their way to correct
knowledge. Many of the authors of these teach-
ings were worshipped for the assumption of divine
revelations.

Buddha, an epithet meaning the Wise or En-
lightened One, whose advent is variously esti-
mated from noo to 600 b. c, was a teacher whose
doctrines still control the belief of a larger body
of sectarians than does any other religion of the
present day. There is a remarkable coincidence
between the history of this great teacher and Christ's
advent, which has been clearly told by Dr. Felix
S. Oswald, whose version I shall follow, noting that
this religion was established long before the era
of Christ, and was in his day well known through-
out the East.

Buddha, like Christ, was of royal lineage; he
was born of a mother who, though married, was
still a virgin. The birth of a future Saviour (Bud-
dha) was announced by a heavenly messenger.
An apparition which Maya (Buddha's mother)
sees in a dream informs her, " Thou shalt be filled
with highest joy. Behold thou shalt bring forth
188

a son bearing the mystic signs of Buddha, who shall
become a sacrifice for the dwellers of the earth,
a Saviour who to all men shall give joy and glori-
ous fruits of immortality" (Rgya. Cherrol-pan.,
61, 62). At the request of Maya, King Sudo-
dhana renounced his connubial rights till she had
brought forth her first son (Rgya., 69, 82).

The immortals of the Tushita-Heaven decide
that Buddha shall be born when the " flower star"
makes its first appearance in the east (Lefmann,
21, 124). A host of angelic messengers descend
and announce tidings of great joy. " A hero,
glorious and incomparable, has been born, a Sa-
viour unto all nations of the earth ! A deliverer has
brought joy and peace to earth and heaven " (Lotus,
102, 114; Rgya., 89, 97). Princes and wise Brah-
mans appear with gifts and worship the child
Buddha (Rgya., 97, 113). The Brahman Asita,
to whom the spirit has revealed the advent of Bud-
dha, descends from his hermitage on the Hima-
laya to see the new-born child. He predicts the
coming of the kingdom of heaven, and Buddha's
mission to save and enlighten the world (Sutta
Nipatha, iiill). The Allinish Kramana Sutra re-
lates that the King of Magada instructed one of
his ministers to institute an inquiry whether any
189

&!>* ©tfflfn of

inhabitant of his kingdom could possibly become
powerful enough to endanger the safety of his
throne. Two spies are sent out; one of them as-
certains the birth of Buddha, and advises the king
to take steps for the extermination of his tribe.
The princes of the Sacya tribe urge the king to
present his son in a public assembly of nobles and
priests. Spirits accompany the march of the pro-
cession; inspired prophets extol the future glory
of the Messiah. Buddha's parents miss the boy
one day, and after a long search for him find him
in an assembly of holy Rishis, who listen to his
discourse and marvel at his understanding (Bud-
dhist Birth Stories, 64). Buddha, before enter-
ing on his mission, meets the Brahman Rudraka,
a mighty preacher, who, however, offers to become
his disciple.

Some of Rudraka's followers secede to Buddha,
but leave him when they find that he does not
observe the fasts. Buddha retires to the solitude
of Usuvilva, and fasts and prays in the desert until
hunger forces him to leave his retreat (Rgya.,
364; Oldenburg's Mahavagga, 116). After fin-
ishing his fast, Buddha takes a bath in the river
Nairanjana; when he leaves the water, purified,
the devas open the gates of heaven and cover him
190

with a shower of fragrant flowers (Rgya., 259).
During Buddha's fast in the desert, Mara, the
prince of darkness, approaches him and tempts
him with promises of wealth and earthly glory.
Buddha rejects this offer by quoting passages of
the Vedas, and the tempter flees, and angels de-
scend and salute Buddha (Dhammwadam, vii.,
33). There are numerous other parallels between
the two accounts equally striking, such as Judas
among his disciples, the woman at the well, and
the tremblings of the earth at his death.

This brief synopsis of the legend of Buddha
needs no comment, but is significant when com-
pared with the Christian legend written six hun-
dred years afterward. If it had been written six
hundred years after Christ, we should unhesita-
tingly pronounce it a plagiarism on the Bible ac-
count. The inexorable fact cuts off that argu-
ment.

Confucius was a moralist of high attainments,
born some six hundred years before our era. His
teachings served to concentrate and perpetuate
the oldest civilization in the world, that has con-
tinued to the present day; numbering more in-
habitants under one government than any other
nation. Confucius taught, according to his writ-
191

&J)t <&viQin of

ings, obedience to the sovereign power; and in
the relation of children to parents, and the young
to their elders, deference and obedience was taught
as a cardinal virtue. This is more strictly enjoined
and practised in China than in Christian lands,
extending to a devotion to the memory of their
hallowed ancestors as a national usage.

The Mohammedan religion, that arose in the
fifth century of our era, lays claim, as did all its
predecessors, to a divine origin. In the revelations
recorded in the Koran a high morality was taught,
in accordance with the civilization of the times and
attendant usages. The conception of the deity
was less complex and ambiguous than that of the
Christians. God is defined in the shortest chap-
ter of the Koran (chap, cxii.) : " Say, God is one
God, the eternal God; he begetteth not, neither
is he begotten ; and there is not any one like him."
This emphasizes the marked dissent of the Mo-
hammedans from the Christian " Son of God."
This faith, coming nearly six hundred years after
Christ, attained a much more extended and rapid
dissemination, with quite as pronounced and fer-
vent worshippers. Mohammedanism spread east-
ward among a mystic and warlike people, unpro-
gressive in domestic arts, but highly impressiona-
192

ble; while the western course of the Christian
dogma was also spread, by force of dominant
power, through settled populations, active, indus-
trious and progressive, with a spirit irrepressible
and inventive; a people that would eventually
burst the bonds of fanaticism, which hampered
thought and action. The result was the investi-
gation of nature that the persistent efforts of re-
ligion could not suppress, which demonstrated the
errors of the infallible Church, that soon split into
many sects warring against each other, and against
all scientific investigators that were seeking to
expose the error of trying to restrict human knowl-
edge attained by a careful study of nature, which
their religion forbade; suppressing all efforts for
the acquirement of knowledge untrammelled by
tradition or supernatural agency. The warfare
for knowledge slowly but surely advanced the
European world in the enfranchisement of free
investigation, and a disillusion as to the power of
the Church to dominate and control men's thoughts.
The war of science upon the vested rights of
theology has achieved an advancement in civil-
ization and correct knowledge, with a fading away
of the superstition and intolerance that disfigured
Christianity down to recent times. This elevated
*93

Europe and America above the older nations of
the world. The merit for it is now claimed by
theologians as due to Christianity, that fought so
hard to repress it, by martyrizing its scientific
opponents and forbidding research into the laws
of nature. This charge may be brought against
most of the Christian sects, of whose persecutions
and intolerance we may name the iron grip of the
Roman Church in the height of its power through
the dark ages of the history of Europe, with its
Inquisition, auto da fe, et cetera, to which other
sects played a good second. This should warn
people against the chance of their repetition; the
imprisonment for conscience' sake, with fines,
hanging, drowning, scourging of Quakers, and
ostracism by the English Church (much of which
was repeated in this country); the Calvinistic
barbarisms of Geneva and the Scottish Kirk, that
taught, " The master of a family may, and ought
to, deny an act of humanity or hospitality to stran-
gers that are false teachers. The Holy Ghost for-
biddeth the master of every Christian family to
own a heretic as a guest. We hold that tolera-
tion of all religions is not far from blasphemy."1

1 Rutherford's Disputation against pretended liberty of con-
science.

194

When the Scottish Kirk was at the height of its
power, we may search history in vain for any in-
stitution that exceeded it in fanatical barbarity,
except the Spanish Inquisition. All this shows
how little Christianity had to do with modern cul-
ture. Toleration and the highest benevolence and
morality were unknown to them.

History shows us that since the establishment
of Christianity there was no special enlightenment
of the human race where it predominated, till the
victories of science over it, about the seventeenth
century, above nations having other faiths. The
Mohammedans of Cordova in Spain were far
above their Christian contemporaries in civiliza-
tion, learning, and refinement; through them a
new era of advancement pervaded Europe in learn-
ing and the arts of civil culture, that taught the
Christian nations a higher civilization.

'95

£*)* teviain of

CHAPTER IX.

THE CHRISTIAN DOGMAS

With the foregoing statement of facts before us,
we will briefly examine the sectarian dogmas that
have developed from this strange enigmatical re-
ligion. Without going into the long and complex
theological warfare that distracted the Christians
in the early centuries of its predominance, it is suffi-
cient for our purpose to note that the Roman
Church succeeded in gaining the mastery in west-
ern Europe, while the Greek Church prevailed
in the east. The dogmas elaborated by the fathers
of the religion are often contradictory and illogi-
cal.

The belief of the Roman Church is declared au-
thoritatively at the present day to be this : " There
is but one God, a pure spirit without a body, con-
sisting of three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, neither of which is older or greater than
the others; all are equal; the Son became man.
196

Supernatural (fronttptiom

God created angels — each one of us has a guard-
ian angel; some of the angels sinned, and were
changed into devils, and were condemned to hell
forever, where all go who die in mortal sin. Our
first parents, Adam and Eve, committed sin by
eating in the garden of Paradise the fruit which
God had forbidden that they might show their
love and obedience to him — the devil tempted
them. They confessed their sin, repented, and
were forgiven. God did not let them stay in Para-
dise— they had to do penance on earth, which
God cursed; on account of this curse the earth
brings forth thorns and weeds. They died in
consequence of that sin (if they had not sinned
no one would have to die). They went into limbo,
and were taken into heaven by Jesus Christ our
Saviour." " Jesus Christ is the Son of God, and
the son of the blessed Virgin Mary. He was born
on Christmas Day, in a stable at Bethlehem. He
lived over thirty years, and died on Good Friday,
to save us. His soul descended into limbo —
where the saints who died before him were that
did not go to heaven after death, as it was closed
against all men on account of the sin of our first
parents" (some four thousand years before). " He
rose on Easter Sunday, never more to die; and

197

&De ©rtfltti of

ascended into heaven forty days thereafter on
Ascension Thursday, and is there now in the blessed
sacrament of the altar. He will come on the last
day to judge all men — for they shall rise again
in their bodies. He appointed twelve apostles,
and chose St. Peter to be the head of the twelve.
Christ said, * Thou art Peter — the rock — and
on this rock I will build my Church.' J The Bishop
of Rome, our holy Father, the Pope, now takes his
place. Our Lord established only one Church,
the Holy Catholic Church, and made its head
infallible, incapable oj teaching falsehood.2

"No one can be saved out of the Church — out of
which there is no salvation. Sins are of two kinds,
mortal and venal; a mortal sin is the wilful break-
ing of the law of God in an important point, because
it kills the grace of God out of the soul. A venal
sin is a breaking of law in some less important
point. Those who die in mortal sin go to hell
for all eternity — those who die in venal sin, or
have not satisfied God's justice for mortal sins
forgiven, go to purgatory, where souls can be
helped by prayer, penance, alms and other good

1 See Matthew, Chap. 16, v. 23.

2 See Galileo's suppression for teaching what the infallible Pope
had declared as false, the rotation of the world.

198

Sttperuatttval Conceptions

works, by indulgence, and especially by holy mass.1
To leave the true Church is a mortal or deadly
sin, and to omit going to mass. Sunday is kept
holy by the law of the Catholic Church. Sab-
bath is Saturday, kept holy in the old law. Jesus
empowered the Catholic Church to change the day
oj rest jrom Saturday to Sunday.2 He empowered
his Church to make laws binding in conscience.
The Catholic Church abolished not only the Sab-
bath, but all the Jewish festivals, and appointed
others in their place."

" The holy eucharist, or blessed sacrament, is the
body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ of-
fered up under the appearance of bread and wine" —
appearances are what we can see, taste, and touch.
" The priest changes the bread and wine during
holy mass. Mass is the sacrifice of the body and
blood of Christ offered up under the appearance of
bread and wine." " At the offertory the priest offers
bread and wine to God. At the consecration he

1 All the rest of mankind go to hell, of course ! What a rich
source of profit for the priests !

2 This change was made by the Emperor Constantine. For
three hundred years after Christ, Christians kept the Sabbath
under Jewish law, until Constantine, the infamous Roman em-
peror, changed it ; that Christ empowered the change is utterly
untrue.

199

an&e ©vfflin of

changes the bread and wine into the body and blood
of Christ. At the communion he receives the body
and blood of Christ."

" The most wonderful powers possessed by the
priest are the power to change bread and wine into
the body and blood of Christ, and the power to for-
give sins. Jesus gave this power to the apostles and
their successors in the priesthood." (New Mission
Book, 1896. St. Louis.)

I have given an extended quotation, taken from an
authorized source, of the religion formulated from
the Hebrew and Christian Testaments by the old-
est and most numerous Christian sect now extant.
It was evidently systematized to awe and frighten
its catechumens into submission to its authority and
dogmas, which are never criticized by those who
have been taught to uphold faith above reason;
hence we see the radically illogical statement that
contradictory language cannot exceed, of three per-
sons all equal in origin and functions, each person
being very and entire God, and yet but one God;
not a Godhead composed of three persons, — that
could be comprehended, — but the Trinity is a
mystery involving three in one, in which reason
must be cast aside to enable faith to attain belief.
Faith has another assumed fact to encounter in this
200

Sttfletuatttral Conceptions

connection, that the Son is as old as the Father, no
less an unintelligible enigma than the other, and
both undoubtedly devised to evade the ancient con-
ception of a multiplicity of gods, while elevating the
Son to a perfect equality with the Father, which in
the Gospels he strenuously denies.

Another enigma appears in this record. After
Adam and Eve sinned, they confessed in true Roman
Catholic style and were forgiven; they submitted to
the penance imposed on them, were forgiven, and
died. This it would seem should justly end the mat-
ter, but the avowed result did not confirm that
assumption. Their progeny were involved and had
to incur the penalty of death; which but for that sin
of our first parents, with which we had nothing to
do, we would be exempt from. Thus, it is declared,
this original sin has to be expiated by beings born
thousands of years after the original sinners had
their faults condoned, and on their part pardoned.
This inheritance of the sin of our first parents, for
which they had received pardon, incurred the ne-
cessity of a redeemer. This office was volunteered
by one of the persons of the indivisible God, who
came down from heaven and was incarnated, suf-
fering great agony, that another person of the indi-
visible God might be placated; for which act this
201

8Cfj* (teviQin of

indivisible person of the Godhead has been wor-
shipped and glorified more than the Father himself,
with lasting glory and honor from all true believers
of the human race, not one-tenth part of whom has
ever heard of him, and cannot therefore do him rever-
ence, while of those who have heard his name, and
believe in him as their Saviour, only a fraction can,
according to the Roman Church, ever enter into the
abode of eternal happiness. It would be a nice
ethnogenic and theologic question whether death
is a punishment or a blessing, apart from the fact
that death was a law of nature before Adam was
born, and that it was undoubtedly essential to per-
mit a continuance of new creations. Much as we
revere the ancient sages and wise men, we must
realize that they would be a great bore, very much
in the way, and would retard rather than advance
modern thought and civilization if still living;
while the accumulation of human life would dis-
tract a modern Malthusian. But it is useless to
point out to its neophytes the illogical vagaries of
a still active belief. It may be well to note the truly
theological priestcraft and elaborated organization,
controlled by ages of experience in adapting this
creed to the credulity of men, for the benefit of the
clergy, and the aggrandizement of priests, bishops,
202

&u»tVMtut%l <&ontt»tiom

and Pope in one consolidated hierarchy. The
scheme is inimitable. Under the cloak of goodness,
self-abnegation, and assumption of patriarchal care
of men's souls, that is made to appear so disinter-
ested it bars with iron will all investigation, by
threats of eternal punishment, terrifying the be-
liever, but unsubstantial as ambient air. Until
men can be divested of a belief in the fabulous idea
of a supernatural power, miracles, revelations from
God, and all other unnatural aids, logical argu-
ment will fail with them.

