Less original, but nearly as bold and industrious, D"Holbach placed his fortune and abilities at the service of Freethought. Mr. Morley calls the _System of Nature_ "a thunderous engine of revolt." It was Atheistic in religion, and revolutionary in politics. It challenged every enemy of freedom in the name of reason and humanity. Here and there its somewhat diffuse rhetoric was lit up with the splendidly concise eloquence of Diderot, who touched the work with a master-hand. Nor did this powerful book represent a t.i.the of D"Holbach"s labors for the "good old cause."
His active pen produced a score of other works, under various names and disguises, all addressed to the same object--the destruction of superst.i.tion and the emanc.i.p.ation of the human mind. They were extensively circulated, and must have created a powerful impression on the reading public.
Leaving its authors and precursors, and coming to the Revolution itself, we find that its most distinguished figures were Atheists. Mirabeau, the first t.i.tan of the struggle, was a G.o.dless statesman. In him the mult.i.tude found a master, who ruled it by his genius and eloquence, and his embodiment of its aspirations. The crowned king of France was pottering in his palace, but the real king reigned in the National a.s.sembly.
The Girondists were nearly all Atheists, from Condorcet and Madame Roland down to the obscurest victims of the Terror who went gaily to their doom with the hymn of freedom upon their proud lips. Danton also, the second t.i.tan of the Revolution, was an Atheist. He fell in trying to stop the bloodshed, which Robespierre, the Deist, continued until it drowned him. With Danton there went to the guillotine another Atheist, bright, witty Camille Desmoulins, whose exquisite pen had served the cause well, and whose warm poet"s blood was destined to gush out under the fatal knife. Other names crowd upon us, too numerous to recite.
To give them all would be to write a catalogue of the revolutionary leaders.
Atheism was the very spirit of the Revolution. This has been admitted by Christian writers, who have sought revenge by libelling the movement.
Their slanders are manifold, but we select two which are found most impressive at orthodox meetings.
It is stated that the Revolutionists organised a worship of the G.o.ddess of Reason, that they went in procession to Notre Dame, where a naked woman acted the part of the G.o.ddess, while Chenier"s _Ode_ was chanted by the Convention. Now there is a good deal of smoke in this story and very little flame. The naked female is a pious invention, and that being gone, the calumny is robbed of its sting. Demoiselle Candeille, an actress, was selected for her beauty; but she was not a "harlot," and she was not undressed. Whoever turns to such an accessible account as Carlyle"s will see that the apologists of Christianity have utterly misrepresented the scene.
Secondly, it is a.s.serted that the Revolution was a tornado of murder; cruelty was let loose, and the Atheists waded in blood. Never was greater nonsense paraded with a serious face. During the Terror itself the total number of victims, as proved by the official records, was less than three thousand; not a tenth part of the number who fell in the single ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew!
But who caused the Terror? The Christian monarchies that declared war on Freethinkers and regicides. Theirs was the guilt, and they are responsible for the bloodshed. France trembled for a moment. She aimed at the traitors within her borders, and struck down many a gallant friend in error. But she recovered from the panic. Then her sons, half-starved, ragged, shoeless, ill-armed, marched to the frontier, hurled back her enemies, and swept the trained armies of Europe into flight. They _would_ be free, and who should say them nay? They were not to be terrified or deluded by "the blood on the hands of the king or the lie at the lips of the priest." And if the struggle developed until the French armies, exchanging defence for conquest, thundered over Europe, from the Baltic to the Mediterranean, from the orange-groves of Spain to the frozen snows of Russia--the whole blame rests with the pious scoundrels who would not let France establish a Republic in peace.
PIGOTTISM. *
* March, 1889.
"_Is there any thing whereof it may be said, See, this is new? it hath been already of old times, which was before us._"--Ecclesiastes i. 10.
Everybody is talking about the flight of Pigott. The flight into Egypt never caused half such a sensation. Pigott has gone off into the infinite. He was shadowed, but he has performed the feat of running away from his own shadow. Where he will turn up next, or if he will turn up anywhere, G.o.d only knows. But wherever he re-appears--in the South Pacific as a missionary, in America as a revivalist, or in India as an avatar--it will be the same old Pigott, lying, shuffling, forging and blackmailing, with an air of virtue and benevolence.
The edifice of calumny on Mr. Parnell and his closest colleagues rested on the foundation of Pigott, and Pigott is exploded. He has entirely vanished. Not a hair of him is visible. He is gone like last winter"s snow or last summer"s roses. He is in the big list of things Wanted. But advertis.e.m.e.nts will not bring him back, and considering who is in power, it is very problematical if the officers of justice will be any more successful.
