The Influence Of The Bible Upon Moral
And Social Institutions.

It is profitable for us to occasionally survey the dark arena
where men have played their part, in lonely gloom, without a
Savior and without a God. Pagan morality, being without
the motives and restraints of revealed religion, and guided
wholly by the passions and the lights of reason and nature, is
grossly defective. It has no settled standard of right and
wrong. It is vain to look, in all heathen philosophy for any
settled principles of duty or motives that commend themselves
to enlightened minds.

What is the basis and character of virtue? What is the
law of moral conduct? What is the object which governs it?
In what does human happiness consist? These are questions
which have never been satisfactorily answered by the unaided
powers of the human mind. The annals of Pagan history
show the real results of all their speculations upon these questions.
They are comprehensively presented in the following:
“They became vain in their imaginations and their foolish
hearts were darkened. They were filled with all unrighteousness,
fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness,
envy, murder, deceit, malignity. They were backbiters, haters
of God, despiteful, proud, inventors of evil things, disobedient
to parents, without natural affection, implacable and unmerciful.”
[pg 082]
Their manners and habits were the results of mere
whim and caprice when they were not the results of simple
love of wickedness. The vice of one community was the
virtue of another; and refinement in one was unpardonable
rudeness in another. The public festivals celebrated in Egypt
are disgraceful upon the pages of history, being accompanied
with shameful practices. Egypt was noted for corrupt morals
as far back as the times of Abraham. Asia Minor was no better;
unrighteousness, sensuality and luxury prevailed. In
Greece there was brutal savageness in its most hideous forms;
in the age of its greatest refinement sin was dressed up in the
finest style. The Olympic, Pythian and Isthmian games,
which were kept up to give strength to the body and courage
in the battle, were debasing and corrupting to the lowest degree
of wretchedness. The ages of ancient heroism were filled
up with crime and debauchery. They were fruitful in incest
and parricide, and all the dark and gloomy events which were
necessary to make up the most fearful picture of immorality.
The monarchs of Assyria spent their time mainly in debasing
crime and voluptuousness. The brightest and best days of
Babylon were notorious for lewdness and accomplishment in
crime and iniquity; loaded with riches, they spared no pains
and withheld no means in the production of all that gratified
their lusts and fed their passions. In Babylon there was a
certain well known temple in which adultery was legalized by
compulsory law for the purpose of increasing the public revenue.
The ancient Pagan religions sanctioned and practiced
the most detestible licentiousness. Cato commended young
men for visiting houses of ill-fame. Such was the very best
phase of morals and public manners in the purest state of Roman
society. What must have been the worst? The worst!
Well, I will give you an idea of it. The Emperor Nero
drove through the streets of the capital with his mistress in a
state of nudity; and the Emperor Commodus first seduced and
then murdered his own sister. Here reason, blinded by lust,
was their guide. These people were not troubled with that
terrible book called the Bible. Happy (?) state. How would
[pg 083]
we like to have our homes in the midst of such fellows?
Their conscience had no fastenings, how could their doctrines
excite to moral virtue?

How much better are the principles of modern infidels?
Bolingbroke’s morality is all embraced in self-love. Hobbes
claims that the only basis of right and wrong is the civil law.
Rousseau says all the morality of actions is in the judgement
we ourselves form of them. Shaftsbury says, all the obligations
to be virtuous arise from the advantages of virtue, and
the disadvantages of vice. Have such moral principles ever
reformed the world? Do they reform their advocates? Did
you ever know a man to reform after he became an advocate
of such principles? Did you ever know a man to reform
after understanding and abandoning the Christian religion?
If any such ever reformed their lives after setting themselves
on Pagan ground, by opposing Christianity, I have yet to
learn the fact. It is the morality of a wicked world that
simply asks for the profitable, and not the right; which inquires
not for duty, but for self-interest—for the opinions of
men; it is a body without a spirit—a whitewashed sepulchre—splendid
only in sepulchral greatness.

Morality rests not upon principles that clothe themselves in
various garbs to please the different fancies of the different
ages, consulting simply the spirit of the times. Such morality
is one thing to-day and quite another to-morrow—it is
variable as the seasons. It adapts itself to the occasion—to
the hour. It is very pliant—it has no conscience, but is
always popularity-seeking. The morality of the Christian
religion is very different. In the New Testament we find a
morality as pure, lofty and unchanging as its divine author;
it purifies and regulates the inner man—“make the tree good
and the fruit will be good.” The Bible settles the great question
of duty. It teaches us that to do right is to do that
which is right in itself, from pure motives and with a right
spirit. These two things God hath joined together, viz: the
right deed from right motives, and the right spirit. A man’s
[pg 084]
conscience may be satisfied without the right motives and without
the right spirit, but that is not enough.

It is not enough for a man to have the right spirit and the
right motives, unless he does that which is right in itself.
Conscience may be warped by malevolence, selfishness, prejudice,
or education, until the man is led to do that which is
detestable in the sight of God. The time may come when
this man will regret his foolishness, and see that he was
wrong, like Saul of old.

Right things may be done from a wrong spirit, and wrong
things may be done from a right spirit, but the morality of
the Christian religion consists in doing right things from right
motives and in a right spirit.

The great motive that governs us as Christian moralists is
the fact made known in these words, God requires it. You may
talk of the dignity of correct morals, of their beauty and virtue,
and of the terrible nature of vice, and of the demands of
a well-governed selfishness, but all these are weak compared
with the authority of the Supreme Being whom Christians
love and adore.

If we would reform men successfully we must bring the
conscience under the strong bonds of obligation; we must
extend the authority of the great Lawgiver over the understanding,
over the conscience, over the memory, over the
imagination, over the entire inner man. This alone will stop
the germinations of sin, and check wickedness in its conception.
This is the tap-root of the tree of virtue—the source
of virtuous principles, demonstrating the truthfulness of the
axiom, “Make the tree good and the fruit will be good.” Simple
advantage is not the foundation of virtue; it has a nature
aside from its tendencies to worldly profit. Otherwise virtue
would often cease to be virtue, and vice would often cease to
be vice. Anciently there were moral philosophers who plead
that utility was the only foundation of virtue. Paul speaks
of some who supposed “Godliness was gain.” Such a morality
would be the most uncertain thing in the world; give it
what name you choose, it is mere selfishness.