The Protestant English Church, an offspring of
the Roman, differs from it by pruning off some of
its crudest features of superstition, but retaining the
mystical doctrine of the Trinity in a somewhat
modified form. It declares, " There is but one liv-
ing and true God, everlasting, without body, parts,
or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, goodness;
the maker and preserver of all things. In unity of
this Godhead there be three persons of one sub
stance, the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. The Son
is the Word of the Father from everlasting by the
Father, the very and eternal God, and of one sub-
stance with the Father; took man's nature of the
Blessed Virgin, of her substance; so that the two
whole and perfect natures, that is to say, the God-
203

SJje ©trfflfn of

head and manhood, were joined together in one per-
son, never to be divided, whereof is one Christ, very
God, and very man, who truly suffered, was cruci-
fied, dead, and buried to reconcile his Father to us,
and to be a sacrifice, not only for original guilt, but
also for actual sins of men. As Christ died and was
buried, so also it is believed he went down into hell,
and did truly rise again, and took his body, with
fleshy bones, and all things appertaining to the per-
fection of man's nature, wherewith he ascended
into heaven, and there sitteth, until he return to
judge all men at the last day." " The Holy Ghost,
proceeding from the Father and the Son, is of one
substance, majesty, and glory with them, very and
eternal God." *

The doctrine of original sin differs from the Ro-
manists', but is essentially the same. Of free-will it
is asserted that " Man since the fall of Adam can-
not turn and prepare himself by his own natural
strength and good works, without the grace of God
by faith in the merit of Christ, and not for our own
works and deservings — good works cannot put

1 What the difference is between body and substance must be
left for the theologians to explain. The definition of the Son is
taken from the rhapsodical Gospel of St. John — very doubtful
authority, unsustained by the other Gospels.
204

Supernatural €mttpttoM

away sins; if they are done before the grace of
Christ and his inspiration is attained they are not
pleasant to Godt as they spring not of faith in Jesus
Christ, and as they are not done as God commanded
we doubt not but they have the nature of sin." (So
much for unbelievers' good works.) " No man can
be saved by following the laws of nature or of an
adverse sect; there is no salvation but in the name
of Jesus Christ." (Bad for those who never heard
of him.)

The churches of Jerusalem, Alexandria, Antioch,
and Rome are criticized in their living ceremonies,
and their matters of faith — transubstantiation and
purgatory of the Romanists are condemned as
errors.

In this summary of the English Church we note
quite as much mystery about the Godhead as in the
Roman; a striving to elevate the Son to a position
coeval with the Father; and developing contradic-
tions of the most glaring character, that defy com-
mon sense and reason. One person of the God-
head offers himself as a sacrifice to reconcile an-
other person of the Godhead, and placate his wrath
against mankind, clearly establishing the fact that
they were not of one mind. (The Father's motive
for vengeance seems to have been imitated by Saw-
205

2Tfje <&viQiu of

ney, who " beat Neddy the donkey because Neddy's
father kicked I.") As the English Church repudiates
purgatory, or limbo, it had to send Christ to the
real hell, and on his resurrection he took to heaven
with him the flesh and bones in which he was clad
on earth, thus developing certain facts that seem to
be repudiated in other parts of the creed, wherein
God is declared to be " without form or parts,"
which would seem to our degenerate senses to indi-
cate Christ's retention of properties quite inapposite
in heaven; such an act of supererogation must have
seemed cumbersome among pure spirits, and to
have so individualized him as to apparently jeop-
ardize the unity of the Godhead. This episode,
however, gives a foundation for the impossible
dogma of the resurrection of the bodies of men at
the judgment day, and was useful in forming the
creed.

When Luther broke from the Roman Church in
the beginning of the sixteenth century, and Henry
VIII. repudiated it in England about the same
time, the doctrine of the Trinity was retained by
them with all its contradictions, reminding one of
the dictum of Tertullian, A. d. 200) : " I maintain
that the ' Son of God ' was born ; why am not I
ashamed of maintaining such a thing ? Why ! but
206

Sttjiawattttral eimetptioug

because it is in itself a shameful thing. I maintain
that the Son of God died ; well, that is wholly cred-
ible, because it is monstrously absurd. I maintain
that after having been buried he rose again; and
that I take to be true because it is manifestly im-
possible." (Taylor's Sintagma, p. 106.)

All the Christian sects believing in the dogma of
the Trinity adhere to the same anomalous impossi-
bility. There are other sects who, perceiving that
the impossible metaphysical dogma is contrary to
human reason, have substituted a more plausible
and rational interpretation, retaining the funda-
mental belief in Christ the " Son of Man " as
Teacher, Redeemer, and Saviour. It was remarked
by Blanco White that few people would be attracted
to the Christian faith by the history, or life of Christ
and his doings.

It is the nebulous spiritualism, that can be ex-
panded and contracted to suit the time and occa-
sion, the hopes and fears of reward and punish-
ment in the cloudy future of eternity, utterly be-
yond knowledge, proof, or refutation, that looms
up dark and portentous or bright with sunburst
illumination, luring men on with strange imagin-
ings, without apprehending their illusive and
evanescent character. The unimpeachable axiom
207

£fje ©tiffin of

that no being with human attributes ever received
a revelation from a supernatural intelligence, or
ever did, or can, originate, perform or cause any
superhuman act beyond the normal powers of
men in their highest cultivation, is unassailable
by any admissible proof from man's experience
since the era of his scientific investigation.

208

Supernatural eomejitiouB

CHAPTER X.

CHRISTIANITY COMPARED

From the foregoing outline of the development
of human thought before the Christian era, and
the creeds and dogmas evolved from its teachings,
many of the rich details of philosophic acquire-
ment and the high moral aims of man in his ad-
vancement toward correct knowledge have been
necessarily omitted in the compass prescribed in
this exposition. This is less to be regretted as
each stage of ancient culture and thought has been
elaborated by more learned and able chroniclers.
My object has been to show that the Christian
dogma has no greater claim to a divine origin than
its predecessors. We may therefore venture to
investigate its assumption of greater morality and
higher spiritualism.

To any one who is cognizant of the acts of im-
molation and self-abnegation of the Hindus and
other Eastern sects, in the development of their
209

Wfyt ©vtflin of

faiths, and before which the Christian religion
is dwarfed, in immolation as a proof of divine ori-
gin, the changes wrought in the nations embrac-
ing Confucian teaching and Buddhist proselyting
are more marked, successful, and of longer dura-
tion than anything effected by Christianity. They
embrace greater numbers, with a stricter observ-
ance of their doctrines. This also applies to Mo-
hammedanism. The Moslem is much more strict
in the daily observance of the requirements of
his faith, which has extended to more people,
and in a shorter time than Christianity can claim.

If a comparison of piety and spiritualism is made
we find the followers of Confucius displaying a
profound respect for parents and seniors, such as
we look for in vain among Christians, and a rev-
erence for ancestors that Christian missionaries
construe into worship; displaying a profoundly
filial veneration that forms a part of their relig-
ion. The nation embracing these religious faiths
is the oldest extant in the world, and it contains
the greatest number of homogeneous people under
a single government. Through its influence this
densely populated nation maintained order, and
sustained a civilization and love of letters, until
the Christian invasion that disturbed its peace and

culture, to which the Western world was a stranger
up to the fifteenth century.

The nations of Europe opposed each other with
rival creeds, the outcome of antagonistic Chris-
tian dogmas, and in the attrition of war they be-
came stalwart and individually bellicose. An-
tagonism begot a diversity of ideas, and men began
to inquire into the secrets of nature, forbidden
by their religion; while science commenced, feebly
at first, to attain its rights, which the Church la-
bored to suppress. At that time European civil-
ization was in no way advanced beyond the Ori-
ent, then slumbering in peaceful seclusion, oblivi-
ous to the turmoils of the outside barbarians, as
it designated the Europeans; and we must confess
not without reason.

The battles between Science and the Christian
Churches — graphically told by the Hon. A. D.
White — developed thought with unprecedented
rapidity; the dawn of the rights of mankind glim-
mered with faint light above the horizon, that the
clouds of superstition strove to blot out; but the
light of scientific truth pierced through them,
and although they are not yet wholly dispersed,
they have failed to obliterate its pure effulgence.

From the great influence of this awakening the

211

ffiije ©vifliit of

arts and commerce began to flourish; the rights
of man began to be recognized; and the Euro-
pean world advanced toward a higher civilization
— not yet wholly attained owing to the still potent
retardation of religious superstition. Free thought
and equity having been advanced by the advent
of scientific culture, and a more correct knowledge
of the universe, in which we live and form a part;
a better understanding of the laws that govern it
has also been partly attained, on which a higher
erudition has been founded.

Theologians are contending for the Christian
dogma as the originator of modern civilization,
while history shows it to have been its bitterest
enemy, and most violent opponent. Now, when
the truths of science are established, they cap the
climax of stupendous assumption by claiming
that science and Christian dogma are in accord,
science being construed in a way to adapt it to
the modem interpretations of Christianity made
to accord with proved facts, to establish their har-
mony. Now that science with well-founded knowl-
edge and freedom of thought has emancipated
men from the thraldom and shackles of the mid-
dle ages, and advanced the European nations
beyond the Eastern, the Christians are empow-

212

Stijjetuattttral <&outt#Uou#

ered by the knowledge thus attained to dictate
and control their intercourse with them. This
has unfortunately given to Christian missionaries
an opportunity to impertinently obtrude themselves
into a civilization they are too ignorant to under-
stand, with assumptions as offensive as they are
unwarranted.

The result is, as it always has been since his-
toric time, religious dogma brings bloodshed and
war, in which the European, with more belli-
cose training, is likely to come off the victor;
while the devout missionary, propagating conten-
tion, gives thanks to his God for his kindly
protecting arm that shields him against the
infidel.

The missionaries proclaim themselves followers
of the " Prince of Peace," and that the barbarous
acts of the middle ages, and the dark deeds of the
Christian Church, were not the fruits of Christ's
teaching; but Christ told his disciples plainly that
he came not to bring peace but a sword; and to
set relatives against each other, sons against fath-
ers, daughters against mothers, and a man's ene-
mies should be those of his own household, — a
doctrine very different from that of Confu-
cius or Buddha. This may explain the differ-
213

&D* ©trffltn of

ence between the pugnacious qualities of theii
followers.1

So long as men believe that miracles and super-
natural occurrences ever existed, they will be de-
barred from asserting that they do not now occur.
It is preposterous to assume that such things were
possible in a more primitive age of the world,
and that they are not now achievable, when men
are so much better qualified to judge of and com-
prehend their significance. A miracle or abnormal
physical result, accomplished by any other than
natural means, does not agree with our present
knowledge acquired by scientific investigation.
Is the proof of those wonders described in ancient
writ commensurate with their exceptional char-
acter? The innumerable delusions into which
many good, earnest, wise, and learned men versed
in the culture attainable in the past centuries fall,
and the credulity of the unlearned population
who believe in visions, magic, and witchcraft,

1 Jesus said (Matt, x, 34 et seq.) : " Think not that I am
come to send peace on earth ; I came not to send peace but a
sword," evidently meaning that in claiming to be the Messiah of
the Jews and striving to make himself king, in a " Kingdom of
Heaven," to be inaugurated in Judea, he would stir up war and
contention, the division of families and destruction of natural ties
in religious and political dissension which would be very bitter.
214

Supernatural <&outtptiom

with the erroneous interpretations of natural phe-
nomena derived from former ages, shown to be
fallacious before the light of modern science, clearly
prove that no reliance can be placed on them.
We trace the source of modern superstitions in the
current belief in ancient miracles, and supernat-
ural demonstrations rife in Biblical lore, that are
still retained in present theologies; thus furnish-
ing a basis for all the wild vagaries in modern in-
terpretations of mental phenomena, of which we
yet have imperfect knowledge.

There is no more proof of the verity of the Chris-
tian Scriptures than there is for the recorded myths
of earlier religious legends. The Gospels were
probably composed from the oral traditions of
credulous men, written many years after their
assumed occurrence; they rest upon their own
averment alone, substantiated by no contem-
porary authority. They have been established in
human belief a much shorter time than most of the
Eastern religions ; and fewer people are now under
their influence, after earnest proselyting and strin-
gent enforcement, for nearly two thousand years,
under the assumption of divine authority.

These Scriptures are replete with crude mysti-
cisms and errant statements of impossibilities

215

(as science can now demonstrate), cataclysms in
nature displayed for ephemeral purposes, or for
the simple exaltation of their God, who is por-
trayed as a vacillating being, dissuaded from his
purpose by the calmer wisdom of man, and vio-
lating all we know of immutable law.

A most remarkable naivete* is shown in the New
Testament by the frequent declaration that sev-
eral acts were performed for the special purpose
that the prophesies in the Old Testament might
be fulfilled ! On turning to the prophecies referred
to it would often take an interpreter more profound
than a priestess of Delphian oracle to decipher
their connection with the subsequent events as-
sumed to be their fulfilment; notwithstanding the
pains taken to fulfil them by purposely enacting
what they were construed to mean, ages after they
were assumed to have been uttered.

However vivid its fond imaginings of heaven
or terrifying its pictures of hell may be, they are
the mere phantoms of primitive conceit. The
familiar appellation of father so exultantly claimed
by Christians is a natural cognomen used in all
religions to indicate the near relationship to man
of the power, or cause, that originated the uni-
verse; of which in imaginative phrase we are the
216

Supernatural <&ontt»tiom

children. This cause, however, as God, Jehovah,
Jove, or Lord, or by whatever other name desig-
nated, is entirely beyond the capacity of the human
brain, or any human vocabulary, to define, —

" Extending far up above our realms of thought
And deep below our micrographic art," —

displaying to us a transcendent impersonality that
dwarfs all the gods of feeble human invention, with
their heavens, demigods, angels, and demons, into
insignificant phantasms.

The elevating contemplation of all the wonders
that we know and are now striving to intelligently
comprehend, with the consciousness that we pos-
sess mental power in excess of all other created
beings around us, should be incentive enough to
avail ourselves of all the intellect we possess in
forwarding the world's knowledge, for the advance-
ment, amelioration, and happiness of ourselves
and our fellow men. But few persons are so stolid
that they will not respond to a new discovery that
benefits them physically and mentally. Every
such discovery is an incentive to new exertions,
instead of waiting on " divine Providence." No
fable of the ancients is more pregnant with sound
philosophy than that of Hercules and the Wag-
oner — " put your own shoulder to the wheel "
217

©lie i&viQiu of

instead of calling upon God, who has given you
all the aid he ever will, in the intellect with which
you are endowed. Be grateful if you will for your
present status; but to expect special aid by pray-
ing for it is a waste of time in idolatry.

