My Path to Atheism Part 8

To the Rationalist, the future of the race replaces in thought the future of the individual; for that he thinks, for that he plans, for that he labours. A heaven upon earth for those who come after him, such is his inspiration to effort and to self-devotion. He seeks the smile of man instead of the smile of G.o.d, and finds in the thought of a happier humanity the spur that Christians seek in the thought of pleasing G.o.d.

His hopes for the future spread far and wide before him, but it is a future to be inherited by his children in this same world in which he himself lives; freer and fuller life, wider knowledge, deepened and more polished culture--all these are to be the heritage of the generations to come, and it is his to make that heritage the richer by every grander thought and n.o.bler deed that he can do to-day.

Let us place side by side the dogmas of Christianity and the motive power of the Rationalist, and see which of these two is the gladder life-moulder of man. Christianity has a G.o.d in heaven, all powerful and all-wise, who in ages gone by made the universe and fore-ordained all that should happen in time to come; who created man and woman with a serpent to tempt them, and made for them the opportunity of falling; who, having made the opportunity, forced them to take it. It is said that Adam and Eve were free agents, but they were nothing of the kind, for the lamb was slain from the foundation of the world: the sacrifice was offered before the sin was committed; and the sacrifice being made, the sin was its necessary consequence. If Adam had been free, he might not have sinned, and then there would have been a slain lamb and no sin for which he could atone; but G.o.d, having provided the Saviour, was obliged to provide the sinner, and therefore he made the tree of knowledge and sent the tempter to entrap the parents of mankind. They fell, according to G.o.d's predestination, and thus became accursed, and then the waiting Redeemer was revealed, and "the divine scheme" was complete. Accursed for a sin in which they had no part, the children of Adam are born with an evil nature, and being evil they act evilly, and thereby sink lower and lower; at their feet yawns a bottomless pit, and the road to it is broad, easy, and pleasant; above their heads s.h.i.+nes a luxurious heaven, and the path is narrow, steep, and rugged. Their nature--G.o.d-given to all--drags them downwards; the Holy Ghost--G.o.d given to some--drags them upwards: immortality is their inheritance, and "few there be that find" immortal happiness, while "many there be that go in" at the gate of h.e.l.l to immortal woe; a severance, bitter beyond all earthly bitterness of parting, is in store for all, since, at the great day of judgment, "one shall be taken and the other left," and there will not be a family some of whose members will not be lost for ever. Eternal life, to the vast majority, is to mean eternal torment, and they are to be "salted with fire," burning yet never burnt up, consuming ever but never consumed. Towards the gaining of heaven, towards the avoidance of h.e.l.l, all human effort must be turned. "What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" All life must be one striving "to enter in at the strait gate, for many shall seek to enter in and shall not be able;" poverty, oppression, misery, what matters it? the "light affliction which is but for a moment worketh a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

Thus this world is forgotten for the sake of another, crushed out of sight beneath the overwhelming grandeur of eternity; the spur to human effort is blunted by the infinitesimal importance of time as compared with eternity; bad government, bad laws, injustice, tyranny, pauperism, misery, all these things need not move us, for "we seek a better country, that is a heavenly;" we are "strangers and pilgrims;" "here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come;" "our citizens.h.i.+p is in heaven," and there also is our home. True, Christians do not carry out into daily life these phrases and thoughts of their creed, but in so much as they do not they are the less Christian, and the more imbued with the spirit of Rationalism. Rationalists they are, the vast majority, six days in the week, and are only Christians on the Sunday.

To come out of, these old world dreams into Rationalism is like coming into the open air after a hothouse. Rationalism clears away the terrible G.o.d of orthodoxy, the fall, the serpent, the Saviour, the h.e.l.l, the devil. "Work, toil, struggle," it cries to man; "the ills around you are not the appointment of G.o.d, not the effects of his curse; they arise from your own ignorance, and may all be cleared away by your own study, and your own effort. Salvation? Yes, you need saviours, but the saviours must save you from earthly woes and not from the wrath of G.o.d; save yourselves, by thought, by wisdom, by earnestness. Redemption? yes, you need redeeming, but the redemption you want is from vice, from ignorance, from poverty, and must be wrought out by human effort.