The Influence Of The Bible Upon Social Life And
Social Institutions.

Man’s entire nature forces him directly into a social state.
He is destitute of the strength possessed by many of the
lower animals, and naturally unable for want of speed to
escape their attacks, so care for life leads him into the closest
alliances with his fellows. Childhood and old age necessitate
dependence, and his wants, during those periods, bring him
under obligations to others during his strength and manhood.
The social state is also necessary to the development of his
intellectual nature, and some of his natural affections can be
exercised only in such a state. Benevolence, gratitude, complacency
and heroism are not exercised in an insolated condition—they
are called out only in mutual associations with our
fellow-men.

The noblest efforts of intellectual strength and of human
ingenuity are made under the most powerful influence of
society. Thus encouraged, men have collected armies, founded
kingdoms and governed them. In such kingdoms the arts
and sciences have flourished in a greater or less degree, and
imperfect morals have crowned their labors and lifted their
minds as high as their unaided powers have permitted. Such
has been the best condition in which the Scriptures ever found
the social state. The structure has been incomplete, resting
upon no solid basis, and only imperfectly cemented together.
Such a state of society has always been a proper object for
the modifying and controlling influences of a purer system of
morality, founded upon a pure religion.

What has been the state of society in times past without
the light of revealed religion? There are evils in the social
state where the Christian religion exists, but they were there
before the Gospel of Christ visited those places. It is very
common for unbelievers to charge the calamities of the social
state to the Christian religion, but it is a dishonorable mode
of argumentation. The proper question is this: Has humanity
ever been well organized in the social state without the
presence and influence of the Bible? Has it ever been well
[pg 086]
governed under such circumstances? Have men respected the
social rights and obligations or properly understood them in the
absence of revealed religion? Has the religion of Christ been a
disturber of the social organization where social rights were properly
understood and regarded? or has it set aside the rights and
obligations of men in social life where men were enjoying
peaceable, happy relations? Does its legitimate influence
make men more wicked and miserable? An honest answer to
these questions will commend the religion of Jesus Christ,
and do honor to him as our Lord and Master. The Scriptures
have been the means of establishing institutions which have
stood for centuries. Where society has been disjointed and
out of order, without bonds or adhesiveness, the Scriptures
have been introduced, banishing disorder and bringing peace
and good will to man. They have silently operated in the
social surroundings and gradually elevated Pagan lands out of
Paganism. They refine and cleanse the cruel, giving them
habits which make them at once superior to all Pagans.

Look at Rome and Persia in comparison with England and
America. The Persian’s religion was the best of all the uninspired
religions. They worshiped their unknown god in
the sun, moon and stars. In two reigning principles they sought
for an explanation of the present state of good and evil mixed,
which is the perplexing problem that has always confounded unenlightened
reason. The Persian’s creed only exercised his intellect
and gratified his curiosity. It brought no power to bear upon
his social relations. Persian history is a mass of crimes, suffering
and intolerance. The government was a despotism,
and polygamy gave laws to the domestic and private relations
of the citizens.

Ancient Rome stands foremost in all that moral culture and
philosophy alone can do for social institutions. Its religion
was gross in the extreme, exerting an unhappy influence upon
the masses, while it was disregarded by the priests who taught
it, their sole object being to terrify the multitude and keep
them in subjection to the authorities of the state. It was
said by a Roman, “Our nation exists more by religion than
[pg 087]
by the sword.” But upon an examination of Roman history
you will find servitude, despotism, tumult, revolt, revolution
and slaughter, peace and war. The ambitions of rivals to the
throne, and new schemes of rulers, often deluged the country
with blood and carried the sword to remote and peaceable nations,
till the horrors of civil war were realized in almost every
part of the world. Every now and then the powers of some
great mind, irritated by his calamities, having all the vices and
none of the virtues of his species, would rise up and wreak
vengeance in deeds which can not be thought of without sadness
of heart.

How much better was ancient Greece? How much better
are modern Pagan nations? These evils have been extinguished
in the ratio of the circulation and influence of the
Bible. The relation between the state and its citizens the
Bible recognizes as of divine appointment; the foundation of
civil government is the will of God. Government is an
ordinance of God. “The powers that be are ordained of
God.” The great author of our rights, life, liberty, peace,
order, public morals and religion, has not left these interests to
chance, anarchy or the social compact. Rulers were ordained
of God, and are rulers, not for their own exaltation, but for
the tranquility, virtue and peace of the governed. Where are
the Pagan rulers who were taught this great lesson so as to
feel its importance? When have they respected the rights of
the people? Where have anti-Christian or Pagan nations, in
a single instance, been actuated by any motive save the restless,
factious determination to sink one tyrant for the sake of
elevating another? In Christian lands a free and virtuous
people limit the authority of rulers and assert the rights of
citizens. In our country a mass of public virtue and a weight
of moral influence, that restrains the wrath of man, keeps us
from being involved in an ocean of blood at every popular
election. We are not repeating the history of Rome in this
respect. We have been taught to “Render unto Cæsar the
things which belong to Cæsar.” The apostles of Christ have
enjoined upon us the duty of being subject to the rulers of our
[pg 088]
land, to submit ourselves to every ordinance of man for the
Lord’s sake. We have been taught to pray for our rulers.
While we do this we can not be rebellious. Who is so blind
as to not see that the Scriptures will control our citizens with
more benevolence than any other book or any other maxims
or set of opinions. When the Christian Scriptures are duly
regarded and their divine authenticity respected designing,
ambitious, corrupting and aspiring politicians will have but
little power to plunge us into crimes and sufferings.

