God and my Neighbour Part 33

As the religion of Humanism concerns itself solely with the good of humanity, I claim that it is more beneficial to humanity than is the Christian religion, which divides its service and love between Man and G.o.d.

Moreover, this division is unequal. For Christians give a great deal more attention to G.o.d than to Man.

And on that point I have to object, first, that although they _believe_ there is a G.o.d, they do not _know_ there is a G.o.d, nor what He is like.

Whereas they do know very well that there are men, and what they are like. And, secondly, that if there be a G.o.d, that G.o.d does not need their love nor their service; whereas their fellow-creatures do need their love and their service very sorely.

And, as I remarked before, if there is a Father in Heaven, He is likely to be better pleased by our loving and serving our fellow-creatures (His children) than by our singing and praying to Him, while our brothers and sisters (His children) are ignorant, or brutalised, or hungry, or in trouble.

I speak as a father myself when I say that I should not like to think that one of my children would be so foolish and so unfeeling as to erect a marble tomb to my memory while the others needed a friend or a meal.

And I speak in the same spirit when I add that to build a cathedral, and to spend our tears and pity upon a Saviour who was crucified nearly two thousand years ago, while women and men and little children are being crucified in our midst, without pity and without help, is cant, and sentimentality, and a mockery of G.o.d.

Please note the words I use. I have selected them deliberately and calmly, because I believe that they are true and that they are needed.

Christians are very eloquent about Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, and Our Father which is in Heaven. I know nothing about G.o.ds and heavens. But I know a good deal about Manchester and London, and about men and women; and if I did not feel the real shames and wrongs of the world more keenly, and if I did not try more earnestly and strenuously to rescue my fellow-creatures from ignorance, and sorrow, and injustice than most Christians do, I should blush to look death in the face or call myself a man.

I choose my words deliberately again when I say that to me the most besotted and degraded outcast tramp or harlot matters more than all the G.o.ds and angels that humanity ever conjured up out of its imagination.

The Rev. R. F. Horton, in his answer to my question as to the need of Christ as a Saviour, uttered the following remarkable words:

But there is a holiness so transcendent that the angels veil their faces in the presence of G.o.d. I have known a good many men who have rejected Christ, and men who are living without Him, and, though G.o.d forbid that I should judge them, I do not know one of them whom I would venture to take as my example if I wished to appear in the presence of the holy G.o.d. They do not tremble for themselves, but I tremble for myself if my holiness is not to exceed that of such Scribes and Pharisees.

Oh, my brothers, where Christ is talking of holiness He is talking of such a goodness, such a purity, such a transcendent and miraculous likeness of G.o.d in human form, that I believe it is true to say that there is but one name, as there is but one way, by which a man can be holy and come into the presence of G.o.d; and I look, therefore, upon this word of Christ not only as the way of salvation, but as the revelation of the holiness which G.o.d demands.

I close these answers to the questions with a practical word to everyone that is here. It is my belief that you may be good enough to pa.s.s through the grave and to wander in the dark s.p.a.ces of the world which is still earthly and sensual, and you may be good enough to escape, as it were, the torments of the h.e.l.l which result from a life of debauchery and cruelty and selfishness; but if you are to stand in the presence of G.o.d, if you are ever to be pure, complete, and glad, "all rapture through and through in G.o.d's most holy sight," you must believe in the name and in the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten son of G.o.d, who came into the world to save sinners, and than whose no other name is given in heaven or earth whereby we may be saved.

Such talk as that makes me feel ill. Here is a cultured, educated, earnest man rhapsodising about holiness and the glory of a G.o.d no mortal eye has ever seen, and of whom no word has ever reached us across the gulf of death. And while he rhapsodised, with a congregation of honest bread-and-b.u.t.ter citizens under him, trying hard with their blinkered eyes and blunted souls, to glimpse that imaginary glamour of ecstatic "holiness," there surged and rolled around them the stunted, poisoned, and emaciated life of London.

Holiness!--Holiness in the Strand, in Piccadilly, in Houndsditch, in Whitechapel, in Park Lane, in Somerstown, and the Mint.

Holiness!--In Westminster, and in Fleet Street, and on 'Change.

Holiness!--In a world given over to robbery, to conquest, to vanity, to ignorance, to humbug, to the wors.h.i.+p of the golden calf.

Holiness!--With twelve millions of our workers on the verge of famine, with rich fools and richer rogues lording it over nations of untaught and half-fed dupes and drudges.

Holiness!--With a recognised establishment of manufactured paupers, cripples, criminals, idlers, dunces, and harlots.

Holiness!--In a garden of weeds, a hotbed of lies, where hypnotised saints sing psalms and wors.h.i.+p ghosts, while dogs and horses are pampered and groomed, and children are left to rot, to hunger, and to sink into crime, or shame, or the grave.