Prayer? yes, you need praying for, but the prayer you want is work compelling the result; not crying out for what you desire, but winning it by labour and by toil. The world stretches wide before you, capable of paying you a thousandfold for all you do for it. Life is in your hands, full of all glorious possibilities; throw away your dreams of heaven, and make heaven here; leave aside visions of the life to come, and make beautiful the life which is."

Full of hope, full of joy, strong to labour, patient to endure, mighty to conquer, goes forth the new glad creed into the sad grey Christian world; at her touch men's faces soften and grow purer, and women's eyes smile instead of weeping; at last, at last, the heir arises to take to himself his own, and the negation of the usurped sovereignty of the popular and traditional G.o.d over the world developes into the affirmation of the rightful monarchy of man.

THE BEAUTIES OF THE PRAYER-BOOK.

MORNING PRAYER.

"HABIT, is second nature," saith a wise old saw, so it must be from custom that it has become natural to Church people to repeat placidly, week after week, the same palpable self-contradictions and absurdities.

A sensible, shrewd man of business puts away his papers on the Sat.u.r.day night, and apparently locks his mind up with them in his desk; certain it is that he

"Goes on Sunday to the church, And sits among his boys; He hears the parson pray and preach,"

and yet never discovers that his boys are repeating the most contradictory responses, while the parson is enunciating as axioms the most startling propositions.

When the preliminary silence in church is broken by the "sentences,"

the first words that fall from the clergyman's lips are a distinct declaration of the conditions of salvation: "When the wicked man turneth away from his wickedness that he hath committed, and doeth that which is lawful and right, he shall save his soul alive;" and we are further instructed as to our sins, that "if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." These very plain statements take high and comprehensible ground. G.o.d is supposed to desire that man should be righteous, and is, therefore, naturally satisfied when "the wicked forsakes his way and the unrighteous man his path." We proceed, then, to confess our sins, and after Mrs. A., whose eyes are straying after her neighbour's bonnet, has confessed that she is erring and straying like a lost sheep, and Mrs. B., who is devising a way to make an old dress look new, has owned plaintively that she is following the devices of her own heart; and Squire C, of the rubicund visage and broad shoulders, has sonorously remarked that there is no health in him, and his son, with the joyous face, has cheerfully acknowledged that he is a miserable sinner--after these very appropriate and reasonable confessions, to a Divine Being who "seeth the heart," and may therefore be supposed to take them for what they are worth, have been duly gone through, we are somewhat puzzled to hear the clergyman announce that G.o.d "pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent, _and unfeignedly believe His holy Gospel._" What is this sudden appendix to the before-declared conditions of salvation? We had been told that if we confessed our sins G.o.d's faithfulness and justice would cause him to forgive us; here we have duly done so, and surely the language is sufficiently strong; we are yet suddenly called upon to believe a "holy Gospel" as a preliminary to forgiveness. But we are not yet, to use a colloquialism, out of the wood; for while we are moodily meditating on this infraction of our contract the time slips on un.o.bserved, and, it being a feast-day, we are startled by a stern voice conveying the cheerful intelligence, "Whosoever will be saved, _before all things_, it is necessary that he hold the Catholic Faith. Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish everlastingly." "Before all things?" before repentance? before turning away from our wickedness?

before doing that which is lawful and right? And what is this "Faith"

which we must keep whole and undefiled if we would save our souls alive?

A bewildering jumble of triplets and units, mingled in inextricable confusion. But as he that "will be saved must thus think of the Trinity," we will try and disentangle the thread of salvation. "The Father is G.o.d, the Son is G.o.d, and the Holy Ghost is G.o.d," says the parson. "They are not three G.o.ds, but one G.o.d," shout out the people.

