The Tactics of Orthodoxy.

To the Editor.

Sir,—One of the commonest performances to be seen in any equestrian circus is that of a rider upon two horses who poises himself alternately with one foot on either horse, and occasionally stands with a foot on each, springing over bars and flying through hoops, to the great delight of the youngsters. This kind of exhibition always reminds me of the vagaries of orthodox theologians, but with this difference, that in the circus the fact of there being two horses is patent, whereas your artful theologian, while hopping from the stand-point of practical religion to that of dogmatic theology and back again with marvellous agility, as the pressure of an opponent's arguments may page 287 compel him, persistently maintains that the two are but one system all the while.

It may be, for example, that some thoughtful student of history, sickened with the revolting details of Arian and Trinitarian persecutions, of the doings of the Inquisition, of St. Batholomew, etc., exclaims in a burst of indignation—"This religious cant (meaning, of course, dogma) has been, I believe, the greatest curse ever inflicted upon mankind!" "What, Sir?" replies Theologian, "do you dare to attack the religion of the pure and holy Jesus? has not Christianity modified the horrors of war and of slavery; discountenanced if not destroyed some forms of loathsome vice formerly prevalent; raised the status of woman throughout Christendom?" and so on.

If, on the other hand, a Hindoo philosopher, like Keshub Chunder Sen, finds the Sermon on the Mount and the general tenor of the precepts of Jesus commending themselves so strongly to his reason and conscience that he feels himself to be in heart and mind a Christian—hey presto! your theologian, vaulting on the back of dogmatic theology, cries out: "Stop, Sir, before establishing your right to the title of Christian, you must confess yourself prepared to accept every word included between the covers of this Book as divinely inspired and literally true! Are you persuaded that he who was baptised by John in Jordan, the dove that hovered over his head, and the being who spoke from heaven, were really all one? Do you believe in a personal devil, an everlasting hell, the atonement, justification by faith?" and the rest of it. What, when addressed in this fashion, can a philosopher do but smile and turn away?

The Rev. John Graham has been lecturing on the Talmud and the Gospels. I have the Herald's report before me, from which I find that he told his hearers that "the substance of all religion and morality is love, to which Jesus in his teaching gave a universality that it had never before. That in the days of Jesus the following precept prevailed—Love thy neighbour and hate thy enemy." Then it is clear that the Jews must have utterly forgotten their own law (Leviticus xix. 18): "Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." And, again (v. 33): "If a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, you shall not vex him—Thou shalt love him as thyself." So, too, in Ex. xxiii. 4: "If thou meet thine enemy's ox or his ass going astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again." Do not these passages show that forgiveness of enemies and good-will to strangers were not quite new things to the Jews?

But accepting most cheerfully the lecturer's assertion that the glory of the teaching of Jesus was to combine love to God and love to our neighbour, I am puzzled to know why all this abuse should be lavished upon free-thinkers and infidels? Is there a single Unitarian, Jew, Turk, Socinian, Free-thinker, Infidel, or Secularist, who will not gladly accept this teaching, and confess that the only cause for regret in the matter is, that these precepts are so rarely put in practice? I have never met with any Creed, or Confession of Faith used by Congregationalists. I cannot tell therefore what may be the lecturer's theological platform: though my familiarity with the doctrines of Episcopalianism and Presbyterianism enables me to affirm that the divines of these two churches bestride at the same time a horse (to return to my metaphor) of another colour; a very dark horse indeed. These men teach that the world is a wreck, and that the nature of man is so hopelessly and helplessly depraved, that he cannot even wish for better things without divine grace enabling him so to do. "Man, as man, and not as Jew or Gentile, is the object of God's love." Very good; but how is this compatible with the preparation of an everlasting cauldron of unquenchable fire into which millions of miserable sinners are foreknown and (as some say) foreordained to fall. Once upon a time, in one of the pleasantest parts of England, a group of young children were met on the road by a man who abruptly asked them: "Do you know where you are going?" "Oh, yes," was the prompt reply; "we are all on the way to X." "You are going to Hell," was the tremendous page 288 rejoinder with which, accompanied by a distribution of tracts of a dismal character, he left the terrified youngsters to scamper on their way. And small blame to him if he held the orthodox tenets; for, surely, it was better to scare only one poor child into heaven than to suffer all to drop unheeded into everlasting torture. And as for the gloom cast upon young minds, better were gloom for seventy years than an infinity of woe. Does Mr. Graham, believe in an everlasting hell P Let him, if he can, reconcile that belief with the statement that God is love. If he does not, and if he has no mysterious creed in the back-ground, then assuredly he need not cross swords in controversy with the Rev. Rabbi Davis. He may be assured that no modern Jew would object to the teaching of Jesus, considered as human teaching—to be tested and criticised as that of any other moralist.

Some one will say—here is nothing new; we have heard something like this often before. Certainly, you have; but in religion, as in politics, one must keep "pegging away," as President Lincoln said. No great reform has been carried during these forty years without reiterated argument, vehement knocking at the door of the House of Commons, and still more vehement knocking at the door of "another place." What said the unjust Judge? "Though I fear not God, nor regard man, yet, because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me." To pass off creeds and articles under cover of the personal character of Jesus, is the "stronghold of superstition:" it is, therefore, the business of all friends of free and practical religion to dissolve this unnatural and factitious alliance, to point out how much of "sweetness and light" there is in the one, how much of bitterness and gloom in the others; looking forward to a time, however distant, when the one shall be really the rule of life among civilised men, while the others shall have become, like Druidical remains and mediæval monuments, mere objects of interest and research to the student of the Past.

Scrutator.