Recollections and Impressions, 1822-1890

This task – the complete emancipation of the human mind from every form of thraldom – will occupy liberal teachers for a long time to come. All that can be said in defence of instituted religion, and all that can be urged on the other side, had been put forward again and again, but in a sectarian – that is, in a partisan – spirit. Now an even temper is demanded. Unfortunately, impartiality is apt to degenerate into indifference. Breadth of view is, as a rule, inconsistent with rapidity of motion. The fact that the Free Religious Association had a small constituency as compared with many an orthodox society is no evidence whatever that the orthodox society is nearer the truth. The former was broad enough to admit all religions, the latter shut out all save the Christians, thus making them a special community saved by their belief. The problem is to preserve and, if possible, deepen intellectual enthusiasm while opposing fanatical adherence to dogmas; to associate breadth with force, to unite freedom with earnestness, and to render the love of truth more intense in proportion as the horizon recedes and ideas multiply. Such ought to be the result of free thinking, and such it is when thinking goes hand in hand with freedom.

Critical studies must keep an even pace with philosophy, and both must conspire to push back the lines of credence as far as faith in the spiritual sentiment will permit. The latest investigations have substantiated liberal conclusions and carried them into regions which were inaccessible to the authorities of an early day. A certain amount of denial was necessary of course, but this was made in view of a larger affirmation which had to be brought forward, and was, moreover, confined to matters incidental, not directed at the substance of faith. The assumption of a spiritual nature in man guaranteed the inherent genuineness of all aspiration.

No doubt the assumption of a creative religious nature in man lent aid to the endeavor to glorify the pagan faiths, and predisposed the mind to accept criticisms on Christianity; but scientific investigation of the world's bibles went on quite independently of this assumption. It was promoted by Catholics and Protestants, by Lutherans and Unitarians, by Germans, French, English, Americans. Certainly the alleged antiquity of a system is not in its favor; for ignorance, credulity, superstition, are much older than this; older than the ancient books, than the ancient thinkers. The oldest things are errors, delusions, falsities. The allegiance of great minds simply proves the limitations of intellect. Sir Thomas More believed in transubstantiation, and Samuel Johnson believed in ghosts. The wide reverence for the Scriptures is an impressive fact, until it is seen that no writings have been so guarded, nor have such pains been taken in regard to any other literature to create for it a habit of docile veneration. Fidelity is praiseworthy, but it is no pledge of wisdom. On the contrary it draws attention to the merits or demerits of the creed to which it is consecrated. Is witchcraft respectable? Yet it had its martyrs. Is demoniacal possession credible? Yet saints attested it. The fury of the fighter cannot vouch for the worthiness of the cause. If it could, the narrowest credence would be the truest as the world goes, and they who adhere to the "Christian" tradition would be consigned to the darkest cells of it. The newest thing is knowledge. This never paralyzes, and never is fanatical. Its heat is stimulating yet gracious. Its zeal does not scorch or consume. It awakens every faculty, keeps inquiry on the stretch, excites the noblest ambition, and at the same time rebukes the partisan temper in all its manifestations. Its reign is beneficent; its coming is full of hope. It is ever looking forward with sanguine anticipation, and if it is at times impatient, petulant, or imperious, it is because it is fretted by stubborn obstacles that prevent the full realization of its purpose to discover the truth. For a long time to come there will be controversy, but its violence will disappear, its acrimony will gradually cease, the passion for victory will yield to the love of knowledge, and all genuine seekers will unite in the search after light.

In the last generation the progress of intelligent examination into nature's secrets has been exceedingly rapid. During my active ministry I was hardly aware of it, for though an assailant of the popular religion, a champion of the freest thought, I was a defender of the current religious ideas; since leaving the profession, the significance of the mental revolution that is taking place, has been more fully revealed to me. The advance has approached very near to the heart of the citadel. The questions under discussion are fundamental ones, the existence of a self-conscious deity, the fact of personal continuance beyond the grave, the line of distinction between "material" and "spiritual" things. The dispute hangs on invisible threads of logic. The conservatives occupy positions which radicals of thirty years back could not assume.