Good and evil come by the immutable laws of
cause and effect, which may be directed and con-
trolled in some particulars by man's own energies
in comprehending them; but never by inducing
their originator to modify or subvert them.

In the psychological study of human experience
and traditions by the light of modern scientific
methods, the wonders of ancient legends of the
supernatural and miraculous " divine revela-
tions " are easily accounted for. We need only
to trace the course in modern times of the fading
out of a belief in ghosts, hobgoblins, fairies, —
signs and wonders in which our forefathers placed
implicit reliance, now generally decided to be mere
fancies of the brain retained only by the credu-
lous ignorant, which a better knowledge has shown
the impossibility of.

While in the present age a belief in the supernat-
ural is weakening, being entirely repudiated by
learned scientists, yet it still maintains a controlling
influence and authority in what are called Chris-
218

&u»tvwtuvul Qonttptiom

tian nations, so potent as to retard the free avowal
of adverse views by a large number of those who
deny the truth of the dogmas on which so much
time, money, and legislation are expended, which
often begets a passive assent from those who —
whatever the reason may be — prefer to avoid a
collision with the organized powers and vested
legal organizations in control of political legisla-
tion.

It has been remarked by a learned professor of
psychology that " everywhere there is a yearning
for the mysterious, which seems at different epochs
to flare up and spread into true epidemics, utterly
consuming all the foundations of logic and com-
mon sense in the white heat of emotional fervor
with which they advance. It seems not to matter
how trivial, how absurd, how vulgar, how igno-
rant, or how improbable the manifestations may
be, the passion for belief in their mysterious origin
sets all reason aside." Such a state of mental
hallucination is only rendered possible by the
teachings and belief in a spirit world that is invisi-
ble to mortal eyes, in conjunction with the tangi-
ble in this world, as inculcated by present theo-
logical dogmas, of which there is no proof except
that which is derived from legendary myths, and

219

Stye ©ttflttt of

the mind's eye of fanaticism, that are not sub-
ject to logical reasoning with those who believe
in the existence of a sphere of heavenly spirits.

In ancient times there was — and unfortu-
nately there now is — a belief that God is placated
by prayer, and modifies or changes the course of
nature by the supplications of his worshippers.
We are still painfully astounded by the spectacle
of a nation offering up prayers for rain in time of
drought, for relief from suffering in time of griev-
ous pestilence and famines — and the antagoni-
zing prayers on both sides of belligerent nations.
We would fain counsel the supplicants like Her-
cules in the fable, " Put your own shoulder to the
work," instead of praying for supernatural aid
that will not by praying be given you. If man
cannot counteract or ameliorate the wants and
deficiencies occasioned by nature's course, he
must suffer the consequences, for he will never
be aided by prayer to cause a change in the un-
deviating laws that govern the universe. If in-
stead of wasting time in vain supplications men
would study the laws that govern their being, and
learn the cause of adverse phenomena, which can
often be counteracted by such knowledge, disas-
ter would be avoided; while by passive suppli-
220

Supernatural Qonttptiow

cation they may ignorantly aggravate the evil
they seek to avert.

Scientific acquirement will better serve the pur-
poses of amelioration in diminishing the wants
of humanity than a lifetime of prayer, in min-
istering to the requirements of man's fellow beings,
and in aiding the advancement of the world we
live in, which is the only true devotion.

If Christianity was simply a plenary code of
morals, giving instruction in the duties of man
to his fellow man, indicating how to lead a pure
and upright life, — of which its theology formed
no part, — no antagonism would occur ; but to
require a belief in the divinity of its strange origin
derived from a would-be " King of the Jews,"
subsequently transformed by tradition from the
assumed role of the Jewish Messiah into a Re-
deemer and universal Saviour of men, induces
friction; unfortunately the dogma goes much
further, and introduces a vengeful element, chain-
ing men down by their fears of perdition for un-
belief, to the Juggernaut car of its diabolic tradi-
tions, with terrifying pictures of fiendish judg-
ments, that have served to make men the cruel
persecutors of their fellow men down to a recent
day.

221

The metaphysics and mysticism of St. John's
Gospel, so unlike the other biographers of Christ,
and that atrocious book called " Revelation, "
attributed to the same author, have been the source
from which fanatics and sensational preachers
draw the material for their fiendish descriptions
and pictures, intended to agonize faith-ridden
men and God-fearing women; while it only ex-
cited the derision of the thoughtless and the dis-
gust of sensible thinkers. It has produced more
doubt, trepidation, death-bed suffering, crazing,
and suicide than could be compensated for by
all the joy and comfort it promises the so-called
elect. The Revelation of St. John, Milton's " Par-
adise Lost," and the " Inferno " of Dante have
been the cause of great wretchedness and suffer-
ing, by misleading unbalanced and susceptible
people into believing the descriptions from the
imaginative and poetic fancies of the surcharged
minds of the authors to be real divine revelations.

222

SttjittTuattttral <&outt»tioM

CHAPTER XI.

The Revelation of St. John, as it is entitled,
is probably the dream of a fanatical adherent of
Paul, if he himself was not its author. It was
evidently written by the person who wrote the
Gospel attributed to the same origin, which de-
picts in mystical language Christ under the cog-
nomen of " The Word," which description of
Jesus has no warrant for it, and is at variance with
the other Gospels. Paul attempted to elevate Jesus
into the Godhead, and made him a universal Re-
deemer for all men, instead of a Messiah of the
Jews, as he declared himself to be; and his dis-
ciples who were with him universally believed he
was.

Paul, who never saw Jesus, in attempting to gain
followers from the outside world, perceived the
necessity of enlisting recruits from the other na-
tions, even though they were uncircumcised, which
223

2Mje ©rtflfn of

was at variance with St. Peter's doctrine, and cre-
ated a breach in the Church. But the absolute
necessity of bringing into the fold Gentiles, if the
religion was to survive (for the Jewish nation would
not receive it), overcame all objections; so Paul
succeeded in introducing his newly constructed
Christian faith, that has dominated all Christen-
dom to the present day.

The Revelation is addressed to the seven
churches in Asia and intended to strengthen their
faith, with the author's purpose to exalt himself
in their estimation. There is a subtlety in its adap-
tation to the faith and prejudices of the churches
which he was addressing; interposing therewith
certain messages of peace direct from Christ, and
seven spirits (just their number) before the throne.
He relates what he saw in the spirit — notably
in a dream — which Alpha and Omega ordered
him to write in a book and send them. He then
goes on to describe what he was charged to write ;
followed by a description of heaven as he conceived
it, in which there was a throne, with One sitting
on it. To enhance the weird mystery, the author
avoids naming personages frankly, but speaks
of Alpha and Omega, meaning Christ, and One,
meaning God the Father, or rather trying to convey
224

Sttiptruatttral <&outtptioM

something more sublime than anything words can
express, by uttering the meagre cognomen of One,
thus attempting, by undefined phrasing, to en-
hance the sublimity of the narrative.

We have elsewhere observed that there is an un-
varying and absolute truth, proving with certainty
the rule; that no religion or dogma is entitled to
credence or belief, of divine origin or authority,
which in any particular antagonizes or contradicts
the ascertained laws of nature — the cosmos as now
verified. With this unerring guide we will investigate
this last book of the Christian Bible, which is ac-
cepted by most Christian believers, and declared to
be a divine revelation from God, that the author
was commanded to write.

It is needless to discuss the authorship, and its
date is unimportant. While it has sometimes been
repudiated, it still holds a place in the canonical
Scriptures of the present day in the Christian
churches. It is used, as we have said, by ignorant
sensational preachers, to terrify their credulous au-
ditors ; and has been the source of most of the fanat-
ical doctrines that have destroyed the happiness and
useful life of thousands of the human race, for
which reason alone we here give it extended notice.
It is the very key-note of superstition, emanating
225

from a morbid imagination, dealing with the most
crude and bestial figures; with no high or noble
aspiration. It does not attain the poetical sublim-
ity or grandeur of the Eastern tales of genii and
afrites, of the sumptuousness of which the author of
" Revelation " had no conception. Its dreariness,
paucity of action, and motive remind us of the di-
lemma of an intelligent lady, who said that when
a child she believed she must be irredeemably
wicked, as she was sure if she went to heaven she
would tire, and be surfeited with the hallelujahs and
the eternal playing on harps, which seemed to her
to involve no intellectuality in it.

The writer of this so-called " Revelation " shows
considerable secular wisdom in his messages to the
churches and the Jews, in his denunciations of
Babylon, where they were taken in captivity ; a griev-
ance that occupied so large a share of the time of
the enthroned One, and his host of satellites, to the
exclusion of all the rest of mankind. The crucial
test of the utter groundlessness of this rhapsody of
a bigoted author is the indisputable fact that he
pictures heaven as a fixed place, above the stable
earth, accessible by ascent to it, and, plagiarizing
from Christ, that the stars — those little sparks of
light — would fall to the earth; a mere incident
226

Supernatural ©oucqmoua

in the grand pyrotechnics displaying Almighty
power. The writer's utter ignorance of the uni-
verse as it is, and the radically false description of
it, would render the fiction beneath critical notice,
or the penning a line on so stupid a fable, but for
the strange hold it still has at the present day on the
religious belief of intelligent people. It is not ex-
aggeration to say that this erratic extravaganza has
done more harm, led to more persecution — un-
settled more ill-balanced minds, and been the
source of more idiosyncrasies in religious tenets —
than any other writing extant; not from its literary
merits, but from its reception as a revelation from
God, that forbids human criticism.

In the attempt of the author of " Revelation " to
draw an imposing picture of the grandeur and sub-
limity of heaven he totally fails, by using conven-
tional human settings, with unartistic grouping of
men mingled with low, distorted images of beasts
with horns, having multitudinous eyes, diabolical
imaginings of natural forms into more heathenish
shapes than Eastern idols; while the only occupa-
tion he can find for his saints, angels, or beasts, con-
sists in genuflections with hallelujahs to the One on
the throne, accompanied with minstrelsy of harps;
without an ennobling thought, or moral suggestion;
227

2TJ)fr <&viQiU Of

simply a fulsome worship, accompanied by pyro-
technic thunders and lightnings. The whole phan-
tasmagoria seemed to be engaged in vengeance and
destruction. Among other terrors, a being on a red
horse is sent to destroy the peace of the world (ami-
able mission !), with many other heavenly acts, in-
terspersed with worship and adulation. Such is
" John's " picture of heaven, unrelieved by a single
elevating action, with no word of knowledge or
peace.

It is amazing that place should be given to this
crude, puerile excogitation of an unbalanced intel-
lect, in the religious curriculum of an enlightened
age. It is stranger yet that men of brains will
waste their valuable energies in labored disquisi-
tions on the mystic significance of those cabalistic
utterances, as if they had any real value in religious
culture or the advancement of knowledge.

The evidence is multifarious that the whole
course of advancement of the human race has been
obscured and retarded by continuous aberrations
and mysticisms, engendered by a strife to placate
the divine origin of our being. From age to age the
fertile brain of man was teeming with myths and
legends, concocted from incidents, often misinter-
preted, in the phenomena of nature ; which, by their
228

Supernatural Contentious

acceptance as truths, misled men into the moral and
religious vagaries that have afflicted the human race,
and produced the ever- erring and inefficient religions
of the world.

This " Revelation " is notoriously the ne plus ultra
not only of mysticism, but of absurdity, with no
redeeming characteristics of morals or philosophy,
displaying a primitive ignorance that would dis-
grace a tyro of the present day. What a strange
thing is a normal human mind that can be warped
by education into a belief in such unmitigated non-
sense, in which the writer displays his desire to rule
the ignorant and fanatical churches he addresses, by
a claim of authority from God.

229

art)* ©vtgtti ot

CHAPTER XII.

MIRACLES

While no attempt is made in this essay to detail
with minuteness, historically or otherwise, the prog-
ress of development of the innumerable religions
that enacted an important part in the progress of
civilization, or their aid in the advancement of the
races to their present standing, they were a potent
factor in the aggregation of men into exclusive com-
munities, and in estranging them from their fellow
men. They have been the direct cause of the bit-
terest feuds, wars, and barbarous persecutions that
have disgraced the human race, far more potent
than any other incentive.

We can assume, without fear or contradiction,
that the delineation of a perfect God, in accord
with the ascertained laws of creation, is beyond the
mental powers of man. Hence, as we have seen,
all the attempts heretofore made to portray the
originator of the universe, and the advent of man,
230

Sttiimiattttal (frmttpUow

have been signal failures. The most refined theo-
logical efforts of the latest Christian civilization are
but inadequate endeavors to spiritualize the per-
sonal and humanized God of the Jewish Scriptures,
who is so indissolubly connected with Jesus Christ,
the " Saviour " of the Christian sect, that they must
stand or fall together.

The legends of the Old Testament, embodied in
the Christian Bible, were written by men totally ig-
norant of the cosmology of the universe, and man's
relation to it ; yet the record is claimed to be divinely
inspired, and the legend was accepted as true by
Christ. Hence true, loving, earnest, intelligent
Christians believe in its divine inspiration, and
have striven to warp the ambiguous story that ad-
mits of but one rational interpretation (originally
believed in by Jews and Christians alike), to har-
monize it with ascertained facts. Since the wonder-
ful truths of nature began to be interpreted by
scientific investigation, the theologians have either
denied their truth, or striven to interpret the plain
declarations of the Biblical text into mystical mean-
ings consonant with the truth.

The God described in Genesis was a personality,
and walked on the earth like a man, who was made
in his image; but, say the theologians, the making
231

®§t ©riflin of

" man in his image " meant a spiritual likeness,
not a physical one. This is gratuitous, and with-
out warrant ; it does not accord with his walking in
the garden of Eden. So again, the clear, unam-
biguous statement of the creation in six days, too
positive and precise to admit of question, and con-
firmed in the " God written " commandments
(which now ornament the walls of Christian
churches), that indicate day, beyond all question,
as the diurnal light and darkness caused by the
earth's revolution, and preclude the assumption
that by day an indefinite period of time of illimitable
length was meant. The explanation is sophistical,
and is absolutely refuted by the commandments.
The statement, as it stands in Genesis, we know to
be unqualifiedly erroneous, disproved by well-
known facts.

While the writings of the ancients are filled with
records of miracles and supernatural manifesta-
tions, that are vanishing before the light of science,
an investigation into their causes would be inter-
esting. There is no unambiguous proof that mir-
acles were ever materialized; while the negative
assertion that they never happened cannot be dem-
onstrated or disproved by evidence, as negative
proof is unattainable. The denial of their having
232

Supernatural QouttptioM

occurred is based upon our experience of the nat-
ural order constantly prevailing in modern times,
under fixed and undeviating rules so far as they
have been ascertained, in which no digression is
known to science.

By the rules of evidence a phenomenon so utterly
abnormal as a miracle requires the most unques-
tionable and positive proof, which is now unattain-
able in regard to ancient legends. The fact is in-
disputable that the traditions in early writings,
which have been preserved, are rilled with anoma-
lous incidents : spiritual appearances, gods, demons,
and miracles, to suit the story of each religion, such
as we know do not appear in modern times. The
appearances recorded were more or less frequent in
proportion to the primitive character of the record,
which intensifies the doubt of their truth.

