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Sunday Evening Lectures: "The Good Time Coming,"

A Lecture, delivered in the Mechanics' Institute, Castlemaine,

On Sunday, December 4th 1870.

From the "Castlemaine Representative" of the 7th December, 1870.

Published By H. Bamford, Barker-Street, Castlemaine.

[XLIII.]

The following lecture was delivered on Sunday evening last by G. C. Leech, Esq., in the Mechanics' Institute. Subject. "The Good Time Coming." Reported by Mr E. C. Martin.

Several years ago, but within the memory of men still living, the author of Vathek lay dying in one of the gorgeous chambers of Fontbill Abbey. A man of earnest spirit, who was anxious for the soul of the dying man, requested to be admitted to the chamber. The request was refused, but with the refusal there went this message: "Tell him I die possessed of the highest gift of God to man—Hope." In the spiritual condition of that man the orthodox believer would have had no hope, for he would not have assented to any of those doctrinal tests which such believers deem a requisite passport to Heaven. But neither would those who think as we do have had much joy in that man's end. Possessed of almost boundless wealth by birth, he gave up his soul, his life, every mental power and every bodily faculty to the indulgence of what was sensuous. Possessed of singularly elegant tastes, his sensuality partook of the refined, but it was none the less sensuality. Whether a man shall be a refined materialist or whether he shall grovel in the lowest and most degrading sensuality are matters purely of education, and not of the inherent qualities of the mind. His life was given up to all that was morally sensuous, though he was by no means ignorant of the spiritual life and the requirements of the human soul; yet, though sensuous as he must have been, having set aside every high and holy aspiration after that which was spiritual, notwithstanding, he died with hope. How strong must that property of the human heart be when it is to be found in those who are spiritually degraded? If it is found there, how deeply seated it must be in those whose aspirations are high, and whose minds ever soar upwards after the beautiful and true? In the darkest life the soul has hope for light. In the worst period of a man's lite or a nation's history there is still an inherent and latent belief that form man and nation alike there is a good time coming. There was a period in the history of Europe not many years since when the Italian Patriot, though be had still hope in his soul, had little prospect of the realisation of that hope. The patriots of Italy languished in dungeons deeper than the river bed, or died in the Papal dominions, shot in the back, and branded as parracides. All at one time was darkness and gloom, when upon a sudden, from his Island home of Caprera, the Great Patriot of Italy burst forth, swept the Bourbon from Sicily, then from Southern Italy, and then in triumphal march went northward, clearing all save one spot. At last the dreams of the patriot were realised, and Italy was free. There was one spot still left to despotism—it was left to the worst kind—the despotism of the king and priest combined. There are tyrannies bard to bear when the spirit, is free, but the tyranny, of priestly power is doubly hard to hear. In Home the soul and body were bound down by iron slavery. When the free men of Italy could no longer bear it, a small band of Italian patriots set forth in the direction of the Imperial and ever famous city. They would have beaten the armed hirelings of the Vice-gerent of God, but the better arms of France came to sustain the shock of the battle. The few men who came in patriotic ardour to save Rome were shot, down in a sort of battue, not in battle. All seemed to be dark, and the cause of the patriots seemed to have sunk lower. There then arose a cry of the oppressed, but there seemed none to comfort them. Yet in the darkest and most hopeless hour there came a good time for Roman freemen. Upon a sudden the tempest of war broke forth upon Europe. The man whose trained soldiery had kept down the freemen of Italy, set out on a triumphal march to cross the German frontier, and ride triumphant through the plains of Prussia, when to the amazement of Europe the tide page break of war rolled back upon him, his vast legions of armed men were surrounded, and he, like his great uncle, but without his uncle's more noble manner of falling, found himself a captive of war in the heart of his enemy's country. Then for Italy there grew a great hope—the Chassepôts which Pio Nono had blessed and sprinkled with Holy Water, were no longer in Rome to sustain pontifical temporal power and almost without a blow, that temporal power of Papacy sunk to its rotten foundation. Further; out of that, not only for the freemen of Italy, but for freedom generally, there is a good time coming. Some Protestants are very ready to throw up their caps in