The next step in the development of free thought must be toward the realization of all the ideal supports of mankind, the spiritualizing of the secular, the lifting into heavenly places of this world's activity, the transfiguration of our common life. If by religion is understood the striving after perfection in intellectual things by the untrammelled pursuit of knowledge, in social concerns by the exercise of fraternal kindness, in the spiritual world by aspiration towards a complete surrender to natural law, every free thinker will encourage that and will do what he can to promote it. That there is no final truth discoverable must be admitted, but such a confession need not trouble those who look manfully forward to a future of new discoveries, and gird themselves to remove all obstacles to the knowledge of the world they live in.

Robert Browning in his "Paracelsus," published in 1835, anticipates the doctrine of evolution.

Thus He dwells in all,From life's minute beginnings, up at lastTo man – the consummation of this schemeOf being – the completion of this sphereOf life; whose attributes had here and thereBeen scattered o'er the visible world before,Asking to be combined.

In 1836, Emerson in his "Nature," reiterated this grand prophecy:

A subtle chain of countless rings,The next unto the farthest brings,The eye reads omens where it goes,And speaks all languages, the rose;And striving to be man, the wormMounts through all the spires of form.

In 1867, science had gone so far that it could announce the Unity of Creation; the absolute Order and Law; one continuous Force; Progress as the end of life. The eternal beauty existed for those who had eyes to see. On this foundation the human heart, with its qualities of mercy, pity, peace, and love, its sentiments of justice and equity, its hunger for advance, its idea of goodness, built up a very noble and benignant conception of deity and the sure hope of moral perfection.

XI.

THE CLERICAL PROFESSION

It is natural that the clerical profession should be an order by itself. Every other calling is – the lawyer's, the physician's, the artist's and the merchant's. There is an absurd notion that the clerical profession stands alone; that it has a supernatural origin, which takes it out of the circle of ordinary employments; that it is not to be compared with other institutions of society. But the real dignity of the profession consists in its filling its place among human arrangements. A certain temperament too, seems to belong to all employments. There is the legal temperament, the artistic, the dramatic, the mercantile. It is no disadvantage that one prefers solitude, likes abstract thoughts, has no taste for business enterprise, is fond of books and study. Indeed, this is an advantage for one whose office it is to amass learning, to weigh opinions in fine scales, to follow the spiritual laws, and to peer into the mystery that surrounds human life. The very misunderstandings, illusions, superstitions that gather around the calling may be recommendations, inasmuch as they prevent the intrusion of rude minds, and draw their attention towards subjects they would not otherwise be interested in.

A certain amount of positiveness is necessary to ensure the worth of the profession. The Catholic priest has no doubt whatever of the providential establishment of the church in which he is a servant. This must be beyond question or misgiving. This is taken for granted by clergy and laity. All learning must be made to confirm it, all observation is compelled to favor it. The laws of society must have nothing to do with the kingdom of God; for society is to be redeemed, nature is to be supplanted by grace, secular life must therefore be excluded. The priest, such is the theory, dwells out of the world, and is encouraged to do so. He is poor, celibate, homeless, has no attachments, no affections, no terrestrial occupations. He must be to all intents and purposes dead to mortal affairs. One may find fault with earthly institutions; one is bound to find fault with them, but the church must be beyond criticism and must be accepted as a gift from heaven.

The Protestant clergyman holds fast by his doctrine of faith as by divine appointment. His chief tenets must not be submitted to doubt. Whatever he may reject, there remains something he is not tempted to resign – namely, the presence of the Holy Spirit in his creed. Reason may carry the outworks – ceremonies, ordinances, incidental points of belief, – but the citadel is removed from assault. The world-spirit may hover around him, envious, expectant, watchful, applauding his boldness, cheering his progress towards negations, glad to see the gulf betwixt him and the age gradually diminishing, and pressing into every vacant position; society may claim interest in him more and more; but there are points he must not yield, and which he merely wishes to bring into prominence in surrendering others which he regards as secondary. So much may be necessary, but religion must practically take its place among the ideal pursuits of men and be exposed, as they are, to the full examination of the mind before any fair account of it can be given. And this cannot be so long as a region, however small, is shut off from investigation by supernatural powers.