In examining the probability of the miracles
described in the New Testament, we shall be greatly
aided by carefully investigating the occasions on
which they were manifested; their nature and
appositeness in the advancement of the mission
which the " Redeemer " came to fulfil. It is hardly
conceivable that a divine Saviour of mankind would
display miracles ad libitum only to exhibit his power
or credentials from God. If we find any of the
233

art)* ©rfflttt of

exhibitions of his miraculous power were appar-
ently only employed for revenge, as in the mira-
cle of the fig-tree, or for social conviviality, as in
the turning water into wine, the reason for doubt
is greatly enhanced.

As we have before written, there is no confirma-
tory evidence of the miraculous details stated in
the Bible, and except the Babylonian account of
the creation, all prior and contemporary historians
are silent on the subject of the wonders it treats
of. The style of many of the books, which attempt
to describe the beginning of history, are of much
later date than some records now extant, and are
less primitive in their diction.

In our exposition of the absolutely baseless
foundation of the Christian dogma, which arose
many thousands of years after the aggregation of
men into nations, that were vastly greater than
the Jews, with religions, laws, and a civilization
at least equal to theirs, we note that its advent oc-
curred in a conquered and insignificant nation,
whence it could not be readily disseminated, and
it was limited in its influence for three centuries,
until patronized by the Emperor Constantine.

Its propagation was slowly effected by legends
orally transmitted during the first centuries after

234

Christ's death, by ignorant fishermen and others
of their class. Christ's boast was that his doc-
trines were not believed in by the wise and pru-
dent, but were revealed to babes, meaning the
ignorant, which shows the source from which the
Gospels were derived. Their promulgation was
due to the Emperors Hadrian and Constantine,
for political reasons.

The result of its enforcement upon Europe cul-
minated in a dark and backward age, that was
only dispelled by the advent of science, which the
conservators of this religion opposed with great
acrimony.

From this era doubts arose, expanding into
agnosticism; uncertain at first, but gradually
consolidating into the truths of the present day,
which do not interfere with or question the free-
dom or right to a belief in any dogma of a future
state of reward and punishment, or the recogni-
tion of friends in a region of happiness after death.
The thought is poetical and sublime; and if it is
a source of comfort to the living, we would offer
no contention against the pictures of Paradise or
heaven, drawn by the most imaginative minds;
nor an idealization, attempting to define God's
purposes. Our protest would only be directed
235

against the assumption that they are plenary rev-
elations from God, instead of being, as they are,
the emanation of man's imagination; embracing
the denunciatory character of the fiendish, bar-
barous, and vengeful punishments inculcated, with-
out a redeemable feature, by ignorant men.

To us, the indescribably transcendent power
that brought into existence this vast creation,
illimitable to human knowledge, elaborated with
a minuteness man has not yet reached, with beau-
ties in sight and sound we can marvel at but never
equal; dispensing joy and happiness within our
grasp that man's perverted and ignorant reach-
ing after the impossible prevents him from attain-
ing: this imparts to us unbounded confidence that
the future will develop a greater good than our
limited powers can now compass. We feel a cer-
tainty that we can acquire no present knowledge
of the details, and we rest confidently in the be-
lief that the future will be determined with greater
perfection than man can now formulate. This
shows us that the proper occupation of man is
to study the open book of nature before which he
is placed, for his true relation to his surroundings,
by which he may attain the utmost good for him-
self and his fellow beings, aided by cultivating
236

Supernatural QonttptioM

his truthfulness and benevolence, together with
kindly social relations, in accordance with the laws
of his being. Our aim should be to make this
world better, happier, and more perfect, — for
it is our present home, — by which we can attain
greater happiness. The profoundest rule for ac-
tion in relation to our intercourse with others is
contained in the maxim of that sapient philos-
opher, Confucius, " Treat your fellow man as you
would be treated." Selfishness is the fundamen-
tal cause of wickedness.

The strange hallucination that the Omnipotent
First Cause could be gratified, or placated, or in-
duced by adulation or worship, with formulated
prayers and genuflections, into indulgences, or
plenary forgiveness of sins committed, while it
has advantages for the depraved, cannot accord
with sound justice; or annul the fact that a dere-
liction can only be condoned by correcting the
wrong, without calling upon supernatural aid, that
will never be given from any extraneous source, but
must be righted from our own consciousness.

The world has had many thousands of years'
experience in ineffective theological experiment
in making men good through fear of punishment,
diverted by subservient worship in imploring su-

237

atJje <&viQiu of

pernatural aid rather than through a fear of doing
wrong and seeking the right. Too often it has been
taught that a strict adherence to church formula,
prayer, and pecuniary gifts placated and condoned
unrequited wrong. A scientific demonstration of
right and wrong banishes all such fallacious rea-
soning. When men can be convinced that unself-
ishness, truth, and justice, with full liberty to act
independently of the control of others, so far as
it does not interfere with their inherent rights, and
when actions are made to comport with a due
regard to these axioms, the greatest happiness will
be attained, and man's highest perfection be
achieved. To this end all legislation should be
limited, with no grant of exclusive or exceptional
privileges to any.

The question that most concerns the advance
of American liberty and civilization is the exclu-
sion guaranteed by the Constitution, of all as-
cendency by law of any religion over the citizen,
be he Christian, Mohammedan, Buddhist, Con-
fucian, deist, or agnostic. In the Constitution
all control over religion was carefully excluded.
Notwithstanding this precaution of the framers
of the instrument made to guard our liberties,
its intent has been ignored and trampled on by
238

Supernatural eoiucjitioug

Christian legislators, who have enacted penal laws
that curtail the rights of men in their religious
belief and legitimate acts, which in no way encroach
upon the rights of others, or their freedom to en-
joy like privileges. This encroachment Christian
sectarians have perpetrated, and they are still ac-
tively engaged in the subversion of the rights of
their fellow citizens by the enforcement of Chris-
tian Sunday laws, and religious tests, subversive
of the Constitution.

239

®%t (BviQin of

CHAPTER XIII.

OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE

Having traced in the preceding pages man's
incentive to worship, developed by his multitudi-
nous ideas of the originator of the universe described
in the various stages of his advancement, in which
he has created from his fruitful imaginings dei-
ties, supernatural phenomena, spirit worlds, and
other anomalous and abnormal things which mod-
ern thought should consign to oblivion, and that
science has proved to be fallacious, yet there still
lingers in religious dogmas a primitive adherence
that is commingled with the highest codes of morals.

We have endeavored to eliminate the fabulous
from the true, the useful, and the good, which
man has educed from his unaided mind, reason-
ing on the acts and deeds of himself and his fellow
men, while rejecting the fabulous source to which
they were attributed. To establish the fact that
man's intellect alone is the origin from which
240

Supernatural (konttptivm

the highest good is achieved, we must carefully
examine the most advanced civilization, and the
source from which it emanated. We have shown
the frail foundations on which superstition is based,
and the crudities with which it is filled. While
we assume this earth is existent, and that some
power caused its being, we have no conceivable
idea of the creation or extinction of matter, the
beginning or end of time, or the beginning and end
of space; yet these problems must be solved be-
fore we can have an intelligent knowledge of God,
or fathom the purpose of creation.

The dogma that Christ was an emanation from
heaven to Judea, as a Saviour and Redeemer of
mankind, involves so many enigmas and contra-
dictions as to render it a theological maze. To
decipher this, it has been assumed that the normal
condition of man, as created, tends to evil ; that he,
knowing the right, prefers to do wrong; and that,
after untold centuries of wrong-doing, multitudes
of nations, cultivated in arts, with profound laws
governing large communities age upon age, appar-
ently much more cultivated, and with greater ac-
quirements than the Jews ever attained, were
left to their own teachings, until a divine Re-
deemer never before commissioned was sent to
241

8TJ)* ©tiflfn of

the Jews, not to teach them a higher moral code,
which he never did, but to expiate the sins of the
world. And what renders the enigma more pro-
found, he was sent to a conquered people, under
the rule of a great nation, with no power to dis-
seminate his mission. Why this long delay to re-
deem mankind was deemed essential, and why
it did not extend, except to a few individual com-
munities, for hundreds of years, must be left to
theologians to solve.

When the Christian religion became dominant
it was enveloped in feuds and warfare that caused
persecution and bloodshed; with the final ascend-
ency of the Roman Church, the relentless rule of
which led to the retrograde age of darkness, as it
was called, entirely at variance with common sense
and our knowledge of right, which lasted until
the victorious warfare of science emancipated
thought, and redeemed the world from much of
its barbarism. It is beyond the power of man
to conceive God to be impersonal; the attempt
to disguise this fact by calling him a spirit is fu-
tile. How does a spirit differ from an entity?
The aphorism that God is everywhere, in every-
thing, as Pythagoras defines him, does not elimi-
nate his personality. The creeds of Christians
242

Sttt>ertiatttval (bonttptiom

declare Christ to be a personality of the God-
head, the Trinity of personalities.

While it is natural and logical for man to per-
sonify an originator, or first cause of the universe,
and to clothe that power with transcendent at-
tributes divine, unquestionable proof is neces-
sary to establish a rational belief that any verbal
communication was ever made from that source.
The only admissible proof would be, imparting
information transcending anything known to, or
attainable by, the unaided intellect of man.

In the teachings attributed to Christ there is
no ethnologic truth or maxim announced that was
not taught ages before his advent; while some
of his teachings, undefined by modern Biblicists,
display doubtful ethics. The assumption that
Christ came into the world as the Saviour of men,
teaching a transcendent moral code and religious
dogma; that he performed miracles, such as heal-
ing diseases, raising the dead, and countervailing
nature's laws, is believed by his catechumens.
These miracles, resting on tradition alone, did not
convert the learned that it is claimed saw them;
they were enacted for the benefit of individuals,
or for present purposes. In no instance did they
teach intellectual advancement. They seemed
243

JKlje Attain af

only to have been enacted to impress the belief
of those who witnessed them with the supernatural
power of him who was afterward declared to be
the sole redeemer and saviour of men from future
punishment in another sphere; a salvation to be
achieved only by a belief that he died to redeem
the human race. It seems difficult for an uniniti-
ated investigator to understand any analogy be-
tween the death of Christ, who was executed for
assuming to be the " King of the Jews," and the
salvation of men; a dogma that could be enter-
tained by those only whose preconceived faith
controlled their reason.

If credence in a future life and the recognition
of departed friends is a source of comfort to those
who entertain it, no demonstration has been of-
fered to disprove it; therefore it may be indisput-
ably entertained and without proof adhered to.
But if the belief is founded on the authority of
ancient legends, they are but the creations of men
far more ignorant than ourselves, and without
proof that they ever had any more knowledge
about the future than we possess.

If a belief in a hereafter diverts men from a laud-
able endeavor to make the world better, more
beautiful and happier, it is detrimental to man's
244

Supernatural <&onttptiom

highest mission. Our present service is due for
the improvement of this world, mankind, and
ourselves. If we perform our task faithfully here,
we shall be better fitted to do so in a future exist-
ence, if we attain it; which will be very monot-
onous if worship is to be our only occupation, as
the Revelation of John pictures it, producing no
advancing result. The laws that govern this uni-
verse are inexorable; to ignore or attempt to
change them is reprehensible. By diligently study-
ing the phenomena of uncontrolled nature, and
their causes, we may direct and counteract many
of their detrimental effects, and use them for our
good; but to beseech an unseen power to change
or modify them, with the supposition that they
can be thereby changed, is demoralizing and su-
perstitious.

All that is taught in the churches, and elsewhere,
of unselfish acts, moral and fraternal, in social and
national brotherhood, and comity in the family
of nations, must receive the responsive approba-
tion of every right-minded man. It should be
clearly understood, however, that our whole duty
is not accomplished when a sporadic charity is
bestowed out of the gains we have accumulated
from the hard labor of the recipients; nor should

245

charity, justice, or morality be shackled with re-
ligious creeds or dogmas.

One of the most valuable benefactions to the
coming age would be a clear exposition of the just
and equitable limits of legislators, in the enactment
of laws determining and restricting the volition of
persons in their unrestrained liberty of action;
and abolishing the power to grant special or ex-
clusive privileges to any man, or association of
men, from which others may be excluded. And
when men's rights are determined, and clearly
understood, there should be a constitutional bar
placed upon legislation, to prevent its trespassing
upon the rights of all to acquire equal privileges,
and guard all against adverse combinations. I
can conceive of no more important subject for
which a very large reward could be advanta-
geously offered, than the best essay giving a clear
exposition of this theme.

246

Sttjtttwattttral eotutptious

CHAPTER XIV.

OUR PRESENT STATUS

In this dissertation we have described the source
of man's belief in a Creator, and the cause of his
speculations in the embodiment of a God. We
have suggested his derivation of supernatural
occurrences from misunderstood phenomena, and
a prolific imagination that has created and woven
into myths and legends very common events, as
well as unusual experiences. In the earliest rec-
ords there is a constant tendency to personify
natural phenomena, and a poetical fancy to endow
objects, animate and inanimate, with superhuman
attributes. The earliest gods were derived almost
entirely from that source.

In later times mental endowments were recog-
nized as elements of divinity, and systems more
elaborate and transcendental were formulated,
with concomitant gods whose lives and acts were
emphasized and adorned with miracles, and other
247

WO* ©trifliti of

supernatural attributes. In tracing these ab-
normal characteristics, we note a repetition of
the acts attributed to the earlier gods, ascribed to
later divinities, in characteristics that leave but
little doubt of plagiarism.

An era of god-making culminated in deifying
the Jewish Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth; who was
executed, as related in the Bible narrative, for
attempting to make himself " King of the Jews."
Later tradition clothed him with many of the his-
torical incidents related of Crishna's and Bud-
dha's advents. A belief in his divinity has been
retained in some of the most advanced nations,
who claim for it all the brilliant acquirements in
high-toned morals, justice, and equity attained
by man's experience from earliest ages, and the
scientific teaching and learning of modern times.

Modern civilization is the fruit of modern cul-
ture, derived from the free investigation of every
question in the light of science, unhampered by
any dictum from ancient law, but with a clear
discernment of every truth in science and philos-
ophy, having the crudities of theological super-
stition eliminated.

While the twentieth century begins with the
human mind free to become emancipated from
248

Supernatural <&onttptiim$

the compulsory shackles of theologic rule, it is
still clogged by the traditions of former tyranny,
and the lingering dread of eternal punishment
with which it has so long been held in abeyance.

With such questions as the ultimate purposes
of creation, or the modus operandi of a future state,
science as yet has nothing to do; it simply leaves
the speculative mind free to believe or repudiate
any proposition relative to the unknowable it may
choose to embrace. The only protest it would
interpose is against the assumption that any dic-
tum coming down from a more primitive age
should be used as authority for belief, or a con-
trol over the acts and thoughts of men; an as-
sumption that has been the cause of much oppres-
sion and bloodshed. It may be assumed, with-
out fear of veracious contradiction, that no man
ever lived who knew more of the future than we
do; for there is no theology extant, whatever its
pretensions to divine inspiration may be, that
displays any knowledge of the true history of the
world's advent; while on the contrary all, with-
out exception, are based on what we know to be
false conceptions of it. Is it within the scope of
common sense or logical reason to claim for an
ignorant age, or a legendary individual, greater
249

8M)e <&xiaiu of

knowledge of mental phenomena, or the personal
attributes of man and his destiny in the future
order of events, than the most profound learning
of the present day can compass? Is it within the
legitimate range of human reason to assume that
an omniscient incarnation of deity should not dis-
play a knowledge of the true cosmology of the
universe? Is it not true that if any teaching be
found in the utterances of an assumed deity incon-
sistent with the known facts of science, it is fatal
to all claims of divine knowledge? All this the
sayings of Christ show. To parry the plain com-
mon sense of the text with metaphysical disqui-
sitions or paraphrase may display great skill in
mental legerdemain, but the necessity for its man-
ifestation, to define God's direct communication
with man, throws an infallible doubt upon the
divinity of the assumed revelation.

