A Bolton clergyman reported in the Bolton Guardian that Mr. Holyoake had announced as the first subject of his Lectures, "Why do the Clergy Avoid Discussion and the Secularists Seek it?" (Reasoner, No. 328, p. 294, Vol. 12, 1852.)
These citations from my own writings are sufficient to show the origin and nature of Secularism. Such views were widely accepted by liberal thinkers of the day, as an improvement and extension of free thought advocacy. Societies were formed, halls were given a Secular name, and conferences were held to organise adherents of the new opinion. The first was held in the Secular Institute, Manchester (Oct. 3, 1852). Delegates were sent from Societies in Ashton-under-Lyne, Bolton, Blackburn, Bradford, Burnley, Bury, Glasgow, Keighley, Leigh, London, Manchester, Miles Platting, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Oldham, Over Darwen, Owen's Journal, Paisley, Preston, Rochdale, Stafford, Sheffield, Stockport, Todmorden.
Among the delegates were many well known, long known, and some still known—James Charlton (now the famous manager of the Chicago and Alton Railway), Abram Greenwood (now the cashier of the Cooperative Wholesale Bank of Manchester), William Mallalieu of Todmorden (familiarly known as the "Millionaire" of the original Rochdale Pioneers), Dr. Hiram Uttley of Burnley, John Crank of Stockport, Thomas Hayes, then of Miles Platting, now manager of the Crumpsall Biscuit Works of the Cooperative Wholesale Society, Joseph Place of Nottingham, James Motherwell of Paisley, Dr. Henry Travis (socialist writer on Owen's system), Samuel Ingham of Manchester, J. R. Cooper of Manchester, and the present writer.
IN 1853 the Six-Night Discussion took place in Cowper Street School Rooms, London, with the Rev. Brewin Grant, B. A. A report was published by Partridge and Oakley at 2s. 6d, of which 45,900 were sold, which widely diffused a knowledge of Secularistic views.
Our adversary had been appointed with clerical ceremony, on a "Three years' mission" against us. He had wit, readiness, and an electric velocity of speech, boasting that he could speak three times faster than any one else. But he proved to be of use to us without intending it,
whereby he set many against the cause he represented. He had the cleverness to see that there ought to be a "Christian Secularism," which raised Secularism to the level of Christian curiosity. In Glasgow, in 1854, I met Mr. Grant again during several nights' discussion in the City Hall. This debate also was published, as was one of three nights with the Rev. J. H. Rutherford (afterwards Dr. Rutherford) in Newcastle on Tyne, who aimed to prove that Christianity contained the better Secularism. Thus that new form of free thought came to have public recognition.
The lease of a house, 147 Fleet Street, was bought (1852), where was established a Secular Institute, connected with printing, book-selling, and liberal publishing. Further conferences were held in July, 1854, one at Stockport. At an adjourned conference Mr. Joseph Barker (whom we had converted) presided.* We had a London Secular Society which met at the Hall of Science, City Road, and held its Council meetings in Mr. Le Blond's handsome house in London Wall. This work, and much more, was done before and while Mr. Bradlaugh (who afterwards was conspicuously identified with the movement) was in the army.
It was in 1854 that I published the first pamphlet on Secularism the Practical Philosophy of the People. It commenced by showing the necessity of independent, self-helping, self-extricating opinions. Its opening passage was as follows:
"In a state of society in which every inch of land, every blade of grass, every spray of water, every bird and flower has an owner, what has the poor man to do with orthodox religion which begins by proclaiming him a miserable sinner, and ends by leaving him a miserable slave, as far as unrequited toil goes?
"The poor man finds himself in an armed world where might is God, and poverty is fettered. Abroad the hired soldier blocks up the path of freedom, and the priest the path of progress. Every penniless man, woman, and child is virtually the property of the capitalist, no less in England than is the slave in New Orleans.* Society blockades poverty, leaving it scarce escape. The artisan is engaged in an imminent struggle against wrong and injustice; then what has he the struggler, to do with doctrines which brand him with inherited guilt, which paralyse him by an arbitrary faith, which deny saving power to good works, which menace him with eternal perdition?"