Moreover, it is the common impression that the office of the ministry is detrimental to the best interest of humanity, because it establishes another caste and thus destroys the unity that is so important in the integrity of the world. By it the priest is a person set apart, hedged about by the laws, held in peculiar reverence, habited in special garments. Some kinds of entertainments, such as dancing, the drama, are commonly forbidden to him. His presence on festive occasions used to be regarded as a gracious intrusion. He was not expected to take part in gayeties or to have any share in frivolities, which were much more hilarious when he was absent and the restraint of his presence was removed. He was thought to be somehow at war with nature, and his looking on at merrymaking was regarded by the polite as a piece of condescension on his part, an evidence of unusual liberality of sentiment. It was but the other day that a young physician, belonging to a Unitarian family, and himself an enthusiastic student of science, praised a minister for excusing his continual absence from church on the ground of his being so well employed. This was regarded as a long step in the direction of indulgence towards natural inclination. Even among rationalists, a symptom of the old idea appears in an expression of the face, the manner of address, the walk, or the general bearing. It is thought a great stretch of charity if he is kind to the atheist, the materialist, the infidel; and to take in the tempted child of nature, the drunkard, the victim of lust, avarice, is extreme good-will, benevolence amounting to saintliness. To abolish from it the pretension of superiority in the form of pity, as the high look upon the low, the good upon the bad, the moral upon the immoral, the virtuous upon the vicious, is, it is presumed, to overlook all recognized distinctions, to enthrone nature, to accept instinct as a safe guide, to renounce religion altogether and reject the saying that "the Christian church is immortal because its fundamental dogma involves a doctrine of God in nature so ample and clear as to satisfy every profoundest want of the heart and every urgent demand of the head towards God forever."

There are distinctions enough among men at any rate, and to obliterate them as far as possible is the office of true religion and all real humanity; to increase love, to multiply the bonds of fraternity, to bring mankind to a social equality, to annihilate all that keeps mortals apart. Of course the safety of society must be preserved by laws, customs, prejudices, but care should be taken to make these simply protective in their function, and in no event should it be assumed that such distinctions, however radical, have any absolute value or go beyond the limits of this outward world. Save men, if you can, from intemperance, violence, covetousness, lasciviousness, cowardice, gluttony, laziness, from every vice that brutalizes them, renders them objects of hate, fear, suspicion, or jealousy; make their circumstances wholesome, their condition in life invigorating, but do it in the name of enlightenment, do it as members of the human brotherhood, not as members of a divine organization. Many ministers make great efforts to exorcise this demon of exclusiveness, but the effort is too severe for any but the few, and the success of it is of doubtful accomplishment.

The Christian minister is a representative of humanity, pure and simple, without recognition of its division into classes. He is neither rich nor poor, high nor low, in society nor out of it, elevated nor obscure. He is democratic, the friend of everybody, the servant of all, on terms of charity and sincerity with all men. Sectarianism, with its manifold evils of violence, malignity, hatred, misrepresentation, is a standing evidence of the harm done to society by a priesthood, whether Catholic or Protestant, and ministers who have labored to overthrow its influence as being fatal to charity have been obliged to fight against the spirit of party, and to rely more upon their natural disposition than upon their professional training. In this respect the laity have been in advance of their so-called leaders. The people have always been opposed to dogmatical exclusiveness, and have welcomed every sign of generosity towards unbelievers. They have followed their instinct of sympathy, they have read the New Testament by the light of their human feeling, and setting common-sense against doctrinal narrowness, have rejoiced at every victory gained over intolerance. They have been friends of brotherhood; they have adopted the cause of liberty; and I must own with grief, the foes they have had to contend with have been, in too many instances, the ministers who would not see that charity was before faith.

