Read Ebook: A Tramp's Scraps by Self H I M

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KNUCKLE-DUSTING.

Coming up from Aspinwall to New York, a second-class passenger came into the first-class saloon and a big steward objected. Man did not like it and when the steward swore at him, he struck the steward and knocked him down; the steward said the man used a knife; no one had seen a knife but over the Steward's heart was a little tear in his white duck. Captain took a hand, and steward, who had had a bad record was put in irons. Other man turned out to be an artist; had been through Borneo--of all places--and come out alive with a wonderful lot of pictures and photographs . Came into my cabin as he wanted to copy a little sketch of Panama. Showed me how that tear happened; he used a knuckle-duster that was in his pocket when he came at him the second time. An ugly thing; iron ring with holes that your fingers go through, short spikes over your knuckles, and a longer one below your clenched hand.

WANDERERS.

Making a fire after a long day in the boat and not thinking there was anyone else for miles; rather there was not, as the nearest place is the line between two states where a number of "bad men" have settled. When the soldiers from one state come for any of them the men can step over the line. Well, we were getting wood and one of us came out of the night with a fellow walking behind, knife in hand A canoe slid out of the fog with two muffled women astern, and three more men who got out and stood round the fire. As they had their knives out, one of us left fishing in the boat and passed guns round to our side. Then we talked and ate. They were very free and easy villains but went off into the fog again all right. After keeping watch awhile we went to sleep.

"THE WEARY PLOUGHBOY."

The province of Positivism is not speculation upon the origin, but study of the laws of Nature--its policy is to destroy error by superseding it. Auguste Comte quotes, as a cardinal maxim of scientific progress, the words "nothing is destroyed until it is replaced," a proverbial form of a wise saying of M. Necker that in political progress "nothing is destroyed for which we do not find a substitute." Negations, useful in their place, are iconoclastic--not constructive. Unless substitution succeeds destruction--there can be no sustained progress. The Secularist is known by setting up and maintaining affirmative propositions. He replaces negations by affirmations, and substitutes demonstration for denunciation. He asserts truths of Nature and humanity, and reverses the position of the priest who appears as the sceptic, the denier, the disbeliever in Nature and humanity. Statesmen, not otherwise eager for improvement, will regard affirmative proposals. Lord Palmerston could say--"Show me a good and I will realize it--not an abuse to correct."

Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will illustrate the principle of action prescribed by Secularism. One man will go on this errand from pure sympathy with the unfortunate; this is goodness. Another goes because his priest bids him; this is obedience. Another goes because the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will pass to the right hand of the Father; this is calculation. Another goes because he believes God commands him; this is piety. Another goes because he believes that the neglect of suffering will not answer; this is utilitarianism. But another goes on the errand of mercy, because it is an errand of mercy, because it is an immediate service to humanity; and he goes to attempt material amelioration rather than spiritual consolation; this is Secularism, which teaches that goodness is sanctity, that Nature is guidance, that reason is authority, that service is duty, and that Materialism is help.

"No society can be in a healthy state in which eccentricity is a matter of reproach." Conventionality is the tyranny of the average man, and a despicable tyranny it is. The tyranny of genius is hard to be borne--that of mediocrity is humiliating. That idea of freedom which consists in the absence of all government is either mere lawlessness, or refers to the distant period when each man having attained perfection will be a law unto himself. Just rule is indispensable rule, and none other. The fewer laws consistent with the public preservation the better--there is, then, as Mr. Mill has shown in his "Liberty," the more room for that ever-recurring originality which keeps intellect alive in the world. Towards law kept within the limits of reason, obedience is the first of virtues. "Order and Progress," says Comte, which we should express thus:--Order, without which Progress is impossible; Progress, without which Order, is Tyranny. The world is clogged with men of dead principles. Principles that cannot be acted upon are probably either obsolete or false. One certain way to improvement is to exact consistency between profession and practice; and the way to bring this about is to teach that the highest merit consists in having earnest views and in endeavouring to realize them--and this whether the convictions be contained within or without accredited creeds. There will be no progress except within the stereotyped limits of creeds, unless means are found to justify independent convictions to the conscience. To the philosopher you have merely to show that a thing is true, to the statesman, that it is useful, but to a Christian, that it is safe. The grace of service lies in its patience. To promote the welfare of others, irrespective of their gratitude or claims, is to reach the nature of the Gods. It is a higher sentiment than is ascribed to the Deity of the Bible. The abiding disposition to serve others is the end of all philosophy. The vow of principle is always one of poverty and obedience, and few are they who take it--and fewer who keep it. If hate obscure for a period the path of duty, let us remember nothing should shake our attachment to that supreme thought, which at once stills human anger and educates human endeavour--the perception that "the sufferings and errors of mankind arise out of want of knowledge rather than defect of goodness."

To know That which before us lies in daily life Is the prime wisdom.

The cardinal idea of the "popular Theology" is the necessity of Revelation. It believes that the light of Nature is darkness, that Reason affords no guidance, that the Scriptures are the true chart, the sole chart, and the sufficient chart of man, and it regards all attempts to delineate a chart of Nature as impious, as impracticable, and as a covert attack upon the Biblical chart in possession of the churches. Knowing no other guidance than that of the Bible, and disbelieving the possibility of any other, theology denounces Doubt, which inspires it with a sense of insecurity--it fears Inquiry, which may invalidate its trust--and deprecates Criticism, which may expose it, if deficient. Having nothing to gain, it is reluctant to incur risk--having all to lose, it dreads to be disturbed-having no strength but in Faith, it fears those who Reason--and less from ill-will than from the tenderness of its position, it persecutes in self-defence. Such are the restrictions and the logic of Theology.