We have no wish to be disrespectful to the Commission, and it is far from our intention to p.r.o.nounce judgment on a case which is _sub judice_, though who can help sundry exclamations when the chief witness on one side bolts, leaving no trace but a few more lies and counter lies? Our object, indeed, is not political but religious. We desire to make the n.o.ble Pigott point a moral and adorn a tale. He and his achievements in connection with the _Times_ splendidly ill.u.s.trate the process by which Christianity was built up. Pigottism was at work for centuries, forging doc.u.ments, manufacturing evidence, and telling the grossest lies with an air of truth. What is still worse, Pigottism was so lucky as to get into the seat of despotic power, and to crush out all criticism of its frauds; so that, at length, everyone believed what no one heard questioned. It was Pigottism in excelsis. The liar gave evidence in the witness box, stifled or murdered the counsel for the opposite side, then mounted the bench to give judgment in his own favor, and finally p.r.o.nounced a decree of death against all who refused to own him the pink of veracity.
Just look for a moment at these Parnell letters. They were printed in facsimile in the _Times_, published in _Parnellism and Crime_, circulated among millions of people, and accepted as genuine by half the population of England. And on what ground? Solely on the ground that Parnellism was heterodox and the _Times_ was a respectable journal.
That was enough. The laws of evidence were treated with contempt.
Investigation was thought unnecessary. Thousands of people fatuously said, "Oh, the letters are in print." And all this in an age of Board schools, printing presses, daily papers, and unlimited discussion; nay, in despite of the solemn declaration of Mr. Parnell and his colleagues, backed up by a demand for investigation, that the letters were absolute concoctions.
Now if such things can happen in an age like this, how easily could they happen in ages like those in which Christianity produced its scriptures.
Credulity was boundless, fraud was audacious, and lying for the profit of the Church was regarded as a virtue. There was no printing press, no free inquiry, no keen investigation, no vivid conception of the laws of evidence; and the few brilliant critics, like Celsus and Porphyry, who kept alive in their b.r.e.a.s.t.s the n.o.bler spirit of Grecian scepticism, were answered by the destruction of their writings, a process which was carried out with the cunning scent of a sleuth-hound and the remorseless cruelty of a tiger.
The Church produced, quite as mysteriously as the _Times_, certain doc.u.ments which it said were written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Peter, Paul, and James. Others were written by Pagans like Pilate, and one at least by Jesus Christ himself. No commission sat to examine and investigate, no Sir Charles Russell cross-examined the witnesses.
The Pigotts, the Houstons, and the Macdonalds kept quietly in the background, and were never dragged forth into the light of day. The Mr.
Walters took the full responsibility, which was very trifling; and as Englishmen relied on the respectability of the _Times_, so the illiterate and fanatical Christians relied on the respectability of the Mother Church.
Some of those doc.u.ments, so mysteriously produced, were as mysteriously dropped when they had served their turn. Hence the so-called Apocryphal New Testament, a collection of writings as ancient, and once as accepted, as those found in the Canon. Hence also the relics, either in name or in fragments, of a host of gospels, epistles, and revelations, which primitive Pigottism manufactured for the behoof of Christianity, Every single sc.r.a.p no doubt subserved a useful end. But whatever was no longer required was discarded like the scaffolding of a house. The real, permanent work, all the while, was going on inside; and when the Church faced the world with its completed edifice, it thought itself provided with something that would stand all winds and weathers. It was found, however, in the course of time, that Pigottism was still necessary.
Hence the Apostolic Const.i.tutions, the Decretals, the Apostles" and the Athanasian Creeds, and all the profitable relics of saints and martyrs.
About two hundred years ago an informal Commission began to sit on these Christian doc.u.ments. The precious letter of Jesus Christ to Abgarus soon flew off with the Veronica handkerchief, and many other products of Christian Pigottism shared the same fate. The witnesses were examined and cross-examined, and the longer the process lasted the sorrier was the spectacle they presented. Paul"s epistles have been shockingly handled. The Commission has positively declared that all but four of them are forgeries, and is still investigating the claim of the remnant under reprieve. Nor is the judgment on the gospels less decisive. The Court has decided that they were not written by Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Who wrote them, when they were written, or where, is left to the Day of Judgment.
Unfortunately the press has given little attention to the proceedings in this Court of Commission. Its reports are published in expensive volumes for scholars and gentlemen of means and leisure. Some of the results, indeed, are given in a few journals written for the people; but these journals are boycotted as vulgar, unless they go too far, when they are prosecuted for blasphemy. Yet the truth is gradually leaking out. People shake their heads ominously, especially when there is anything in them; and parsons are looked upon with a growing suspicion. They look bland, they a.s.sume the most virtuous airs, and sometimes they affect a preternatural goodness. But in all this they are excelled by the n.o.ble Pigott, whose bald head, venerable beard, and benevolent appearance, qualified him to sit for a portrait of G.o.d the Father. Gentlemen, it won"t do. You will have to bolt or confess. The doc.u.ments you have palmed off on the world are the products of unadulterated Pigottism. You know it, we know it, and by and bye everyone will know it.
