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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
**** ****
SAINTS OR SINNERS:
WHICH?
by CHARLES WATTS,
Author of "History of Freethought," "Secularism: Constructive
and Destructive," "The Philosophy of Unbelief," etc.
NEW YORK:
"TRUTHSEEKER" OFFICE, 33, CLINTON PLACE.
**** ****
SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
SAINTS and sinners are not two selected from the numerous
classes to be met with in the world, with which in every-day life
we come in contact. They comprise the entire population of the
globe. This is the one broad and essential division which includes
all mankind. There are black races and white ones; but, then, there
are also the intermediate red, olive, and dusky. There are tall men
and short ones, heavy men and light ones; but not to the exclusion
of those of middle height or weight, which stand somewhere between
the two. Even the terms "virtuous" and "vicious" will not serve for
an exhaustive distinction, for there are probably none so virtuous
as to have no vices, and none so vicious as to be destitute of all
virtue; while a great number are either so indifferent to both
sides that they can hardly be said to belong to one class or the
other, or to have the good and evil so balanced in their character
that neither adjective will describe them accurately. In all other
matters without exception gradual shadings may be detected, by
which one class merges into the other, to say nothing of the fact
that they will be frequently found overlapping each other. In
reference to Saints and Sinners, however, we have a well-marked and
perfectly distinct line, which nothing can erase -- a gulf which
cannot be spanned, a chasm with no bridge possible. The two classes
are distinct in species, in genera, and even in order, to use a
simile from Natural History. They are separated the one from the
other by a line which cannot be wiped out, and no interchange of
qualities between them is possible. The human race, according to
orthodox theology, is just divided into these two classes, and no
further division on those lines is for one moment to be thought of.
Some Saints may come very near being Sinners, and a few Sinners
may, by a large stock of natural goodness, a strong will bent in
the direction of virtue, and very favourable surroundings, approach
remarkably near the line which marks them off from the Saints; but
neither can quite get rid of that which indicates them as distinct
beings. There are no gradations, it is said, between Heaven and
Hell, and so there are none between those supposed to be destined
hereafter to occupy places in these regions. If it be asked, Is
such a division logically possible, judging from what is known of
human character? the answer is, The distinction is not based on
character nor on any human quality whatever. So far as all ordinary
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
classification goes, it is purely arbitrary; its ground-work is,
however, professedly supernatural. In the New Testament the whole
race is symbolised as being composed only of sheep and goats, and
in all the creeds of orthodox Churches the one distinction drawn is
between believers and unbelievers, the converted and the
unconverted -- in other words, Saints and Sinners. Of course, it is
considered possible for a Sinner to become a Saint, or for a Saint
to lapse into a Sinner; but no admixture of the qualities of the
two can under any circumstances occur. The instant a man ceases to
be a Saint he is a Sinner out and out, and not the smallest vestige
of his saintliness remains; while, on the other hand, the Sinner,
however depraved, may, by a kind of spiritual transformation, be
changed in the twinkling of an eye into a Saint; but then he is no
longer a Sinner, even in the most infinitesimal degree. The
separating agent is the alleged supernatural, and as such defies
logic and all human mental analysis. Thus it is useless to urge the
question, Is any division of mankind into two classes possible?
because the only reply to be received is that it is accomplished by
the grace of God, and with God all things are said to be possible;
and there the controversy must end. The real question to be
considered, therefore, is, What are the characteristics of each of
these classes, and wherein do they differ? Of course, I belong to
the Sinners, and it may be said, therefore, that I am incompetent
to discuss the Saints. But, then, it may be replied, in the first
place, that the Saints are often found discussing the Sinners, and
this would, upon such a theory, be equally unfair; in the second,
that, as no person can be both, such discussion must be altogether
futile from this point of view; and, thirdly, that we have ample
material before us from the Saints themselves upon which to form an
opinion. It will be my endeavour, therefore, to do ample justice to
both Saints and Sinners, dealing with their respective characters
and value a delineated in history and known by observation. Here we
shall find no lack of material from which to judge of the part they
have played, and are still playing, in the ranks of every-day life.
It is bardly likely that the members of these two Masses will agree
in the estimate they form of each other. Nor can they well work
together upon any lines where their peculiar qualities will be
likely to exercise any sort of influence. They have to keep,
therefore, largely apart. The Marquis of Salisbury once, in the
House of Lords, describing Church parties, provoked a good deal of
laughter by an Irishism, called a bull, He said: "A congregation
may be divided among themselves into two parties; yet, if there
were any means of separating them, they would both go on happily
together -- I mean," he added, "apart." Well, the Saints and
Sinners are separated; but we can go on very happily together -- I
rrean apart.
Saints and Sinners: what are we to say of them? The Saints are
holy, the Sinners unholy; the Saints are righteous, the Sinners
unrighteous; the Saints celestial, the Sinners infernal; the Saints
are the children of God, the Sinners the offspring of -- well, "the
Evil One," as the Revised Version has it. The Saints are to sit on
clouds and sing psalms through all eternity; the Sinners to gnash
their teeth in endless woe for ever and ever, and, as Lorenzo Dow
says, for five or six everlastings on the top of that. The Saints
are regarded as the "goody-goody" people, not on account of their
own intrinsic worth, but in consequence of their professed
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
allegiance to a special faith; the Sinners are those denounced by
the Church as unregenerated members of society, because they prefer
fidelity to conviction rather than to creeds and dogmas born of a
cruel and mind-degenerating theology. The Saints are those who,
thinking they lack the power of self-improvement, rely upon an
external "Saviour" for their moral elevation; the Sinners are those
who depend upon the potency of an enlightened and cultivated
humaimity for the inspiration to ethical advancement, feeling
assured --
"That within yourselves deliverance must be sought:
Each man his prison makes."