The most important of all our social institutions is the marriage.
It is the paternal source of all other relations. There
is no exhibition of the divine goodness in conditioning our
race that is more significant and lovely. By it our world is a
collection of families in which the tenderest affections are cherished
and the worst generally subdued. Here there is a community
of interests. Here we experience the highest motives
to a virtuous influence, especially in forming the character
of the youth of our country. The race is continually multiplying
and enlarging. What wonderful wisdom was it that
consulted its honor, its virtue and eternal destiny by the appointment
of the marriage relation? It was the best method
upon which human society could be organized. There are
narrow-hearted, lustful bigots who would do away the social
family compact. They talk about “free thought,” “free love,”
no restraints of law, no protection of the mother save the voluntary.
Such has been the custom in a few heathen lands;
such is the doctrine of a few modern infidels; such are the
habits of a few gregarious communities in Christian countries.
In these communities the sexes are taught from the cradle to
hate the marriage bond. Such a state of society is poisoned
and polluted; is a fearful mass of corruption and rottenness.
All moral safeguards are removed. The offspring are
thrown out upon the world with no restraints of paternal
love and wisdom; no obligations of filial love and reverence;
monsters in iniquity, and in a short time equal in
crime to those who were swept from the earth by the waters
of the deluge or the flames of Sodom. Look then for one
[pg 089]
moment after the evil of polygamy. It existed for awhile
among the ancient Hebrews. Moses suffered it for the hardness
of their hearts. From the beginning it was not so. It
was a perversion of the ancient institution of matrimony. All
the evils of that idolatrous age could not be remedied in a
moment; nothing was made perfect until the appearance of
that wonderful counselor—Christ. He restored the primitive
integrity of the marriage institution by revoking polygamy
and divorce. Polygamy was never friendly to the physical
and mental character of its population. It is demonstrated
beyond the possibility of a doubt that it is debasing and brutalizing.
The Turks and Asiatics are polygamists, but they are
much inferior to the old Greeks and Romans; yet ancient
Rome was a long ways from Heaven’s will in respect of marriage
ties.

The matrimonial institution of Rome was a compromise
between the right and the wrong. The institution was considered
in the light of a civil contract, entered into for expediency,
and protected by the magistrates because it was
deemed a blessing to society; by the law of the twelve tables
it continued during the pleasure of the husband. The result
was that frequent, and often, rapid succession of divorces and
marriages took the place of polygamy, and introduced many
of its evils.

The private history of Roman ladies of first rank is a succession
of marriages and divorces, each new marriage giving
way to one more recent. Octavia, the daughter of the
Emperor Claudus, married Nero, was repudiated by him for
the sake of Poppæa; this woman was first married to Rufus
Crispinus; then to Otho; and at length to Nero, by whom she
was killed.

Nero murdered Thessalina’s husband, and married her for
his third wife. Julia, the daughter of Augustus, was first
the wife of Marcellus, then the wife of Agrippa, and then
the wife of Tiberius. Such examples are found almost without
number in the annals of Tacitus. The extent to which
this evil was carried may be learned from the poet Martial,
[pg 090]
who informs us, that, when the Julian law against adultery
was revived as a prevention of the corruption of the times,
Thessalina married her tenth husband within thirty days, thus
evading all the restraints which the law imposed against her
licentiousness. What is the marriage bond worth in such a
state of society?

Where is the state of society essentially better in the
absence of the Christian religion?

The Bible teaches us that the institution is of Divine
origin, established by the Lord himself. It inscribes upon
every marriage altar, “What God hath joined together let no
man put asunder.” It definitely defines marriage to be the
act of uniting two persons in wedlock, and only two. According
to the Scriptures, this union can only be dissolved by
crime or death. With great tenderness the Bible prescribes
the duties of this relation. “Husbands love your wives as
Christ loved the church.” This love is not the cold hearted
affection that is after the fashion of free-love philosophy, but
it is after a model that has touched heavenly hearts, and
caused more admiration than all other things combined.

In the ancient dispensation adultery was punished with
death. In the Christian dispensation, it is said with great
emphasis, “Whoremongers and adulterers God will judge.”
There is a place of which it is said, “Whoso is simple let him
turn in hither, but he knoweth not that the dead are there,
and that her guests are in the depths of hell.” There is a
sin of which the Bible often speaks, pointing the guilty perpetrators
to the fact that they have none inheritance in the
kingdom of God and of Christ.

The history of Pagan nations is little else than a record of
crime. By studying it we may learn something of our obligations
to the Christian religion, and our indebtedness to its
pure spirit, which has brooded over the darkness of the
nations, and brought order out of confusion. It will, also,
learn us to value the names father, mother, husband, wife,
children and parents; these names were of little value among
Romans. In the annals of the Roman empire may be found
[pg 091]
a record of all that is shocking; a record of all that man can
be guilty of; a record of all that an enemy could be guilty of;
suspicion, licentiousness, murder, conspiracy of wives against
their husbands, and husbands against their wives; children
sacrificed by the doings of a mother; families whose peace is
ruined by intrigue and violence; men everywhere falling
upon their own swords; the wife murdering her own husband
for the sake of marrying another; woman practiced, skilled,
in the art of poisoning—such is the picture of Pagan life in the
most enlightened age of Rome.

Let any man compare society in our country, or in any
protestant country, with the state of society under the reign
of the Cæsars, and he will see what the Christ has done for
our race. The spirit that sustains our social institutions does
not grow cold even at the grave, but is felt beyond death.
How is it in heathen lands? The sweetest loves of life give
way to suspicion and envy; the jealousy of love, the thirst for
power and ambition, drives them away, often as soon as the
flowers and beauty of youth are gone. Where Christ reigns
it is not so. Yet there are those who would have us believe
that the religion of Christ is an unsocial, selfish religion. If
it is unsocial and selfish to have no sympathy with wickedness,
to promote all that is virtuous and kind, pure and true, to
take pleasure in all that subdues the malignant and beastly,
the ambitious and cruel, then it is an unsocial and selfish
affair. If it is unsocial and selfish to take pleasure in that
which elevates and moulds character in the image of God, and
fits it for angelic society hereafter, then it is truly unsocial and
selfish.

Law, Cause, And Agent.