We need not stay to discuss the fabulous char-
acter of the obsolete religions of the world; they
serve only to emphasize the mental activity of
human thought and the wonderful power of man
to build up systems of theology from his fertile
imagination.

The religion that at the present time engrosses
so much of the attention and energy of the most
250

Supernatural (frouttptiom

advanced nations claims our attention at present.
We believe that human benevolence, charity, love,
equity, and justice would have a much more per-
manent foundation based on man's inner con-
sciousness of right, with the cultivation of a firm
conviction that a strict integrity on his part would
result in the greatest amount of happiness not
only to the whole community, but consequently
to himself individually; and that the incentive
of his own native power and volition for right liv-
ing would be a much greater inducement than
any promise of post mortuary reward or punish-
ment, or the placation of the ruler of the universe
by prayer or conventional ceremonies. Seeking
for exterior aid, instead of being self-reliant, is
demoralizing.

We have no Utopian aspirations regarding men's
perfection, or their mental or physical equality;
but we would indicate strict equity and justice to
all. Much of the crime, and dereliction from law
and order, arises from a prevalent feeling that
the laws of society are inequitable; that the rich
are reaping undue advantages of the needy, and
that the laws are made for their greater protec-
tion. The need for reform is really more impor-
tant with the high and rich than with the lower

251

Eftt #trffliti of

orders. Crime will be shorn of its greatest incen-
tive when the most prosperous become the most
equitable. But all reform must be attained by a
consciousness of each one's power to do right;
not because it will please or placate a superior
being, but because it will better subserve the pur-
poses of our creation and inure to each one's hap-
piness in this world, which would be the greatest
guarantee for it hereafter.

The confusing and demoralizing doctrine that
any form of theology is necessary to attain an en-
joyment of a future state, of which man's imagi-
nation alone gives him any idea, is found by thou-
sands of years of experience to be of no avail in
aid of criminal reformation. It will be found that
where the most strict and tyrannical theological
discipline prevails, the people are lowest and most
depraved.

If history teaches any one thing more promi-
nently than another, it is that a knowledge of the
world we live in, and a realization of the mental
powers and functions of man in combating adverse
natural phenomena, while availing himself of the
advantages presented by a careful study of its ca-
pabilities, will best subserve the purpose of his being,
and elevate him to the highest moral and intel-
252

lectual standard, without reference to any other
aiding than his own powers, which are all that
have been or will ever be bestowed upon him.

Man needs to waste no time in telling how de-
voted he is to his Creator's service, who must know
every purpose of his being, if he is omniscient;
or to expend inordinate means and energies in
building temples or churches to worship in. The
best and only proper worship is, at all times to
do right, and deal justly with our fellow men, —
thus aid in making the world wiser and happier, —
while consigning all mystic theologies to the ar-
chives of a past age, as types of man's efforts for
progress toward true knowledge, to be placed with
the prehistoric remains of a primitive creation.

253

8TJ)t ©rfflin of

CHAPTER XV.

RECAPITULATION

In elaborating from the Christian Bible a life
of Christ and its uselessness in advancing civil-
ization, we will here give our impression of the
religion evolved therefrom; premising that we
do not pretend to have any knowledge or proof
that there is, or is not, to be a future life hereafter.
Nor do we know or believe that any human being
has, or ever had, any knowledge of the purpose
of this creation, the history of its origin, or its final
destiny.

We have no knowledge or conception, as we
have said, of the fundamental principle of mat-
ter, or the beginning and end of space, time, or
force; we have a conviction that amounts to a
certainty with us that no human being does now,
or ever did have any knowledge of them. We
have endeavored to give a rational explanation of
254

the motive for the legends and supernatural ap-
pearances with which the earliest histories are
filled, together with the familiar intercourse be-
tween gods and men; most frequent in the ear-
liest records.

At the present day we are surrounded by a na-
tion that worships a godhead the principal entity
of which is Jesus Christ, whose real life we have
endeavored to elaborate from the meagre history
and mythical biographical sketches found in the
Gospels.

We have learned from the several sectarian
creeds of those who worship this God their belief
that at the creation, or beginning of this world,
a man and woman were created, from whom all
the subsequent races of the earth sprang (which
is in radical opposition to the facts of known sci-
ence); that this man and woman were forbidden
to eat of the fruit of a tree in the garden they were
placed in, which would impart to them a knowl-
edge of good and evil ; that, in their eagerness for
information, they transgressed the command, and
attained the knowledge God had forbidden, show-
ing that God had not control over his own crea-
tion; that this dereliction caused them to be ex-
pelled from the Garden of Eden, and condemned

255

Stye ©tfflin of

the man to work for his living, and the woman to
suffer in childbirth; that this sentence was not
only carried out in the case of the transgressors,
but the curse descended to all their progeny.

In due course of time mankind became so wicked
that God swept the whole race from the face of
the earth by a flood, and, for some unexplained
reason, included " every living thing " except
one man and his family, with a pair or more of
" every living creature,'' which he caused to be
preserved in an ark, floating upon the waters that
covered the whole earth. Thus a new era began
with a holy man selected by God to repeople the
world. We find the descendants of this favorite
of God, Noah, as corrupt apparently as the pre-
ceding population; inheriting the corrupt nature
and penalties inflicted on Adam and Eve, as they
spread over the world, peopling it with all the
races that exist at the present day.1

Among the several nations of men, many of
whom arrived at a high degree of civilization,
it is assumed that God selected a nomadic wan-
derer, Abram, whom he promised to care for above
all other men and nations, declaring that his seed

1 This is a Babylonian legend, plagiarized by the Jews after
their return from captivity, not a revelation to them.
256

Supernatural erouccpttous

should become a great nation, dominating all
others. God, the legend declares, also prom-
ised Abram a country then inhabited by Ca-
naanites in undisputed possession, but he did not
gain possession of it. In time the migratory de-
scendants of Abram found themselves in slavery
to one of the most advanced and cultivated na-
tions on earth. From their servitude they say God
released them in a singularly miraculous way;
and they wandered about forty years, apparently
without purpose, — during which time many died,
— until they finally came to Canaan, which their
leaders told them God had given to their ances-
tor. This country they found themselves strong
enough to occupy, by driving out the owners,
under the sanction of God. After various vicis-
situdes, they flourished and became a nation, al-
though never a dominant one. Subsequently they
were conquered and led captive to Babylon, where
they remained many years, enjoying much free-
dom and a study of Babylonian culture. They
were finally restored to Jerusalem by their cap-
tors, and Ezra, their high priest, who was well
versed in Babylonian lore, on coming to rule in
Jerusalem, assumed to inaugurate the old Mo-
saic laws, and compiled, or collected, the tradi-
257

tions that have come down to us in the Old Tes-
tament. After many mutations, in none of which
did the nation attain preponderance, they came
under the Roman yoke as a Roman province.

Recent discoveries have developed the fact that
the legend of the creation in the book of Gen-
esis, attributed to Moses, was derived from Baby-
lonian writings by the Jews during their captivity,
and was adapted by them to the God of Abraham,
who was constituted the God of the Israelites.
The monotheism of the Jews in imitation of ear-
lier cults is simply an assumption that their God
was superior to the gods of all other people; but
they sometimes worshipped alien gods, contrary
to the commands of their own deity. As a proof
that they did not adhere to one God, their chief
priest, Aaron, furnished them with a new one
when he and they thought Moses had deserted
them with his God. Their idea of a national God
had often been announced by other nations be-
fore the time of Moses, and was adopted by the
multitude of the Jews; it found expression in
Babylonian lore, as well as in that of other na-
tions. Whether the God of Abraham and Moses
was the only true God or not, they often wor-
shipped those of other people. His covenant to
258

Sujwtttatttral Conceptions

aid and protect the Israelites, regardless of all
others, history shows has proved as bootless as
the rest of the legend.

The Jews always had numerous prophets, as
their literature abundantly shows, and among
their prophecies a Messiah was promised, who
would raise them up to be a great and independ-
ent nation, ruling them with just laws for all
time. This was the universal belief of the Jews,
although they were then reduced to a subserviency
to Rome.

At this time there was born in Judea a child
of Jewish parentage, who eventually claimed to
be the promised Messiah. The accounts of him
state that he was miraculously conceived by a vir-
gin, to which her betrothed husband assented;
although in no instance thereafter is it recorded
they ever proclaimed his miraculous conception,
or countenanced his teaching as Messiah. We have
his own declaration that he was not honored as
supernatural in his own house or among his own
people; and he repulsed his mother and breth-
ren when they went to meet him, while he was
surrounded in the height of his popularity by a
host of followers (showing they were not in ac-
cord), and he then disowned them. This man

259

art)* <&viQin of

Jesus had a peculiar career that we have attempted
to deduce from the Gospels, which finally ended
in his execution by the Roman governor Pilate,
who published the cause of his execution on the
cross in three languages, that all might under-
stand it.

After his death, his followers and their converts
formed themselves into small congregations, gov-
erned by the twelve disciples at Jerusalem, subse-
quently declaring him to be the son of God, and
claiming they had seen him alive after his execu-
tion, which no one else did. We do not propose
to follow the contrariety of ideas about his rela-
tion to " God the Father " that now exist and
have antagonized the Christian sects from the
beginning. It is sufficient to note that Christians
believe in original sin inherited from Adam, and
that man is prone to be wicked; which dogma
we have no doubt is a potent cause of much of
the evil in Christendom. The creed being es-
tablished that man is wicked naturally, the Chris-
tian declares that after thousands of years of this
continuous sinning, during which time legions of
human beings had been born and died, built tem-
ples and worshipped, taught morals and justice,
forbearance and self-sacrifice, to the best of their
260

Supernatural Qonttptiom

knowledge, up to that time God had permitted
all the world to live on in ignorance of his will until
some nineteen hundred years ago, at which time
an incomprehensible son was incarnated through
a Jewish mother, in the Roman province of Judea,
by whom and her spouse Joseph he was reared
in the Jewish faith.

Christ, after his birth, spent the first thirty years
of his life, as the story goes, in maturing, without
any recorded attempt at teaching. About that
time " John the Baptist," his cousin, began an-
nouncing him as the Messiah the prophecies had
promised the Jews. John became popular and
had numerous followers. He gathered hosts of
proselytes, at which time Christ was baptized by
him.

Jesus declared his mission to be, as we have
seen, to the Jews exclusively; and after some two
years of action in gathering a host of followers,
and taking possession of the Temple, in which he
was announced " King of the Jews," he was ap-
prehended, tried by the Roman governor Pilate,
found guilty, and executed. Thus, out of more
than thirty years in life, he spent two or three at
most in a mission that brought him to an igno-
minious death under Roman law.
261

©D* ©trtgin of

Christ's disciples, after choosing a substitute
for Judas, consorted in Jerusalem, and super-
vised the work of their coadjutors, the believing
Jews. Subsequently Paul, antagonizing Peter,
extended the benefits promised the Jews to Gen-
tiles, other than the circumcised Jewish nation,
on which alone it had before been conferred by
Christ. The Saviour, or Redeemer, was assumed
by Paul to be sent from God, or to have come of
his own volition, to redeem mankind from their
sins, and to effect a reconciliation between man
and God. For this purpose, it is claimed, it be-
came necessary that he should die, that his blood
should be shed for the remission of man's sins,
and the curse inherited from Adam. This wholly
unintelligible problem is still adhered to by Chris-
tians.

It is inconceivable, on any logical theory, that
the death of a supernatural teacher could advance
the cause it is claimed he came to expound. It
is certain that not all who heard him believed in
his divine mission, which, if true, could have been
best exemplified by his continuous personal teach-
ing and example. His death has caused a great
diversity of opinion among his followers to this day.

The Christian doctrine is that the first require-
262

ment in order to attain the benefit of this great
sacrifice is, first, to believe in Christ as the Sa-
viour through whom alone man can be saved from
eternal punishment. Secondly, that he should
lead an exemplary life void of sin. With many
Christian sects the latter requisite is useless and
unavailing without the first, and all the virtue
and goodness of unbelievers is futile; while dere-
liction of the most flagrant character will be for-
given by repentance, coupled with a firm belief in
salvation through Christ.

The dogma of this incarnate God, or Saviour,
slowly spread, through the fanatical exertions of
the disciples who still believed in him; in which
belief they were confirmed by reported visions and
supernatural occurrences such as often appear
to ardent followers of assumed divinities. The
original disciples, following Christ, supposed his
mission was to the Jews; but Paul, although he
believed in the superiority of the Jews, saw the im-
portance of spreading the doctrine among the
Gentiles, which has done more to popularize him
than his clear-headed lawyer-like tact in defence.

After a precarious and struggling existence,
through the opposition and indifference of the
Jewish and Roman powers, the sect increased
263

2TJ)* ©tfflin of

under the mild rule of Hadrian; and when Con-
stantine was strengthening himself against his
opponents he saw the importance of securing
this potent ally that would be bound to his cause
for mutual support. Thus commenced the es-
tablishment of the new religion as a dominant
power, that was afterward to become the ruler
of Rome and the rest of the Western world, bind-
ing men's consciences in iron grip under penalty
of torture and death. Such was the birth and
growth of this religion, founded on the tradition
of an aspirant for the Jewish Messiahship and rule
of the Jewish people as their king, in which he
failed, and was executed for the attempt.

While this religion has not yet attained the age
of the older ones that have spread over many na-
tions and a larger number of people, it chanced
to be propagated in the rapidly advancing West-
ern communities, mentally and physically active.
These have, in defiance of its stultifying influence,
burst the bonds of its enthralment, and declared
the truths of nature in spite of its antagonism.
And now, attaining through the power of modern
science a higher standard unaided by religion, it
strives to avail itself of the results it has so strenu-
ously opposed, to dominate and proselyte those
264

nations where modern science is still in its in-
fancy, availing itself of the power attained by it
to obtain control over nations less enlightened
by science which it opposed.

At the present day we are met with a formida-
ble array of popular beliefs and the long- endur-
ing assent of intellectual thinkers to the truth of
the Christian religion; and we are asked if we
presume to oppose our views to the great world
of religious belief by which we are surrounded.
The answer to this is very simple, without arro-
gating to ourselves any superior knowledge or
acumen. The majority of the human race do not
now believe the Christian dogma, and the fact is
patent to every reader of the history of the Chris-
tian world that nearly, if not quite up to our own
times, investigation has been suppressed by penal
laws, ostracism, and contumely, against any one
who dared to offer a doubt, even, of the divinity
of Christ and his assumed mission; while chil-
dren have been taught from earliest infancy that it
was criminally wicked to doubt the theological
dogmas instilled into their minds by those to whom
they looked for guidance. Thus a foregone con-
clusion has been interposed as a barrier to free
investigation, not only by dogmatic suasion, but
265

Stye <&r(0iti of

by statute law, against all liberty of thought and
inquiry into the authority and truth of a religion
assumed to be divinely revealed by God as estab-
lished in Christian lands.