the air and shout for joy because they think there is an end of the religion of papacy. Not so. Perhaps there is a difference between papacy and Protestantism. In point of freedom the latter is perhaps the best, and a man in choosing between two evils will take the least—orthodox Protestantism. Yet I do not know that if orthodox protestantism had the same powers that Rome has, that freemen and men of advanced free thought would win any more power to think freely than from Papacy. In Protestantism there would be larger freedom of thought than in a country where Catholic ideas prevailed. But why? Not because Protestantism is one whit more tolerant, but because in Protestantism there is a larger proportion of professors who in their hearts disbelieve, and discredit the teachings of orthodoxy. There is, I say in Protestantism a larger proportion of such thinkers than there is in the Church of Rome, and their voice and influence would compel the more bigoted professors to toleration, and allow freedom of advanced thought. We are glad to be able to believe and announce this great fact that in all churches of Protestantism, whether in one or the other, there is continually growing up in the minds of the masses of men a spirit of unbelief in the main doctrines of orthodoxy. I am bold to aver that in the Church of England alone, if we could poll her numbers,—I speak of the Church as in England, for here her clergy are miserably inferior to those in England, many of them not having bad a collegiate education but having been ordained and promoted from lay readerships—speaking of the Church as in England, I say the majority of the clergy disbelieve the doctrine of eternal punishment. If you pass from the clergy to the lay portion there is an overwhelming majority who disbelieve it, With regard to the doctrine of the Trinity I do not say that they disbelieve it, because few can believe it. A thing which is beyond our comprehension is bard to fix our belief upon. It is such a profound and flat contradiction affecting simplicity, and at the same time inexpressibly bewildering. You would not find in any assembly of 1000 persons, a twentieth part who would hold up their hands for the creed of St. Athanasius which one of the most eminent English Divines has now declared to be a forgery. Free opinions are spreading abroad every where As the old fashioned hideous dogmas are dying out and abandoned by the higher forms of faith they are eagerly snatched at and upheld by the lower portions of professing Christians. When men of advanced thought propound at home or in America views broader or more honouring to God, it is not to raise up a new sect but to give larger views of their Maker and Father God. Now we do not believe with ultra and orthodox Protestantism that Papacy is going to die out because the temporal power of the Pope is over thrown. I can easily understand that the Pope, freed from the drag of temporal power, may win new influences and fresh respect, but with this new influence, inevitably, and by a sure and unfailing law of our mental being, the Church of Rome must enlarge her boundaries and relax her bigotry. From not only the Gallican Church as represented in the Œeumenical Council by the Archbishop of Paris, but from Hungary, America, and from every part of the Roman Catholic world, except Ireland, there has arisen a warning cry to Rome which, if Pio Nono does not listen to, his successor, surely will. And if Rome—Rome that ever boasts to be the same—if Rome ever enlarges her boundaries, sinks her dogmatism, and relaxes her bigotry, woe in that day to her more modern rivals, if they attempt still to retain their little dogmatisms borrowed from the worst part of the old system of Rome. The hopes of the Patriot are comparatively transitory. The oppression, wrong and despotism against which he wars are confined to nations; but there are other woes and pains of earth which are not passing away, but are hereditary and the cause of continuous sorrows to mankind. There are physical pain, disease, bodily suffering, and death. We believe in the fatherhood of God. We have faith that he is perfectly wise. How is it then that man is the victim of pain, disease, and death, an I how can we reconcile the moral and physical pains of men with this wisdom and beneficence? In this very simple way! We should not ask for the solution of the difficulty in that miserable old fable—of original sin. It is perfectly clear that it was never intended that our bodies should be immortal. If it was, it is opposed to any page break other analogy in nature. The old theory of man having been created immortal must be remitted to fable. When mankind learned that death reigned ages and ages before men had lived; when the upheaval of the granite hills opened the great sepulchre of the past wherein had been entombed the dead of extinct races of treaties, the idea of the immortality of the body was thus necessarily exploded, so we cannot propound