In discussing Saints we come at once upon a sub-division made
by themselves. There are Catholic Saints and Protestant Saints. It
is by no means certain that one of those classes would admit,
except in a very limited degree, the saintship of the other. But
each will contend of itself that it comprises Saints par
excellence. Of course the Catholic Saints differ widely from the
Protestant Saints upon most points; but upon one thing they are
agreed -- namely, that to be a Saint it is necessary to devote
one's attention especially to matters which relate to the Church
rather than to the world, to the supposed future life in preference
to the present, to the effort to please God rather than to the
desire to ennoble man, and, finally, to the sanctification of the
soul rather than to the purification of the body. The method of
doing this is not the same in the two cases, but the end is
identical. The faith of the Saint in each case is admirably set
forth by Lowell in "The Biglow Papers:" --
"I du believe in special ways
O'prayin' an' convtrtin'
The bread comes back in many days,
An' buttered, tu, fer sartin; --
I mean in preyin' till one busts
On wut the party chooses,
An' in convartin' public trusts
To very privit uses.
* * * *
"I du believe in prayer an' praise
To him thet hez the grantin'
O'jobs, -- in every thin' thet pays,
But most of all in CANTIN';
This doth my cup with marcies fill,
This lays all thought o'sin to rest, --
I don't believe in princerple,
But, O, I du in interest.
* * * *
"In short, I firmly du believe
In Humbug generally,
Fer it's a thing thet I perceive
To hev a solid vally;
This heth my faithful shepherd ben,
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
In pasturs sweet heth led me,
An' this'll keep the people green
To feed ez they hev fed me."
The number of Roman Catholic Saints is so great as to be
perfectly bewildering; and it is quite impossible to remember the
names of half of them. The principle upon which men are canonised
-- and, of course, afterwards worshipped -- is very difficult to
discover; but usually it is, I suppose, some kind of service
rendered to the Church -- very often service of an exceedingly
questionable character, judged of from any human standpoint. The
members of the Church who are elevated into Saints, upon very much
the same principle as the Pagan apotheosis of heroes into gods, are
much less numerous to-day than in the past, for reasons which it is
difficult to understand, unless the Church is admitted to be
degenerating in spiritual power or zeal or holiness, or whatever
else may be looked upon as necessary to constitute a Saint. During
the first three centuries of the Christian Church nearly every
bishop became a Saint; but in the last three hundred years only one
has been so honored, and he by no means a brilliant example --
viz., Pius V., who, according to Lord Acton, was the instigator of
a contemplated murder of the English monarch. Ireland, that
favoured son for the Roman Catholic superstition, in which
Romanism, with the rank luxuriance of a noxious weed poisoning the
very atmosphere of one of the most beautiful countries on the
earth, in three centuries added eight hundred and fifty Saints to
the calendar, while, according to Father Burke, it has not elevated
one since Lawrence O'Toole, who lived seven hundred years ago. It
is unnecessary here to enter upon the character of these Saints.
History records the fact that, for the most part, they were men
guilty of the worst of crimes, and destitute of those grand virtues
which exalt and ennoble human character. They were haters of
freedom and the greatest enemies of progress that the world has
ever seen. The Church which they serve so faithfully, and to which
they owe their apotheosis, has crushed out all liberty among
peoples by the heavy tread of its iron hoofs, wherever it has been
able to hold up its head and send forth its pestilential breath to
poison the springs of moral, political, and intellectual life. With
these Saints perjury is often a duty when it can serve the purpose
of the Church, truth dangerous to the people, murder in the cause
of religion a virtue, persecution to death commendable, lying
desirable, uncleanliness profitable, and every vile abomination on
earth sickening to contemplate defensible on theological grounds.
The perfection which saintship implies is frequently a perfection
of intellectual subjection and moral degradation, resulting often
in the most terrible form of criminality and all the foulness which
even bad men of the world would shudder at with horror. The most
eminent doctors of the Church may be quoted as not only tolerating
every conceivable crime, but even instigating and enjoying it --
and, indeed, threatening eternal perdition to those who were not
prepared to perform acts at which pure humanity would stand aghast.
The history of saintship is written in blood and engraven with
fire. To such a history the following words of the poet are
exceedingly applicable: --
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
"It doth avail not that I speak to thee
Ye cannot change, for ye are old and grey
But you have chosen your lot; your fame shall be
A book of blood, whence, in a milder day,
Men shall learn truth when you are wrapped in clay."
Recently the 'Dublin Review' (vol. xx., p, 192), a high-class
Roman Catholic authority, thus delivered itself on the question of
education: -- "We are very far from meaning that ignorance is the
Catholic youth's best preservative against intellectual danger; but
it is a very powerful one never-the-less, and those who deny this
are but inventing a theory in the very teeth of manifest facts. A
Catholic destitute of intellectual tastes, whether in a higher or
a lower rank, may, probably enough, be tempted to idleness,
frivolity, gambling, sensuality; but in none but the very rarest
cases will he be tempted to that which, in the Catholic view, is an
immeasurably greater calamity than any of these, or all put
together -- viz., deliberate doubt of the truth of his religion."