The word law denotes the unceasing, regular order in which
an agent or force operates. It should, consequently, be distinguished
from cause or efficiency; it being only the manner,
or mode, according to which an agent or cause manifests
itself. Therefore law is neither cause or agent. Yet it implies
[pg 092]
an agent, or an energy; for without these law is nothing—does
nothing. The laws of nature had no existence
until nature existed. That is to say, the laws of water did not
exist until water existed, etc. So it is easy to perceive the
truth that the laws of nature created nothing. Nature is said
to be the aggregate of everything; therefore nature created
nothing. The laws of nature, being the rules according to
which effects are produced, demonstrate the existence of a
cause or agent which operates. As the rules of navigation
never steered a ship, so the law of gravity never moved a
planet. A bare order or law of nature was not the cause of
nature. To confound order or law with cause is to speak unadvisedly—unintelligently;
it is perfectly irrational. Would
you cut off executive authority in a government and continue
its existence without a person or society to exercise, judge and
execute according to law?

To say the world is governed by the laws of nature, without
rising up in our thoughts to the efficient cause and superior
reason, or, that which is always implied in the term law, viz.,
a legislator and executive putting in force, is to play the
Atheist and take things by halves; is to suppose the laws of
nature are beings, and imagine fabulous divinities in ignoring or
setting aside the Christian’s God, who is the source of all the
laws of nature, and who governs all things according to them.
“The laws of nature are the art of God.” Without the presence
of such an agent—one who is conscious of all upon which
the laws of nature depend—producing all that the laws prescribe—the
laws themselves could have no existence. The
intelligence, or, if you prefer it, cause, which gives the laws of
nature their power, and by which they are kept in action, must
be everywhere present and always present; otherwise the
whole machinery of nature would be deranged—inertia is a
property of matter. The universal presence of God is the one
great and overwhelming condition of the existence of life and
motion throughout the vast universe of nature. The laws of
matter are the laws which he has prescribed for his own action.
His presence is the essential condition of any natural course of
[pg 093]
events in the history of matter. His universal agency is the
only organ of power adequate to the accomplishment of the
wonders of nature—the only solution of its great problems
which lies within the reach of human reason. Some fools still
say in their hearts there is no God.

One of Newton’s great laws of motion is, that a body must
continue forever in a state of rest, inertia being a property of
matter, or being put in motion continues forever in a straight
line, if it be not disturbed by the action of an external cause.

Now let us apply this law to our planet, as a body, and see
the result. What is the first necessary conclusion to which we
are driven? Ans. Some external agency or cause put our
planet in motion. What is the second conclusion? Ans.
Some agent or cause controls its motion causing it to depart
from a straight line. Do you say the cause is in the influence
of other planets? Well, suppose, for the sake of the argument,
we admit it, are we then through with the problem?
No. We have only moved the difficulty one step backward.
We can see how one billiard ball may set another in motion,
but it is only thinkable upon the supposition that there was an
agent behind the ball which put the second ball in motion.
What put the first ball in motion? Did it put itself in motion?
No. The law is this: A body must remain forever at rest without
some external agency to put it in motion. Now, you step
out from our planet to its nearest neighbor, and from thence to
the next, and so on till you get to the furthest limits of matter—carry
along with you the idea that one planet has put
another in motion until you arrive at the last one thinkable,
and then ask yourself this question: Is inertia a property of
matter here? Is the law of motion, already quoted, a law of
motion here? If it is, then, of necessity, science demands an
agent outside of planets, or behind the whole of them, to put
them in motion, and to control them while in motion in order
to carry them forward in circles—do you see? “But the fool
says in his heart there is no God.”

The Inconsistency Of Modern Unbelievers Or Materialists.

The materialistic unbeliever is necessarily bound up in a contradiction
from which there is no escape short of a denial of
the eternity of matter, space and duration, on the one hand,
or a denial of the materialistic philosophy, upon the other.

His reasoning is this: Space exists. I know it exists. I
can’t set bounds to space, therefore it is infinite.

Matter exists. I know it exists. I can’t annihilate matter,
therefore matter is eternal.

Duration is. I know it is. I can’t set limits to it; therefore
duration is infinite.

Now, it is easy to discover that the conclusion in each case
rests upon two thoughts. First, Conscious knowledge expressed
in the phrase “I know.” Secondly, Want of power
to set bounds to space, to limit duration and annihilate matter.

The other and contrary side is brought up in the following
arrangement: Mind exists. I know it exists. I can’t set
limits to mind; therefore mind is infinite, mind is eternal.

Life exists. I can’t comprehend or set limits to life; therefore
life is infinite, life is eternal.

The time was when there was no life or mind associated
with or in matter, the matter belonging to our planet. From
whence came life? From whence came mind? Do you say
from the laws of nature? Well, laws are rules by which
agents act. Laws are nothing unless there is an agent to act
in harmony with them or by them. There is consequently
something lying behind the laws of nature, acting by them.
What is that something? Do you say it is force? Force is
the manifestation of energy—a mere attribute. There is something
behind energy, to which it belongs. Do you say it is
matter? Inertia is a property of matter? From whence
came life and mind? The time was when they were not here.