With such a fearful enthralment, coupled with pen-
alties, those who doubted were silenced, and forced
to outwardly submit, while the shackles were riv-
eted tighter by the pretence that all goodness was
indissolubly coupled with Christian doctrine, which,
although being thus enforced upon the human
mind from childhood, can have but little weight
in the search for truth.

266

Supernatural <&outt»tiom

CHAPTER XVI.

THE GENESIS OF CHRISTIANITY

The story of the genesis of Christianity, on
which the illogical dogma is founded, describes its
originator to have been born after the ordinary
course of gestation, in a Jewish family, but that he
was miraculously conceived while his mother was
a virgin. In contravention of this he is declared to
be a descendant of David, which could not be true
if his mother's husband was not his father, as he in-
herited his descent from David through him. His
mother always called Joseph, her husband, his
father, as we have seen, and he declared himself to
be "the Son of Man." No important incident is
related of him after his infancy, up to his thirtieth
year, except his inconsequent meeting with the doc-
tors in the Temple at Jerusalem. We have no ac-
count of what was said on that occasion, but it was
evidently not a declaration of his Messianic mis-
267

artie ©rfflin of

sion, and his father and mother disapproved his
action at that time, and took him home with them,
without signifying a belief in any abnormal power
vested in him; " and he was subject unto them,"
which implies that he was punished for his derelic-
tion, that was never afterward repeated. It is a
significant fact that a similar story was related of the
birth of Buddha, hundreds of years before Christ's
birth, and well known all over the Eastern world
when the Gospels were written.

We find that, about thirty years after the birth of
Christ, and his relative, John the Baptist, John ap-
peared uniquely clothed in camel's hair, with a
leather girdle about his loins, and, to make his ad-
vent more striking, he fed on locusts and wild honey,
evidently to attract notoriety and make a sensation.
He taught in the wilderness of Judea, and gathered
multitudes about him from all the region round
him. His cry was, " Repent ye: for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand ! " saying of himself, " This is he
that was spoken of by the prophet Esaias, saying,
The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare
ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight," thus
enacting a preconcerted part.

John anathematized the Pharisees and Saddu-
cees who came to hear him, well knowing they
268

Sttjperttatttral Conceptions

would not join in the crusade he was inaugurating;
a curse afterward emphasized by Christ.

Christ was baptized by John, to confirm his mis-
sion, and connect him with the movement. He then
retreated to await John's development of the dem-
onstration, during which time it is related the epi-
sode of the temptation occurred, in which Christ
circumvented the devil.

It is evident that John's bold crusade was at last
noticed by the authorities, and he was imprisoned,
at which Christ, becoming alarmed, fled into Gali-
lee, and avoided his home, Nazareth, where he
might have been traced. He went to Capernaum
by the sea, where escape was easy, and by it he also
connected himself with a prophecy wherein those
places were named, without the remotest reference,
however, to him.

John having been imprisoned, and afterward be-
headed, the whole business of collecting an array
of followers, and organizing the force that was to
make him " King of the Jews," fell upon Jesus,
who evidently had but little military knowledge.
He began by choosing twelve coadjutants, mostly
among the fishermen of Galilee, a hardy race, en-
thusiastic and credulous. In this choice he made
one mistake, that afterward proved disastrous. At
269

©!)* (©ttflfn of

that time he was active in getting his forces organ-
ized, and the occasion was so strenuous that he ap-
peared almost brutal in refusing to let one of his fol-
lowers go to bury his father, saying, " Let the dead
bury their dead," a random utterance, without
meaning. In these active times he repudiated his
mother and brothers, as he commanded his followers
to do in this perilous time of action. He exhorted
his coadjutors to leave every tie to follow his cause,
and to practise every conceivable act of abnegation
to serve him, promising them ample reward for
faithful service, which he frankly told them would
be dangerous; while he threatened them with hell-
fire if they were derelict, telling them to fear not
those that can kill the body, but rather fear him
who could destroy body and soul in hell-fire. He
charged them to take no thought for their life ; and
if they had not a sword, to sell their garment to buy
one.

The Sermon on the Mount was addressed to
thousands of his ignorant followers gathered to do
his bidding. It was evidently delivered to incite
them to serve him with self-abnegation obediently
and with reckless bravery in action. It is Jewish in
character and sentiment, and addressed exclusively
to Jews who were about to attempt to make him
270

their king, and establish " a kingdom of heaven "
in Jerusalem; for which purpose they marched up
to that city, a formidable host, and took possession
of the Temple under his command (as we have seen),
and drove out the occupants, shouting hosannas,
and proclaiming him " Son of David," and " King
of the Jews." This belligerent act was objected to
by the priests, the rulers of the Temple, to whom he
refused to give any account for his acts. He left
Jerusalem that night and retreated to safer quarters
at Bethany. He returned in the morning, and on
his way back exhibited his miraculous powers to his
followers by killing a fig-tree, a feat, however ef-
fected, well calculated to give his followers admoni-
tion in the coming contest; with the assurance that
they could do the like and remove mountains if they
had sufficient faith.

After his entering Jerusalem, he dictated in the
Temple until he was expelled, after refusing to tell
its guardians by what authority he acted. The ac-
count of his expulsion is wholly omitted, as it was
evidently a defeat ; but that he was expelled is cer-
tain, as we read that he roundly cursed his oppo-
nents, lamenting that Jerusalem would not come
under his rule, and prophesying its destruction,
which clearly shows the depth of his disappoint-
271

2TJ|t ©trifltn of

ment, and the vengeful nature of his character.
From that time he clearly saw that his cause as
" King of the Jews "was ended, and he retired to
the Mount of Olives. At this period of his disaster
his disciples went to him privately to learn in what
way he proposed to establish the kingdom he had
promised them. His answer is characteristic of his
assumption of divinity by an equivocal evasion: he
had evidently not then given up the fight. After
describing the tribulations and horrors they were
to witness, and the miraculous escapes they were to
undergo, they would see him coming in the clouds
with great power and glory, with angels, and a
great sound of trumpets, to call the elect together
from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the
other. Could there be conceived a more thor-
oughly mundane picture of ideal angels, and other
properties of a theatrical phantasmagoria, to be-
wilder the brains of his credulous acolytes ? But he
knew the extent of their infatuation, and availed
himself of it to extricate himself from the conse-
quences of his failure to become king at that time.

After he was driven from the Temple his army of

followers seem to have deserted him, probably after

a bloody fight, if his lamentations about the blood

of the righteous is an indication. This was evi-

272

Supernatural Qouttptiom

dently the termination of his active career on earth.
He was soon after taken, through the treachery of
one of his disciples who knew his retreat, and
judged from the bellicose character of his followers
that resistance was to be expected. Judas went
with a strongly armed force to overcome resistance
and arrested him. He was first taken before the
Jewish high priest, who could only try him for dese-
cration of the Temple, not a capital offence under
Roman law. So he was transferred to the Roman
governor Pilate, under the graver charge of attempt-
ing to make himself " King of the Jews/' of which
there was ample proof, and Christ seems to have
acknowledged it. For that offence he was executed,
having the indictment blazoned upon his cross in
three languages. This shows that he did not suf-
fer death for any sacrificial or sectarian purpose, or
any act against Jewish law; but for attempting to
rebel against Roman law, by essaying to establish
a kingdom in dereliction of Roman sovereignty, —
a capital offence that Pilate took especial care to
announce at his execution.

On the delusive basis founded on this episode,
there has grown up a religion dominating the West-
ern world. After three hundred years of precari-
ous existence, founded on legends singularly inter-
2 73

woven with earlier traditions of more ancient people
of an incarnate God and Saviour, this religious
sect, which in time had gained strength in num-
bers, imbued with fanaticism, and persistent through
antagonism and persecution, came to the notice of
the Roman emperor Constantine, who was seeking
support from any quarter; and he, perceiving the
strength he could secure from such an ally, took
them under his patronage and protection, modify-
ing, governing, and controlling them to suit his
purposes, notably, in the change of their holy day
from the Jewish Sabbath (always before kept by
them under the belief that it was the command of
God) to Sunday, the holy day of the sun- worship-
pers, who were also favored and patronized by the
emperor. The Gentile Christians more readily as-
sented to this change on account of their enmity to
the Jews, with whom their religion originated,
wholly disregarding the declaration of Christ that
the law should not be changed " one jot or tittle."
Such was the elasticity of the Christian religion
that the emperor's reverence for another faith over-
rode the command of the Christians' God.

From the time of Constantine, about A. d. 300,
Christianity has dominated the Roman world, ow-
ing to his patronage of the Roman bishop, and it
274

has pervaded all Europe and America. Under
Christian rule were the feuds of the early churches
enacted, with their dissensions and acrimony; then
the dominance and intolerance of the Roman hier-
archy prevailed, with its fearful atrocities and bar-
barous suppression of free thought, with death
penalties for declaring an enlightening truth. This
intolerance was kept up by the bigoted Protestant
sects, until science gradually enforced its right to
investigate nature and utter the truth about it,
which antagonized the false traditions of their
theology.

The present age still retains the lingering rem-
nant of a theological control in legislation, although
forbidden in the American Constitution, which
appears in Sabbatarian laws, and an inequitable
interference with personal rights and liberty of
action. All this has been, and is now done, under
the guise of Christian belief; teaching an abnor-
mal supernatural and exclusive dogma, favoring
none of the human race but the believers in its
mythical legends. We find it now making strenu-
ous efforts to force the world to adopt the many-
sided enigmas and contradictions, that are as il-
logical and unphilosophical as can be conceived,
with all its stultifying of common sense and reason.

275

The Christian dogma is the result of a belief
that a person executed over nineteen hundred
years ago, for trying to become " King of the Jews,"
knew more about a future life than we do; al-
though it is evident that he knew nothing about
the structure and cosmology of the universe, and
the world he lived in.

A teaching in early youth of the grossest falla-
cies is a fearful impediment to the mental free-
dom of most minds; even with the strongest in-
tellectually, it is a problem if the poison can be
eradicated. It is much harder to unlearn than to
learn; it is much harder to analyze a belief than
to believe.

The title of Christian Nation is false as applied
to the United States; it is in contravention of the
Constitution, and rests only on the assumption that
a majority of its inhabitants are Christians. The
founders of this republic were wise enough to see
the danger to freedom in the dogmatic rule of any
religion, and so framed their Constitution under
the Declaration of Independence as to admit,
with equal rights, all religions, of whatever name
or nature, that did not interfere with the equal
rights of other religions.

The Constitution declares that all have an equal
276

right to enjoy full liberty of conscience in act and
deed, without molestation or interference. This
was the first dawn of real liberty, which the Chris-
tian sects are now striving to smother. First force
the nation to declare itself Christian, and then the
strongest sect will rule.

277

&J)* <&xiQin of

CHAPTER XVII.

THE STATUS OF HUMAN ATTAINMENT

If in the preceding chapters we have shown
that there is no foundation but the traditional
legends of unknown authors, based on the crea-
tive intellect of primitive people, for the super-
natural religions of the world, and that the stories
of spiritual acts, miracles, and especially the di-
rect personal communication between men and
a god or gods, angels, spirits, afrites, or devils, are
simply the work of the human imagination, we
are compelled to turn to their mental powers for the
legitimate source of human knowledge and the
fountain of truth by man attainable.

In the evolution of human intelligence and
thought, the active mind of man has shown an
erratic series of random lines, in striving to as-
certain the true course of legitimate knowledge.
The free flight of the imagination into regions
unknown naturally followed the course of least
278

resistance, and expanded into innumerable pic-
tures of the supernatural, that consolidated into
a multiplicity of religions, with which the world's
literature is rilled. It is evident from the result
that so far these wanderings have only tended
by their dogmas to produce aberrance from the
true purpose of man's being. The only legitimate
knowledge obtainable by man must be derived
from facts, and not from the emotions, which tend
to good or evil as they are directed by human
impulse. Man is constituted to discern good
from evil, right from wrong, and the attainment
of them so far as his knowledge extends. His er-
rors invariably arise from misapprehension of the
laws governing the universe, a correct knowledge
of which is not yet fully attained by investiga-
tion untrammelled by preconceived ideas.

From the advent of the earliest religions to the
present time righteousness and sin have been form-
ulated, with multitudinous interpretations of what
constituted right and wrong. In the majority of
cases the rules that determined these questions were
entirely artificial, and often led to acts wantonly
barbarous, arbitrarily governing and directing men,
contrary to their convictions, a result which has
ever accompanied formulated religions, while their
279

©f)t ©rifliti of

teachings have sometimes led to self-sacrifice and
torture. Most of the religious teachings of the
world picture the supreme controller of creation
as having placed imperfect erring beings on this
earth, as it would seem for the purpose of venge-
fully punishing all who did not live up to the ar-
tificial rules established by authority. The horrid
and fiendish idea of eternal punishment for past
sins, which has nothing to do with reformation,
is a cardinal Christian dogma, and is the active
agent in terrorizing, and rendering the lives of
thousands unhappy, while it is a source of large
profit to priests, bishops, and other organized
teachers, who claim to have authority not vouch-
safed to ordinary men. Such a dogma, if true,
would show the purpose of the originator of man's
being to be more malicious and vengeful than the
human fiends who concocted the malevolent in-
terpretation of the phenomena of which they were
entirely ignorant.

So far as the Christian dogma of vengeful pun-
ishment is concerned, it is confirmed by Christ
himself, who displayed a most virulent attitude
toward all who opposed his establishing a "king-
dom of heaven " in Jerusalem with himself as
" King of the Jews." As the scribes and Phari-
280

Supernatural (Touccpttong

sees, together with all the educated Jews, opposed
him, he hurled curses and anathemas at them,
together with hell-fire, — a very potent threat to
awe his followers, but which proved quite harm-
less to those against whom it was directed, who
were potential authorities, respected by the na-
tion. This element of exterminating vengeance
often appears in Christ's accredited sayings.

When men appreciate generally " the golden
rule," taught as early as Confucius, unaccompa-
nied by dogmatic and arbitrary theology, they will
make more rapid progress in equitable laws and
customs toward the higher civilization.

From a series of ages beyond historic date na-
tions have existed; civilization and refinement
have advanced, and profound thought has been
displayed; men have labored to eliminate truth,
justice, and right from error and wrong in their
natures. From age to age profound thinkers have
uttered grand and axiomatic truths that all man-
kind could understand and appreciate. Many
of these axioms have been incorporated into all relig-
ions, and form a part of their teachings down to
the present day. Some of these profound thoughts
have been attributed to divine revelation; others
to inspired prophets, saints, and sages. Often
281

STJje ©rtflin of

later maxims have been attributed to philoso-
phers of earlier times, to enhance their authority.
It is notably the case that such utterances have
been ascribed to revelation in religious dogmas,
that have come into existence since the historic
period, in which the earlier episodes and apothegms
are introduced and attributed to more modern
religions, in which they are ascribed to their dei-
ties as original revelations.

The assumption that the originator of this uni-
verse would permit mankind to wander on in er-
rors fatal to their good through century after cen-
tury, during which legions of human beings lived
and died, possessing all the natural attributes of
modern humanity, and at the end of that time
he would awaken to the necessity of enlighten-
ing and redeeming them from eternal misery by
a new plenary revelation, is too unqualifiedly ir-
rational to be accepted by any man who has an
intelligent conception of a just and equitable Cre-
ator.