Is it to be wondered at that, with such teaching, the greatest
ignorance and the grossest superstition prevail among these people?
To be a Saint evidently is to be an uneducated dolt, an
intellectual pigmy, with a dwarfed intelligence and crippled mental
powers; for here is the honest concession of what we have long
contended for, that education is calculated to destroy the belief
in popular religions and to make men lose their faith in the
teaching of the Church and in the creeds of the various theologies
that abound in our midst, to the intellectual hurt of the people.
One distinction, consequently, between Saints and Sinners lies
here, that the former prefer and defend ignorance and pose as the
champions of mental darkness, while the latter are the advocates of
culture, freedom, and intellectual light. Is it any marvel that the
days when the Saints were supreme in their power over the masses
were known as "the dark ages"? Such Saints present a striking
contrast to, and cut a Sorry figure in the presence of, the Sinners
of every-day life. Lord Beaconsfield, once speaking on the subject
of Darwinism -- which clearly he did not thoroughly understand --
contrasted the theory of the descent of man from monkeys with the
hypothesis of finding his parentage in angels, and added, "I am on
the side of the angels." So we say, We are on the side of the
Sinners, and long may they live to rebuke the pretensions and
correct the many errors and vices of the Saints, who have been men,
as Milton puts it --
"That practised falsehood under saintiy show,
Deep malice to conceal, couched with revenge."
Protestant Saints differ very considerably from those of the
Catholic persuasion -- so much so, in fact, that there are very few
points of resemblance between them; one there is, and that a most
conspicuous one -- namely, their assumption of superiority over
other people. The Protestant Saint is not canonised after death by
his Church; he canonises himself during life. His infallible
authority he finds not in popes, cardinals, and priestly conclaves,
but between the covers of a book and in theological creeds; and the
source of his inspiration is not a visible Church, but what is
termed the direct operation of the spirit of God upon his own mind.
Hence he judges individually his own claims of saintship and
Bank of Wisdom
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
decides for himself whether he is a Saint or not, independently of
any external authority. This, to say the least of it, produces a
good deal of confusion, because the claims of one are not
unfrequently denied by another. With some the whole question
resolves itself into election from all eternity, according to the
purpose of God, quite apart from any merits or demerits of the
person so chosen. Persons sharing this view consider that the
Almighty, for some reason of his own, which to human beings appears
perfectly inscrutable, selected from before the foundation of the
world certain persons to be his favourites in this world, and the
inheritors of everlasting joy in the next, quite regardless of
their character or their acts, while he damned others to perpetual
misery, from which there is no way for them to escape, simply
because he so willed it. Mr. Spurgeon, referring to this horrible
doctrine -- in which he is a firm believer -- tells an anecdote in
one of his published sermons, with great gusto, of an old woman,
who said: "If the Lord had not loved me before I was born, he would
never have loved me at all; for I am sure I have done nothing since
to cause him to do so." It would not be gallant to deny that this
very pious woman formed an accurate opinion of her own character,
if a wrong one of the purposes and decrees of her God.
Unfortunately, there are some people who go through life without
doing much to deserve the love of any one; but, too often, such
persons are the victims of orthodox delusions, and not the
recipients of Nature's ever-inspiring affection. As a rule, they
allow the usefulness of their careers to be marred by the dreadful
idea that --
"Nothing is worth a thought beneath
But how we may escape the death
That never, never dies."
Thus the value of existence is sacrificed, and the tenderness of
humanity is blunted by the worthlessness and harsh teachings of
theology.
This election and reprobation theory is terribly repugnant to
all human notions of goodness, and even justice. No doubt there is
a great truth underlying the doctrine of predestination, although
it is, of course, presented in a very false and an excessively
repugnant form. It recognises the doctrine of determinism, with
which most modern philosophic thinkers agree. The part of it which
consigns millions of men to everlasting torture for no other reason
than that God so willed it, and that it was his divine pleasure
that it should be so, is horrible beyond description. But the great
apostle of this dogma, Jonathan Edwards, has given to the world an
exceedingly valuable work on "The Freedom of the Will," which no
Arminian has yet fairly answered. We take other grounds on this
question than the great Calvinistic writer; but the conclusion at
which we arrive is the same. The will is, like all things else, an
effect as well as a cause. It certainly counts for something,
indeed for much, in human actions; but then it has itself sprung
from, and is conditioned by, organisation, environment, and other
causes which it is powerless to control. Man's motives do not arise
from his volition; on the contrary, they govern the will. Man is
free, of course, in a sense -- that is, he is free to act in
accordance with his desires; but these desires act independently of
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
volition. And this is all the freedom that is possible, and it is
all that any rational person should demand. No man wants freedom to
do that which he has no inclination to do, or to act contrary to
his desires. His freedom lies in his capacity to obey his impulses;
but these impulses the will has no power to create. The will is not
an originating cause, but itself an effect, the result of a
complication of circumstances, such as external surroundings, the
condition of the brain, temperament, age, sex, and heredity. To say
that the will is free in the sense that Arminians hold it to be, is
to state that which is paradoxical, For, if a person has the power
to call up a desire by the will, it is certain that some prior
desire induced him to do so. What, therefore, caused that desire?