You unbelievers say it is scientific to reason from your own
conscious knowledge upon the line of physical elements, as
[pg 095]
well as space and duration, to the ideas of infinite matter,
space, and duration. Do you not know that there is also a
line of vital and mental forces? Why is it that you do not
consider men equally scientific who reason upon that line from
conscious knowledge to the idea of an ever-living, all-powerful
intelligence? Power is a matter of conscious knowledge.
Can you set limits to it? No, never! Then power is infinite.
Let us ever remember there is no life without antecedent life;
no mind without antecedent mind; and no matter without
antecedent substance. Where does power come from? Can
you tell? If you are a Theist you can. If you are an Atheist
you can’t. Unbelievers say the Infinite One, if there be such,
can not be revealed to man. This conclusion is rested upon
the assumption that the finite can not comprehend the infinite.
This is regarded as a complete overthrow of revealed religion.
Can nothing be revealed to me unless I can comprehend it?
Can I know nothing without comprehending it? I know
load-stone, but do I comprehend it? I know electricity, but
do I comprehend it? I am conscious of life and mind, but
do I comprehend either? We know that matter, of itself, is
inert, dead, and yet it lives. But this is our difficulty: How
does it come to live? We know it lives, but do we comprehend
the fact? We know enough about a great many incomprehensible
things for all practical purposes. Do you unbelievers
know the unknown? If you don’t, might it not be well
to quit talking about it? Your language is at fault. You
are no more competent to talk about the unknown than we
Christians. Turn that word unknown out of doors and adopt
the word incomprehensible, and then talk about it, for it is
revealed to all who talk about it. You and I apprehend the
Infinite One. You talk about infinite space, infinite duration,
infinite substance. Yes, and I talk about infinite life,
infinite power and infinite mind. We all know there are infinities
in existence. We apprehend them, knowing enough
about them for all practical life purposes. You talk about the
infinities known in science, and I talk about the infinities
known in religion. After all our reasoning may it not be
[pg 096]
true that mind is infinite in its capacities? May it not, in the
future, comprehend many things which are now incomprehensible?
My increase of knowledge, consequent upon the capacities
of my mind, enables me to comprehend a great deal that
I could not comprehend a few years ago. If I could not have
apprehended those things prior to comprehending them, I
never would have learned enough about them to comprehend
them. I always apprehend a thing, know it is, before I begin
to investigate it. Now, I know God, but I do not comprehend
him. He is too great in his majesty for my present
knowledge. I may never comprehend him, still I apprehend
him and know enough for all practical life purposes. I believe
that I shall know a great deal more about him in the
future; yes, more even in this life, if I am only faithful in
“going on to know the Lord.”

Materialism In Its Bearings Upon Person And Personality.

Personality is individuality, existing in itself, but with a
nature as its ground.—Coleridge.

Paley says: The seat of intellect is a person.

Lock says: Person stands for a thinking, intelligent being,
that has reason and reflection, and can consider itself as itself, …
which it does only by that consciousness which is
inseparable from thinking, and as it seems to me essential to
it, it being impossible for any one to perceive without perceiving
that he does perceive.

Henry Taylor says: The quality of intelligence is essential
in order to person. That which is not intelligent we call a
thing, and that which is intelligent we call a person. By the
word person we therefore mean a thing or substance that is
intelligent, or a conscious being; including in the word the
idea both of the substance and its properties together.

Oldfield says: Person is a subsisting substance or
“suppositum,”
[pg 097]
endued with reason as a man is, that is capable of religion.

Thompson says: Person as, applied to Deity, expresses the
definite and certain truth that God is a living being and not
a dead material energy.

Jouffroy says: Personality, in jurisprudence, denotes the
capacity of rights and obligations which belong to an intelligent
will.

A person is a being who is intelligent and free. Every
spiritual and moral agent, every cause which is in possession
of responsibility and consciousness, is a person.

Webster says: Person is an individual human being consisting
of body and soul. We apply the word to living beings
possessed of a rational nature; the body when dead is not
called a person.

The Biblical ground nature of the word person is in these
words: “What man knoweth the things of a man but the
spirit of man which is in him.”

Intelligence is an essential attribute of person, but it is not
a property of matter. If intelligence is a property of matter,
then the distinction between person and thing is of a necessity
a distinction without a difference. But no greater absurdity
could possess the human mind for one moment than the
thought that intelligence is a property or quality of matter.
Nothing short of the fact expressed in Bible language that
the spirit of man is a gift from God, will account for the distinction
between person and thing. Man in his physical nature
is enslaved to the laws of physical nature in common with
all organized things; is subject to the laws that control matter.
The law of organic existence is such that he can not
live without a continual supply of food, which the nutritive
process continually provides in order to make up for the wastage
consequent upon disintegration of parts. But there are
impassible limits fixed to the nutritive process by the most certain
of all laws, viz: those of gravity and chemical action.
To abolish these laws would insure the destruction of all
[pg 098]
organic existence, because it would be the abrogation of the
essential conditions of organized being. Yet it is true that
when a certain point is reached a change and dissolution of
the molecules always takes place, and this change is the sure
introduction of death. Hence, nothing short of union with
God, through his own appointed means, by which he brings his
own omnipotence to bear for the purpose of controlling the
essential condition of organic existence, could ever be an antidote
of death. Man in his original innocence enjoyed such
means in the fruit of the tree of life. Being removed from
this he dies by the essential laws of his existence. So man in
his physical nature is enslaved in common with all things that
are under the reign of physical laws. Yet he is a free intelligence.
He is conscious of his freedom. There is in his
history an abundance of evidence to demonstrate his freedom.
There is also a sufficient amount of evidence to demonstrate
the slavery of his physical nature. But why refer to evidence
here? These are facts of consciousness. Man’s personality
is, in view of all that has been said, grounded upon his mental
or spiritual nature, which was always free, otherwise his identity
is lost forever in the grave. I have said, if the attributes
of person are properties of matter, there is no distinction
between persons and things; in such a case persons would be
things and things would be persons. Here it is easy to see
that the materialistic philosophy upon the subject of man’s
identity changes the ground nature of personality, and
destroys all distinction between persons and things.

Was It Right?

Scientists are the last men upon the earth that should deal
unfairly with the Bible. They profess to investigate, to analyze,
to demonstrate. In one word, they profess to be in the
lead of thought in a very progressive age; therefore we expect
just a little more from them than from the unscientific. But,
alas! many of them are mere socialists, and many who are
[pg 099]
scientists have never investigated the Bible, do not understand
its facts, and are also averse to its claims.

“Science takes account of phenomenon, and seeks to understand
its law.” Now let us apply the test to some of the objectionable
facts of the Bible, and note the result.