We have seen from the nebulous histories of
prejudiced narrators the course of religious be-
liefs from prehistoric times. It is desirable that,
out of the chaos of fabled legends and imaginings
of man untutored in science, there should be evolved
282

SttjHrvnatttral <&Qnttption&

a fixed criterion of truth as a guide to future in-
vestigations, irrespective of prior opinions.

We have endeavored to show that man in his
uncultivated state, after the powers of ratiocina-
tion and observation, of cause and effect had been
developed, believed that a being or beings existed
capable of producing the creation he was surrounded
by, and believing the earth to be an immovable,
stable body, he pictured the " firmament " above
him as the dwelling-place of this invisible being,
or host, from which it all originated. This is dis-
pelled by a correct knowledge of the universe.

The organization of gregarious animals into
communities results generally in certain restrictions
of individual action necessary to their association;
this appears in the most pronounced forms in the
genus homo. The rudest barbarian tribes have
their chiefs and rulers. As they grow more refined
laws and regulations are adopted that serve to give
the rulers a defined and established power, more and
more circumscribed as man advances in modern
acquirement.

With the known attributes of earliest association,

and the usages of earthly rulers, chiefs who could be

influenced and placated by presents and adulations,

men approached the invisible power that tran-

283

8TJ)e ©tifltn of

scended all earthly authority by the same methods.
These powers they felt assured existed from the
thunderings and lightnings that often proved dis-
astrous, sometimes striking them dead, against
which they could offer no resistance, while the co-
pious showers fjom the reservoirs above the firma-
ment, filled with water, must be actuated by some
being invisible to them, and they prayed to be sup-
plied by the conservators from that vast storage in
time of need.

Men believed from the assurance of their senses
that the earth they lived on was firm and immov-
able, with a dome over it visible to the eyes, spa-
cious enough to contain a host of gods, demigods,
and angels, or other spirits with which their imag-
inations peopled them sufficient to execute the com-
mands of their superiors.

It was then inconceivable that the multitudinous
phenomena observed could be produced otherwise
than by innumerable hands. As these observations
matured, aided by dreams and unaccountable phe-
nomena, the fertile imagination of men gradually
formulated mythical communities of deities and
supernatural events, generally picturesque and often
sublime, with exaggerations of virtues, sufferings,
dangers, and escapes, commensurate with the au-
284

<Stt#miatttral <&onttptiom

thor's conception of deity. On investigation it
will be perceived that all these mythic religions
are but the fictions of man's errant thought,
sometimes based upon or attributed to a wise
teacher or suffering martyr ; enveloped in miracles,
revelations, supernatural birth, and the like; in
later times these occult phenomena were borrowed
from earlier legends.

Moral aphorisms, maxims, proverbs, axioms, and
truisms pervade all the religious teachings, from
earliest records, often subtile and profound, some-
times attaining the highest ethical standard. The
symbolical representations of the gods and their
attributes have often been mistaken for idols by
ignorant and dogmatical observers, as have the
sacred animals, that have been construed to mean
the deity they symbolized, a purport never dreamed
of by their originators.

The varied constructions put upon the ancient
religions are only equalled by the multiplicity and
contrariety of definitions of modern religions. The
endless literature of the Hindus, the Brahmanical
expositions of the Vedas with subtile interpretations
of the sublimated text, quite equal the modern
body of doctrines promulgated by Christian au-
thors. The Christian and Mohammedan sects have
285

®i)t ©trfflfn of

written libraries of works defending their varying
and antagonistic creeds, with no warrant for the
truth of any of their authors' teachings.

If in the preceding pages we have been able to
call attention to the persistent aberration of the
human mind, in following the chimeras evolved by
primitive people in attempting to solve the purpose
of creation, in which every pretender to super-
human attainments is eagerly believed to possess
knowledge as an expounder of a future existence,
about which man in his present state knows noth-
ing, it may be that we shall have given some small aid
in directing human thought into a legitimate course
of discovery to attain a more perfect knowledge of
the highest physical, moral, and intellectual capa-
bilities of the human race, that no dogma about a
hereafter will ever accomplish; if so, we shall have
succeeded in our purpose, and shall submit with
equanimity to all the adverse criticism with which
we may be favored.

286

Sttjieruatmral ©oucqmons

CHAPTER XVIII.

Among the most prominent questions that have
engaged the philosophers of the ancient world and
the scientists of modern times is the anthropo-
genic creation, man. Speculations innumerable and
endless theories have been formulated, evolving
religions more or less ideal, with claims of revealed
truths that modern culture shows to be wholly fic-
titious, but always with the fundamental theory
that this universe was created for the single pur-
pose of elaborating the human race, and develop-
ing its status in a future existence for which this
life is a temporary preparation. Such ideas were
very natural when it was assumed that this world
was a stationary central body, a terra firma around
which the heavenly bodies revolved, and over
which a firmament, a solid dome, was superposed,
from which was poured out water to irrigate the
dry land, and from which came the voices of the

287

&%t ©triflfn of

spirit-world in thunders and evidences of wrath in
winds and lightnings, tempests and droughts, in-
conceivable unless the heavens above were peopled
by invisible beings who produced those tangible
results, apparently for the sole benefit of man.

But modern research has obliterated these fic-
tions, and shown mankind the true place occupied
by this planet in the universe, and that man is a
minute creation in the immensity, inconceivably
engrossing the principal care and attention of the
originator, as his egotism has caused him to believe.

The realization of the fact that man in common
with all living things was predestined to die, caused
him to originate an exception for himself in a sub-
sequent existence, that infinite theories have for-
mulated into innumerable religions, which have
been believed in from the beginning of recorded
society. The modern scientist holds all these im-
aginary attempts at their true value, as the mere
fabrications of idealism, while he is met with the
profound but unanswerable question, — What is
the purpose of this immeasurably wonderful crea-
tion ? For what is it destined ?

No fact can be more certain than that all the
attempts at a solution of these questions hereto-
fore essayed have been inadequate and speculative.
288

Sttptwartttral <&onttption&

The enigma is as profound now as it ever was, and
all the religious dogmas that have ever been elab-
orated have not only thrown no light upon the
question, but have served to distract men's attention
from the pursuit of real knowledge.

We have attained a knowledge of the fact that
there are on earth existences in various stages of
mental capacity, from a very low appreciation of
being, only sufficient to continue their existence,
up to a capacity for warring, strategy, and defence,
in contact with other activities; and we note that
while man displays a more perfect knowledge than
any of the other entities by which he is surrounded,
he is in some particulars physically, if not men-
tally, inferior to other animated beings. In search-
ing for the cause of these phenomena we perceive
that the actuating source of all thought and action
is the centre of the nervous system, the brain, which
anatomically widely differs in the different species
of the animal creation, increasing in complexity as
a more perfect intelligence is developed. This
points to a conclusion that the more elaborate that
organ is, the more perfect will be the intellect. But
further, the powers of the brain are multiplex, and
while the human brain is vastly superior to any
other, in some functions the inferior brains of other
289

©He ©riflfti of

animals exceed ours. We have a further confirma-
tion of the connection of the brain with the power
of thought in human beings where the brain is atro-
phied, undeveloped, or otherwise diseased, show-
ing a defective intellect. From this we deduce the
fact that the amount of intellect is in exact accord-
ance with the perfection of the brain construc-
tion, as a musical instrument responds to an im-
pulse given it in exact accordance with its forma-
tion. We thus have a resultant from a physical
entity that is intelligible to our powers of reasoning,
and we know that this entity has a limited power
and existence, is born, performs the offices that its
structure indicates, and dies; the elements com-
posing it assuming other forms in endless succes-
sion.

But there is another element in this wonderful
problem, the vivifying force that can only actu-
ate this entity in exact accordance with its struc-
ture, to which its powers are limited, and which
it can in no wise exceed. Just here the tangible
facts become speculative, and the ratiocination,
imagination, and observation of man are brought
into play to eliminate the impelling cause that
actuates and controls the ego, which cannot ex-
ceed the limits of its organization. Finding him-
290

self thus limited, resort is had to imaginings of
artificial creation, expanding out into dreams, and
assumption of revelation, which has culminated
in traditions, of marvels that have taken the place
of historic facts, which have been augmented by
impostors who have availed themselves of the cre-
dulity of men in their desire to probe the unknown,
by a pretence of knowledge beyond its limits, that
deceived the wisest in times past.

All the religions that have ever existed in the
world, as we have said, are based on the suppo-
sition that this earth was stationary and central,
around which the sun, moon, and stars revolved,
and that there was a spirit land in the firmament
inhabited by spirits, or supernatural beings. We
now know that the theory of a stationary world
is false, and that no religion based upon it can be
a revelation from a superior intelligence.

We also know that the laws governing this cre-
ation, so far as they have been discovered, are im-
mutable, and that any pretence to the contrary is
fabulous. There is a generally accepted axiom
that every effect has a cause; if this be true there
must have been some force, power, will, or intel-
ligence, by whatever name called, that originated
this universe, if it ever had an origin, transcendently
291

W§t ©tiflfn of

wise and powerful. Of its origin we can have no
conception, nor of its termination. It is incon-
ceivable that this immensity of creation should
have been made for no purpose; and it is equally
inconceivable that it has culminated in man, an
infinitesimal part of creation. It seems impossi-
ble to doubt that there is a final or a constantly
advancing purpose in this ever moving universe,
but to attempt to solve it, with our present knowl-
edge, or to claim that it has been revealed to any
one, is idle.

We have no just conception of the author of this
existence; we but just begin to correctly under-
stand the phenomena by which we are surrounded,
and that only imperfectly. We are but now be-
ginning to learn the uses of the goods we are so
lavishly surrounded by, and the ameliorations we
are capable of for the benefit of mankind. We
have been so busy with the unseen, and profit-
less search for the unknowable, which we are not
to attain in our present state, that we have neg-
lected the attainable. The wise will only seek the
knowledge they can compass.

Many religionists seem unconscious of the gross
traducement they perpetrate in declaring this to be
" a world of sin and misery,' ' " a vale of tears,"
292

Supernatural ®mmptimw

a preparatory school for a future better world of
bliss, in which, if they do not follow the prescribed
rules of their peculiar theological creed, they will
not be allowed to participate. This world is a
home, made with inconceivable perfection, in which
we are placed with mental and physical powers,
to acquire a knowledge of it.

Nothing extraneous to this ever was, or ever
will be, given to us by gods, angels, or demons.
We are here to perfect our relations with this
home, that is our present habitat; we have not
yet achieved a knowledge of " the goods the gods
have given us," while idling our time away upon
speculations about a future life in another sphere,
where we shall not have to earn our own living.
Nothing can be clearer than the fact that the book
of nature is here before us, in which we may study
and achieve our greatest temporal good; and the
higher we rise in the scale of worldly perfection,
the more clearly shall we see that the advancement
of our fellow men in knowledge, bodily comfort,
and equitable rights in the goods we have attained
to, the happier we shall be individually.

Of what value would be billions of coin to the
refined gentleman, scholar, or scientist, in the
raidst of an unappreciative, ignorant, and uncul-
293

Supernatural Conceptions

tivated people? Religionists per se are so intent
on propagating their faith, that social science is
lost sight of, and but for the intervention of mod-
ern science, which, happily, in recent times has
curtailed theological dictums within a more rea-
sonable sphere, we should be still fluttering our
unfledged wings in aspiring to fly into spiritual
worlds unknown.

294

®pptnXiiV

Appendix

Like Confucius, we may say, if right principles
ruled, there would be no necessity for us to try
to change the status. Confucius did not profess
to be an originator, but a conservator of truth and
morals previously taught, showing at that early
period that high virtue and morality were attrib-
uted to a still earlier time, and had been conceived
and taught ages before. The constitution and
nature of man show the foundation of all subse-
quent reasoning in the slow discovery of truth, that
is still but partly and fragmentarily understood.
Confucius taught, by the force of example, that
it needed virtue in the higher positions of life to
secure it in the lower.

A belief in a future life existed before Confu-
cius, but he made no pretence to any knowledge
of it, saying, " While you do not know life, what
can you know about death?" The speculations
of modern investigators into the unknown have
been varied and contradictory; based as they are

295

upon the unknowable, they are simple types of
imaginative intellect, and are of no real scientific
value. Schopenhauer's pessimistic view is, that
human life is a useless disturbance of the exquisite
tranquillity of nothingness. " If birth implies an
origin from nothingness, then death must be com-
plete annihilation." Consciousness ceases at death,
but the cause that produced that consciousness
persists; life comes to an end, but not the princi-
ple which became manifest by life.

The idea of Hartman that the joys of youth are
short and will terminate in melancholy old age
is flatly contradicted by my happy old age of ninety-
four.

The Jews at one time embraced the doctrine
of transmigration; the Jewish Bible, it is asserted
by some, develops no idea of future life. Bushner
(" Force et Matiere ") declares that Buddhism,
the most wide-spread and among the most an-
cient religions, ignores the immortality of the soul.
Haeckel also confirms this. Buddha avoids the
statement of this matter. The Jewish Talmud,
depicting life beyond the grave, says, " There is
neither eating nor drinking ; the good sit there with
crowns on their heads and see God in bliss." The
early Chinese religion was ancestor worship. Con-
296

fucius does not change this; his followers and the
Taoists believe in a future life.

Metchnikoff largely expounds what are called
by him the " disharmonies " of human life.

The early savage buries with the dead weapons
and other belongings, and sometimes slaves, wives,
etc., to serve him in another world; food is often
buried with the dead, and is subsequently placed
upon the grave from time to time.

Religion has concerned itself with human nat-
ural functions, especially with those of procrea-
tion, generally to thwart all natural proclivities,
never for the purpose of properly controlling them
by reason; but to antagonize and abolish them.
Holding the body in contempt is the acme of holi-
ness; hence all the torture of self and others, to
appease GodD

Metchnikoff says: "A future life has no single
argument to support it, and the non-existence of
life after death is in consonance with human knowl-
edge."

To follow the train of thought upon the subject
of death, and the speculations of saints and sages
upon the subsequent results, would be an endless
task. Among the thinkers there be those who be-
lieve in a future state of existence; of these latter
297

the varieties are innumerable, and often founded
upon the assumption of a revelation from a spir-
itual authority. These of course gain the greater
number of adherents; their credulous followers,
in their desire to attain impossible knowledge,
overlook the credible, and accept the fallacies of
charlatans or fanatics.

Marcus Aurelius assumed that deathr like birth,
is one of nature's mysteries, and he taught that
man must live in conformity with the laws of his
nature, — that " nothing can happen to you that
is not in accordance with nature's universal law."
The limbs can only perform the functions for which
they were intended, and man only defies nature's
laws when he attempts to nullify the purposes his
organization was created for. The functions of
his reason are not to antagonize his nature, but
to harmonize it with the world in which he lives.
He is not to starve himself because indulgence
is sinful; but to control his appetite properly en-
sures his health and comfort, and is consequently
commendable and legitimate; so of the other in-
stincts and organizations over which intellect has
control. The function of procreation not only
influences our being, but is connected with that
of others, and consequently requires the control-
298

ling influence of human intellect, replacing the
temporary instinct of the lower grades of animate
nature; but the ignoring of any of the attributes
with which we are gifted is a crime against nature.
This applies with equal force to our mental powers
that are not intended to antagonize our physical
instincts, but are designed to properly direct them
and to pioneer our course in ascertaining the full
extent of the heritage to which we have fallen heirs
and of which, much as we have learned, we are
still largely ignorant.