The two first works of importance, controverting Secularist principles, were by the Rev. Joseph Parker and Dr. J. A. Langford; Dr. Parker was ingenious, Dr. Langford eloquent. I had discussed with Dr. Parker in Banbury. In his Six Chapters on Secularism** which was the title of his book, he makes pleasant references to that debate. The Christian Weekly News of that day said: "These Six Chapters have been written by a young provincial minister of great power and promise, of whom the world has not yet heard, but of whom it will hear pleasing things some day."
This prediction has come true. I had told Mr. Freeman that the "young preacher" had given me that impression in the discussion with him. Dr. Parker said in his first Chapter that, "If the New Testament teachings oppose our own consciousness, violate our moral sense, lead us out of sympathy with humanity, then we shall abandon them." This was exactly the case of Secularism which he undertook to confute. Dr. Langford held a more rational religion than Dr. Parker. His Answer, which reached a second thousand, had passages of courtesy and friendship, yet he contended with graceful vigor against opinions—three-fourths of which justified his own.
In an address delivered Sept. 29, 1851, I had said that, "There were three classes of persons opposed to Christianity:—
"1. The dissolute.
"2. The indifferent.
"3. The intellectually independent.
"The dissolute are against Christianity because they regard it as a foe to sensuality. The indifferent reject it through being ignorant of it, or not having time to attend to it, or not caring to attend to it, or not being able to attend to it, through constitutional insensibility to its appeals. The intellectually independent avoid it as opposed to freedom, morality and progress." It was to these classes, and not to Christians, that Secularism was addressed. Neither Dr. Parker nor Dr. Langford took notice that it was intended to furnish ethical guidance where Christianity, whatever might be its quality, or pretensions, or merit, was inoperative.*
The new form of free thought under the title of the "Principles of Secularism" was submitted to John Stuart Mill, to whose friendship and criticism I had often been indebted, and he approved the statement as one likely to be useful to those outside the pale of Christianity.
A remarkable thing occurred in 1854. A prize of £100 was offered by the Evangelical Alliance for the best book on the "Aspects, Causes, and Agencies" of what they called by the odious apostolic defamatory name of "Infidelity."* The Rev. Thomas Pearson of Eyemouth won the prize by a brilliant book, which I praised for its many relevant quotations, its instruction and fairness, but I represented that its price (10s. 6d.) prevented numerous humble readers from possessing it. The Evangelical Alliance inferred that the "relevancy" was on their side, altogether, whereas I meant relevant to the argument and to those supposed to be confuted by it. They resolved to issue twenty-thousand copies at one shilling a volume. The most eminent Evangelical ministers and congregations of the day subscribed to the project. Four persons put down their names for one thousand copies each, and a strong list of subscribers was sent out. Unfortunately I published another article intending to induce readers of the Reasoner to procure copies, as they would find in its candid pages a wealth of quotations of free-thought opinion with which very few were acquainted. The number of eminent writers, dissentients from Christianity, and the force and felicity of their objections to it, as cited by Mr. Pearson, would astonish and instruct Christians who were quite unfamiliar with the historic literature of heretical thought. This unwise article stopped the project. The "Shilling Edition" never appeared, and the public lost the most useful and informing book written against us in my time. The Rev. Mr. Pearson died not long after; all too soon, for he was a minister who commanded respect. He had research, good faith, candor, and courtesy, qualities rare in his day.
IT IS time now to point out, what many never seem to understand, that Secular instruction is entirely distinct from Secularism. In my earlier days the term "scientific" was the distressing word in connexion with education, but the trouble of later years is with the word "Secular." Theological critics run on the "rock" there.