Moses said to the children of Israel, Understand, therefore,
this day, that the Lord thy God is he who goeth over
before thee. As a consuming fire he shall destroy them, and
he shall bring them down before thy face; so shalt thou drive
them out and destroy them quickly, as the Lord hath said
unto thee. Deut. 9: 3. This language has reference to the
inhabitants of the land of Canaan. Their wickedness appears
in the following quotations. Deut. 12: 29, 31. When the
Lord thy God shall cut off the nations from before thee, take
heed to thyself that thou be not snared by following them,
and that thou inquire not after their gods, saying, How did
these nations serve their gods? even so will I do likewise.
Thou shalt not do so unto the Lord thy God: for every abomination
to the Lord, which he hateth, have they done unto
their gods; for even their sons and their daughters they have
burnt in the fire to their gods. The destruction of these idolators,
who were burning their own sons and daughters in the
fire, furnishes unbelievers and skeptics with a great deal of
capital, which can be used with ignorance, but not with intelligence.

What was the law governing in the case? The answer is
in these words: The course of conduct which is for the
greatest good of the greatest number is right. This law is
known in the science of civil government. It has its place in
the history of all civil governments. Without it we are unable
to account for the facts known in the history of our own government.
It is a law that lies at the foundation of all moral
and social institutions. Those wicked tribes in the land of
Canaan, and upon its borders, were in the way of the establishment
of any civil institution. It is to be remembered,
also, that the children of Israel did not forfeit their rights in
the land by going down into Egypt in the time of a famine.

[pg 100]

The land was theirs by right of preoccupancy and by gift.
Upon their return from Egypt they found no civil institutions
in the land, but, on the contrary, the people were burning
their own children in the fire. They were also guilty of every
abominable thing that was hateful in the sight of God. They
were utterly unqualified for citizenship in any civil state, so
they were cut off as cankers upon the body.

To the same end, the greatest good to the greatest number,
our government has cut off thousands of better men. When
the children of Israel went into the idolatrous worship of those
wicked heathen and burned their sons and daughters in the
fire to Molech, the Lord gave them statutes and laws which
were not good, and whereby they might not live. He served
them right. How can civil government be perpetuated, or
even exist, in the midst of such heathenish idolatry? If infidel
objections, based upon the destruction of such wicked
hordes as were put to death in Canaan, are worth anything they
are worth enough to sanction, by the protection of civil government,
all manner of abominations that are known among
barbarous heathen.

These enemies of God and the Bible talk as though such an
outrage as burning sons and daughters in the fire to idol gods
should not be visited with such punishment. Would they do
any better? Could they manage such barbarous murderers better
for the general good? If it was possible for a civil government
to allow such characters the rights of citizenship it
would be at the expense of giving license to all other crimes,
for there are no crimes greater in their heinousness than murderous
idolatry. If infidels ever get the power in this or any
other civil government, and carry out the spirit of their lectures
against the God of the Bible, the government will soon
come to an end, and crime of every grade and character will
prevail. American citizens have seen many better men than
old Amalek die. It is possible that a few unbelievers who
were out in the late civil war have seen better men die. It is
possible that a few unbelieving colonels have killed better men
upon Southern battle-fields, and it is possible that a few of them
[pg 101]
are traveling over the country abusing Moses and the God of
the Bible for putting worse men to death.

Let us ever remember that the eternal laws of right, sometimes,
necessitate the destruction of human life. The greatest
good of the greatest number is an object that should always
govern the action of a nation. This law should never be
disregarded. Murder, having no connection with the general
good, is a very different thing. When an individual is
put to death by an individual to gratify malice its relations
are not with the general good.

All sensible men, who are acquainted with the Bible, know
that the facts of the Bible, known in the ancient wars of the
nation of Israel, like the facts known in the wars of our own
nation, would look terrible in the relations of murder. Things
out of their relations are always ugly. A man and a woman
living together as husband and wife outside of the marriage
relation, would be in adultery, while others living in the same
manner, but inside of the matrimonial relation, would be in a
grand and praiseworthy union. Why is it that sensible men
will wrest the Scriptures, taking things out of their proper relations,
and do it to their own condemnation? “Happy is the
man who condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth.”

It Only Needs To Be Seen, And Its Ugliness At Once Appears.

“Are such shams of rights, as caucus-and-ballot-boxism
can give us, worth spending any more time and money and
agitation upon? I ask, and I appeal to what has been most
lyingly named free government in Greece, Rome, England,
Venice, France, the United States, and wherever else it has
been attempted to make permanent the crisis stage of progress
which marks the departure from monarchy. No, my friends,
art-liberty alone can be of any avail…. By art-liberty,
my friends, I mean the practical application of all
science and art systemized as fast as unfolded. The only law
[pg 102]
which can govern a free state must be discovered; it must be
drawn from the whole of science and art—not ‘enacted.’
Human law can no more be ‘enacted’ than can physical law.” …
“Man’s leaders must find out how to satisfy man’s
highest aspirations, instead of catering for his prejudices; instead
of confirming him, by flattery and cajolery, in his false,
supernaturalistic notions; instead of studying the trickery of
representing and plundering him. And they will rapidly find
this out, as soon as a knowledge (already attained) of the
unity of science spreads among them, and along with it its correllate,
that all mankind are one organism, no individual of which can be indifferent to
each and all of the others. Enlightened,
far-seeing, all-benefiting selfishness will then take the
place of short-sighted, suicidal, penny-wise pound-foolish cunning;
and that barricade of hypocrisy, duty, that most fallible
of all guides, conscience, and ‘virtue’ and ‘vice,’ those
most unscientific and mischievous expressions that have ever
crept into the vocabulary of human folly, will be obsolete.”

