Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays Part 14

The superst.i.tion prevails that unless man swears to tell the truth he will tell a lie. This superst.i.tion makes the sanct.i.ty of the oath. But is it a fact that a person will, under oath, always tell "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?" It is the general opinion that judicial swearing is simply a judicial farce. We concur in the general opinion.

An oath is the liar's retreat. Behind it falsehood puts on the robes of truth. The perjurer delights in swearing, for the act invests him with the appearance of honesty. An oath makes the tongue of vice as pure as the lips of virtue. It gives a rogue the weapon of the gentleman. It permits guilt to wear the dress of innocence.

The man who is willing to tell the truth feels that his honesty is impeached when asked to take an oath, while the knave, who is bound to lie, feels that his knavery is protected by the G.o.d in whose name he swears. No more senseless custom survives in our age than the administration of the oath. We do not believe that a judge or lawyer has one whit more confidence in human testimony because it is given in the divine name.

Is it not time to recognize this fact, that men can tell the truth without the help of G.o.d, and that those, who cannot do so, do not succeed any better with his help? In other words, an oath is calculated to pa.s.s a scoundrel for an honest man. While it does not insure truth-telling, it does serve to dignify a falsehood. It is time that a lie was obliged to stand on its own bottom, and not be pa.s.sed for what it is not, because it is told in the name of G.o.d.

G.o.d's name is not considered good at the banks.

To depend upon G.o.d is like holding on to the tail-end of nothing.

A man cannot be happy who believes in h.e.l.l, any more than he can sweeten his coffee with a pickle.

The church wants us to believe that G.o.d will go out of his way to strike a blasphemer and work a week to save the soul of a murderer.

DEAD WORDS

There is not one real, true, live word in the Christian vocabulary of salvation. Eden, the stage on which was performed the tragedy of original sin, is a dead word; devil, the name of the scaly gentleman who took the leading part in this tragedy is a dead word; h.e.l.l, the abode of all those who descended from the original sinners, is a dead word; Christ, the t.i.tle of the man who offered to ransom the human race and save men and women from h.e.l.l, is a dead word; atonement, the word that stands for the expiation to be made by Christ, is a dead word. These words that the Christian church uses in its exhortations to mankind have no heart of truth in them. They stand for no facts; they represent no realities. Take away these dead words from the Christian preacher, and you take away his powder, shot and wads. Let the Christian be held to facts and obliged to tell the truth, and his lips would be dumb. There never was such a place as the Garden of Eden; never such an individual as the devil. There is no such place as h.e.l.l. There never was a Christ, and no atonement made, for there was no necessity of any being made. If there was no such thing as faith, Christianity could not make a convert on the earth. If ministers were obliged to furnish the proof of their statements, there would be no preaching.

CONFESSION OF SIN

When the church teaches that "confession is good for the soul," it teaches false doctrine; it is only good for the church. Men once confessed their sins, believing that it was the evidence of the loftiest courage to acknowledge that they had made fools of themselves or that they were the veriest knaves. But never was a greater mistake made. Confession is itself a sin, a base betrayal of one's own heart. It shows utter lack of shame.

Our sins should be sacred. We should let no eyes see them but our own. To exhort one to confess one's sins is to ask the sinner to become the slave of his confessor.

Man has learned to keep still in respect to those things that concern no one but himself. He has found that where he has done wrong it is wiser to hold his tongue than to speak. We are not likely to confess what will harm us. This prudence is utility in morals. A wanton confession of wrongdoing shows a loss of self-respect, and a virtuous confession is proof of mental weakness. No human necessity requires self-degradation. To tell what we have done is to pay a compliment to prurient curiosity which it does not deserve. When we are commanded to do such a thing, resistance is a greater virtue than compliance.

The human conscience to-day says: "Hands off." It is impertinent to touch the soul against its will. Secrecy is our right. No one can demand that we expose our indiscretions. If the church asks if we have sinned, we feel justified in answering: "It is none of your business." A man's sins are his own. Our actions are private and subject only to voluntary betrayal.

We are at liberty to own our weakness or our meanness and to tell whatever we have done; but when another attempts to coerce a confession from us, we refuse to submit to such unwarrantable authority, and a.s.sert our right to be custodians of our own deeds. The court which does not require a man to criminate himself is higher than the church which bids a man lay bare his soul.

There is no ear pure enough to listen to the story of the secret struggles of the human heart. The doctrine of "confession of sin," which has been taught by the Christian church, is detrimental to manhood and womanhood.

It is a police arrangement where the private conscience is under the eye of the priest. There can be no independence where the soul has surrendered to another.

To make crime easy is to make criminals. One cannot rob the clothes-line if the clothes are in the house.

DEATH'S PHILANTHROPY

Every now and then a man dies and the world praises his name, and men die every day whose names we never hear.

Why is the one lifted up above the other?

In the case we have in mind it was because the man, when he died, left several millions of dollars to churches, to charities, and to public benefactions.

This age honors the acc.u.mulation of wealth. It puts its stamp of honor upon the man who gathers a large fortune into his hands. If this man at his death bequeathes all of his fortune, or a large portion of it, for what the world is pleased to call charitable purposes, he is called a good man, and his name is spoken with pride and praise.

Now, we believe in all the virtues that would make a man wealthy, but not in the vices: and we believe that a man may have all of these virtues and not have much money when he becomes old, or when he reaches the banks of the river of death. We want to praise the man that the world does not praise, the man who does not live or die for praise, and who does not care for it. We do not think that death's philanthropy is as grand and beautiful as life's philanthropy.

The man who lives to get money and to keep money, that at the last, when he can no longer keep it, he may bestow it where it will be a monument to his name, is not half so n.o.ble as the man who lives in such a way that he makes life easier for his fellow-beings, giving his little every week, here and there, and letting his gift fall quietly and out of sight of men.

It is the truest philanthropy not to rob man, not to take money from the world and hold it until the stronger hand of death opens the strong hand of greed. This is man's n.o.blest way to live; to take only what can be used for profit or pleasure. To take more than this is to rob mankind.

What generosity is there in parting with money only when death makes the fingers let go? Men who carry their millions to the grave would carry them beyond it, if they could. When only death can conquer selfishness, its n.o.blest bequest merits but little praise.

There is no vicarious suffering for the one who has eaten too much.

The nation that proclaims the right of free speech, but will not protect that right, has abandoned its principles.

OUR ATt.i.tUDE TOWARDS NATURE

The idea that Nature is to be wors.h.i.+pped, either as G.o.d, the unknown, or the incomprehensible, is being seriously questioned. We wish first to know what good such wors.h.i.+p does. It cannot be of any benefit to Nature. Is it of any benefit to man? This is the only question to be answered.

Almost everybody is ready to say that man should not wors.h.i.+p the sun, the moon, the stars, or any earthly thing; but a great many still think that man should wors.h.i.+p the mysterious something of which everything is a manifestation. We have outgrown the wors.h.i.+p of objects. We look upon the person who sees a G.o.d in any natural object as an idolater; as one whose mental vision is unillumined by any true idea of the universe. But there is a demand that man shall wors.h.i.+p G.o.d, or the unknown force or power in Nature that is the source of all things.

We admit the unknown quant.i.ty of the universe; but we do not see the necessity of wors.h.i.+ping it. We do not see any good in praying to it, or in singing to it. Nature is all a mystery and all the mystery there is, but why do we need to keep saying so in prayer and praise when the silent fact is ever before our eyes? We do not need to go down on our knees to every mysterious thing, and stay there. Let us freely and frankly confess that Nature is incomprehensible, and then go about our business like men, and try to learn what will help ourselves and our fellow-beings.