We are compelled "to acknowledge every Person by Himself to be G.o.d and Lord," reiterates the parson. "We are forbidden by the Catholic Religion to say there be three G.o.ds or three Lords," obstinately persist the people. Then, after some rather intrusive particulars about the family (and very intricate) relations of the Father to the Son, and of both to the Holy Ghost, we are told that "so"--why so?--"there is one Father, not three Fathers, one Son, not three Sons, one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts." In so far as we have been able to follow the meaning, or rather the no-meaning, of the preceding sentences, no one said anything about three Fathers, three Sons, or three Holy Ghosts. The definite article _the_ had been used in each case with a singular noun. We imagine the clause must have been inserted because all ideas as to the meaning; of numerals must have been by this time so hopelessly lost by the congregation, that it became necessary to remark that "the Father"

meant one Father, and not three. The list of necessaries for salvation is not yet complete, for "furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation, that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ." So far, then, from its being true that the wicked man who turns from his sins shall save his soul alive, we find that our sinner must also believe the Gospel, must accept contradictory arithmetical a.s.sertions, must think of the Trinity in a way which makes thought a ludicrous impossibility, and must believe _rightly_ all the details of the method by which a Divine Being became a human being. If a sinner chances to go out of church after the first sentence, and from being a drunkard becomes temperate, from being a liar becomes truthful, from being a profligate becomes chaste, and foolishly imagines that he is thereby doing G.o.d's will, and thus saving his soul alive, he will certainly, according to the Athanasian Creed, wake up from his pleasant delusion to find himself in everlasting fire. As sceptics, we need offer no-opinion as to which is right, the creed or the text; we only suggest that both cannot be correct, and that it would be more satisfactory if the Church, in her wisdom, would make up her venerable mind which is the proper path, and then keep in it. After all this, we are in no way surprised to learn from a collect that being saved is dependent on quite a new support, namely, on the knowledge we have of G.o.d. How many more things may be necessary to salvation it is impossible to say at this point, but the office for Morning Prayer, at any rate, gives us no more.

It would be rash to conclude, however, that we have fulfilled all, for the Church has some more scattered up and down her Prayer-Book; the end of all which double-dealing is, that we can never be sure that we have really fulfilled every condition; sad experience teaches us that when the Church says, "do so-and-so, and you shall be saved," she is, meanwhile, whispering under her breath, "provided you also do everything else."

We fail also to see the reasonableness of the constant cry, "for the sake of Jesus Christ," or "through Jesus Christ." We ask that we may lead "a G.o.dly, righteous, and sober life" _for His sake_; but this is just what we are told G.o.d wishes already, so why should He be asked to grant it for some one else's sake, as though He were unwilling that we should be righteous, and can only be coaxed into allowing us to be so by a favourite son? In the same way we are to come to G.o.d's "eternal joy,"

through Jesus, which is, by the way, another of these endless conditions of salvation. We ask to be defended from our enemies "through the might of Jesus Christ," as though G.o.d Himself was not strong enough for the task; and G.o.d is urged to send down His healthful Spirit for the "honour of our advocate and Mediator," although that very advocate told His disciples that G.o.d would always give that spirit to those who asked for it. To the outside critic, these continual references to Jesus, as though G.o.d grudged all good gifts, appear very dishonouring to the "Father in Heaven."

Is it considered necessary to press G.o.d vehemently to hurry himself?

"O G.o.d, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us." Will not G.o.d, of his own accord, do things at the best possible time? and further, is it possible for a Divine Being to make haste?

It will, perhaps, be considered hypercritical to object to the versicles: "Give peace in our time, O Lord, because there is none other that fighteth for us but only thou, O G.o.d." What more do they want than an almighty reinforcement? "None other?" Well, we should have fancied that G.o.d and somebody else were really more than were needed. At any rate it sounds very insulting to say to G.o.d, "please give us peace, since we cannot count on any a.s.sistance except yours."