Suppose one individual says he wills to do a thing, and he does it:
he must have had an inclination, or he would not have thus willed
and acted. Some inclination must, therefore, precede the will, and,
clearly, the will cannot be the cause of that which precedes itself
in point of time, and to which, in fact, it owes its existence.
But the serious difficulty which arises in reference to this
election doctrine is the fact already mentioned, that each person
is left to decide for himself as to his being a Saint or a Sinner,
and also whether he is one of the favoired ones or not -- that is,
whether be belongs to the sheep or the goats. The consequence is,
that many who are elect Saints, according to their own estimation,
are such characters as to lead inevitably to the conclusion that,
if God chose them before they were born, he either did not know
what sort of people they were likely to turn out to be, or else he
displayed a very questionable taste in their election. Other good
Saints deny the whole theory of predestination, and maintain that
man's spiritual position is the result of his own choice in
accordance with the freedom of the will, and that, therefore,
whether he be a Saint or a Sinner is a matter of his own individual
decision, and, hence, if he remain alienated from God and receive
damnation after death, it is entirely his own fault. But how does
this idea harmonise with the notion of God's foreknowledge?
According to this doctrine, God knows before a child is born
whether it will be saved or lost, and that knowledge renders its
state certain. If, for instance, when I was born God foreknew that
I should live and die a Sinner and be doomed to eternal perdition
after my death, then I cannot escape; for to urge that I can is to
say that God knew and did not know at the same time. Coleridge
calls the distinction between decreeing and permitting "a quibble,"
"and one which is quite absurd when applied to an omniscience and
omnipotence perpetually creative." And Coleridge was right; for to
suppose that the "Great Father of all" would either doom or permit
any of his children to be doomed before they were born to
everlasting misery, while he had the power to arrange otherwise, is
to rob him of the attribute of goodness and to charge him with a
crime that most human parents would scorn to be guilty of. This,
however, does not affect the difficulty under consideration, which
is that, according to both the theory of predestination and that of
the freedom of the will, the individual man himself decides whether
he is a Saint or not. The evidence of saintship is internal, and
hence no one else is in a position to form an opinion with regard
to it. No Church can sit in judgment on such a person, because he
claims that the evidence -- and that of an irresistible character
-- lies within his own breast. The Saints of this class are of
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
various grades, and are very often found disputing the claims of
each other. Thus the Mormons declare that they possess such
evidence in their own behalf, and that it is of such a nature that
it cannot be mistaken -- indeed, they claim that they alone possess
it, and hence they are Saints par excellence -- "Latter-Day
Saints;" that is, the only Saints in these latter days. But the
rest of the Christian world declare this sect to be heretical in
the extreme, and that those who belong to it are wild fanatics,
self-deluded madmen, and, in many instances, rank impostors. The
internal evidence which, in their own case, they deem conclusive is
denied to others to be of the least value. The Shakers are Saints
by the same kind of evidence, and it leads them to look upon all
relationship of the sexes as of the Devil, and marriage to be a
snare and a curse. The Mormons, from the same standpoint, maintain
that by polygamy alone can man attain to anything like. a state of
happiness here and blessedness in the hereafter; while the Oneida
Creek community, founded by Father Noyes, also composed of Saints
the evidence of whose sainthood is within, proclaims one of the
fruits of the spirit to be promiscuousness in sexual matters. By
some the evidence of saintship consists in immersion, by others in
keeping a seventh-day Sabbath in opposition to the first day, and
by others in some still more trivial form or rite.
All this, to a Sinner, is a little confusing, and we become
somewhat puzzled to know what are the essential qualities of a
Saint without which he would relapse into a Sinner. A good story is
told of an old woman who said that, if you took away her "total
depravity, you took away her religion." This, perhaps, is true of
many besides the old woman; so we will leave them their total
depravity, and consider it one of the essential characteristics of
a Saint.
Now, we have been pretty well governed by Saints of one kind
and the other for a good many centuries, and what is the outcome of
it all? The world is not what we would expect it to be, considering
the great pretensions of these holy ones, and the almost perfection
of character which they claim, and the superiority to Sinners which
they arrogate to themselves. Crime abounds, immorality is found on
every hand, vice overflows the land like mighty floods that have
burst their dams and are sweeping all before them; the old
modesties and rectitudes of life frequently disappear in these
days; the sacredness of obligations is lightly esteemed, often
quite disregarded; there is an apotheosis of sensuous -- not to say
sensual -- pleasure, which is destructive of the noblest part of
nian; falsehood and evasion are almost universal, hypocrisy and
cunning are fashionable, drunkenness is common, and vulgar swearing
is not infrequent; there is ostentatious display on the part of the
rich, and grinding poverty on the part of the poor, and chaos
everywhere. An able modern Christian writer (Dr. Halcombe), after
having spoken strongly of the condition of society as regards
parents, thus proceeds to deal with children: -- "From such
parents, what children? Oftentimes unwelcome visitors, hated and
persecuted before birth, neglected afterwards through ignorance, or
laziness, or selfishness; left as much as possible to servants or
subordinates, what can we expect? See what little savages -- what
early development of evil and vicious propensities, what cruelty to
insects and small animals, what meanness and perfidy to each other,
what bickerings, fightings, envyings, vanity, pride, greediness,
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
often uncorrected, unreproved; sometimes even encouraged by
parents! Injudiciously petted, in judiciously beaten, maltrained,
maltreated, they become prodigies of deceit and dissimulation;
unwatched, uninstructed, driven too early to school or to low
associates to be got out of the way, they fall into revolting
habits that poison the very springs of life. What follows?
