: Arrows of Freethought by Foote G W George William - Free thought

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The causes of Atheism are, according to Professor Blackie, very numerous. He finds seven or eight distinct ones. The lowest class of Atheists are "Atheists of imbecility," persons of stunted intellect, incapable of comprehending the idea of God. These, however, he will not waste his time with, nor will we. He then passes to the second class of reprobates, whose Atheism springs not from defect of intellect, but from moral disorder, and who delight to conceive the universe as resembling their own chaos. These we shall dismiss, with a passing remark that if moral disorder naturally induces Atheism, some very eminent Christians have been marvellous hypocrites. Lack of reverence is the next cause of Atheism, and is indeed its "natural soil." But as Professor Blackie thinks this may be "congenital, like a lack of taste for music, or an incapacity of understanding a mathematical problem," we are obliged to consider this third class of Atheists as hopeless as the first. Having admitted that their malady may be congenital, our author inflicts upon these unfortunates a great deal of superfluous abuse, apparently forgetting that they are less to blame than their omnipotent maker. The fourth cause of Atheism is pride or self-will. But this seems very erratic in its operations, since the only two instances cited--namely, Napoleon the Great and Napoleon the Little, were certainly Theists. Next comes democracy, between which and irreverence there is a natural connexion, and from which, "as from a hotbed, Atheism in its rankest stage naturally shoots up." Professor Blackie, as may be surmised, tilts madly against this horrible foe. But it will not thus be subdued. Democracy is here and daily extending itself, overwhelming slowly but surely all impediments to its supremacy. If Theism is incompatible with it, then the days of Theism are numbered. Professor Blackie's peculiar Natural History of atheism is more likely to please the opposite ranks than his own, who may naturally cry out, with a sense of being sold, "call you that backing of your friends?"

Pride of intellect is the next cause of Atheism. Don Juan sells himself to perdition for a liberal share of pleasure, but Faust hankers only after forbidden knowledge. This is of various kinds; but "of all kinds, that which has long had the most evil reputation of begetting Atheism is Physical Science." Again does the fervid Professor set lance in rest, and dash against this new foe to Theism, much as Don Quixote charged the famous windmill. But science, like the windmill, is too big and strong to suffer from such assaults. The "father of this sort of nonsense," in modern times was David Hume, who, we are elegantly informed, was "a very clever fellow, a very agreeable, gentlemanly fellow too." His "nonsense about causation" is to be traced to a want of reverence in his character. Indeed, it seems that all persons who adhere to a philosophy alien to Professor Blackie's have something radically wrong with them. Let this Edinburgh Professor rail as he may, David Hume's theory of causation will suffer no harm, and his contrast of human architecture, which is mechanism, with natural architecture, which is growth, will still form an insuperable obstacle to that "natural theology" which, as Garth Wilkinson says with grim humor, seeks to elicit, or rather "construct," "a scientific abstraction answering to the concrete figure of the Vulcan of the Greeks--that is to say a universal Smith"!

Eventually Professor Blackie gets so sick of philosophers, that he turns from them to poets, who may more safely be trusted "in matters of healthy human sentiment." But here fresh difficulties arise. Although "a poet is naturally a religious animal," we find that the greatest of Roman poets Lucretius, was an Atheist, while even "some of our most brilliant notorieties in the modern world of song are not the most notable for piety." But our versatile Professor easily accounts for this by assuming that there "may be an idolatry of the imaginative, as well as of the knowing faculty." Never did natural historian so jauntily provide for every fact contravening his theories. Professor Blackie will never understand Atheism, or write profitably upon it, while he pursues this course. Let him restrain his discursive propensities, and deal scientifically with this one fact, which explodes his whole theory of Atheism. The supreme glory of our modern poetry is Shelley, and if ever a man combined splendor of imagination with keen intelligence and saintly character it was he. Raphael incarnate he seems, yet he stands outside all the creeds, and to his prophetic vision, in the sunlight of the world's great age begun anew, the--

Faiths and empires gleam Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

The last chapter of Professor Blackie's book is entitled "The Atheism of Reaction." In it he strikes characteristically at the five points of Calvinism, at Original Guilt, Eternal Punishment, Creation out of Nothing, and Special Providence; which he charges with largely contributing to the spread of Atheism. While welcoming these assaults on superstition, we are constrained to observe that the Christian dogmas which Professor Blackie impugns and denounces are not specific causes of Atheism. Again he is on the wrong scent. The revolt against Theism at the present time is indeed mainly moral, but the preparation for it has been an intellectual one. Modern Science has demonstrated, for all practical purposes, the inexorable reign of law. The God of miracles, answering prayer and intimately related to his children of men, is an idea exploded and henceforth impossible. The only idea of God at all possible, is that of a supreme universal intelligence, governing nature by fixed laws, and apparently quite heedless whether their operation brings us joy or pain. This idea is intellectually permissible, but it is beyond all proof, and can be entertained only as a speculation. Now, the development of knowledge which makes this the only permissible idea of God, also changes Immortality from a religious certitude to an unverifiable supposition. The rectification of the evils of this life cannot, therefore, be reasonably expected in another; so that man stands alone, fighting a terrible battle, with no aid save from his own strength and skill. To believe that Omnipotence is the passive spectator of this fearful strife, is for many minds altogether too hard. They prefer to believe that the woes and pangs of sentient life were not designed; that madness, anguish, and despair, result from the interplay of unconscious forces. They thus set Theism aside, and unable to recognise the fatherhood of God, they cling more closely to the brotherhood of Man.