We have nothing to say about the prayers for the Royal Family, except that they do not show any very attractive results, and that it must have much edified George IV. to hear himself spoken of as a "most religious and gracious king." Never surely was a family so much prayed for, but _cui bono?_ If the "Bishops, Curates, and all congregations" truly please G.o.d, he is about, the only person that they succeed in pleasing, for the Bishops abuse the clergy, and the clergy abuse the Bishops, and the congregations abuse both. Of the last prayer, we must note the exceeding failure of the pet.i.tion to grant the Church knowledge of truth, and we cannot help marvelling why, if they really desire to know the truth, they so invariably frown at and endeavour to crush out every earnest search after truth, every effort for clearer light. Of all things that can happen to the Church, the knowledge of the truth would be the least "expedient for" her, for she would fade away before the suns.h.i.+ne of truth as ghosts are said to fly at the c.o.c.kcrow which announces the dawn.

A criticism on the office of Morning Prayer is scarcely complete without a few words upon the canticles appointed to be daily sung by the faithful to the glory of G.o.d. Any thing more ludicrously absurd than these from the lips of our congregations it would indeed be difficult to imagine. The _Venite_ (Ps. xcv.) is the first we are called upon to take part in, and the first shock comes when we find ourselves-chanting "The Lord is a great G.o.d and a _great king above all G.o.ds_." "Above all G.o.ds!" what terrible heresy have we been unwittingly committing ourselves to? Is there not only one G.o.d--or, at least, it may be three--but, if three, they are co-equal, and no one is above the other; who are these "all G.o.ds" that "the Lord" is "king above?" We remember for a moment that when this psalm was written the G.o.ds of the nations around Israel were believed to have a real existence, and that, therefore, it was no inconsistency in the mouth of the Hebrew to rejoice that his national G.o.d was ruler above the G.o.ds of other peoples. This explanation is reasonable, but then it does not explain why we, who believe not in this multiplicity of deities should pretend that we do.

Our equanimity is not restored by the next phrase, "In his hand are all the corners of the earth;" but the earth is a globe, and has no corners.

A misty remembrance floats through our mind of Iraeneus stating that there were four gospels because there were four corners to the earth and four winds that blew; but since his time things have changed, and the corners have been smoothed off. Is it quite honest to say in G.o.d's praise a thing which we know to be untrue, and must we be unscientific because we are devotional? We then hear about our fathers being forty years in the wilderness, although we know that they were not there at all, unless the people--generally looked upon as amiable lunatics--are correct, who a.s.sert that the English nation is descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. Why should we pretend to G.o.d that we are Jews, when both He and we know perfectly well that we are nothing of the kind?

We come to the _Te Deum_, said to have been composed by S. Ambrose for the baptism of S. Augustine:--"To thee cherubin and seraphin continually do cry." Putting aside the manifest weariness both to G.o.d and to the cryers of the never-ceasing repet.i.tion of these words, and the degrading idea of G.o.d implied in the thought that it gives Him any pleasure to be perpetually a.s.sured of His holiness, as though it were a doubtful matter--we cannot help inquiring, "Who are these cherubin and seraphin?"

According to the Bible, they are six-winged creatures, who cover their faces with two wings, and their feet with two more, and fly with the remaining pair: they may be seen in pictures of the ark, balancing themselves on their feet-covering wings, and preventing themselves from falling by steadying each other with another pair. "Lord G.o.d of Sabaoth," or of "Hosts;" is this a reasonable name for one supposed to be a "G.o.d of peace?" The elder Jewish and the Christian ideas of G.o.d here come into direct collision: according to one, "the Lord is a man of war" (Ex. xv.), while the other represents him as "the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace" (Isai. ix.). The _Te Deum_ midway changes the object of its song, and addresses itself to the Son instead of to the Father. How far this is permissible is much disputed, for certain it is that in the early ages of Christianity prayer was addressed to the Father _only_, and that one of the Fathers* sharply rebukes those who pray to the Son, since they thereby deprive the Father of the honour due to Him alone. How this can be, when Father and Son are one, we do not pretend to explain. Then ensue those curious details regarding Christ which we shall touch upon in dealing later with the Apostles' Creed.