Many persons regard Secular teaching with distrust, thinking it to be the same as Secularism. Secular instruction is known by the sign of separateness. It means knowledge given apart from theology. Secular instruction comprises a set of rules for the guidance of industry, commerce, science, and art. Secular teaching is as distinct from theology as a poem from a sermon. A man may be a mathematician, an architect, a lawyer, a musician, or a surgeon, and be a
Christian all the same; as Faraday was both a chemist and a devout Sandemanian; as Buckland was a geologist as well as a Dean. But if theology be mixed up with professional knowledge, there will be muddle-headedness.* At a separate time, theology can be taught, and any learner will have a clearer and more commanding knowledge of Christianity by its being distinctive in his mind. Secular instruction neither assails Christianity nor prejudices the learner against it; any more than sculpture assails jurisprudence, or than geometry prejudices the mind against music. If the Secular instructor made it a point, as he ought to do, to inculcate elementary ideas of morality, he would confine himself to explaining how far truth and duty have sanctions in considerations purely human—leaving it to teachers of religion to supplement at another time and place, what they believe to be further and higher sanctions.
Secular instruction implies that the proper business of the school-teacher is to impart a knowledge of the duties of this world; and the proper business of chapel and church is to explain the duties relevant to another world, which can only be done in a secondhand way by the school-teacher. The wonder is that the pride of the minister does not incite him to keep his own proper work in his own hands, and protest against the school-teacher meddling with it. By doing so he would augment his own dignity and the distinctiveness of his office.
By keeping each kind of knowledge apart, a man learns both, more easily and more effectually. Secular training is better for the scholar and safer for the State; and better for the priest if he has a faith that can stand by itself.
If the reader does not distrust it as a paradox, he will assent that the Secular is distinct from Secularism, as distinct as an act is distinct from its motive. Secular teaching comprises a set of rules of instruction in trade, business, and professional knowledge. Secularism furnishes a set of principles for the ethical conduct of life. Secular instruction is far more limited in its range than Secularism which defends secular pursuits against theology, where theology attacks them or obstructs them. But pure Secular knowledge is confined to its own pursuit, and does not come in contact with theology any more than architecture comes in contact with preaching.
A man may be a shareholder in a gas company or a waterworks, a house owner, a landlord, a farmer, or a workman. All these are secular pursuits, and he who follows them may consult only his own interest. But if he be a Secularist, he will consider not only his own interest, but, as far as he can, the welfare of the community or the world, as his action or example may tell for the good of universal society. He will do "his best," not as Mr. Ruskin says, "the best of an ass," but "the best of an intelligent man." In every act he will put his conscience and character with a view so to discharge the duties of this life as to merit another, if there be one. Just as a Christian seeks to serve God, a Secularist seeks to serve man. This it is to be a Secularist. The idea of this service is what Secularism puts into his mind. Professor Clifford exclaimed: "The Kingdom of God has come—when comes the Kingdom of man?" A Secularist is one who hastens the coming of this kingdom: which must be agreeable to heaven if the people of this world are to occupy the mansions there.
NOR is Secularism atheism. The laws of the universe are quite distinct from the question of the origin of the universe. The study of the laws of nature, which Secularism selects, is quite different from speculation as to the authorship of nature. We may judge and prize the beauty and uses of an ancient edifice, though we may never know the builder. Secularism is a form of opinion which concerns itself only with questions the issues of which can be tested by the experience of this life. It is clear that the existence of deity and the actuality of another life, are questions excluded from Secularism, which exacts no denial of deity or immortality, from members of Secularist societies. During their day only two persons of public distinction—the Bishop of Peterborough and Charles Bradlaugh—maintained that the Secular was atheistic. Yet Mr. Bradlaugh never put a profession of atheism as one of the tenets of any Secularist Society. Atheism may be a personal tenet, but it cannot be a Secularist tenet, from which it is wholly disconnected.
No one would confuse the Secular with the atheistic who understood that the Secular is separate. Mr. Hodgson Pratt, a Christian, writing in Concord (October, 1894), a description of the burial of Angelo Mazzoleni, said "the funeral was entirely Secular," meaning the ceremony was distinct from that of the Church, being based on considerations pertaining to duty in this world.