Disobedience, head-strong passions, outrageous tempers, disrespect
for parents, quarrels and hatred of each other, false views of
life, base motives, low ambitions, concealments, hypocrisies,
selfishness and utter worldliness, and so on to manhood and
womanhood, to make husbands and wives like their parents and to
beget progeny like themselves. And for all this, after eighteen
centuries of instruction, the Christian Church is responsible."
This is strong Christian testimony as to the nature of a
Church founded, regulated, and controlled by Saints. What picture
of the domain of Sinners can be correcly drawn which shall surpass
the above confession in all the weaknesses and vices of a debased
and degraded humanity? Evidently saintship is no guarantee for
virtue and no protection against the evils that too frequently
blight the happiness and nobility of man. Of these Saints we may
say with Ophelia: --
"Do not as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven;
While, like a puffd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads."
But the classification into Catholic Saints and Protestant
Saints is, after all, a broad division into two great parties, and
each of these comprises within itself quite a number of varieties.
There is the melancholy Saint, who rolls up the whites of his eyes,
pulls an exceedingly long and solemn face, eschews smiles, hates
levity, denounces a good hearty laugh as a sound issuing from the
bottomless pit, fit only to be indulged in by madmen or fiends. His
countenance looks as sour as a crab-apple, his nose points up to
heaven, he is knock-kneed and intred, has a big abdomen and small
legs, and never looks you in the face while speaking to you. His
favourite text, which he never tires of quoting, is, "Man is born
to trouble, as the sparks fly upwards" (a very curious simile, by
the way; for sparks do not always fly upwards, and, if they did,
the relationship between them doing so and trouble is not easy to
discover); and when he sings it is, in the most hollow and
sepulchral tone, the cheerful words of John Wesley: --
"No room for mirth or trifling Here,
For worldly hope or worldly fear,
If life so soon be gone."
Just fancy, when one hears those words drawled out as a Methodist
of the old school alone can give them forth, what an impression it
must make upon the Sinner as to the happy influence of saintly
profession! The fact is that, so far as the pious singer is
concerned, life might as well not have been at all, and that the
sooner it "is gone" the better will it be for his comfort. In this
merry, laughing world he is clearly out of place, and could well be
spared from the busy haunts of men. The prattle of little children
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
and their frolicsome romps are, to him, the inductions of original
sin; and the bleatings of lambs and their gambols while at play
only show the necessity for the butcher to bring about that
condition in which the addition of mint sauce will be agreeable to
the epicure. This kind of Saint abhors a joke, calls a pun a
miserable perversion of the meaning of words, hyperbole lying,
metaphor absurd, and fiction the quintessence of falsehood. He says
he belongs to the "little flock," which is a blessing for which we
cannot feel too grateful; for a big flock composed of such as he
would make life intolerawle to everybody outside their fold. He has
no abiding city here, which is a mercy; and he seeks a home in the
skies, although he never seems anxious to reach it, but stays in
this world as long as possible, a trouble to himself and a nuisance
to all with whom he comes in contact. He delights to picture a
heaven beyond the skies; but "distance lends enchantment to the
view." He is serious while other men laugh, and solemn while they
are joyous. He is akin to those ancestors of ours pictured by
Charles Lamb, who lived before candles came into general use, and
who, when a joke was cracked in the dark, had to feel around for
the smile. In his case, however, there would be no smile to feel
for, inasmuch as the Saint exclaims "Woe unto you who laulh;"
"Blessed are they that mourn;" "Let your laughter be turned into
mourning, and your joy into heaviness." One writer says that
laziness begets laughter; but in this Saint's case it produces the
very opposite effect. He is lazy and grim at the same time, robbing
life of its beauty and rapture, and ignoring the possible
brilliancy of Time to the gloomy anticipations of Eternity. In the
language of Byron, he lives and acts --
"In hope to merit beaven by making earth a hell."
Then there is the zealous Saint, who bores friends and enemies
alike about the salvation of his immortal soul. This man is
generally fat, greasy, and extremely bomely; his nose is as red as
a signal light on a railway, and his eyes resemble two gimlet holes
bored in a huge turnip. He is, as a rule, quite innocent of grammar
in his speech, of good behaviour in his manners, and seems to keep
hell-fire constantly before his eyes. He drawls in his speech, and
addresses you in a soft familiar tone as "dear friend," while his
rude and obtrusive conduct would suggest that he was one of your
most objectionable enemies. He professes to be more interested in
the state of your soul than of all else on earth and tells you
that, unless you pass through a change akin to some theological
legerdemain process, you will assuredly be damned. He rejoices in
proclaiming, "I tell ye nay; but, except ye repent, ye shall all
likewise perish." He pesters the life out of those who are
unfortunate enough to be his victims, with his cant jargon, with
the bundle of leaflets that he carries in his hands for
distribution, and with his warnings to flee from the "wrath to
come," till one almost thinks that damnation after all would be a
relief to escape him. He informs you that this world "is a vale of
tears," and that all sublunary things will speedily pass away,
which certainly would be "a consummation devoutly to be wished" if
he were included in the departure. It is very difficult to escape
from this Saint. He buttonholes you in the street, on the railway
or street car, and at your ordinary occupation. He has made up his
mind to convert you, and he leaves no stone unturned whereby he can
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
accomplish his purpose. He tells you that be prays for you night
and day, and you may consider yourself lucky if he do not go down
on his knees and prey upon your patience right there. He is simply
a theological bore, who sacrifices reason to passion, good taste to
fanaticism, and common sense to orthodox stupidity.