Everybody must have observed the unanimity and the persistency with which ministers of all denominations and of all ages have devoted themselves to the rich. In fact the devotion is so conspicuous that it is one of the commonplace criticisms on the profession. People in general assume that this kind of adulation, amounting often to toadyism, is characteristic of the clerical calling, so inseparable from it indeed that the majority of men are incredulous as to any departure from it, and look with unfeigned admiration, when there are no reasons for distrust, on the minister who knows no distinction of persons or conditions, but has regard to intellectual or spiritual considerations alone. Such a man is viewed as a wonder, an exception to all rules, singularly constituted, either extraordinarily humane or extraordinarily obtuse, either more or less than a man. The worship of wealth is so common that some explanation of it must be given. The sufferings, mishaps, troubles of the rich are reputed to be more serious than they are in the ordinary run of cases; their disappointments are more pitiable, their crosses heavier, their losses severer, their sorrows a graver imputation on Providence. They are looked on as the favorites of heaven, and the cotton-wool in which they are wrapped is spoken of as the provision that is made for them expressly by the Lord.

This may be accounted for on grounds of material convenience. They who have money are of great importance, and that they should be interested in church affairs is of immense moment to all concerned, not to the ministers alone, but to the entire congregation, nay, to the whole community of believing men. There is always need of money, to build churches, pay officials, hire singers, furnish ornaments, support charities, maintain organizations for various ecclesiastical purposes; and it is much easier to get this in larger sums and with little trouble, than to obtain it in little driblets, with much pain, great expenditure of time, and constant vexation of spirit. The minister, from the nature of the case, is chargeable with this concern, which obliges him to visit frequently the wealthier members of his sect. To this end he must keep on good terms with them, must sit at their tables, eat their dinners, drink their wine, praise their pictures, compliment their tastes, commend their performances, flatter their self-esteem, admire their surroundings, take their side in controversy; and all such conduct is set down by kindly, thoughtful people, to the account of prudence which is more than pardonable in one situated as he is.

This is quite true, but it is not the whole truth. By implication already, the duty of cultivating the rich as donors involves the qualities of manhood to an indefinite extent. The line of necessary courtesy is not decisively drawn; cannot be drawn by the rules of etiquette. This must be the result of a trained experience, of a delicacy and sensitiveness, of a pride of selfhood, of a loftiness or dignity of mind that are hardly to be looked for in any large class of human beings, however free from special temptation or particular seductions that may be. The influence of luxury, ease, comfort, elegance, is very insidious, so that even an unusual zeal for truth, an extraordinary passion for excellence, yields to the power of moral indifference, of intellectual superficialness, which is characteristic of those who do not do battle with circumstances. It is so much easier to do nothing than it is to do something; it is so charming to be deferred to, to be looked up to, to be flattered, to have one's opinion sought without being involved in discussion, or vexed by opposition, or confronted with scepticism; it is so delightful to the natural man to sit in an easy cushioned chair, and be treated with delicate courtesy and dainty refinement as an authority on matters theological, philosophical, literary, instead of being put on the defensive by keen questioners who submit awkward problems for immediate solution; it is so gratifying to one's self-esteem to be received as a superior being, that ordinary human nature generally succumbs to the temptation and finds ready excuse for acquiescence in the necessity of being on good terms with one's wealthier parishioners, and so securing their all important good-will. In short, a fastidious kind of flunkeyism is engendered that is quite inconsistent with the spiritual life. The rich become a refuge as well as a resource, and the inner man is weakened while the outer man is confirmed. A species of lethargy creeps over mind and conscience. Even the moral purpose faints and languishes, and charity ceases to be athletic, as elegance of form is substituted for pith of resolution. The prophet is induced to say smooth things, to announce easy principles, to gloze over hard interpretations, to keep out of sight unwelcomed truths; and extraordinary courage is required of those who would resist this tendency to complaisance. The rich are, from the nature of the case, easily persuaded of the excellence of existing institutions, ideas, observances. I had been in the pulpit five years before I saw Henry James' remarkable lecture on "Property as a Symbol," and learned for the first time that "Property symbolizes the perfect sovereignty which man is destined to exercise over nature"; that "Property as an institution of human society expresses or grows out of this instinct of sovereignty in man. While this instinct is as yet misunderstood or unrecognized by the individual, while its full issues are as yet unimagined by him, society lends all her force to educate it under this form of an aspiration after property, or a desire to appropriate to one's self, land, houses, money, precious stones, and whatsoever else evidences one's power over nature… Thus the moral law is nothing more or less than an affirmation of the sacredness of private property. It virtually asserts an individuality in man superior to that conferred by his nature… Such is the temper of mind which God begets in him, to subdue the whole realm of the outward and finite to himself, to the service of his proper individuality, and so vindicate the truth of his infinite origin… The sole ground of our sovereignty over nature is inward, consisting in a God-inspired selfhood, instinct with infinite power."