man's fall as a reason for physical pain and suffering. We are as yet in a transition state. We are not yet in the condition into which the Creator will develope us. God has proceeded in all his works slowly and by degrees. First, on the bare rock grew the tiny lichens; then came forth the larger and richer herbages—so large, so rank and coarse, that not only man could not have lived, but not even the creatures that afterwards inhabited the forests. Then the grass was sometimes 20 feet in height, and the trees reared their branches a thousand feet in the air, then largely charged with carbonic acid gas. The creatures that are the food of man could not then have existed, but instead huge monsters like the megatheria occupied cartel. In the course of time the earth became fitted for the cattle that career the thousand hills. Then, food being provide for man, man was developed. First man was strong and rude in structure, and able to defend himself against the attacks of the lower creatures. Then by-and-bye he became fit to be the recipient of spiritual gifts and the possessor of an immortal soul. As it was in the past ages so it is in the present. The elements of earth, air and water are not as free from impurity as in after ages they will be. From those impurities grow disease. That disease is immensely aggravated by man's neglect. There would not be one-tenth part of the disease that exists if man understood and obeyed the great laws of nature. But these things have been neglected whilst the powers of the mind have been directed to useless subjects. In some cases men go forth into scenes of wretchedness, squallidness, and want, with tracts in their hands, in places where the air is filthy, the water foul, and every condition to life and body and health of mind are neglected. To these people they give vague statements of dogmas of regeneration, justification, and sin. I see, however, that some of these good people have learned a hint. They now present themselves with hygine tracts teaching men of cleanliness and thrift, and teaching them how to eat and drink and live more in accordance with the laws of nature. But I say the mind has for ages been occupied with useless metaphysical questions. When men learn and act on natural laws there will not be half those deseases from which men now suffer; not only will this be so but the race of men will improve. When men and women learn more, live more in accordance with nature, then, and rapidly too, the physical powers of the human race will improve. Further, as Surely as any great law will develope, so surely will disease and pain pass away altogether. Human life, though still limited, will be prolonged not in pain and weakness but in well modulated, well toned, longer life. At the present moment the average of mortality in the worst parts of London is higher than it was some years ago in the most healthy rural districts of England. When men thoroughly learn these laws, and learn also to observe them with righteons care we may venture to affirm there will be no disease. The change called death will come upon all men but it will be a painless passing away from probation into fruition. This is a goodly prospect for humanity. But there are worse evils in connection with our humanity. There are those evils which are moral and mental. Man, as we have often said, is possessed of two natures. Man has a conscience, which the other creatures have not The horse that has kicked out the brains of his master will be found not far off browsing unconeernedly, and the wild beast that has just torn some hapless human creature that has been thrown in its way will gambol with its mate. There is in these no conscience. In the lower class of mankind there is no conscience at all hardly The aborigine will beat out the brains of his lubra most remorselessly, and in a few hours he will not be conscious of the grave offence he has committed, bat when you rise to man endowed with a spiritual nature the case is different. In the man of crime you find a haggard face and blood shot eye. This does not grow out of fear, but from a consciousness that he has offended a higher law than the law of man. Not long since in England, in his security, with no fear of the officers of justice before him, a man confessed a murder done in our neighbourhood years ago. Not Jong before a man in London repented of the crime he had committed years ago, and upon his own confession, died upon the scaffold. If there was not a spiritual nature, a something that made man different from the lower creatures these things would not be. There is a restlessness in evil just as in our physical nature when a thorn enters our flesh there is uneasiness and pain till the foreign body is removed. Until the foreign body is removed there is pain, and until the oftensive page break presence to our spiritual nature is driven out by the will, and the Divine image restored, there will be pain. As surely as God is and was, so surely