Sunday Evening Lectures: No. XXXVIII. "Kings, Priests, & People,"

A Lecture, Delivered in the Mechanics' Institute, Barker Street, Castlemaine.

On Sunday, October 30.

From the "Castlemaine Representative" of the 2nd November, 1870.

The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject: "Kings, Priests, and People." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.

The fable about the "Divine Right of Kings" did not begin with the Stuarts of England. It was heard of many ages before our British ancestors left off living on acorns; long before the young colonists left their Etruscan home to found young Rome, and long before the day when Saul, looking for his father's asses, found a prophet to anoint him king. The Divine right began to be thought of not many ages after the first hunter upon the Syrian Plains had persuaded his fellows to set him up as king; and ever since it has existed in some form or other, bringing no small fatuity to kings, and no small amount of woes to the people. Upon the face of it, to any philosophical mind, this doctrine is absurd in the extreme. The idea of old, grave, and reverend men, and strong sturdy adults, going down on their bended knees paying homage to the [unclear: era le] of an infant, or to some imbecile sovereign, who, if not an infant in body is at least in mind is, to say the least ridiculous. Not withstanding, mankind have found it after all, from experience, to be better in an imperfect state of society to have an hereditary ruler rather than put the nation in a periodical state of ferment by the election of president, king ruler, or whatever be may be called. We are only speaking of the question abstractedly. In all countries the majority have a right to rule, and there is no doubt that the majority of the British Empire would prefer to be governed by an hereditary monarchy, and according to all ethics of right the majority has the privilege of choosing. But the question of hereditary monarchies is only a matter of time. When men borne wise and moderate in their views, and educated, monarchies will come to an end. The origin of kings—by whatever name they are called, whether Emperor or Cæsar—no doubt first arose out of the patriarchal relation. In a simple state of society the head of each house ruled, and then the aggregated families had a bead whom they looked up to. They were so ruled till the united tribes made a nation. In Assyrian countries the sovereign in very o den times was surrounded by certain insignia of veneration which should only be paid to deity itself. Their rule was supreme, unquestioned, and unrebuked. Upon one memorable occasion the great sovereign of Persia died without leaving an heir to his throne, but he had left his Empress behind in a condition to give the Empire a ruler. When the child was born, in the chamber of the unconscious infant the Satraps bent their knees in veneration and awe. As civilisation develeped in the western world some of this excessive veneration and power became lessened. By and by the power of the monarch became so hedged round that the ruled could suffer no great wrong at the hands of their rulers. It has happened in most lands that the sovereign has suffered at the hands of the assassin, cither openly, when expecting no evil or secretly in his chamber. But it was reserved for our forefathers to introduce the novel and startling example of trying, convicting, and beheading their King, not secretly but openly. All of yon know to what memorable event I am referring, when Charles the first, King of England was tried by the Commonwealth, tried with his full title, rank, and position, given him, tried for having made war against his subjects, which led to their bloodshed and murder, and for having levied ship money ill gaily. They dared to find him guilty, and not only to find him guilty but sentence and execute him. In later times, probably within the memory of some not long dead, a country neighbouring England followed the example. But the same deference that was offered Charles King of England was not shown to the King of France, for the manner of indicting him was somewhat-after this fashion—Louis Capet, commonly called King of France, stand forth and answer to your indictment. Even's like these prepare the way for what is called a constitutional monarchy, where the power of the sovereign is defined by letter, and the liberties of the subject are safely established. At this moment not only is liberty as safe in great Britain, but, even safer than in the great republic of the United States. Men were very much startled, almost terrified out page break of their senses when those acts to which I have briefly referred were perpetrated. But there can be no doubt they did good to humanity, though they have indirectly led to the prolongation of hereditary rule. They live made hereditary rule more tolerable by collaterally inducing the establishment of strict limits by which kingly power is defined. Closely, and indeed in the case of many countries, united to Kingcraft, is Sacerdotalism King and Priest, have been united as a general rule, but sometimes they have been at deadly issue, and the king has generally got the worn of it. I Lave already on former occasions given you my ideas on the origin of sacrifice. Sacrifice was established long before any order of priests existed, but a priesthood grew out of the sacrificial rite, just as the very temples in which sacrifices