It seems to us that if laborers worked eight hours a day and had Sunday for a holiday instead of a holy day, all their requirements would be better answered than in any other way. We do not need a day nor an hour when either work or play would be a crime, and before any other portion of the week is set apart for a holiday, let Sunday be made free to enjoyment and recreation.
There is the eternal bugbear of religion to oppose this scheme, but that is all. The minister, who under free trade on Sunday would be obliged to close up his business, is in favor of a Sabbath law of protection for sermons and prayers, but why should a few clergymen who have six holidays in the week and only one work-day, be favored against millions of toilers, who work six days in the week and are liable to be arrested if they do not go to church on the seventh day? Not a Sat.u.r.day half-holiday but a Sunday whole-holiday is the first rational step towards justice to the working-man. There is very little in the average Sunday service that is instructive and nothing that is entertaining, and it is based upon the erroneous notion that man owes something that he knows nothing about, a debt of worship one day in seven. Man"s brain should be emanc.i.p.ated from the superst.i.tion that there is a G.o.d in the universe that requires him to sacrifice his own good to divine vanity. Work is holier than worship, and to play is better for man than to pray.
Man wants leisure to enjoy himself, not to worship G.o.d. He can have it when he becomes sensible enough to demand it.
THE MOTIVE FOR PREACHING
Why does a man enter the Christian ministry? Why do men preach the Christian faith? There is some reason for doing so. What is it? We have been told that the men who adopt the profession of preaching for a living make a sacrifice of personal advantage by doing so; that these men, had they entered any other profession, could not only more readily achieve greatness, but could also make more money. We do not believe it. As a rule, we believe that the men who are getting a living to-day as ministers, earn more money and enjoy more fame, than they could get in any other business or calling. Ministers are not martyrs. That idea needs to be given up.
There is another idea that people have entertained too long, and that is, that all the young men who graduate from a divinity school are intellectual giants. Brains are not the capital of the pulpit. We gladly acknowledge the exception to what we have stated as a rule, and are not only willing, but anxious, to testify to the occasional brilliant preacher. We are speaking of the overwhelming majority and not of the conspicuous few.
Most men go into the ministry because they think they can get a living more easily by preaching than by doing anything else. The pulpit is founded not on spiritual sands, but on an earthly rock. It is the salary that makes it attractive.
Now, let us look at the facts in the case. The work of the minister is less than the work of the average laborer, and the pay of the preacher is more than the pay of the average mechanic or working-man. Here is the key to the pulpit for a lot of young men. A young man who has a taste for reading and loafing, and no genius for work, sees a chance to employ what talent he possesses by studying theology, and we venture to say that nine out of ten of the candidates for the ministry enter the profession from purely business, or, if you will, mercenary motives. The Lord does not pick out preachers. They pick themselves out.
There is just as much striving for the loaves and fishes among ministers as among other men; and the religious society that pays the largest salary is the vineyard that has the most applications for the job. We do not say that preachers are worse than other professional characters, but that they are human. They preach for money, and where the highest salary is there will the ministers be most anxious to go.
We do not wish to cut anybody"s wings, but when we read that certain new-fledged preachers are about to "work for the Lord," and that they have "entered upon G.o.d"s chosen profession through their love of saving souls,"
we want to correct the statements. They are going to work for themselves the best they know how, having entered upon their duties, not so much because they love their fellow-men, as because they love the good things of this world.
The truth is this, the motive for preaching to-day is the pay, and the religion of the pulpit is to say nothing that will cause a panic in the pews.
Man"s history is below his life, his destiny above it.
All that secularists ask is that their thoughts be met fairly and honestly, and that the world accept what will lead it in the highest and surest way.
If a person can join the salvation army corps and still be respected by his fellow-beings, he ought to be at liberty to enlist in the ranks of reason and common sense and not forfeit respect.
G.o.d has done nothing for men and women except to scare them out of their wits.
THE CHRISTIAN"S G.o.d
Man is like the G.o.d he worships, and history shows that the Christian church has been as cruel as its G.o.d. A Christian minister d.a.m.ns just as his G.o.d does. He sends every free soul to h.e.l.l just as his G.o.d does. He demands obedience just as his G.o.d does. The tyranny of heaven is repeated on earth and every tyrant quotes G.o.d for his authority.
Think of the Christian superst.i.tion demanding recognition and acceptance!