JESUS AT THE DERBY. *
* June, 1890.
This is the age of advertis.e.m.e.nt. Look at the street-h.o.a.rdings, look at the newspapers, look at our actor-managers, look at Barnum. Scream from the housetops or you stand no chance. If you cannot attract attention in any other way, stand on your head. Get talked about somehow. The only h.e.l.l is obscurity, and notoriety is the seventh heaven. If you cannot make a fortune, spend one. Run through a quarter of a million in three years, be the fool of every knave, and though you are as commonplace as a wet day in London, you shall find a host of envious admirers.
Should the worst come to the worst, you can defy obscurity by committing a judiciously villainous murder. Perhaps Jack the Ripper had a pa.s.sion for publicity, and liked to see his name in the papers; until he grew _blase_ and retired upon his laurels.
Yes, it is an advertising age, and an advertising age is a sensational age. Religion itself--the staid, the demure--shares in the general tendency. She preaches in the style of the auction room, she beats drums and shakes tambourines in the streets, she affects criminals and dotes on vice, she bustles about the reformation of confirmed topers.
By-and-bye she will get up a mission to lunatics and idiots. She is now a very "forward" person. Forward movements are the rage in all the churches. But Methodism bears the palm, though Presbyterianism threatens to run it hard in the person of John McNeill. Hugh Price Hughes is a very smart showman. When truth is stale he is ready with a bouncing lie, and has "face" enough to keep it up in five chapters. But the West-End Mission is getting rather tame. The dukes and d.u.c.h.esses are not yet converted. Money is spent like water and the aristocracy still go to Hades. A new move is tried. The "forward" Methodists organise a Mission to Epsom, Jesus Christ goes to the Derby; that is, he goes by proxy, in the person of Mr. Nix. A van, a tent, and a big stock of pious literature, with mackintoshes and umbrellas, form his equipment. He is accompanied by a band of workers. Their rules are to be up for prayer-meeting at seven in the morning, and "never to look at any race, or jockey, or horse." This is a precaution against the Old Adam. It saves the Mission from going over to the enemy on the field of battle.
Mr. Nix gives an account of his performance in the _Methodist Times_. He converted a lot of people. So has Hugh Price Hughes. "At one time," he says, "there were three Church of England clergymen and their wives and some distinguished members of the aristocracy in the tent"--probably out of the wet. Of course _they_ were not converted. But what a pity!
A "converted clergyman" would have been a glorious catch, worth five thousand pounds at St. James"s Hall. And fancy bagging a duke! It was enough to make Mr. Nix"s mouth water. He must have felt some of the agony of Tantalus. He was up to the neck, so to speak, in lords and parsons, and could not grasp one. Dissenting ministers and their wives did not show up. Naturally. They would not go to such a naughty place--except in a mission van. Mr. Nix has a keen eye for the Methodist business. He has open and sly digs at the Church clergy. One of the tipsters said his father was a clergyman, but "his religion was no good to him." He would give anything for the religion of "the little chap that stood on the stool." That was Mr. Nix.
We suspect the Epsom races will outlast Mr. Nix. There is more boast than performance about Missions. Christianity is always converting drunkards, profligates, prost.i.tutes, and thieves; but somehow our social evils do not disappear. Even the drink bill runs up, despite all the Gospel pledges. _Nix_ is the practical result of the efforts of gentlemen like Mr. Nix. They are on the wrong tack. They are sweeping back the tide with mops. The real reformatory agency is the spread of education and refinement.
Yet the mission will go on. It is a good advertis.e.m.e.nt. Mr. Hughes gives it a special leading article. He cries up the Epsom mob as the "most representative gathering of Englishmen," and "therefore a fair specimen of the mental and moral condition of the English people." This is stuff and nonsense, but it serves its purpose. Mr. Hughes wants to show that Missions are needed. He finds that "the great majority of the people are outside the Christian Church," that "this is still a heathen country."