We find ourselves, presently, asking to be kept "this day without sin;"

yet, we are perfectly well aware, all the time, that G.o.d will do nothing of the kind, and that all Christians believe that they sin every day.

Why does the Church teach her children to sing this in the morning, and then prepare a "confession" for the evening, unless she feels perfectly sure that G.o.d will pay no attention to her prayer? The wearisome reiteration in the _Benedicite_ is so thoroughly recognised that it is very seldom heard in the church, while the _Benedictus_ (Luke i.) is open to the same charge of unreality as is the _Venite_, that it is a song for Jews only.

* Origen.

Many other faults and absurdities might be pointed cut which disfigure Morning Prayer, even if the whole idea of prayer be left untouched.

The prayers of the-Prayer-Book are dishonouring to G.o.d from their childishness, their unreality, their folly, their conflict with sound knowledge. Allowing that prayer may be reasonable, these prayers are unreasonable; allowing that prayer may be reverent, these prayers are irreverent; allowing that prayer may be sincere, these prayers are insincere. They are fragments of an earlier age transplanted into the present, and they are as ludicrous as would be men walking about in our streets to-day clad in the armour of the Middle Ages, the ages of Darkness and of Prayer.

EVENING PRAYER.

The Church, in her wisdom, fearing that the quaint conceits and impossibilities which we have referred to, the--

"Jewels which adorn the spouse of the eternal glorious King,"

should not be sufficiently appreciated and admired by her children, if presented to their adoration once only on every day, has appointed for the use of the faithful an office of Evening Prayer, which, in its main features, is identical with that which is to be "said or sung" each morning. Sentences, address, confession, absolution, Lord's Prayer, and versicles, are all exactly reproduced, and Psalms and Lessons follow in due course, varying from day to day. To take the whole Psalter, and a.n.a.lyse it, would be a task too-long for our own patience, or for that of our readers, so we only pick out a few salient absurdities, and ask why English men and women should be found singing sentences which have no beauty to recommend them, and no meaning to dignify them. We will not lay stress on the quaintness of a congregation standing up and gravely singing: "Or ever your pots be made hot with thorns, so let indignation vex him, even as a thing that is raw" (Ps. lviii.); we will not ask what the clergyman means when he reads out to his congregation: "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet shall ye be as the wings of a dove." (Ps.

lxviii.) These are isolated pa.s.sages, which a pen might erase, retaining the major part of the Psalter: we go further, and challenge it as a whole, a.s.serting that it is ludicrously inappropriate as a song-book for sensible people, even although those people may be desirous of praying to, or praising G.o.d. Our strictures are here levelled, not at prayer as prayer, but simply at this particular form of prayer. In the first place the Psalter is written only for a single nation; it is full of local allusions, and of references of Israelitish history, which are only reasonable in the mouth of a Jew. With what amount of sense can an English congregation every 15th evening of the month sing such a Psalm as the lxxviii., recounting all the marvels of the plagues and of the exodus, or on the following day plead with G.o.d to help them, because "the heathen are come into Thine inheritance; Thy holy temple have they defiled, and made Jerusalem an heap of stones?" (Ps. lxxix.) Is there any respect to G.o.d in telling him that "we are become an open shame to our enemies; a very scorn and derision unto them that are round about us" (v. 4), when, as a matter of simple fact, the speakers are become nothing of the kind? Can it be thought to be consistent with reverence to G.o.d to make these extraordinary a.s.sertions in praying to Him, and then to base upon them the most urgent pleas for His immediate aid? for we find the congregation proceeding: "Help us, O G.o.d of our salvation, for the glory of Thy Name; O deliver us and be merciful unto our sins for Thy Name's sake.... O let the vengeance of Thy servant's blood which is shed be openly shewed upon the heathen in our sight. O let the sorrowful sighing of the prisoners come before Thee; according to the greatness of Thy power, preserve Thou those that are appointed to die"