SALVATIONISM.

There is no new thing under the sun, said the wise king Many a surprising novelty is only an old thing in a new dress. And this is especially true in respect to religion. Ever since the feast of Pentecost, when the Apostles all jabbered like madmen, Christianity has been marked by periodical fits of insanity. It would occupy too much space to enumerate these outbursts, which have occurred in every part of Christendom, but we may mention a few that have happened in our own country. During the Commonwealth, some of the numerous sects went to the most ludicrous extremes; preaching rousing sermons, praying through the nose, assuming Biblical names, and prophesying the immediate reign of the saints. There was a reaction against the excesses of Puritanism after the death of Cromwell; and until the time of Whitfield and Wesley religion continued to be a sober and respectable influence, chiefly useful to the sovereign and the magistrate. But these two powerful preachers rekindled the fire of religious enthusiasm in the hearts of the common people, and Methodism was founded among those whom the Church had scarcely touched. Not many years ago the Hallelujah Band spread itself far and wide, and then went out like a straw fire. And now we have Salvationism, doing just the same kind of work, and employing just the same kind of means. Will this new movement die away like so many others? It is difficult to say. Salvationism may be only a flash in the pan; but, on the other hand, it may provide the only sort of Christianity possible in an age of science and freethought. The educated classes and the intelligent artisans will more and more desert the Christian creed, and there will probably be left nothing but the dregs and the scum, for whom Salvationism is exactly suited. Christianity began among the poor, ignorant, and depraved; and it may possibly end its existence among the very same classes.

In all these movements we see a striking illustration of what the biologists call the law of Atavism. There is a constant tendency to return to the primitive type. We can form some idea of what early Christianity was by reading the Acts of the Apostles. The true believers went about preaching in season and out of season; they cried and prayed with a loud voice; they caused tumult in the streets, and gave plenty of trouble to the civil authorities. All this is true of Salvationism to-day; and we have no doubt that the early Church, under the guidance of Peter, was just a counterpart of the Salvation Army under "General" Booth--to the Jews, or men of the world, a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks, or educated thinkers, a folly.

Early Christians were "full of the Holy Ghost," that is of wild enthusiasm. Scoffers said they were drunk, and they acted like madmen. Leap across seventeen centuries, and we shall find Methodists acting in the same way. Wesley states in his Journal of his hearers at Wapping, that "some were torn with a kind of convulsive motion in every part of their bodies, and that so violently that often four or five persons could not hold one of them." And Lecky tells us, in his "History of the Eighteenth Century," that "religious madness, which from the nature of its hallucinations, is usually the most miserable of all the forms of insanity, was in this, as in many later revivals, of no unfrequent occurrence." Now Salvationism produces the very same effects. It drives many people mad; and it is a common thing for men and women at its meetings to shout, dance, jump, and finally fall on the floor in a pious ecstacy. While they are in this condition, the Holy Ghost is entering them and the Devil is being driven out. Poor creatures! They take us back in thought to the days of demoniacal possession, and the strange old world that saw the devil-plagued swine of Gadara drowned in the sea.

The free and easy mingling of the sexes at these pious assemblies, is another noticeable feature. Love-feasts were a flagrant scandal in the early Church, and women who returned from them virtuous must have been miracles of chastity. Methodism was not quite so bad, but it tolerated some very strange pranks. The Rev. Richard Polwhele, in his "Anecdotes of Methodism" , says that "At St. Agnes, the Society stay up the whole night, when girls of twelve and fourteen years of age, run about the streets, calling out that they are possessed." He goes on to relate that at Probus "the preacher at a late hour of the night, after all but the higher classes left the room, would order the candles to be put out, and the saints fall down and kneel on their naked knees; when he would go round and thrust his hand under every knee to feel if it were bare." Salvationism does not at present go to this length, but it has still time enough to imitate all the freaks of its predecessor. There was an All-Night meeting in Whitechapel a few months ago, which threatened to develope into a thoroughgoing love-feast. The light was rather dim, voices grew low, cheeks came perilously near, and hands met caressingly. Of course it was nothing but the love of God that moved them, yet it looked like something else; and the uninitiated spectator of "the mystery of godliness" found it easy to understand how American camp-meetings tend to increase the population, and why a Magistrate in the South-west of England observed that one result of revivals in his district was a number of fatherless weans.

In one respect Salvationism excels all previous revivals. It is unparalleled in its vulgarity. The imbecile coarseness of its language makes one ashamed of human nature. Had it existed in Swift's time, he might have added a fresh clause to his terrible indictment of mankind. Its metaphors are borrowed from the slaughter-house, its songs are frequently coarser than those of the lowest music-hall, and the general style of its preaching is worthy of a congregation of drunken pugilists. The very names assumed by its officers are enough to turn one's stomach. Christianity has fallen low indeed when its champions boast such titles as the "Hallelujah Fishmonger," the "Blood-washed Miner," the "Devil Dodger," the "Devil Walloper," and "Gipsy Sal."

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