Mr. Talmage describes a picture of the scourging of Christ, painted by Rubens, and he tells us that he was so appalled by this picture--by the sight of the naked back, swollen and bleeding--that he could not have lived had he continued to look; yet this same man, who could not bear to gaze upon a painted pain, expects to be perfectly happy in heaven, while countiess billions of actual--not painted--men,
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women, and children writhe--not in a pictured flame, but in the real and quenchless fires of h.e.l.l.
_Question_. Mr. Talmage also claims that we are indebted to Christianity for schools, colleges, univer- sities, hospitals and asylums?
_Answer_. This shows that Mr. Talmage has not read the history of the world. Long before Chris- tianity had a place, there were vast libraries. There were thousands of schools before a Christian existed on the earth. There were hundreds of hospitals before a line of the New Testament was written.
Hundreds of years before Christ, there were hospitals in India,--not only for men, women and children, but even for beasts. There were hospitals in Egypt long before Moses was born. They knew enough then to cure insanity with music. They surrounded the insane with flowers, and treated them with kindness.
The great libraries at Alexandria were not Chris- tian. The most intellectual nation of the Middle Ages was not Christian. While Christians were imprisoning people for saying that the earth is round, the Moors in Spain were teaching geography with globes. They had even calculated the circ.u.mference of the earth by the tides of the Red Sea.
Where did education come from? For a thousand
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years Christianity destroyed books and paintings and statues. For a thousand years Christianity was filled with hatred toward every effort of the human mind.
We got paper from the Moors. Printing had been known thousands of years before, in China. A few ma.n.u.scripts, containing a portion of the literature of Greece, a few enriched with the best thoughts of the Roman world, had been preserved from the general wreck and ruin wrought by Christian hate.
These became the seeds of intellectual progress.
For a thousand years Christianity controlled Europe.
The Mohammedans were far in advance of the Christians with hospitals and asylums and inst.i.tutions of learning.
Just in proportion that we have done away with what is known as orthodox Christianity, humanity has taken its place. Humanity has built all the asy- lums, all the hospitals. Humanity, not Christianity, has done these things. The people of this country are all willing to be taxed that the insane may be cared for, that the sick, the helpless, and the desti- tute may be provided for, not because they are Christians, but because they are humane; and they are not humane because they are Christians.
The colleges of this country have been poisoned by
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theology, and their usefulness almost destroyed. Just in proportion that they have gotten from ecclesiastical control, they have become a good. That college, to- day, which has the most religion has the least true learning; and that college which is the nearest free, does the most good. Colleges that pit Moses against modern geology, that undertake to overthrow the Copernican system by appealing to Joshua, have done, and are doing, very little good in this world.
Suppose that in the first century Pagans had said to Christians: Where are your hospitals, where are your asylums, where are your works of charity, where are your colleges and universities?
The Christians undoubtedly would have replied: We have not been in power. There are but few of us. We have been persecuted to that degree that it has been about as much as we could do to maintain ourselves.
Reasonable Pagans would have regarded such an answer as perfectly satisfactory. Yet that question could have been asked of Christianity after it had held the reins of power for a thousand years, and Christians would have been compelled to say: We have no universities, we have no colleges, we have no real asylums.
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The Christian now asks of the atheist: Where is your asylum, where is your hospital, where is your university? And the atheist answers: There have been but few atheists. The world is not yet suffi- ciently advanced to produce them. For hundreds and hundreds of years, the minds of men have been darkened by the superst.i.tions of Christianity. Priests have thundered against human knowledge, have de- nounced human reason, and have done all within their power to prevent the real progress of mankind.
You must also remember that Christianity has made more lunatics than it ever provided asylums for. Christianity has driven more men and women crazy than all other religions combined. Hundreds and thousands and millions have lost their reason in contemplating the monstrous falsehoods of Chris- tianity. Thousands of mothers, thinking of their sons in h.e.l.l--thousands of fathers, believing their boys and girls in perdition, have lost their reason.
So, let it be distinctly understood, that Christianity has made ten lunatics--twenty--one hundred-- where it has provided an asylum for one.
Mr. Talmage also speaks of the hospitals. When we take into consideration the wars that have been waged on account of religion, the countless thou-
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sands who have been maimed and wounded, through all the years, by wars produced by theology--then I say that Christianity has not built hospitals enough to take care of her own wounded--not enough to take care of one in a hundred. Where Christianity has bound up the wounds of one, it has pierced the bodies of a hundred others with sword and spear, with bayonet and ball. Where she has provided one bed in a hospital, she has laid away a hundred bodies in b.l.o.o.d.y graves.