Here is the outcome of the liberty that infidels talk so much
about. “Art-liberty” is to annihilate conscience and the
distinction between virtue and vice so completely that there
will be no more use for the words, “they will be obsolete.”
“All benefiting selfishness will then govern humanity.” Reader,
are you prepared for such a state of society? “If all contracts
in accordance with present ‘law’ were fulfilled to the letter,
and if all the ‘duties’ enjoined by present moralism were unflinchingly
performed, and if all which ‘virtue’ styles ‘vice’
was entirely abstained from, and if what is now ‘free trade’
according to ‘law,’ had a ‘fair field,’ how long would it take
a millionth of the earth’s inhabitants to accumulate all its
wealth? In my opinion, it would not take ten generations to
produce that reign of ‘law,’ ‘principle,’ ‘morality,’ ‘virtue’
and ‘free trade,’ or mind-your-own-business, and every-one-for-himself-ism,
on the earth.” Are infidels down on law, down
on virtue, down on principle, down on morality, etc.? It
seems so. “But there must be no stealing, swindling or robbery,
as legally defined, on any account; and there must be no
[pg 103]
sexual intercourse out of the bonds of monogamy, even for
bread, and, above all, there must be no acts, or even words of
treason. The laboring man and the laboring woman must patiently
and slowly (nay, not very slowly, I’m thinking,) die
on such wages as they who, in perfect security, hold all the
wealth, choose to give; and those out of work must brave
martyrdom to ‘principle,’ by starving straightway, unless
they can obtain a ‘permit’ to drag out a few months, possibly
years, in sack-cloth and on water-gruel in an almshouse….
Was Thomas Paine here to-day his old remedies,
religious and political popular free discussion and reasoning,
would be thrown aside or only used to assist science and art
to displace them in religious and state affairs.” Truth will
come to the surface! Here it is speaking for itself. The
office of “art-liberty,” the liberty for which infidels plead, is
to destroy popular free discussion and reasoning, allowing
them only in order to destroy themselves, that is, allowing the
infidels to use them to displace them in religious and
state affairs. This is called “art-liberty;”
liberty in art and science, and despotism in religion and politics
or state.
Such a society, plus the absence of conscience, virtue and
vice, is the infidel’s ideal of free government. All this means
is simply “intolerance” by law; intolerance in “religious and
state affairs.”

When such a state of society is brought about in this country
the infidels will have more hell than they will relish. Listen
once more, “Man’s right to be self-governed is, equally with
his desire to be so, self-evident.” How are these infidels going
to have self-government and intolerance by law in matters of
religion and state? This Godless infidel says, “But what is
most insultingly termed ‘elective franchise’ is the farthest
thing possible from self-government…. The popular
free discussion of affairs of the last degree of complication,
religious and state affairs, except during the crisis period of
revolution, only renders that worst of despotisms, anarchy,
chronic; it seats in the social organism that political gangrene,
demagogism, which has always hitherto sooner or later
[pg 104]
required the cauterization of military despotism in order to
save even civilization. Despotism is the most inveterate of
all the diseases of the social organism which ignorance has
inflicted; nay, it is a complication of all its diseases. What,
my fellow-man, would any of you think of the physician who
should consult with an individual organism with a view to
taking that organism’s opinion as to what course he (the physician)
had best pursue in order to cure him (the organism) of
scrofula, complicated with every other bodily disease to which
flesh is heir?… Evidently, church and state management
require art and skill infinitely superior to what ‘supernaturalism’
and its legitimate child monarchism, or its bastard
issue, caucus-and-ballot-boxism, are capable of. From the
dissecting-room, the chemical laboratory, the astronomical
observatory, the physician’s and physiologist’s study—in fine,
from all the schools of science and arts should human law be
declared, instead of being ‘enacted’ in legislative halls by
those who in every respect besides political trickery, fraud and
‘smartness,’ are perfect ignoramuses.” How is all this to be
reconciled with the ideas of self-government set forth by this
author and copied in this article? Who are to be the doctors,
and who are to be the patients? When popular discussion
is confined to art and science, only as it may be used
in order to keep it out of religious and state affairs, who are
to be the popular free disputants? When legislative halls
are done away, along with their progenitors, elective franchise
and representation, and law emanates from all the schools of
science and art by “declaration,” will men be more ready to
obey?

Give the sore-headed, politically gangrened, conscienceless,
virtueless, Godless applauders of Tom Paine what they ask,
and it will simply amount to abandoning our posterity to the
lowest, vilest sensualism known in Pagan geography along the
line or borderland of a foul lust-gratifying, brutalizing hell.
May all Christian people, and every lover of our humanity,
wake up to the importance of giving these wide-mouthed,
blatant infidels, who are traveling over our country howling
[pg 105]
about “liberty of man, woman and child,” a wide berth.
They would like to be the “doctors,” and treat the “orthodox”
people so as to purge “popular free discussion” out of
them, and at the same time have their own stomachs crammed
full of that grace, and so “steal heaven’s livery to serve the
devil.” The above infidelism is copied verbatim from the
“concluding application” of the life of Thomas Paine by
Calvin Blanchard, published in 1879, and being now peddled
over our country. What do our infidel friends mean by so
much ado about liberty as opposed to the present state of
society in our country? Free thought belongs to all. You
can’t chain the mind. What is it that they want? Will they
be so kind as to inform us? Is Calvin Blanchard a representative
of the liberty sought for? Then may we long live
to keep our heels upon it.

Did The Race Ascend From A Low State
Of Barbarism?

The fact that the human mind abhors a contradiction is an
evidence of the Godlike nature of man, and an objection to
the old tenet of total depravity; it is also the secret of the
effort, upon the part of errorists, to systematize. One assumption
creates a demand for another, and thus men who
start wrong, in science or religion, labor under great disadvantages.
When an idea is once consecrated to science or
religion in the human heart it is hard to eradicate. When
you find that you have made a wrong start remember that it
is the part of true manhood to make a frank surrender, and
start anew.