In the indefiniteness of colloquial speech we constantly hear the phrase, "School Board education." Yet School Boards cannot give education. It is beyond their reach. Most persons confuse instruction with education. Instruction relates to industrial, commercial, agricultural, and scientific knowledge and like subjects. Education implies the complete training and "drawing out of the whole powers of the mind."* Thus instruction is different from education. Instruction is departmental knowledge. Education includes all the influences of life; instruction gives skill, education forms character.
The Rev. Dr. Parker is the first Nonconformist preacher of distinction who has avowed his concurrence with Secular instruction in Board Schools. When Mr. W. E. Forster was framing his Education Act, I besought him to raise English educational policy to the level of the much smoking, much-pondering Dutch. "The system of education in Holland dates from 1857. It is a Secular system, meaning by Secular that the Bible is not allowed to be read in schools, nor is any religious instruction allowed to be given. The use of the school-room is, however, granted to ministers of all denominations for the purpose of teaching religion out of school-hours. The schoolmaster is not allowed to give religious instruction, or even to read the Bible in school at any time."*
No State rears better citizens or better Christians than the Dutch. Mr. Gladstone, with his customary discernment, has said that "Secular instruction does not involve denial of religious teaching, but merely separation in point of time." It seems incredible that Christian ministers, generally, do not see the advantage of this. I should probably have become a Christian preacher myself, had it not been for the incessantness with which religion was obtruded on me in childhood and youth. Even now my mind aches when I think of it. For myself, I respect the individuality of piety. It is always picturesque. Looking at religion from the outside, I can see that concrete sectarianism is a source of religious strength. A man is only master of his own faith when he sees it clearly, distinctly, and separately. Rather than permit Secular instruction and religious education to be imparted separately, Christian ministers permit the great doctrines they profess to maintain to be whittled down to a School Board average, in which, when done honestly towards all opinions, no man can discern Christianity without the aid of a microscope. And this passes, in these days, for good ecclesiastical policy. In a recent letter (November, 1894) Mr. Gladstone has re-affirmed his objection to "an undenominational system of religion framed by, or under the authority of, the State." He says: "It would, I think, be better for the State to limit itself to giving Secular instruction, which, of course, is no complete education." Mr. Gladstone does not confound Secular instruction with education, but is of the way of thinking of Miltou, who says: "I call a complete and generous education that which fits a man to perform justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war." Secular instruction touches no doctrine, menaces no creed, raises no scepticism in the mind. But an average of belief introduces the aggressive hand of heresy into every school, tampering with tenets rooted in the conscience, wantonly alarming religious convictions, and substituting for a clear, frank, and manly issue a disastrous, blind, and timid policy, wriggling along like a serpent instead of walking with self-dependent erectness. This manly erect-ness would be the rule were the formula of the great preacher accepted who has said: "Secular education by the State, and Christian education by the Christian Church is my motto."* Uniformity of truth is desirable, and it will come, not by contrivance, but by conviction.
Some one quoted lately in the Daily News (September 19, 1895) the following sentences I wrote in 1870:
"With secular instruction only in the day school, religion will acquire freshness and new force. The clergyman and the minister will exercise a new influence, because their ministrations will have dignity and definiteness. They will no longer delegate things declared by them to be sacred to be taught second-hand by the harassed, overworked, and oft-reluctant schoolmaster and schoolmistress, who must contradict the gentleness of religion by the peremptoriness of the pedagogue, and efface the precept that 'God is love' by an incontinent application of the birch.... It is not secular instruction which breeds irreverence, but this ill-timed familiarity with the reputed things of God which robs divinity of its divineness."
The Bible in the school-room will not always be to the advantage of clericalism, as it is thought to be now.