Then there is the oily Saint, whose words are smooth and soft,
and who is very unctuous in his manners, the extreme of affability.
He tells you that his soul is full of love for all mankind, that
the very worst of them have his sympathy, and that the cardinal
virtue is charity. This Saint is lean and threadbare, and will
probably end his interview by asking for the loan of five dollars
or a gift to some missionary cause, never omitting to add that "God
loveth a cheerful giver," and "He that hath pity upon the poor
lendeth unto the Lord." And, above all, he is particularly anxious
to remind you of the words of "our blessed Master," "Lend, hoping
for nothing again." This Saint is much more likely to take persons
off their guard than any of the others, for he overflows with
honeyed words and suave manners. This is the man that all should be
especially aware off; his arts are duplicity and deception, and he
lives in the very slime of hypocrisy, the very goodness of his
nature being counteracted by the evil influence of pious
extravagance and orthodox cant. There are other Saints, such as the
noisy Saint, the upstart Saint of the noisy Pecksniffian descent,
the Saint of dudist manners, the holy Saint who boasts that he has
not sinned for forty years, and the female Saint, who is, of
course, the most dangerous type of all, in consequence of the
persistent fascination of her sex and her natural influence over
the majority of men. Then there is a genus who describe themselves
as half Saint and half Sinner -- "Plymouth Brethren" they are
termed in England. They hold that, while the lower part of their
human nature may sin, the higher portion remains quite holy, and
thus the Saint and Sinner are combined in one person. It is not
necessary to discuss these people, because to recognise them will
be to spoil the classification of mankind into Saints and Sinners.
There is one interesting question, however, which may occur to some
minds in connection with these balf-and-half people, which is, What
will happen to the upper side of their natures if the devil gets
the lower side? That, perhaps, is a mystery which no Agnostic
should attempt to solve. Enough has here been said to indicate the
nature of the various kinds of Saints that abound in our midst;
probably there is a place for them in the economy of nature; but in
the domestic circle and in spheres of public usefulness, private
purity, moral culture, intellectual advancement, national freedom,
and individual liberty, they have failed to do that which would
entitle them to the sympathies of a free and enlightened
generation. Their natures have been, and are, so contradictory,
their conduct so inconsistent, their actions so detrimental to the
well-being of society, that one is justified in saying, when
thinking of most of them: "I have thought some of Nature's
journeymen had made men, and not made them well -- they imitated
humanity so abominably."
Coming to the consideration of Sinners, it may be asked, What
is a Sinner? In the regular service of the Church of England, which
the devotees of that form of religion go through every Sunday,
generally twice, each person confesses that he has "left undone the
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
things which he ought to have done and done the things which he
ought not to have done." This continual acknowledgment of misdoing
is not very complimentary to the faith which is supposed to
influence the conduct of the wrong-doers. By the way, what a
peculiar predicament such worshippers would be placed in supposing
that, in some one week, they had, by an extraordinary effort, or by
having been placed in very favolirable circumstances, or by both
combined, done what they ought to do, and not done what they ought
not to do, then the following Sunday the repetition of these words
would really be lying, and, what is worse from their point of view,
lying to their God -- that is, if the confession be addressed to
him, rather than intended for the ears of the rest of the
congregation. In such a case what is to be done? The words are
there, and must be repeated. Is it not, therefore, necessary for
the people to do wrong on the week-day in order that they may speak
the truth on the Sunday? They then add, "There is no health in us,"
and go on to pray, "Have mercy upon us miserable sinners" -- or
"offenders," which means the same thing. The word "health" here has
reference, no doubt, to "spiritual" health, for the entire
congregation could scarcely be said to be suffering from some
physical disease. Indeed, it is well enough known that "health" and
"holiness" are really identical in their signification, having the
same derivation, as originally they had the same meaning. Health is
harmony; disease is discord, whether of body or mind. "Without
artificial medicament of philosophy," says Carlyle, "or tight-
lacing of creeds (always very questionable), the healthy soul
discerns what is good and adheres to it and retains it, discerns
what is bad and spontaneously casts it off. An instinct from Nature
herself, like that which guides the wild animals of the forest to
their food, shows him what he shall do and what he shall abstain
from. The false and the fantastic will not adhere to him; cant and
all diseased incrustations are impossible." The man, therefore, who
really feels that there is no health in him confesses himself to be
out of harmony with law, an abnormal product in the universe, a
morbid accretion on the fair face of Nature, a diseased and
withered branch on the tree of life. Such a confession may be fitly
indulged in for once when the discovery is made; but to be always
doing it is the height of religious folly. For, if there is an
intention to put matters richt, why is it not done? if no such
intention, then why not cease canting about it? Well may such
persons call themselves "miserable sinners," for miserable they can
hardly help being while they remain at variance with law and order,
and are everlastingly lamenting that they are so, and yet make no
attempt to amend matters. If we take these people at their own
estimate, they are offended, which shows that the confession so
glibly made week after week is insincere, to say the least of it --
in fact, it is what they themselves would call in others rank
hypocrisy. A story is told of John Wesley to the effect that an old
woman went to the great preacher and said: "Oh, Mr. Wesley, I am a
dreadful sinner." Wesley replied: "Yes, Maam." She repeated: "I am
an awful sinner." Wesley nodded assent. "You have no idea," she
continued, "how bad I am: I have been a terrible sinner." "Yes,"
said Wesley, "I can easily understand that you are very bad." At
which the old woman glared up and said: "Bad, Mr. Wesley? What do
you mean? I am not bad: I'll have you to know that I am as good as
you." Now, if you take these people at their word, and describe
them in the same terms as they apply to themselves, it will soon be
seen how insincere their confession has been.