were offered did. When men began to slay the blasts of the field for the satisfaction of the supernatural powers, they erected altars whereon to offer them. Then rough stone walls were erected to keep out wild animals firm intruding on the enclosure, considered as sacred. Then a rough roof was next erected. Out of this the Pagan Temple grew, and the Pagan Temple is the rough model of a Christian Cathedral. Some men have been fond of the idea that the priestly order invented religion. I do not believe it. It was the universal instinct in the human mind, of a supernatural and overruling power. Those who say that priests invented religion are mistaking the effect for the cause. I have told yon my ideas of the spiritual origin of man, therefore I need not repeat them. There are creatures in the animal world whose organisations are so low that they cannot feel pain. They have no nerves and therefore have no sensation. You may beat them into a pulp or cut them up without observing any movement of the tissues as if caused by pain. We believe this non-nervous organisation was the condition of the earliest creatures in creation. Then, by almost imperceptible gradations, nerves began to develope. At first, the earliest made creatures were only imperfectly able to perceive pain or sensation, yet onward by sure stages the grand work progressed till at last man, the most nervous of of all the organised beings, was created. But man was not created in the condition in which he is now; yon are rot to suppose that I mean from that, that, he was at first created a highly organised and spiritual being and from his high position fell, but that he was, in the first instance, without a spiritual nature, and his intellectual faculties were so low that he was in cay able of comparing two thing together. At last, however, when man became a wake, as it were, to his exist once in the world, and [unclear: cognizant] of things around him a spirit and nature came [unclear: upon]. At first, the spiritual being, like the natural organisation when first endowed with sensation, was low and stunted. It then grew into a hope and belief of a life after the destruction of the material body. You remember that I said a creature must hare a high organisation to feel pain. Without that organisation man would not feel pain or receive due warning of danger. As it is with the material body so is it also with the spiritual nature. Man feels pain in his spiritual nature when there is something doing it an injury and menacing loss to that spiritual nature. Many an age since when sin arose, or what men call sin, there arose a cry in the human breast wherewith shall a man cleanse his sin? As soon as man became highly developed, whenever he yielded overmuch to his material nature; whenever the nice balance was lost; whenever sin came upon the soul and injured its fair and beautiful proportions, then the soul felt pain and cried out to the supernatural powers. In early ages partly to do benefit to mankind, the priestly order professed to minister to this want and the early institution of sacrifice probably suggested the idea of placating deity and bringing new security to the soul. That began many centuries ago and found its consumation in the religious philosophy of Saul of Tarsus. I told you on a former occasion that I believe Paul never intended when he spoke of the sacrifice of Christ that it should grow into the monstrous system of metaphysical incongruity we now find in existence. He found himself in the presence of a world.—whether Jewish or Pagan—with whom it was customary to offer sacrifice. He never intended to reduce the idea of the sacrifice of Christ to what it has been. He merely said in effect, hitherto you have sought to placate the supernatural power by sacrifice; the days of sacrifice and fetishism have passed away—when Jesus died he offered up a final sacrifice, and henceforth worship will be purely spiritual and moral. That I have no doubt was the meaning of the great apostle, though it grew into the popular idea of one person of the Trinity offering up another person of the Trinity. There is no doubt that since that system was declared, hundreds and thousands of millions of men and women have found peace and security of mind by trusting in the sacrifice of Christ I myself am neither ashamed nor afraid to own that I have felt a very strong peace and satisfaction in the contemplation of this complex and poetical theory. Not long since a minister of the church in which I acted as preacher said to me—" May I ask you a question in reference to yourself? I have heard that in time past you said you felt a consciousness of peace and satisfaction in the contemplation of the atonement of Jesus Christ, May I venture to ask were the feelings you then experienced clear and were you sincere in expressing them?" I replied yes. No doubt they were. When I expressed the belief I was perfectly sincere. I believe also that I did truly, sincerely, and honestly find a strong deep page break moral comfort through that method of belief. I do not for one moment doubt the reality of the result of the belief that then existed, but I have since begun to doubt the method by which I attained that result." And now, let me say to my once friends—who appear to think it their duty on every possible occasion to slander, malign, and misrepresent me—that I wish they will not misunderstand me in this and charge mo with