Mr. Forster's Education Act created what Mr. Disraeli contemptuously described as a new "sacerdotal caste,"—a body of second-hand preachers, who are to be paid by the money of the State to do the work which the minister and the clergyman avow they are called by heaven to perform,—namely, to save the souls of the people. According to this Act, the clergy are really no longer necessary; their work can be done by a commoner and cheaper order of artificer. Mr. Forster insisted that the Bible be introduced into the school-room, which gives great advantage to the Freethinker, as it makes a critical agitation against its character and pretensions a matter of self-defence for every family. Another eminent preacher, Mr. C. H. Spurgeon, wrote, not openly in the Times as Dr. Parker did, but in The Sword and Trowel thus: "We should like to see established a system of universal application, which would give a sound Secular education to children, and leave the religious training to the home and the agencies of the Church of Christ." It is worthy of the radiant common sense of the famous orator of the Tabernacle that he should have said this anywhere.
BY its nature, Secularism is tolerant with regard to religions. I once drew up a code of rules for an atheistic school. One rule was that the children should be taught the tenets of the Christian, Catholic, Moslem, Jewish, and the leading theological systems of the world, as well as Secularistic and atheistic forms of thought; so that when the pupil came to years of discretion he might be able, intelligently, to choose a faith for himself. Less than this would be a fraud upon the understanding of a man. In matters which concern himself alone, he must be free to choose for himself, and know what he is choosing from. That form of belief which has misgivings as to whether it can stand by itself, is to be distrusted.
It is the scandal of Christianity that, for twenty-five years, it has paralysed School Board instruction by its discord of opinion as to the religious tenets to be imparted; while in Secularity there is no disunity. Everybody is agreed upon the rules of arithmetic. The laws of grammar command general assent. There are no rival schools upon the interpretation of geometrical problems. It is only in divinity that irreconcilable diversity exists. When Secular instruction is conceded, denominational differences will be respected, as aspects of the integrity of conscience, which no longer obstruct the intellectual progress of the people.
But there are graver issues than the pride and preference of the preacher; namely, the welfare of the children of the people. What the working classes want is an industrial education. Poverty is a battle, and the poor are always in a conflict—a conflict in which the most ignorant ever go to the wall. The accepted policy of the State leaves the increase of population to chance. It suffers none to be killed; it compels people to be kept alive, and abandons their subsistence to the accident of capitalists requiring to hire their services. Thus our great towns are crowded with families, impelled there by the wild forces of hunger and of passion. From the workingman thus situated, the governing class exacts four duties:
1. That he shall give the parish no disquietude by asking it to maintain his family.
2. That he shall pay whatever taxes are levied upon him.
3. That he shall give no trouble to the police.
4. That he shall fight generally whomsoever the Government may see fit to involve the nation in war with.
Whatever knowledge is necessary to enable the future workman to do these things, is his right, and should be given to him in his youth in the speediest manner; and any other inculcation which shall delay this knowledge on its way, or confuse the learner in acquiring it, is a cruelty to him and a peril to the community which permits it; and the State, were it discerning and just, would forbid it.
In April, 1870, in a letter which appeared in the Spectator; I wrote as follows:
"In the speech of the Bishop of Peterborough, delivered at the Educational Conference at Leicester, and published in a separate form by the National Education Union, his Lordship quotes from a recent letter of mine to the Daily News some words in which I explained that 'unsectarian education amounts to a new species of parliamentary piety.' It is a satisfaction to find that the Bishop of Peterborough is able to 'entirely endorse these words.' The Bishop asks: 'Whose words do you suppose they are? They are the words of that reactionary maintainer of creeds and dogmas—Mr. Holyoake.' So far from being a 'reactionary' in this matter, I have always maintained that every form of sincere opinion, religious or secular, should have free play and fair play. I have never varied in advocating the right of free utterance and free action of all earnest conviction. The State requires a self-supporting and tax-paying population. But the State cannot insure this, except by imparting productive knowledge to the people. It is necessary for the people to receive, it is the interest of the State to give, productive instruction in national schools."