Of course I do not expect the church to do anything but beg. Churches produce nothing. They are like the lilies of the field. "They toil not, neither "do they spin, yet Solomon in all his glory was not "arrayed like most of them."
The churches raise no corn nor wheat. They simply collect t.i.thes. They carry the alms" dish.
They pa.s.s the plate. They take toll. Of course a mendicant is not expected to produce anything.
He does not support,--he is supported. The church does not help. She receives, she devours, she consumes, and she produces only discord. She ex- changes mistakes for provisions, faith for food, prayers for pence. The church is a beggar. But we have this consolation: In this age of the world, this
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beggar is not on horseback, and even the walking is not good.
_Question_. Mr. Talmage says that infidels have done no good?
_Answer_. Well, let us see. In the first place, what is an "infidel"? He is simply a man in advance of his time. He is an intellectual pioneer. He is the dawn of a new day. He is a gentleman with an idea of his own, for which he gave no receipt to the church. He is a man who has not been branded as the property of some one else. An "infidel" is one who has made a declaration of independence. In other words, he is a man who has had a doubt. To have a doubt means that you have thought upon the subject--that you have investigated the question; and he who investigates any religion will doubt.
All the advance that has been made in the religious world has been made by "infidels," by "heretics,"
by "skeptics," by doubters,--that is to say, by thoughtful men. The doubt does not come from the ignorant members of your congregations. Heresy is not born of stupidity,--it is not the child of the brain- less. He who is so afraid of hurting the reputation of his father and mother that he refuses to advance,
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is not a "heretic." The "heretic" is not true to falsehood. Orthodoxy is. He who stands faithfully by a mistake is "orthodox." He who, discovering that it is a mistake, has the courage to say so, is an "infidel."
An infidel is an intellectual discoverer--one who finds new isles, new continents, in the vast realm of thought. The dwellers on the orthodox sh.o.r.e de- nounce this brave sailor of the seas as a buccaneer.
And yet we are told that the thinkers of new thoughts have never been of value to the world.
Voltaire did more for human liberty than all the orthodox ministers living and dead. He broke a thousand times more chains than Luther. Luther simply subst.i.tuted his chain for that of the Catholics.
Voltaire had none. The Encyclopaedists of France did more for liberty than all the writers upon theology.
Bruno did more for mankind than millions of "be- "lievers." Spinoza contributed more to the growth of the human intellect than all the orthodox theolo- gians.
Men have not done good simply because they have believed this or that doctrine. They have done good in the intellectual world as they have thought and secured for others the liberty to think and to ex-
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press their thoughts. They have done good in the physical world by teaching their fellows how to triumph over the obstructions of nature. Every man who has taught his fellow-man to think, has been a benefactor. Every one who has supplied his fellow-men with facts, and insisted upon their right to think, has been a blessing to his kind.
Mr. Talmage, in order to show what Christians have done, points us to Whitefield, Luther, Oberlin, Judson, Martyn, Bishop Mcllvaine and Hannah More. I would not for one moment compare George Whitefield with the inventor of movable type, and there is no parallel between Frederick Oberlin and the inventor of paper; not the slightest between Martin Luther and the discoverer of the New World; not the least between Adoniram Judson and the in- ventor of the reaper, nor between Henry Martyn and the discoverer of photography. Of what use to the world was Bishop Mcllvaine, compared with the inventor of needles? Of what use were a hundred such priests compared with the inventor of matches, or even of clothes-pins? Suppose that Hannah More had never lived? about the same number would read her writings now. It is hardly fair to compare her with the inventor of the steamship?
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The progress of the world--its present improved condition--can be accounted for only by the discov- eries of genius, only by men who have had the courage to express their honest thoughts.
After all, the man who invented the telescope found out more about heaven than the closed eyes of prayer had ever discovered. I feel absolutely certain that the inventor of the steam engine was a greater benefactor to mankind than the writer of the Presby- terian creed. I may be mistaken, but I think that railways have done more to civilize mankind, than any system of theology. I believe that the printing press has done more for the world than the pulpit. It is my opinion that the discoveries of Kepler did a thousand times more to enlarge the minds of men than the prophecies of Daniel. I feel under far greater obligation to Humboldt than to Haggai.
The inventor of the plow did more good than the maker of the first rosary--because, say what you will, plowing is better than praying; we can live by plowing without praying, but we can not live by praying without plowing. So I put my faith in the plow.
As Jehovah has ceased to make garments for his children,--as he has stopped making coats of skins,
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I have great respect for the inventors of the spinning- jenny and the sewing machine. As no more laws are given from Sinai, I have admiration for the real statesmen. As miracles have ceased, I rely on medicine, and on a reasonable compliance with the conditions of health.