It seems almost incredible that a man can be found in this age to preach such glaring inconsistencies and absurdities, such a ridiculous faith, such injustice and cruelty, as the Christian religion stands for. We can hardly believe our own ears when we go inside of a Christian church. We cannot understand how this terrible superst.i.tion has obtained possession of the mind, nor how human beings can be so blinded and apparently stultified! Were there on this earth a judge who should p.r.o.nounce sentence upon a person on account of his religious belief, mankind would brand the name of that judge with the deepest obloquy. He would be stripped of his robe of office and disgraced forever in the eyes of every true man and woman on the globe. His deed would be a black spot on the page of history and his memory a burden to the world.
Put this judge on the throne of the universe and you have the Christian"s G.o.d.
INDIFFERENCE TO RELIGION
The pulpit complains that people are indifferent to religion. Why shouldn"t they be? It is about time they were indifferent to it. Our wonder is, that the people tolerate a single priest or church on earth. Of what benefit is religion to mankind? Come now, ye that uphold religion, tell us what it does to make the world better, n.o.bler, truer? Why should man worship G.o.d? Why should he build thousands of costly churches all over the earth, and pay priests and ministers large salaries to preach and pray in these churches?
If the churches were the humblest buildings in the land; if the ministers and priests were paid no more than carpenters or spinners, if there were any agreement between what religion _professes to be_ and what it _is as matter of fact_, then less could be said in the way of condemnation of religion. But think you that men who live in hovels can respect men who preach in palaces as followers of the man of Nazareth? The thing is too ridiculous. The world is beginning to see how it has been humbugged, and it is becoming indifferent. It may in time become indignant. There will then be occasion for ministers to be alarmed.
But just now the people have reached a condition of utter indifference respecting religion. They don"t care for it. They don"t care to build it up or tear it down. They don"t care whether it is good or bad. They don"t care anything about it.
Some regret this state of things; we rejoice in it. It shows that the people are thinking, and when the people think long enough they will find what is true and right.
If
If the government can carry a letter across the continent for two cents, why cannot it send a telegraphic message correspondingly cheap?
If the government can build and manage a navy, why cannot it build and operate a railroad?
If the government can run the treasury department, why cannot it run the banks?
If the government can maintain an army of soldiers in idleness, why cannot it support an army of laborers at some useful occupation?
If the government can serve at less cost than private corporations, why does it not do so?
SUNDAY SCHOOLS
Of all the stupid things we meet with, Sunday school lessons are the stupidest. There seems to be only one way to account for this, and that is that stupid persons are connected with Sunday schools and can comprehend only stupid things. It seems to us as though a bright boy or girl at the age of twelve years ought to be able to overthrow every argument employed in a Sunday school to bolster up the Christian superst.i.tion. The lessons taught in them are adapted to undeveloped brains, and the literature one gets from their libraries is of that variety that is calculated to discourage any robust independence of mind. We believe that any religious or theological instruction is a positive injury to the young; that it is utterly wrong to instill into the immature mind ideas of G.o.d, of a future life, of heaven and h.e.l.l, of angels and devils. All that we know about G.o.d is what we don"t know. The same may be said of other branches of religion.
How much better it would be to teach something useful, something of importance, something real, true! Parents owe it to their children to save them from being taught the false and foolish dogmas of Christianity. False education is the bane of humanity, and the falsehood that is learned in Sunday schools poisons and deforms the life of man as long as he lives.
Fear of G.o.d-the most terrible spectre that ever haunted the human soul-is a product of the Sunday school. The victims of this fear can be counted to-day by millions. This one fact ought to be sufficient to condemn this nursery of superst.i.tion and evil. There is no earthly reason to fear G.o.d, and other reasons should have no weight. The black shadow of fear which darkens the whole earth is the result of faith in G.o.d. The catechisms used in the Sunday schools are mostly filled with pious trash. The questions and answers they contain are written out of ignorance, written, too, in most cases, for the purpose of making the intellect the slave of the priest and minister. There is no mystery so shallow as a theological mystery, because it is founded on deception. The only mysteries that the human mind can contemplate with real wonder are the sublime mysteries of Nature, the mysteries of life and death, of sand and star, of flower and feeling. Before these great, overwhelming mysteries, that everywhere surround us, the petty ideas of G.o.ds and devils, of saviors and mediators, of heaven and h.e.l.l, are trivial and cheap. We condemn Sunday schools, because they do not teach what is real, what is true, what is necessary to a n.o.ble human life on earth; because they inculcate superst.i.tions, and elevate the belief of religious dogmas above scientific and useful knowledge; because they put G.o.d above man, heaven hereafter above the home here, and the performance of religious duties above the life of honesty, purity and love. Sunday schools are the poorest schools on the face of the earth, and there is only one excuse for their existence, and that is to perpetuate the church, to keep alive the superst.i.tions upon which it was built and upon which the clergy depend for a living.