(w. 9, 10, 11). Now in all sober seriousness what does this mean? Is this addressed to G.o.d, or is it not? If it be, is it right and fit to address to him words that are absolutely untrue, and to cry urgently for aid which is not required, and which He cannot possibly give? If it be not, is it decent to solemnly sing or read phrases seemingly addressed to G.o.d, but really not intended to be noticed by him, phrases which use His name as though an appeal to Him were seriously made? It cannot be healthy to juggle thus with words, and to make emotional prayers which are utterly devoid of all meaning. Some devout persons talk very freely about the wickedness of blasphemy, but is not that kind of game with G.o.d, in wailings which are devoid of reality, appeals not intended to be answered, a far more real blasphemy in the mouth of any one who believes in Him as a hearer of prayer, than the so-called blasphemy of those who distinctly a.s.sert that to them the popular and traditional "G.o.d" is a phantom, and that they see no reason to believe in His existence?

Pa.s.sing from this graver aspect of the use of the Psalter as a congregational song-book, we notice how purely comic many of the psalms would appear to us had not the habit-fas.h.i.+on of our lives accustomed us to repeat them in a parrot-like manner, without attaching the smallest meaning to the words so glibly recited. "Every night wash I my bed and water my couch with my tears" (Ps. vi.), is sung innocently by laughing maiden and merry youth, the bright current of whose life is undimmed by the shadow of grief. "Bring unto the Lord, O ye mighty, bring young rams unto the Lord" (Ps. xxix.), is solemnly read out by the country clergyman, who would be beyond measure astonished if his direction were complied with. Then we find the congregation making the certainly untrue a.s.sertion: "Moab is my wash-pot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe; Philistia, be thou glad of me" (Ps. lx.). At another time they cry out, "O, clap your hands together, all ye people" (Ps. xlvii.); they speak of processions which have no existence, "The singers go before, the minstrels follow after, in the midst are the damsels playing on the timbrels" (Ps. lxviii.). Another phase of this Psalter, which is offensive rather than comic, is the habit of swearing and cursing which pervades it; we find Christians, who are bidden to love their enemies, and to bless them that curse them, pouring out curses of the most fearful character, and displaying the most reckless hatred: "The righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance; he shall wash his footsteps in the blood of the unG.o.dly" (Ps. lviii.). "Let them fall from one wickedness into another, and not come into Thy righteousness" (Ps.

lxix.). A nice prayer, truly, for one man to pray for his brother man, to a holy G.o.d who is supposed to desire righteousness in man. Then there is that fearful imprecation in Psalm cix., too long to quote, where the vindictive and cruel anger not only curses the offender himself, but pa.s.ses on to his children: "Let there be no man to pity him, nor to have compa.s.sion upon his fatherless children." Of course, people do not really mean any of these terrible things which they repeat day after day; humanity is too n.o.ble to wish to draw down such curses from heaven; the people have outgrown the bad spirit of that cruel age when the Psalter was written, and their hearts have grown more loving; but surely it is not well that men and women should stand on a lower level in their prayers than in their lives; surely the moments, which ought to be the n.o.blest, should not be pa.s.sed in using language which the speakers would be ashamed of in their daily lives; surely the wors.h.i.+p of the Ideal should not be degraded below the practice of the Real, or the notion of G.o.d be less lofty than the life of man. By making their wors.h.i.+p an unreality, by being less than true in their religious feelings, by using words they do not mean, and by pretending emotions they do not experience, people become trained into insincerity, and lose that rare and beautiful virtue of instinctive and thorough honesty. When the prayer does not echo the yearning of the heart, then the habit grows of not making the word really the representative of the thought, of not making the feeling the measure of the expression. Much of the cant of the day, much of the social insincerity, much of the prevalent unreality, may be laid at the door of this crime of the Churches, of making men speak words which are meaningless to the speaker, and of teaching them to be untrue in the moments which should be the truest and the purest. At another time, we might impeach prayer as a whole; we might argue against it, either as opposed to the unchangeableness and the wisdom of G.o.d, if a prayer-hearing and prayer-answering G.o.d be believed in, or as utterly futile, and proved worthless by experience.