If people realised how much extended secular instruction is needed, they would be impatient with the obstruction of it by contending sects. Children want industrial education to fit them for emigrants. A knowledge of soils, of cattle, of climate, and crops, and how to nail up a wigwam and grow pork and corn, is what they need. For want of such knowledge Clerkenwell watchmakers, Northampton shoemakers, Lancashire weavers, and Durham miners perish as emigrants, and their bones bleach the prairies. Yet all orthodox teaching turns out its pupils uninstructed, for, as Tillottson has said, "He that does not know those things which are of use and necessity for him to know, is but an ignorant man, whatever he may know beside." To know this world, and the Secular conditions of prosperity in it, is indispensable to the people.
Christianity is entirely futile in industry. If a workman cannot pay his taxes, the most devout Chancellor of the Exchequer will not abate sixpence in consideration of the defaulter's piety. The poor man may believe in the Thirty-nine Articles, be able to recite all the Collects; he may spend his Sundays at church, and his evenings at prayer-meeting; but the reverend magistrate, who has confirmed him and preached to him, will send him to gaol if he does not pay. The sooner workmen understand that Christianity has no commercial value, the better for them.
Why should purely Secular instruction be regarded with distrust, when purely religious education does not answer? It does not appear in human experience that purely religious teaching, even when dispensed in a clergyman's family, is a security for good conduct. It is matter of common remark that the sons of clergymen turn out worse than the sons of parents in other professions.
We want no whining or puling population. The elements of science and morality will give children the use of their minds, and minds to use, and teach justice and kindness, self-direction, self-reliance, fortitude, and truth. There is piety in this instruction,—piety to mankind,—exactly that sort of piety for the want of which society suffers.
The principles for which during two centuries Nonconformity in England has contended are, that the State should forbid no religion, impose no religion, teach no religion, pay no religion. In 1870, the year in which Mr. Forster's Act came into operation, I was the only person who issued a public address to the "School Board Electors" in favor of free compulsory, and Secular instruction. Two of the proposals, the least likely to be favorably received, have since been adopted. The turn of the third must be near, unless fools are always at the polls.
ERROR will live wherever vermin of the mind may burrow; and error, if expelled, will return to its accustomed haunt, unless its place be otherwise occupied by some tenant of truth. Suppose that criticism has established:
1. That God is unknown.
2. That a future life is unprovable.
3. That the Bible is not a practical guide.
4. That Providence sleeps.
5. That prayer is futile.
6. That original sin is untrue.
7. That eternal perdition is unreal.
What is free thought going to do? All these theological ideas, however untrue, are forces of opinion on the side of error. After taking these doctrines out of the minds of men, as far as reasoning criticism may do it, what is proposed to be put in their place? When we call out to men that they are going down a wrong road, we are more likely to arrest their attention if we can point out the right road to take.
No mind is ever entirely empty. The objection to ignorance is not that it has no ideas, but that it has wrong ones. Its ideas are narrow, cramped, vicious. It likes without reason, hates without cause, and is suspicious of what it might trust. It is not enough to tell a man who is eating injurious food that it will harm him. If he has no other aliment, he must go on feeding upon what he has. If you cannot supply better, you cannot reproach him who takes the bad. But if you have true principles, they should be offered as substitutes for the false. Secularist truth should tread close upon the heels of theological error.
1. For the study of the origin of the universe Secularism substitutes the study of the laws and uses of the universe, which, Cardinal Newman admitted, might be regarded as consonant to the will of its author.
2. For a future state Secularism proposes the wise use of this, as he who fails in this "duty nearest hand" has no moral fitness for any other.
3. For revelation it offers the guidance of observation, investigation, and experience. Instead of taking authority for truth, it takes truth for authority.
4. For the providence of Scripture, Secularism directs men to the providence of science, which provides against peril, or brings deliverance when peril comes.
5. For prayer it proposes self-help and the employment of all the resources of manliness and industry. Jupiter himself rebuked the waggoner who cried for aid, instead of putting his own shoulder to the wheel.