will the time come to pass when there will be no moral evil in our world, when every son and daughter of humanity will be as Jesus was. I do not mean to say that Jesus in his perfect purity stands alone; there may have been others—a multitude of others unknown and undiscovered. But I know of him, arid learning partly from what I believe to be the authentic records and listening to the voice of my own consciousness. I believe that in him the spiritual nature entirely triumphed over the material. From the opening hoars of his mind and soul, when there began responsibility, I believe that the soul of Jesus never succumbed to the promptings of his material nature. I believe that his spiritual being reigned supreme over his complex nature—a nature perfectly pure, and by means of this his soul was in entire harmony with the Soul of the Universe. When he said, I and my Father are one, he only meant one in spirit and love, oneness of thought, wish, and action, just as he meant, when he said that his Disciples should be one with him, as he was one with the Father, I believe that his prayer will be heard. On the night he died, he prayed no, for them only, but for all mankind, for all the brotherhood of humanity. I believe also it was a prophecy as well as a prayer, growing out of his own intuitive consciousness, that man might triumph over materialism, that the soul must be the master. He had hope and faith that as it was in his nature, so it would be in all humanity. I have perfect faith that in this world of ours there will be no sin or moral evil, but that man will eventually be like Jesus. Then will be realised the old legend of Christ reigning on earth. Not that he will reign in the flesh, but that as in him the love of God was manifested so it will be in all humanity. But although there may be for humanity this good time coming, what of the millions whose bones have strewn the East? What of the thousands who have died in the shock of battle? What of the millions of men and women whose lives have been one long scene of wretchedness, poverty and pain? When in the great city of London the bells have rung out their morning hymn what music is there in their sounds for men and women who are living in noisome cells, and wretched garrets? Are we not tempted to say that it would be better for them like Judas of old, if they had never been born I What to them will be this [unclear: m] lenium, if the hideous dogma of orthodox be true that the great majority of such [unclear: po] creatures have gone down to [unclear: irremediable] torment? Thank God, our happy pictures of the after world will not [unclear: be] dimmed by any such hideous blotch as [unclear: this] For we believe that for every son [unclear: an] daughter of humanity there is laid up glorious immortality and eternal life which there will be no more pain nor [unclear: sorrow] in which God will wipe away all tears from their eyes. The most wretched of [unclear: the] multitude of the past are enjoying at this moment a life more glorious than the happiest on earth. But of this new and [unclear: noble] future, remember that we ourselves, to [unclear: a] certain extent, are the framers. No [unclear: man] can altogether cast himself away, but he [unclear: may] greatly delay the full fruition of the future and therefore once again as before, let me exhort not only you but myself also to [unclear: ex] all our powers to overcome and reject, that which is base and low, and strive to attain that which is high and noble. There is provided in all religions spiritual food but in some it is so much intermixed with that which is not only not nourishing but noxious that the spiritual life is sadly and immensely retarded. Cultivate every spiritual gift and under the influence you will feel your spiritual nature growing larger and your sensuous being growing less And if to any man Catholicism in this respect is belter than Protestantism or orthodoxy better than free thought let him cultivate it. But in these matters be bold and independent. Search, examine, and in vestigate with a spirit of independent inquiry, remembering how high and glorious may be the destiny of each one of us. I thank God that I have perfect faith to feel that for the world at large, for humanity of the past, and for mankind at present, and for myself individually there is laid up an exceeding treasure of glory and beauty, and I glorify God for you and myself that, in every hour of darkness we may have faith. I would therefore urge you when you cannot understand the beneficence of God still to trust that He is our Father in Heaven. It is not yet the clear day, nor yet the dark night. It is the transition twilight. The sun has not yet risen above the broad horizon, but the edge is tinged with a golden fringe by the outlving beams the avant couriers of the Sun himself. A day is dawning whose glory shall not be succeeded by any darkness, and whose [unclear: me Idian] splendour shall be followed by no night.