But here we only plead for sincerity in prayer, wherever prayer is practised; we only urge that at least the prayer shall be sincere, and that the lips shall obey the heart.

Exactly the same objection applies to the "Canticles," which, in modern lips, are absolutely devoid of sense. What meaning has the "song of the blessed Virgin Mary" from an ordinary English congregation; why should English people talk about G.o.d promising His mercy "to our forefathers, Abraham, and his seed for ever," when Abraham is not their forefather at all? Why should they ask G.o.d to let them "depart in peace," when they have not the smallest desire to depart at all, and why should they a.s.sert to Him that they "have seen Thy salvation," when they have seen nothing of the kind? For the perpetually recurring _Gloria_, one cannot help wondering what it means; when was "the beginning," and is the "it"

which was at that period, the "glory" which is wished to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; further, what is the good of wis.h.i.+ng glory to Him--or to Them--if He--or They--have always had, and always will have it? When we have heard a congregation reciting the Creed, we have sometimes wondered what meaning they attached to it. "The maker of heaven and earth." Do people ever try to carry the mind back to the time before this "making," and realise the period when nothing existed? Is it possible to imagine things coming into existence, "something" emerging from where before "nothing" was? And then Jesus, the only Son, conceived by the Holy Ghost, who proceeds from Himself, and son, therefore, not of "the Father," but of that spirit which only exists in and through "the Father and the Son." Again, how can a "spirit" conceive a material body?

If the whole affair be miraculous, why try to compromise matters with nature, by making this kind of pseudo-father? Surely it would be simpler to leave it a complete miracle, and let the Virgin remain the solitary parent. Except for making the story match better with the elder Greek mythology, there is no need to introduce a G.o.dparent in the affair; a child without a father is no more remarkable than a mother who remains a virgin. This attempt at reasonableness only makes the whole more outrageously unnatural, and provokes criticism which would be better avoided. A G.o.d, who suffered, was crucified, dead, buried, who rose and ascended, is a complete enigma to us. Could He, the impa.s.sive, suffer?

could He, the intangible, be crucified? could He, the immortal, die?

could He, the omnipresent, be buried in one spot of earth, rise from it, and ascend to some place where he was not the moment before? What kind of G.o.d is this who is to "come again" to a place where He is not now?

If the answer be, that all this refers to the manhood of Jesus, then we inquire, "Is Christ divided?" if He be one G.o.d with the Father, then all He did was done by the Father as much as by Himself; if He did it only as man, then G.o.d did not come from heaven to save men; then this is not a divine sacrifice at all; then, a simple man cannot have made an atonement for the sin of the world. And where is "the right hand" of Almighty G.o.d? Is Jesus sitting at the right hand of a pure spirit, who has neither body nor parts? and, since He is one with G.o.d, is He sitting at his own right hand? Such questions as these are called blasphemous; but we fling back the charge of blasphemy on those who try to compel us to recite a creed so absurd. We decline to repeat words which convey to us no meaning, and not ours the fault, if any inquiry into the meaning produce dilemmas so inconvenient to the orthodox. We are also required to believe in "the" Holy Catholic Church, but we know of no such body.

Catholic means universal, and there is no universal Church: to believe in that which does not exist would, indeed, be faith without sight.

There is the Orthodox Church, but that is anathematised by the Roman; there is the Roman Church, but that is the "scarlet wh.o.r.e of Babylon" in the eyes of the Protestant; there are the Protestant sects, but they are many and not one, a multiformity in disunity. We are asked to acknowledge a "Communion of Saints," and we see those who severally call themselves saints excommunicating each the other; in a "forgiveness of sins," but Nature tells us of no forgiveness, and we find suffering invariably following on the disregard of law; in a "resurrection of the body," but we know that the body decays, that its gases and its juices are trans.m.u.ted in the alembic of Nature into new modes of existence; in a "life everlasting," when the dark veil of ignorance envelopes the "Beyond the tomb." Only the thoughtless can repeat the creed; only the ignorant cannot see the impossibilities it professes to believe.