6. For original depravity, which infuses hopelessness into all effort for personal excellence, Secularism counsels the creation of those conditions, so far as human prevision can provide them, in which it shall be "impossible for a man to be depraved or poor." The aim of Secularism is to promote the moralisation of this world, which Christianity has proved ineffectual to accomplish.
7. For eternal perdition, which appals every human heart, Secularism substitutes the warnings and penalties of causation attending the violation of the laws of nature, or the laws of truth—penalties inexorable and unevadable in their consequences. Though they extend to the individual no farther than this life, they are without the terrible element of divine vindictive-ness, yet, being near and inevitable—following the offender close as the shadow of the offence—are more deterrent than future punishment, which "faith" may evade without merit.
The aim of Secularism is to educate the conscience in the service of man. It puts duty into free thought. Men inquired, for self-protection, and from dislike of error. But if a man was in no danger himself, and was indifferent whether an error—which no longer harmed him—prevailed or not, Secularism holds that it is still a duty to aid in ending it for the sake of others. It was W. J. Fox, the most heretical preacher of his day, who said (1824): "I believe in the right of religion and the duty of free inquiry." He is a very exceptional person—as we know in political as well as in questions of mental freedom—who cares for a right he does not need himself. A man is generally of opinion, as I have seen in many agitations, that nobody need care for a form of liberty he does not want himself. It is as though a man on the bank should think that a man in the water does not want a rope. Duty is devotion to the right. Right in morals is that which is morally expedient. That is morally expedient which is conducive to the happiness of the greatest numbers. The service of others is the practical form of duty. "He," says Buddha, "who was formerly heedless, and afterwards becomes earnest, lights up the world like the moon escaped from a cloud."
Constructiveness is an education which attains success but slowly. Some men have no distinctive notion whatever of truth. It seems never to have occurred to them that there is anything intrinsic in it, and they only fall into it by accident. Others have a wholesome idea that truth is essential, and that, as a rule, you ought to tell it, and some do it. This is a small conception of truth, but it is good as far as it goes, and ought to be valued, as it is scarce. If any one asks such a person whether what he says is what he thinks, or what he knows, to be true, he is perplexed. The difference between the two things has not occurred to him. He has been under the impression that what he believes is the same thing as what he knows, and when he finds the two things are very different, his idea of truth is doubled and is twice as large as it was before.
There is yet a larger view, to which many never attain. To them all truth is truth of equal value. All geese are geese, but all are not equally tender. Though all horses are horses, all are not equally swift. Yet many never observe that all facts are not equally succulent or swift, nor all truth of equal value or usefulness.
Social truth has three marks,—it must be explicit, relevant to the question in hand, and of use for the purpose in hand. But it requires some intelligence to observe this, and judgment to act upon it.
BISHOP ELLICOTT was the first prelate whom I heard admit (in a sermon to the members of the British Association for the Advancement of Science) that men might be moral from other motives than those furnished by Christianity. Renan says that Justin Martyr "in his Apology, never attacks the principle of the empire. He wants the empire to examine the Christian doctrines." A Secularist would have attacked the principle, regarding freedom as of more consequence to progress than any doctrine without it. Those who seek to guide life by reason are not without a standard of appeal. "Secularism accepts no authority but that of nature, adopts no methods but those of science and philosophy, and respects in practice no rule but that of the conscience, illustrated by the common sense of mankind. It values the lessons of the past, and looks to tradition as presenting a storehouse of raw materials for thought, and in many cases results of high wisdom for our reverence; but it utterly disowns tradition as a ground of belief, whether miracles and supernaturalism be claimed or not claimed on its side. No sacred Scripture or ancient Church can be made a basis of belief, for the obvious reason that their claims always need to be proved, and cannot without absurdity be assumed. The association leaves to its individual members to yield whatever respects their own good sense judges to be due to the opinions of great men, living or dead, spoken or written; as also to the practice of ancient communities, national or ecclesiastical. But it disowns all appeal to such authorities as final tests of truth."*