insincerity. I had not at the time alluded to, nor have I at the present time, any doubts as to the results upon my own soul, but I have a doubt now about the manner and method by which I attained those results. It may be necessary for the sake of one or two present to give an illustration. Suppose we were expecting in this town the arrival of a man who lived some ten miles off; that he arrived late and exhausted with the journey; and suppose that in order to reach this place he had travelled all the way round through Melbourne, on to and through Gippsland then to New Soath Wales, and from thence arrived here; and suppose you told him of the circuitous and unnecessary route he had taken, and that the reply he made was—"It makes very little difference (as I am here at last." So it is with regard to religious results. The same effect can be attained, namely, a consciousness of peace and security by a far simpler and more natural method than by the orthodox faith. And now, men and brethren, allow me to assure you by every obligation which would bind a man to speak the truth, that my doubts about the vicarious sacrifice of Christ came to me, not in the hour of health and Strength, but began on a bed of sickness and on what I had no little reason to believe to be the chamber of death. When I had lain two or three days in excruciating agony, so protracted and horrible to endure that I could have experienced the feeling which precedes mortification and death with resignation and without regret, I thought, indeed, that death was not afar off, and I thought upon the after world as a man will think, to the eyes of whoso soul the gates of death are ajar. As I thought for my soul's security on the popular and orthodox theory, I began to doubt and distrust, and at length I came to the conclusion that it would not hold good in the eyes of reason—therefore I could not reconcile myself to it. The popular theory of the innocent being sacrificed for the sins of the guilty, and that sacrifice being accepted by the judge of Heaven and Earth, seemed to me to be inconsistent, and at utter variance with the reason God had given me. Furthermore, I could not satisfy myself that there was any necessity for such a cruise. Why should God our Infiuite Father, who is changelessly pood and all-wise, require in the course of his divine government that some one suffer? Yet I could see my way clear to cast my soul on the Fatherhood of God, and I could have passed from what is called time to eternity—I could have passed through the gates of death with the strong assurance that they would be to me the gates of life eternal. But as I have said, millions have found peace and security, and millions find it still in the popular belief of the vicarious sacrifice of Christ, but we present to them a simpler, clearer, and surer way. We give them instead of a complex and elaborate scheme—a scheme that is eternally puzzling the human mind—we present them with a faith pure, plain, majestic, and simple, having for its grand basis the Fatherhood of God. But, says the priestly order, how, without some kind of sacrifice, some kind of atonement, can man be delivered from the presence and consequence of moral evil—nay, more, how can divine justice be satisfied without some punishment being inflicted upon someone? I have no hesitation in saying of that, which has been the strength of sacerdotalism—that their notions of the consequences of sin are erroneons; that these consequences are confined to and rest with and end with the individual himself. If a man transgresses God's natural or moral laws, he suffers the consequence attached thereto, and there is an end of the matter: the function of Divine Government has been fulfilled. If man violates a natural law as surely as a stone thrown into the air fads to the ground by the force of gravitation, so surely will the consequence of that man's act follow him. If a man transgresses a moral law, if be violates lis conscience, he mars and wounds his spiritual nature and retards God's purpose concerning him. These are the punishments and they fall on the right shoulders as surely as death comes on all of us. You hear and read about God's lienor and about God doing this and that for his own glory, as if the whole purpose of His being was to receive glory and honour from his creatures. What would you think of a sovereign, or of any earthly father whose, whole and sole purpose was to gain homage, honor, and praise? Would this not be the incarnation of selfishness? And yet this is the character given too often to God. God has made certain natural and moral laws and if you or I violate them we have to pay the penalty. As our material bodies are hurt by a violation of a natural law, so are our spiritual bodies injured by the violation of moral laws. When the penalty is paid, and the offender is thus hereby warned, God's purpose, is fulfilled, and He does not consult His own glory or honour in the matter at all—that is above and beyond risk. Now, you see this cuts the ground from under the feet of orthodoxy. To take the view I have taken I think is far simpler and more satisfactory to man, and immeasurably more honouring to God. The orthodox view. I own, has made the sacerdotal order very powerful—it page break has permeated Christianity, and has made the religious teacher submediator between God and man. In the Church of Rome men before they pass away must send for the priest and have (extreme unction. The Anglican penitent, with all his quasi independence, sends for his spiritual a visor and all the little Protestant sectaries send fur their spiritual teachers when about to die, as if there should be a sort of agent between the dying man and his maker. If my doctrine were accepted, it would be takingaway the cornerstone of priestly security. It would take away their ruling power, and therefore they fight against it as ringing the knell of their craft. The [unclear: niest] has ever been conservative generally siding with the king and aristocracy—sometimes, but very rarely, interfering on behalf of the people, but by consolidating their power in that way they have generally only prolonged the thraldom of the people. There is no country in the world where the clergy have so much power and influence as in Scotland, not excepting Roman Catholic countries. In evil days, when the popular rights were assailed and in danger, the clergy stood on the side of the people, and the people, grateful to them for that, have given over to them the care and keeping of their consciences. When Charles I., of England, was illegally levying ship-money, corrupting the fountains of justice, deposing judges who were too honest, to fulfil his base behests, when he slit the ears of dissenters, and set them in the pillory for worshipping God in their own way, the clergymen of the Church of England were on the side of despotism and wrong. When Charles the first was about to be beheaded Archbishop [unclear: Usher] who has got a great name, I do not Know why, stood upon the roof of an adjacent house and they described how the tears flowed down his cheeks. I do not mean to condemn the man's emotion, but that same archbishop had no tears for hundreds and thousands of innocent English who were set in the pillory, cast into dung ons or formally murdered. And when the son of that man was renewing the tyranny of his father the Clergy of the English Church were ready to abet him in his wrongdoing, and obey his no I, even when he was going to mass. They continued to echo his words and cry for "the powers that be" until he turned them out of their livings and then they thought it time to be patriotic. Almost everywhere you will find King and Priest have been allied. To conclude—some 3000 years ago a blind man composed his imperishable Iliad I. He told of the woes of Greece. In that conflict the priest got his own and the king took his own, but the people perished. It was so then, it is so now. Far over the fair fields of France half a million of bright haired Germans have marched in answer to the Gallic challenge. The fields have been incarnadined with the blood of hundreds of thousands of men and the erst joyous children of France. Yet the Imperial miscreant who is the author of all these woes is grandly maintained by a retinue of forty servants, and his appetite pampered by the best cook from Berlin. This is the con lit ion of the Imperial murderer. The priests and religious teachers are praying now. What for? Peace? No. One section for the success of the French, and the other for the success of the Germans. They are in fact, seeking to make the strife more bitter by raising a rallying cry of Catholic France, against Protestant Germany. In some of the districts of France it has been unsafe for a Protestant to show his face out of doors, and the Protestants of Paris have been obliged to appeal to the Republican Government for protection. That Government to show its confidence in the Protestants has promised that the very next batch of wounded French brought into Paris, shall be handed over to the care of the Protestants under the superintendence of Pressonsee, the well-known preacher. What wasted forces there are at this moment destroying each other in Europe. If only the 500,000 men that have been killed or wounded, men in the hey day and strength of their manhood—had been brought out to this country with their now [unclear: w d wed] wives and orphaned children, and the money it has cost to slaughter them, what a colony we should have: their presence would make a garden of the wilderness, and raise up cities in the desert. What are they doing now? Just giving a little richness to the soil. In some places the herbage will be so rich that the cattle will refuse to eat the grass hat will spring from their bloody graves. Men and brethen, it is time for people to think of these things and take these great issues into their own hands. Some will say, thinking they have a complete answer, that there were wars where there were no kings: take the United States, say they, for exam pie. The real, though not ostensible question in that case was, shall four millions of men be kept in perpetual slavery. The task master said Yes, and the freemen of the north said No. The No was decided in the conflict. What is this strife about? Because two robbers have quarrelled, and the issue shows the one of Germany to be the cleverer cheat of the two. These things will not be always so; but let me tell you that what delays the perfect freedom of the people, and what strengthens the hands of those who conserve the power to themselves is the weakness and folly of the people themselves. When it shall come to pass that all men shall be educated, and all men have self-respect, then, let me tell you, that men like these will aggregate into nations whom no priest can keep in moral slavery, and whom no despot can enthral.