The two Collects, which are different in the evening prayer to those used in the morning office, call for no special remark, save that they--in common with all prayers--make no practical difference in human life. The devout Christian is no more defended from "all perils and dangers of this night," than is the most careless atheist; wisely, also, does the Christian, having prayed his prayer, walk carefully round his house, and examine the bolts and bars, mindful that these commonplace defences are more likely to be efficacious against burglars than the protecting arm of the Most High.

The remainder of the service is the same as that used in the morning, so calls for no further remark. If only people would take the trouble of _thinking_ about their religion; if only they could be led, or even provoked, into trying to realise that which they say they believe, then the foundations of the popular religion would rapidly be undermined, and the banner of Freethought would soon float proudly over the crumbling ruins of that which was once a Church.

THE LITANY.

The Litany has a fault which runs throughout the Prayer-Book, that "vain repet.i.tion" which, according to the Gospel, was denounced by Jesus of Nazareth; the refrain of "Good Lord, deliver us," and "We beseech Thee to hear us, good Lord," recurs with wearisome reiteration, and is repeated monotonously by the congregation, few of whom, probably, would know from what they were requesting deliverance, if the clergyman were to stop and ask so unexpected a question. G.o.ds the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are severally besought to have mercy upon the miserable sinners praying to them, and then the Trinity as a whole is asked to do the same. How far this separation is consistent with the unity of the G.o.dhead, and whether in praying to the Son we do, or do not, implicitly pray to the Father, and _vice versa_, those only can tell us who understand the "mystery of the Holy Trinity." This preamble over, the remainder of the Litany is addressed to "G.o.d the Son," who is the "Good Lord" invoked throughout, in spite of His reproof to the young man who knelt to Him, calling Him "Good Master;" "why callest thou Me good?"

Various dogmas are alluded to in the succeeding verses in which few educated people now retain any belief. How many really care to be delivered "from the crafts and a.s.saults of the devil," or believe in the existence of the devil at all? He is one of those phantoms that can only be found in the darkness, and which fade away when the sun arises.

How many believe in the "everlasting d.a.m.nation," of the same verse, or really consider themselves in the smallest danger of it? No one who believed in h.e.l.l could pray to be delivered from it in careless accents, for the smallest chance of that awful doom would force a wail of terror from the lightest-hearted of the listeners. Is it consistent to ask Christ to deliver us from His wrath? if He loved men so much as to die for them, it seems as though a great change must have come over His mind since He ascended into heaven, if He really requires to be pressed so urgently not to "take vengeance," and to spare us and deliver us from His wrath. Which is right, the wrath or the love? for they are not compatible; and does G.o.d really like to see people crouching before Him in this fas.h.i.+on, praising His mercy while they tremble lest He should "break out" upon them? If we were inclined to be hypercritical we might suggest that the prayer to be delivered from "all uncharitableness"

gives a melancholy proof of the inadequacy of prayer; the answer to it may be read weekly in the _Church Times_ and the _Rock_ more especially in the clerical contributions. The other pet.i.tions are also curiously ineffectual: "from all false doctrine, heresy, and schism," is so manifestly accepted at the Throne of Grace in these rationalising days.

Jesus is then abjured to deliver His pet.i.tioners by the memory of His days upon earth, and we get the ancient idea of an incarnate G.o.d, so common to all eastern religions, and the curious picture of a G.o.d who is born, circ.u.mcised, baptised, fasts, is tempted, suffers, dies, is buried, rises, ascends. How G.o.d can do all this remains a mystery, but these suffering, and then conquering G.o.ds are familiar to all readers of mythologies; we learn further, that G.o.d the Holy Ghost can come to a place where He was not previously, although He is the infinite G.o.d, and is therefore omnipresent. Verily, it needs that our faith be great.