It would be comforting to believe that a felt consciousness of this infinitude, however dim, animates the attachment of the clergyman to the opulent of any congregation; but I, for one, must make the confession that the fact of property was taken literally, that the ideal, symbolical character of it was concealed, that the instinct of sovereignty was unrecognized and unimaginable, and that the divine intent was unsought for, the institution being held quite sufficient to itself and needing no authentication beyond its existence. And such, I apprehend, is the prevailing view among the clergy, whose worship of it is not identical with the adoration of the Infinite.

One cannot undertake to speak with knowledge on a subject so complicated as this is with private motives, personal temperaments, social circumstances; but, as far as my memory goes, the clergy, as a class, have been too much engaged with matters ecclesiastical to be deeply interested in any cause of reform, and too timid to take the initiative in any matter involving disagreeable relations with controlling powers.

While towards the rich the attitude of the clergy is one of allegiance, towards the poor it has been one of patronage. This is a danger. "The poor ye have always with you, and whenever ye will ye can do them good," expresses their doctrine of charity. As if the poor were created in order that others might exercise beneficence; as if poverty was a providential institution, maintained in the interest of religion! It is hard in a so-called "Christian" community to get away from this view. The modern scientific theory and the "Christian" theory are thus at war; the former being intent on the well-being of society, the latter having in mind the cultivation of the individual in tenderness of sympathy; the former educating intelligence, the latter educating feeling. Still there was charity.

The Catholic Church, to say nothing here of any ecclesiastical purpose in keeping masses of men and women out of the world, gathered those who could not help themselves into great buildings and took care of them. In the Protestant Church the care of the poor has been held to be a religious duty, and a large part of the efforts of Christian ministers is directed to the fostering of pity and generosity in the hearts of the wealthy. To give to those who had nothing was reckoned the chief of graces, and "charity" – interpreted as love for those in want – was placed above "faith" and "hope," even when money alone was given. Not long ago a Unitarian minister exhorted his congregation to set apart for the uses of the poor one tenth part of their annual income, and doubtless he had the consciences of nearly all his hearers with him, for the monstrous proposition has been so often asserted as to seem by this time a commonplace. Probably no man living does that or ever did, and the practice of it on a large scale would pauperize the community. Think of it! Five thousand dollars a year is not a great income, yet if every one who had as much bestowed a tenth part of it on charitable objects what a fund for human demoralization would be raised! And when the income is ten thousand, fifteen thousand, twenty thousand, the amount of imbecility created would be indescribable; inertia would be frightfully increased, and multitudes would sit with folded hands who otherwise would have lifted them to do some honest work. A moral lethargy would fall on the toiling masses; wealth-producing labor would shrink to narrower and narrower limits, and a paralysis of energy would steal over the will of those whose need of resolution is the sorest. Wealth would consequently decrease, and the number of the givers get smaller and smaller until accumulation, which is the life of the modern world as distinguished from the ancient, would be blighted. The industrial classes would be reduced to servitude, enormous fortunes would be gathered by fraud, speculation, cruelty, and progressive society would relapse into sterility. Fortunately the minister could not persuade people to adopt this fatal policy. Fortunately, in this particular, niggardliness went hand in hand with common-sense.