On the other hand, Rationalism is in attitude and spirit quite the reverse. It observes that numbers are unconvinced of the fact of Revelation, and feel the insufficiency, for their guidance, of that offered to them. To them the pages of Nature seem clearer than those of the Apostles. Reason, which existed before all Religions and decides upon all--else the false can never be distinguished from the true--seems self-dependent and capable of furnishing personal direction. Hence Rationalism instructed by facts, winning secrets by experiments, establishing principles by reflection, is assured of a morality founded upon the laws of Nature. Without the advantage of inductive science to assist discoveries, or the printing press to record corroborations of them, the Pre-Christian world created ethics, and Socrates and Epictetus, and Zoroaster and Confucius, delivered precepts, to which this age accords a high place. Modern Rationalists therefore sought, with their new advantages, to augment and systematize these conquests. They tested the claims of the Church by the truths of Nature. That Freethought which had won these truths applied them to creeds, and criticism became its weapon of Propagandism. Its consciousness of new truth stimulated its aggression on old error. The pretensions of reason being denied as false, and rationalists themselves persecuted as dangerous, they had no alternative but to criticise in order to vindicate their own principles, and weaken the credit and power of their opponents. To attack the misleading dogmas of Theology was to the early Freethinkers well understood self-defence. In some hands and under the provocations of vindictive bigotry, this work, no doubt, became wholly antagonistic, but the main aspiration of the majority was the determination of teaching the people "to be a law unto themselves." They found prevailing a religion of unreasoning faith. They sought to create a religion of intelligent conviction, whose uniformity consisted in sincerity. Its believers did not all hold the same tenets, but they all sought the same truth and pursued it with the same earnestness. It was this inspiration which sustained Vanini, Hamont, Lewes, Kett, Legate, and Wightman at the stake, and which armed Servetus to prefer the fires of Calvin to the creed of Calvin, which supported Annet in the pillory, and Woolston and Carlile in their imprisonments. It was no capricious taste for negations which dictated these deliberate sacrifices, but a sentiment purer than interest and stronger than self-love--it was the generous passion for unfriended truth.

Was it not so, great Locke? and greater Bacon? Great Socrates? And thou Diviner still Whose lot it is by man to be mistaken, And thy pure creed made sanctions of all ill? Redeeming world to be by bigots shaken, How was thy toil rewarded?

To this stanza Lord Byron adds this note:--

"As it is necessary in these times to avoid ambiguity, I say that I mean by "Diviner still" Christ. If ever God was man--or man God--he was both. I never arraigned his creed, but the use--or abuse--made of it."

Secularism, we have said, concerns itself with four rights:--

The Christian has no right to think Christianity untrue, however untrue it may appear. He dare not think it false. He dare no more think it false than the Catholic dare differ from the dictum of the Church, or the Mahomedan differ from the text of the Koran, or the Hindoo differ from the precepts of the Brahmin. Therefore, the Christian's right to think for himself is simply a compulsion to believe. A right implies relative freedom of action; but the Christian has no freedom. He has no choice but to believe, or perish everlastingly. The Christian right to think for himself is, therefore, not the same as the Secular right. We mean by the right to think, what the term right always implies--freedom and independence, and absence of all crime, or danger of penalty through the honest exercise of thought and maintenance of honest conclusions, whether in favour of or against Christianity. Our assertion is that "Private judgment is free and guiltless." The Christian is good enough to say, we have "a right to think, provided we think rightly." But what does he mean by "rightly?" He means that we should think as he thinks. This is his interpretation of "rightly." Whoever does not fall in with his views, is generally, in his vocabulary, a dishonest perverter of scripture. Now, if we really have the right to differ, we have the right to differ from the Minister or from the Bible, if we see good reason to do so, without being exposed to the censure of our neighbours, or disapprobation of God. The question is not--does man give us the right to think for ourselves? but, does God give it to us? If we must come to a given opinion, our private judgment is unnecessary. Let us know at once what we are to believe, that we may believe it at once, and secure safety. If possible disbelief in Christianity will lead to eternal perdition, the right of private judgment is a snare. We had better be without that perilous privilege, and we come to regard the Roman Catholic as penetrative when he paints private judgment as the suggestion of Satan, and the Roman Catholic no less merciful than consistent when he proscribes it altogether. We must feel astonishment at him who declares the Secular right to be essentially a Christian right, when it is quite a different thing, is understood in an entirely different sense, and has an application unknown and unadmitted by Christianity. This is not merely loose thinking, it is reckless thinking.

It has been asserted that the second right, "the right to differ," is also a Christian right. "Christianity recognizes the claim to difference of opinion. Christians are not careful to maintain uniformity at the expense of private judgment." This is omitting a part of the truth. Christians often permit difference of opinion upon details, but not upon essentials, and this is the suppression made. The Christian may differ on points of church discipline, but if he differ upon the essential articles of his creed, the minister at once warns him that he is in "danger of the judgment." Let any minister try it himself, and his congregation will soon warn him to depart, and also warn him of that higher Power, who will bid him depart "into outer darkness, where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth." With respect to the third right, "the right of asserting difference of opinion," this is declared to be not peculiar to Secularism; that "Christian churches, chapels, literature and services, are so many confirmations of the statement that Christians claim the right of speaking what they think, whether it be affirmative or negative." Yes, so long as what they speak agrees with the Bible. This is the Christian limit; yet this is the limit which Secularism expressly passes and discards. It is the unfettered right which makes Secularism to differ from Christianity, and to excel it.

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