Morality can be inspired and confirmed by perception of the consequences of conduct. Theology regards free will as the foundation of responsibility. But free will saves no man from material consequences, and diverts attention from material causes of evil and good. Under the free will doctrine the wonder is that any morality is left in the world. It is a doctrine which gives scoundrels the same chance as a saint. When a man is assured that he can be saved when he believes, and that, having free will, he can believe when he pleases, he, as a rule, never does please until he has had his fill of vice, or is about to die,—either of disease or by the hangman. If by the hangman, he is told that, provided he repents before eight o'clock in the morning, he may find himself nestling in Abraham's bosom before nine. Free will is the doctrine of rascalism. It is time morality had other foundation than theology. The relations of life can be made as impressive as ideas of supernaturalism. But in this Christians not only lend no help, they disparage the attempt to control life by reason. When Secularism was first talked of, the President of the Congregational Union, the Rev. Dr. Harris, commended to the Union the words of Bishop Lavington of a century earlier (1750): "My brethren, I beg you will rise up with me against mere moral preaching."* A writer of distinction, R. H. Hutton, writing on "Secularism" in the Expositor so late as 1881, argues strenuously that moral government is impossible without supernatural convictions. The egotism of Christianity is as conspicuous as that of politics. No ethic is genuine unless it bears the hall-mark of the Church. Secularism does not deny the efficacy of other theories of life upon those who accept them, and only claims to be of use as commending morality on considerations purely human, to those who reject theories purely spiritual. Any one familiar with controversy knows that Christianity is advertised like a patent medicine which will cure all the maladies of mankind. Everybody who tries reasoned morality is encouraged to condemn it, and is denounced if he commends it.
It is a maxim of Secularism that, wherever there is a rightful object at which men should aim, there is a Secular path to it.
Nearly all inferior natures are susceptible of moral and physical improvability, which improvability can be indefinitely advanced by supplying proper material conditions.
Since it is not capable of demonstration whether the inequalities of human condition will be compensated for in another life, it is the business of intelligence to rectify them in this world. The speculative worship of superior beings, who cannot need it, seems a lesser duty than the patient service of known inferior natures and the mitigation of harsh destiny, so that the ignorant may be enlightened and the low elevated.
Christians often promote projects beneficial to men; but are they not mainly incited thereto by the hope of inclining the hearts of those they aid to their cause? Is not their motive proselytism? Is it not a higher morality to do good for its own sake, careless whether those benefited become adherents or not?
Going to a distant town to mitigate some calamity there, will illustrate the principle of Secularism. One man will go on this errand from pure sympathy with the unfortunate; this is goodness. Another goes because the priest bids him; this is obedience. Another goes because the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew tells him that all such persons will pass to the right hand of the Father; this is calculation. Another goes because he believes God commands him; this is theological piety. Another goes because he is aware that the neglect of suffering will not answer; this is utilitarianism. But another goes on the errand of mercy because it is an immediate service to humanity, knowing that material deliverance is piety and better than spiritual consolation; this is Secularism.
One whose reputation for spirituality is in all the Churches says: "Properly speaking, all true work is religion, and whatsoever religion is not work may go and dwell among the Brahmins, the Antinomians, Spinning Dervishes, or where it will. Admirable was that maxim of the old monks, Laborare est orare (Work is worship)".* In his article on Auguste Comte, Mr. J. S. Mill says he "uses religion in its modern sense as signifying that which binds the convictions, whether to deity or to duty,—deity in the theological sense, or duty in the moral sense." This is the only sense in which a Secularist would employ the term. Religious moralism is a term I might use, since it binds a man to humanity, which religion does not. "Without God," said Mazzini to the Italian workingmen forty years ago,—"without God you may compel, but not persuade. You may become tyrants in your turn; you cannot be educators or apostles." One night, when Mazzini was speaking in this way, in the hearing of Garibaldi, arguing that there was no ground of duty unless based on the idea of God, the General turned round and said: "I am an Atheist. Am I deficient in the sense of duty?" "Ah," replied Mazzini, "you imbibed it with your mother's milk." All around smiled at the quick-witted evasion.