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
But what is a Sinner? A violation of the moral law one
understands; an infringement of the laws of the land is clear
enough. But neither of these is meant when sin is spoken of by
religious persons. It means something difrerent from both. True, it
may include these; but it is not necessarily connected with either.
It is, in a theological sense, an offence against God, and may or
may not involve any wrong to man. Or, if there should be a wrong to
a fellow being, it is not that which constitutes the most heinous
part of the sin. Sin, we are told, is the violation of law. Well,
but what law? Not necessarily the moral law, but some Divine law,
which is supposed to be bigher than any that can spring from human
authority. The questions here suggest themselves, What is this
alleged Divine law, and can it be known to man? If it can be known,
why has not an intelligent application of it been given to the
world? On the other hand, if we are ignorant of its nature, how can
it be acted upon? Theology teaches that the human race became
Sinners in consequence of the sin of Adam and Eve. But admitting,
Pro tem., the theory in Genesis to be true, was any sin committed
by those primitive progenitors? Samuel Taylor Coleridge says: "Sin
must be a state originant in the will of the actor, entirely
independent of circumstances extrinsic to that will." The Bible,
however, records three circumstances over which Adam and Eve could
have had no control -- namely, the fruit which was "pleasant to the
eyes," the desire to partake of the fruit, and the serpent which
tempted the woman to eat that which was "good for food." Is an act
upon the part of a person sinful if he or she is compelled to
ferform it? Besides, this act in the Garden of Eden was intended by
God either to be performed or not. If he intended it, there could
be no sin while, if he did not intend it, he being omnisotent, man
could not do it in spite of him. It is no answer to say, "God
perniitted it." A God all good could not sin, and to give man
permission to sin would be admitting that a finite being could do
more than an infinite being, and also that which he (the infinite
being) was incapable of accomplishing.
Religious opinions have everywhere in the past influenced
men's minds on the questions of morality and what should form the
basis of ethical codes. No one will deny the fact that the
conceptions formed of God will depend largely upon the
characteristics of the people among whom the conceptions are
formed. The gods of savages simply reflect the feelings and ideas
of the race where the god belief obtains. They are cruel, brutal,
revengeful, and licentious, according to the characters of the
worshippers; and the methods resorted to for appeasing them will be
just those by which the worshipper would like himself to be
approached, and which would afford him some sort of gratification.
In Greece graceful harmony, beauty, and the highest development of
art were personified in its mythology. As character and culture
became elevated, the conception of God becomes more lofty. The
different views of God which obtain have modified the conception
formed of offences against God -- in other words, sin.
The moral Iaw has often been molded by the religious
conception. In ancient Egypt so great a crime was it considered to
kill an ibis that whoever did so was put to death. The Spartans
were encouraged to steal, it being thought quite moral to do so.
Falsehood and deceit were deemed praiseworthy among the members of
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
the early Christian Church. In fact, lying was regarded as a virtue
if it were indulged in for pious purposes; and St. Paul evidently
justified such acts. Even to-day lying is deemed to be no sin among
some people -- the Chinese, for instance. Hundreds of other cases
of a similar kind might be given; but these will suffice to show
that the conception of sin among one people is the reverse of what
we meet with in another.
It will now be apparent that, in the conventional sense in
which the word "sin" is employed, it may be completely dissevered
from vice or immorality. Two sets of duties are recognised by
religious persons: one relating to God and the other to man. The
neglect of the first class is sin, the omission of the other vice.
As before stated, the latter are largely influenced by the former;
but still it is the violation of the law arising out of the former
that constitutes sin, and the sinner is he who is guilty of such
violation. We have, therefore, a class of acts which are right or
wrong, independent altogether of any sort of relationship that they
may sustain, apart from theology, to mankind, and these acts will
be deemed sinful or holy in proportion as they fulfil certain
religious conditions. For example, a man planting a few flowers in
his garden on Sunday would be held in Canada and Scotland to be
guilty of a grave offence against God, although he had not in any
way injured his fellow man, or in the smallest degree violated any
moral law, except such as was supposed to be involved in the
religious code.
The disseverance of the moral and religious duties is not so
marked to-day as in the past, simply because religion, as a
distinct thing, is less recognised. The intelligent preacher of the
present time -- at least among the Protestants and outside the
ultra-orthodox party -- devotes himself to expounding moral duties
and enforcing such acts of conduct as, whatever their relationship
may be to a future world, have very much to do with the life here.
But in the past, and even now among Roman Catholics and the extreme
orthodox party, the religious duties greatly exceed the moral ones,
and hence sin is more common than immorality, and the Sinner,
consequently, much more conspicuous than the vicious man.