Holiness! For shame. The word is obnoxious. It has stood so long for craven fear, for exotistical inebriation, for selfish retirement from the trials and buffets and dirty work of the world.

What have we to do with such dreamy, self-centred, emotional holiness, here and now in London?

What we want is citizens.h.i.+p, human sympathy, public spirit, daring agitators, stern reformers, drains, houses, schoolmasters, clean water, truth-speaking, soap--and Socialism.

Holiness! The people are being robbed. The people are being cheated. The people are being lied to. The people are being despised and neglected and ruined body and soul.

Yes. And you will find some of the greatest rascals and most impudent liars in the "Synagogues and High Places" of the cities.

Holiness! Give us common sense, and common honesty, and a "steady supply of men and women who can be trusted with small sums."

Your Christians talk of saving sinners. But our duty is not to save sinners; but to prevent their regular manufacture: their systematic manufacture in the interests of holy and respectable and successful and superior persons.

Holiness! Cant, rant, and fustian! The nations are rotten with dirty pride, and dirty greed, and mean lying, and petty ambitions, and sickly sentimentality. Holiness! I should be ashamed to show my face at Heaven's gates and say I came from such a contemptible planet.

Holiness! Your religion does not make it--its ethics are too weak, its theories too unsound, its transcendentalism is too thin.

Take as an example this much-admired pa.s.sage from St. James:

Pure religion and undefiled is this before G.o.d and the Father, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.

The widows and the fatherless are our brothers and sisters and our flesh and blood, and should be at home in our hearts and on our hearths. And who that is a man will work to keep himself unspotted from the world if the service of the world needs him to expose his flesh and his soul to risk?

I can fancy a Reverend Gentleman going to Heaven, unspotted from the world, to face the awful eyes of a Heavenly Father whose gaze has been on London.

A good man mixes with the world in the rough-and-tumble, and takes his share of the dangers, and the falls, and the temptations. His duty is to work and to help, and not to s.h.i.+rk and keep his hands white. His business is not to be holy, but to be useful.

In such a world as this, friend Christian, a man has no business reading the Bible, singing hymns, and attending divine wors.h.i.+p. He has not _time_. All the strength and pluck and wit he possesses are needed in the work of real religion, of real salvation. The rest is all "dreams out of the ivory gate, and visions before midnight."

There ought to be no such thing as poverty in the world. The earth is bounteous: the ingenuity of man is great. He who defends the claims of the individual, or of a cla.s.s, against the rights of the human race is a criminal.

A hungry man, an idle man, an ignorant man, a dest.i.tute or degraded woman, a beggar or pauper child is a reproach to Society and a witness against existing religion and civilisation.

War is a crime and a horror. No man is doing his duty when he is not trying his best to abolish war.

I have been asked why I "interfered in things beyond my sphere," and why I made "an unprovoked attack" upon religion. I am trying to explain. My position is as follows:

Rightly or wrongly, I am a Democrat. Rightly or wrongly, I am for the rights of the ma.s.ses as against the privileges of the cla.s.ses. Rightly or wrongly, I am opposed to G.o.ds.h.i.+p, Kings.h.i.+p, Lords.h.i.+p, Priests.h.i.+p.

Rightly or wrongly, I am opposed to Imperialism, Militarism, and Conquest. Rightly or wrongly, I am for universal brotherhood and universal freedom. Rightly or wrongly, I am for union against disunion, for collective owners.h.i.+p against private owners.h.i.+p. Rightly or wrongly, I am for reason against dogma, for evolution against revelation; for humanity always; for earth, not Heaven; for the holiest Trinity of all--the Trinity of Man, Woman, and Child.

The greatest curse of humanity is ignorance. The only remedy is knowledge.

Religion, being based on fixed authority, is naturally opposed to knowledge.

A man may have a university education and be ignorant. A man may be a genius, like Plato, or Shakespeare, or Darwin, and lack more knowledge.

The humblest of unlettered peasants can teach the highest genius something useful. The greatest scientific and philosophical achievements of the most brilliant age are imperfect, and can be added to and improved by future generations.

There is no such thing as human infallibility. There is no finality in human knowledge and human progress. Fixed authority in matters of knowledge or belief is an insult to humanity.

Christianity degrades and restrains humanity with the shackles of "original sin." Man is not born in sin. There is no such thing as sin.

Man is innately more p.r.o.ne to good than to evil; and the path of his destiny is upward.

I should be inclined to call him who denies the innate goodness of mankind an "Infidel."

Heredity breeds different kinds of men. But all are men whom it breeds.

And all men are capable of good, and of yet more good. Environment can move mountains. There is a limit to its power for good and for evil, but that power is almost unimaginably great.

The object of life is to improve ourselves and our fellow-creatures, and to leave the world better and happier than we found it.

The great cause of crime and failure is ignorance. The great cause of unhappiness is selfishness. No man can be happy who loves or values himself too much.