Perhaps so. But what a confession after all these centuries of gospel-grinding and Church predominance! There are fifty or sixty thousand churches and chapels, and as many sky-pilots. Six million children go to Sunday-school. The Bible is forced into the public day-schools. Copies are circulated by the million. Twenty millions a year, at the least, is spent in inculcating Christianity. Yet England is still "a heathen country." Well, if this be the case, what is the use of Mr. Nix? What is the use of Mr. Hughes? Greater preachers have gone before them and have failed. Is it not high time for Jesus to run the job himself? "Come, Lord Jesus," as John says. Let him descend from the Father"s right hand and take Mr. Nix"s place at the next Derby. He might even convert the "clergymen and their wives" and the "distinguished members of the aristocracy." Anyhow he should try. He will not be crucified again. The worst that could happen is a charge of obstruction, and perhaps a fine of forty shillings. But surely he will not lay himself open to such indignities. He should triumphantly a.s.sert his deity. A few big miracles would strike Englishmen more than the Jews, who were sated with the supernatural. He might stop the horses in mid career, fix the jockeys in their saddles, root the Epsom mob where they stood, and address them from the top of the grand stand. That would settle them. They would all go to church next Sunday. Yes, Jesus must come himself, or the case is hopeless. Missions to the people of this "heathen country" are like fleas on an elephant. What the ministers should pray for is the second coming of Christ. But we guess it will be a long time before they sing "Lo, he comes, in clouds descending."
Besides, it would be a bad job for _them_. Their occupation would be gone. A wholesale conversion would cut up the retail traders. On the whole, we have no doubt the men of G.o.d prefer the good old plan. If Jesus came he would take the bread out of their mouths. That would be shabby-after they had devoted themselves to the business. The very publicans demand compensation, and could the sky-pilots do less? But perhaps Jesus would send them all _home_. We should like to see them go.
It would give the world a chance.
ATHEIST MURDERERS. *
* January, 1894.
An Open Letter to the Bishop of Winchester.
Bishop,--You are a high and well-paid dignitary of the Church of England. You are therefore a State official, as much as a soldier or a policeman; and, as such, you are amenable to public criticism. It is possible that you never heard of me before, but I am a member of the English public, and as a citizen I help (very unwillingly) to support the Church, and therefore to support _you_. My right to address you is thus indisputable. I make no apology or excuse for doing so; and, as for my reason, it will appear in the course of this letter.
I notice in the daily and weekly newspapers a paragraph which concerns you--_and me_. The paragraph is exactly the same in all the papers I have seen; it must therefore have emanated from, and been circulated by, one hand; and that hand I suspect is yours, particularly as it insinuates the necessity of supporting Christian Missions in England--that is, of subscribing to Church agencies over and above the nine or ten millions a year which your Establishment spends (or devours) in ministering to what you call "the spiritual needs" of the English people.
The paragraph I refer to states that you have converted and confirmed an Atheist, and that this Atheist has been hung for the crime of murder; and it plainly hints that his crime was the natural result of his irreligious opinions.
As you make so much of this case, I presume that this murderer--who was not good enough to live on earth, and whom you have sent to live for ever in heaven--is the only Atheist you have ever converted; so that in every way the case is one of exceptional interest.
And now, before I go any farther, let me tell you why the case concerns me as well as you. I am an Atheist, and a teacher of Atheism. I am the President of the National Secular Society, which is the only open organisation of Freethinkers in England. My immediate predecessor in this office was Charles Bradlaugh, of whom you _must_ have heard. Not to know him would argue yourself unknown. My personality is not so famous as his, but my office is the same, and you will now understand why I address you on the subject of your converted murderer.
The newspaper paragraph to which I have referred is brief and inadequate, but fuller particulars are given in your _Diocesan Chronicle_, for a copy of which I am indebted to the kindness of a gentleman who is technically a member of your flock. He is a Freethinker, but I do not believe you will convert him, and still less that you will ever "a.s.sist" at his execution.
The murderer for whom you made the gallows the gateway to heaven was called George Mason. He was nineteen years of age. Serving in the militia, he was liable to severe discipline. His sergeant had him imprisoned for three days, and in revenge he shot the officer dead while at rifle practice. It is an obvious moral, which I wonder your lordship does not perceive, that it is dangerous to put deadly weapons in the hands of pa.s.sionate boys. Your lordship"s interest in the case seems to be entirely _professional_.
While this lad was simply a militiaman your lordship would not have regarded him as an object of solicitude. As a convicted murderer, he became profoundly interesting. No less than three clergymen took him in hand: the Rev. J. L. Ladbrooke, the Rev. James Baker, and yourself.
Three to one are long odds, and it is no marvel that you conquered the boy. Still, it is unfortunate that we have only _your_ account of the conflict, for your profession is not famous for what I will politely call _accuracy_. Herder remarked that "Christian veracity" deserved to rank with "Punic faith." How many falsehoods has your Church circulated about _great_ Freethinkers! Why should it hesitate, then, to tell untruths about _little_ ones? A Wesleyan minister, the Rev. Hugh Price Hughes, has published a long circ.u.mstantial story of a converted Atheist shoemaker, which is proved to be false in all its main features. It is far from certain, therefore, that your lordship"s account of the conversion of George Mason is true. You and your two clerical colleagues can say what you please; your evidence cannot be tested; and _such_ evidence, especially when given by persons who are confederates in a common cause, is always open to suspicion.