Instead of studying how to perfect our home in
this world, and secure the greatest amount of hap-
piness to ourselves and our fellow men, the ma-
jority of the religious world is intent on reaching
out into the fabulous unknown to secure " man-
sions in the skies," about which they know noth-
ing and only have received vague reports from
persons whose credentials are as nebulous as their
revelations.

The incomprehensible idea that superimposes
all others is the purpose of creation. We have
ascertained that there is not only this solar system,
of whose movements we have acquired a wonder-
ful amount of knowledge within very recent days,
but there are innumerable other planets, infinitely
299

larger than this world, probably belonging to other
systems of which as yet we know nothing. While
we have obtained a knowledge of the fact that we
live on a revolving orb that moves in a determined
orbit around the sun, and that there are numerous
other planets, also coursing around this central
attraction, some larger and some smaller than our
earth, we have not ascertained if they are inhab-
ited by any living entities. With this profound
ignorance of the character of the inhabitants of
other planets, including even our small satellite,
the moon, we know nothing of the other systems
of which we have no indication but the resplendent
orbs with which the heavens are spangled. We
have ascertained that the sun around which we
revolve is a million times bigger than the earth.
We are surrounded by living entities, animal and
vegetable, so innumerable that we have not ac-
quired a knowledge of them all yet, or their struc-
ture or properties, but we do know that life per-
vades all this known creation down to a micro-
scopic minuteness not yet mastered by our utmost
ingenuity.

As we mature in scientific knowledge, we learn
with absolute certainty that all the wonderful
creations upon this little planet, so minute a por-
300

&J)j)t:ttVfp

tion of what we know creation to be, were not
made to subserve the wants and purposes of man
alone; legions of them never had any contact with
or relation to his being; we know, further, that
many of them are detrimental to it. Thus it is
apparent that man is only one among many
creations on this little world, a satellite to
one a million times bigger, and companion to
several larger ones revolving around the same
centre.

There is no doubt that we justly realize that we
are the most perfect of the creations on this planet ;
but we know that some of the creatures we are
surrounded by have certain senses more perfect
than ours; notably, sight, scent, and hearing, and
very many are stronger. It is natural for us to
assume that we, whose intellects are so far above
all the others, are the favorites of the originator;
but were all these inferior beings, created with
such wonderful skill, accuracy, and beauty, with
such diversified accomplishments, arts, and adorn-
ments, many of which we have but just discov-
ered, and some of which we are yet ignorant of,
created simply for pastime, with no ulterior pur-
pose but their evanescent lives wholly unconnected
with man; while we who are formed on the same
301

general plan, and are almost the counterpart of
some of them, have a radically different destina-
tion?

The egotism of man has elevated him into the
most important position in creation, which anal-
ogy does not warrant. It is not conceivable that
all this multiplex and infinitely expanded creation
was devised solely for the conservation of man,
who is an infinitesimal part of it, placed upon a
minor satellite of a solar system that is probably not
the most preponderating of the systems of visible
stars. We realize that certain laws govern the
continuity of creation as far as we are cognizant
of it, and that when they are followed by us the
result is beneficial; and whenever they are devi-
ated from, more or less of disaster follows. We
are conscious that our knowledge of those laws is
still limited, but that any infraction of them results
adversely. We know that innumerable ills have
arisen from ignorance of them, and that no expla-
nation of them has ever been vouchsafed to man
save by his own labors and investigations. If
this is true in regard to physical phenomena, it is
rational to assume that it holds true regarding
mental phenomena; hence the only legitimate
source upon which we can depend for our knowl-
302

edge of existence is our own laborious investiga-
tion of ascertained facts.

The undeviating course of creation aeons of
ages before the advent of man produced on this
planet monstrous, and to us unmeaning, living
beings that have become extinct, which we are
now unearthing, like the more recent records of
forgotten civilization. The purpose of this is be-
yond human knowledge or conjecture; it cer-
tainly had no relation to the well-being of man
in his present state or future destiny, although it
occupied many more times of the earth's course
than the career of man upon it. We see that na-
ture will not deviate from its appointed laws, for
the convenience or will of man; but we know that
as we learn more and more of those laws they can
be employed for our good, or avoided when harmful.

The acts of man in his intercourse with his fel-
low man are an epitome of life. By nature he is
gregarious, and in the incipient stages of associa-
tion his rights and acts were undefined, he was
governed alone by impulse and will, and the
strongest controlled the weakest regardless of
justice. When this became unbearable combina-
tions were formed to regulate and suppress the
tyranny. This has engaged the energies of man

3°$

down to the present day, without arriving at an
equilibrium, owing to the selfish interests of indi-
viduals in formulating laws by which they could
gain advantage over their compeers.

In this race of the most cunning to gain ascend-
ency over their less appreciative fellow men, the
incipient stages of discontent, envy, and crime
were engendered, and it is to this stage of human
civilization that we should look for the incitement
of the criminal classes.

In the progress of organized society the most
potent factor controlling it has been the theolog-
ical or religious element growing out of man's
wonderment at the inexplicable creation by which
he was surrounded. This afforded an opportu-
nity for designing men to formulate theories of
a supreme power, giving themselves authority
over their fellow men to rule them by divine right,
which crystallized into autocratic and monarchical
rule, generally dominated by priestly control,
which was made to strengthen the kingly ruler.
This combination of church and state has descended
to modern times, and forms the basis of all mon-
archical governments, emphasized by a kingly
ruler of the universe.

This shows the source of modern speculations,
3°4

and endless philosophical theories, in which the
world has often been charged with chaotic wrong,
instead of being recognized as a thoroughly or-
ganized immensity under immutable law, that
cannot be antagonized in its minutest particular with
impunity. From an ignorance or disregard of nat-
ural laws all the ills of life that men complain of arise.
Undoubtedly the source of unhappiness in human
life is ignorance; active search for, and attain-
ment of knowledge, the discovery of new facts
and their application to the wants, comfort, and
happiness of the race is an ever increasing source
of joy to the earnest observer. The idea of inac-
tive happiness is inconceivable, as is an immova-
ble world; progress is the fundamental source of
happiness, and the attainment of all knowledge —
not likely to curse the inhabitants of this world —
would produce a real nirvana. Perfect happiness
is not possible, say the pessimists; is it desir-
able? Is there a stronger inducement in the pur-
suit of knowledge than the attainment of greater
happiness, greater comfort, which if perfectly at-
tained would cause a cessation of energy? The
incitement to action, the prompting to do, is the
mainspring of mental activity, and consequently
the perfecting of our existence.

30S

®pptttifiv

It is a trite saying, " Man was born to die," but
is that a cause of sorrow to the philosopher? Do
we not see that through this dispensation life is
given to an infinitely greater number of beings
than could be otherwise possible? There is a uni-
versal law dominant on this planet, that matter
is persistent but constantly changing, and that
where any stagnation appears an active agent sets
the inert matter in motion. Even the rocks and
mountains are disintegrated, but the elements
remain.

Man is no exception to the law of dissolution,
but that is no reason why he should not actively
employ to their utmost capacity all the functions
with which he is endowed for his well-being, and
enjoy the advantages by which he is surrounded
for his present good. Is it the part of wisdom to
refuse to be made happy by present joys because
we are uncertain whether or not we shall possess
them another year? Our business is with the
present, which includes effort for the continuance
of our prosperity for the future so far as our knowl-
edge extends. A beautiful trait implanted in us
gives us happiness in providing for our offspring
so necessary to perpetuate the race, which is en-
joyed also by the lower animate beings.
306

&»ptuXiiV

A study of the cause and origin of the innumer-
able legends and detailed histories of supernat-
ural phenomena and miraculous events, including
interviews between gods and men, with which the
literature of the world is permeated, displays a
primitive misconception of the universe and" the
mundane creation prior to the attainment of a
knowledge of the laws that control the phenom-
ena producing the visible world as it is now
known.

The complex structure of the human mind has
been a fruitful source of speculative research in
psychological, metaphysical, and philosophical prob-
lems, commencing long anterior to recorded his-
tory.

Records of actual events have been interspersed
with fables about gods and demons that have in-
terfered in the affairs of men as the source of good
and evil, while the fecund efflorescence of thought
striving with the unknown has led men astray
in abstruse speculations.

The intercourse depicted between gods and
men has become more restricted in the present
age, and doubts are entertained of its truthful-
ness in recent times — if familiarity with the devil
has been more frequent, and continued longer,
3°7

MpptttiHv

it shows a penchant for the " horrible and awful,"
difficult to account for.

In the glimmering dawn of historic times, as we
have seen, tradition extends far back into anterior
ages, so that all account of a beginning is lost in
nebulous fable. There were many sources from
which issued accounts of man's origin, all of them
more or less filled with the marvellous, but all
assuming a derivation from the gods. Of those
early legends we need only allude to the Hindu-
stan, Babylonian, Egyptian, and Chinese, as those
cults illustrate the progress of recorded mental
thought.

In the East are found the earliest traces of the
human race; in Hindustan there are prehistoric
works massive and wonderful, wrought by the
hand of man; of the origin of these works we
have no knowledge, but they emphasize the re-
ligious fervor of their originators. In that land of
fruitful legend we discover traces of early culture
that show a high degree of refinement, and knowl-
edge of the apparent universe; there are no rec-
ords extant that show a depth of thought not ex-
ceeded in modern times; from their traditions we
learn they claimed to be the first inhabitants of
the world, that had existed aeons of ages. Their
308

sacred records are written in a language that has
ceased to be spoken since historic time, and no
tradition remains of its origin, or when it was in
use.

The Hindus record four ages. The first was an
age of purity, in which men were giants, and lived
to an immense age. They were innocent and un-
selfish, living in a state of nature. This age was
terminated by a deluge that obliterated every-
thing. In the second age men deteriorated phys-
ically and mentally, and their god Brahma placed
over them a ruler. In the third age men grew
still less virtuous. In the fourth or present age,
man's life was limited to a hundred years; it was
commenced about five thousand years ago; man's
stature was diminished, and he is growing smaller
and more wicked. Goodness, purity, unselfish-
ness, and justice were recognized in the most an-
cient times of which we have any record, and were
the virtues most commended. Such is an outline
of the knowledge taught in primitive ages in the
earliest records of human effort.

The Chinese trace back their nation to an age
of god-begotten ancestry full of the higher virtues,
among which was a devotion to ancestry and a
profound respect for parents. The high moral

3°9

teaching and civilization inculcated in this na-
tion's advancement culminated in the maxims
and aphorisms attributed to Confucius, among
which is the golden rule unsurpassed by any sub-
sequent teaching from any source. " Do unto
others that which you would have them do unto
you; and do not unto others that you would not
they should do unto you; this is all of the law."
In what other maxim attributed to gods or men
has there been embodied so much of wisdom and
virtue? This aphorism in varied forms has been
plagiarized by other religionists and attributed
to their gods as a divine revelation emanating from
them.

The Egyptian cult dating back beyond historic
time is filled with precepts for a holy life, in which
the highest virtues are extolled. In the Book of
the Dead, the soul of the departed is weighed and
examined to determine the recompense or pun-
ishment it is to receive in a future state.

The Babylonians and Assyrians had a volumi-
nous literature stored in the palaces of their kings,
fortunately in unimperishable material, that has
descended to us, like the Egyptian records, uncor-
rupted by ages of expositors; their legends are
full of ancient traditions, precepts, and morals,
310

&pptu?Hv

with an accountability to a supreme being, and
with an apprehension of right and wrong; among
their records is found a history of creation which
was evidently plagiarized by the Jews after their
return from captivity, and incorporated into their
book of Genesis. In that legend there is a curious
fable illustrating the phenomenon of procreation
and its concomitant, death. A man and a woman
were created by God, who announced to them
that so long as they remained in a state of igno-
rance (of their physical powers) they should live,
but when they transcended that state, " ate of the
fruit of knowledge," they should surely die; the
corollary was obvious, a multiplication of the
species involved the penalty of death; as the race
has continued to perpetrate the sin of procrea-
tion, the penalty of death continues to afflict
mankind. This legend is doubtless the ori-
gin of the unnatural and absurd dogma that celi-
bacy is holy and commendable, which has per-
vaded numerous religions down to the present
day.

One fact is conspicuous in the history of na-
tions: they all personify a supreme being or na-
tional God that originated themselves and the
creation by which they are surrounded, whose

311

habitation was generally over the apparent " fir-
mament " above, invisible to human eyes. What
was the source of this pervading belief? Was it
a vicarious revelation from God to man without
which he would be ignorant of the fact, or was it
a natural deduction derived from his view of the
objects by which he was surrounded and of whose
origin he was ignorant ?

Since the maturity of the human intellect as it
now appears, men have been striving to ascertain
the originator of the creation by which they are
surrounded. This universal craving has begot-
ten innumerable theories and dogmatic legends
coined from the fertile brains of successive genera-
tions in contact with nature, from which imagi-
nation drew pictures of other regions inhabited
by superhuman beings with unlimited powers.
To enhance and confirm the superhuman theories,
it was asserted that the authors had held converse
with the supreme powers who revealed the sub-
lime truths they announced. Such revelations
were received with unquestioning faith by the
credulous multitude and congealed into religions,
to which changes, modifications, and additions
were from time to time made to suit the advance
of subsequent knowledge.
312

The exuberant fancy of the East has permeated
all religions down to modern times, in which the
supernatural is still believed in.

We have attempted to briefly show that instead of
the stultifying and degrading doctrine that the in-
clination of man is evil, he has aspired from earli-
est times to become good and virtuous to the extent
of his knowledge. His great struggle has been with
ignorance, and the misleading teachings of unedu-
cated pretenders who have formulated from their
own fertile brains legends innumerable to illus-
trate their conception of man's duties.

In these chapters we have advanced no theory
of a future existence ; every one must determine that
question for himself. We have shown that man
has never had any revelation except from the coin-
age of his own fertile brain, as his fancy dictated.
No one has adduced any fact to prove annihilation
at death, and it is equally true that we have no
knowledge of a future existence except the excogi-
tations of men with no more, if as much, knowledge
as ourselves ; no one is barred from either belief by
any attainable fact yet discovered; the point that
every rational being should realize is, that the
whole question is beyond the possibility of solution
with our present attainments.

3*3

The whole category of mental phenomena now
attracting the attention of the thinking world is
obstructed and retarded by the aberrations
arising from preconceived errors and assump-
tions.

Great progress has been made in analyzing the
powers of the human mind in influencing and being
influenced by others; the phenomena of psychol-
ogy, hypnotism, and analogous sciences, now in
embryo, are as yet without a fundamental basis of
undisputed fact, hence they come under the cogno-
men of spiritual emanations. With a better knowl-
edge of the brain's attributes in nature will come
fewer mysteries.

If in the preceding pages I have in the smallest
degree aided in ridding the world of the fictitious
and fiendish theologies, with their cumbersome and
artificial laws and rules (often opposing the laws of
nature) with which the human mind has in all his-
torical ages been engulfed, and shown that the
true source of all knowledge acquired by man is
due to his own wonderful powers of ratiocination
and observation with which he was endowed at
birth, unaided by any supernatural revelation or
other aid beyond his natural surroundings, I shall
have achieved my purpose of directing his atten-
3i4

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tion and energies from the fabulous and unreal to
the true purposes of his existence, with a correct
understanding of his relations in this world to na-
ture and his fellow men.

THE END.

315

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