By these facts we are able to judge whether Saints or Sinners
make the more useful members of Society, and, judged of from a
human standpoint, which are the better adapted to the world in
which we live. Whether the Saints are more eligible for heaven is
another matter. If they are, should they not make the best of their
way thither? Many of them on this earth are clearly out of place.
The Sinner -- that is, the man whose sin is only of the theological
kind -- may not be fit for heaven; that region he knows not of; but
on earth there is plenty of room for him and ample need for his
presence. When, in the fulness of his heart and the wide sympathy
of his nature, he throws the golden beams of blessedness into a
sorrowing and distressed home, sacrificing little comforts himself
in order to help his fellows, risking the countenances of the sick,
the poor, and the suffering light up with a smile of sunshine,
where before darkness and gloom had reigned supreme, is he not
fulfilling the bighest destiny of man, Sinner though he be?
Religion, by her most ardent disciples, is portrayed in dark and
gloomy colours, as if we had no right to enjoy the beauty and
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
tenderness of the lower world -- as if the deepest and purest
affections of the heart were unhallowed and unholy; whereas one
feels that the noblest and best endeavour should be to delight in
the soft mellow light of love in which float all things good and
fair. To do this is reserved for the Sinner, irrespective of any
saintly influence. Religion may have a lace in the world; but it
must not usurp the throne of man's affections, the holiest part of
his nature. We will not bow suppliantly to any altar if it is to
rob those we love of our heart's warmest devotion, to taint the
loveliness of moral greatness and dim the blaze of unsanctified
genius. Our love for parent, wife, and children, and, after them,
all the human race, must be paramount in our breasts, though we be
counted Sinners ten times over. Man is man, and not a religious
machine. Too often the Saint lowers himself and then scoffs at and
derides those who dare to be themselves. Let him scoff on. With our
feet on the earth and our eyes on the stars, we proclaim mankind
sublimer than all else in beauty and magnificence. The world has
ever yearned for a full realisation of love to man and woman. The
great heart of Humanity has sent forth its longings and
aspirations, and these have often returned desolate and
disappointed. Priests, temples, and altars have stood in the way of
the world's improvement. Again and again has the music of Nature's
better being burst forth. Saints have whined over the decadence of
the race, and the song of beauty has been hushed in the wailing of
those who should have been first and foremost in the great work of
human amelioration. But the manifestations will return and burn
brighter each time -- more brightly than the flame of the altars of
Zoroaster or the sacrificial fires of the Jewish priesthood.
Orthodoxy designates all men Sinners who have not been "born
again," and condemns them as the enemies to the nobility of
mankind. And yet, looking through the long roll of the world's
greatest men, the giants of intellect, Nature's nobles, the world's
reformers, genius bright as the sun, and disinterestedness of
character glowing like the stars are to be found anions the Sinners
of the earth. Turn over the pages of history, and what characters
shall we find standing conspicuously forth among the loftiest of
Humanity's children, towering like mighty columns above the rest?
Why, those denounced by the Church as Sinners. By whom was the
mighty civilisaiion of Greece, the strength and power of Rome, and
the grandeur of yet earlier peoples, from whom even Greece and Rome
had much to learn -- by whom was all this accomplished? Why, by
those designated Sinners. The lofty intellect of Plato, throwing in
some instances modern greatness into the shade, the grand moral
sublimity of Socrates, the profound thought of Aristotle, the fiery
eloquence of Demosthenes, and the subdued oratory of Pericles, the
world's greatest thinkers, at whose feet the scholars of to-day are
content to sit; poets, sages, philosophers, whose writincs
transcend all that the world had seen before or witnessed since,
were all Sinners according to the dictum of orthodoxy. That
marvellous strength of will which made Rome the mistress of the
world, which enabled that great empire to spread itself over the
civilised globe, holding in its hands the destiny of peoples and
the fate of nations, whose sons shed an eternal lustre on their age
and achieved an immortality of reputation lasting as long as
humanity itself -- all these heroic acts and glorious deeds are
associated with Sinners, not Saints of the Church. Even in more
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SAINTS OR SINNERS: WHICH?
modern lands we discover the names of illustrious Sinners adorning
the pages of history. Some unbelievers or doubters of Christian
dogmas, some indifferent to all theology, others advanced thinkers
of the Deistical, Unitarian, and Agnostic type; but all Sinners
from the orthodox standpoint. From Roger Bacon to Spencer in
philosophy, from Priestley to Tyndall in science, and from
Lucretius to Walt Whitman in poetry -- these, with others of their
type, have been denounced as Sinners; yet, but for the transcendent
achievements of such men, we should in all probability have now
been groping in mental darkness and the worst kind of moral
confusion, surrounded by a state of things so truly described by
Pope when he says of Superstition: --
"She taught the weak to bend, the proud to pray,
To Powers unseen, and mightier far away;
She, from the rending earth and burning skies,
Saw gods descend and fiends infernal rise;
Here fixed the dreadful, there the blest abodes;
Fear made her devils, and weak hope her gods:
Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust,
Whose attributes were rage, revenge, or lust,
Such as the souls of cowards might conceive,
And, formed like tyrants, tyrants would believe.
Zeal then, not charity, become the guide,
And hell was built on spite, and heaven on pride."
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Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
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and information for today. If you have such books, magazines,
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