The assumption of the “evolution of species” lays all its
advocates under the necessity of assuming that a low state of
barbarism lies behind the civilization known in the history of
the race as the primitive or first condition of intellect. Now,
as this is a question of fact, an examination of the evidence
pertaining to this second assumption is a matter of primary
[pg 106]
importance. What are the facts bearing upon the question?
With Darwinians the “primeval savage” is a stereotyped
idea, finding expression in every-day language; and an idea
that some scientists (rather sciolists) never get tired of promulgating.
With them primitive man was little removed
from the brute beasts, devoid of knowledge, art, and language—a
creature in a small degree above; and in a great
degree below, the anthropoid apes, from whom it is claimed
he has descended by evolution. Is there any proof of this
primitive inferiority, or savagery, as opposed to civilization?
How does the voice of history speak? It doubtless
shows many instances of improvement, of an advance
from a low condition to a higher one; but what does
the earliest history say as respects the primitive condition of
mankind? Waiving an examination of the Bible history, we
will at once proceed to other sources. In Egypt there are no
indications of an early period of barbarism. All authorities
agree that we find no rude or heathenish time in the far off
history of Egypt out of which civilization was evolved. The
first king known in Egyptian history, Menes, changes the
channel of the river Nile, makes a great reservoir, and erects
the Temple of Phthah at Memphis. His son Athothis is
known as the builder of the Memphite Palace, and as a physician,
who wrote books on anatomy. The pyramid times are
early in Egyptian history; the portrayed scenes in the tombs
of this early period reveal the same habits which existed in
after times. That writing had been long in use is demonstrated
by the hieroglyphics in the Great Pyramid. Go as
far back as you may in Egyptian history, you will find no
primitive barbarous mode of life. Sir Charles Lyell admitted,
in “Antiquity of Man,” p. 90, that “we have no distinct geological
evidence that the appearance of what are called the
inferior races of mankind has always preceded in chronological
order that of the higher races.”

George Rawlinson says Mr. Pengelly made a similar confession
at the meeting of the British Association at Bristol,
in August, 1875. So far as this question of evolution is concerned,
[pg 107]
it is just as easy to establish involution of civilization
into barbarism as evolution of civilization out of barbarism.
Herodotus gives an account of the Geloni, a Greek people,
who were driven from the cities on the northern coast of the
Euxine, and retiring into the interior, lived in wooden huts,
and used a language half Scythian and half Greek. We follow
this people down to the times of Mala and find them fully
barbarous, using the skins of those slain in battle as coverings
both for themselves and their horses. The Copts, of our
times, are degraded descendants of the ancient Egyptians. In
North and South America the descendants of the Spanish
conquerers are poor representatives of those Castilians who,
under Pizarro and Cortez mastered the Peruvian and Mexican
kingdoms, and planted the civilization of the old world in the
new. Civilization is liable to decay, to wane, to deteriorate,
to sink so low that it may be a question whether it is any longer
civilization. In the cases we have alluded to we have a
low degradation retaining evidences of something higher.
In comparative philology we have cases where it is presumed
by the best of critics that a higher state of civilization sank
to the lowest conceivable state of heathenism. The race
existing in Ceylon, known as the “Weddas,” is of this type.
The language of the Weddas is regarded as a base descendant
of the most complete and first known form of Aryan speech,
the Sanskrit; and the Weddas are set down as descendants of
the Sanskritic Aryans, who conquered India. There are no
savages of a more debased type. They do not count beyond
two or three; they have no idea of letters; of all the animals
the dog alone is domesticated; their art consists in making
bows and arrows and constructing rude huts; they are dwindling
and threaten to become extinct. See “Report of the
British Association for the advancement of science, for the
Year 1875,” part 3, p. 175.

Civilization and barbarism are states between which men
oscillate, passing from one to the other with equal ease, according
to the influences brought to bear upon them.

The mythical traditions of almost all peoples place at the
[pg 108]
beginning of the history of the race, a “golden age,” which
is the opposite of savagery and barbarism. The Chinese
speak of a “first heaven,” an age of innocence and a state of
happiness, when “all was beautiful and good, and all beings
were perfect.” Mexican tradition speaks of the golden age
of Tezcuco; and Peruvian history commences with two
“Children of the Sun,” who established civilization on the
borders of Lake Titicaca. The Greeks described their golden
age as follows:

Such is the light that shines from the region where myth
and history meet and wed. Can we go beyond this? There
is no people, east or west, characterized by an uninterrupted
progress from barbarism to civilization. So the theory of
time based upon such an idea is altogether without foundation.

The Flood Viewed From A Scientific And
Biblical Standpoint.

Unbelievers usually pass over the events of the flood with
mockery. There is something about them that is only reconcilable
with the mental condition of the man who says in his
heart, “There is no God.” The old methods of their interpretation
of the Scriptures have been abandoned in many particulars.
[pg 109]
This is the result of two things: first, progression
in scientific knowledge; and, second, the Bible was always
ahead of science in its scientific allusions. Now, it is known
to scientists that there is, at the lowest calculation, forty-eight
times more water in our seas and oceans than Keill was willing
to allow when he made the objection that it would require the
waters of twenty-eight oceans to give us Noah’s flood. The
objection was, “there is not water enough.” Men seemed to
think that the earth contained the water; that the water was
standing in the earth. This was very natural, for people generally
live upon the land. The Bible, however, presented a
different idea, saying, the earth was “standing out of the water
and in the water.”

When the Scriptures speak upon this subject they refer to
the waters just as a man would who never had any misgivings
upon the subject of their sufficiency. Their teachings are in
harmony with recent scientific discovery, and against old-fashioned
unbelief.

Before Galileo’s time men would have been regarded insane
if they had asserted the gravity of the air, but the Bible contained
the fact. It was laid away in Job 28: 25: “For he
looketh to the ends of the earth and seeth under the whole
heaven to make the weight for the winds; and he weigheth
the waters by measure.”

The force that is required annually in nature to give us the
upper waters, to form the clouds, is estimated by Arago to be
more than the labor of four hundred million of able bodied
men, continued two hundred thousand years.—Aunuaire
du bur. des. longit., 1835, p. 196.

The Scriptures speak of floods and disorders that unbelievers
of the bygone considered incredible, but in the present
time geologists feel that the half was not told, for they are unable
to account for all the destructions found in their investigations.
The events known in the geological history are only
in harmony with the fact that our planet has been subjected
to immense submersions. They are scientifically described
thus: An internal fire which, raising the temperature
[pg 110]
of the seas and of the deep waters, caused on the one
side an enormous evaporation and impetuous rains, as if the
flood-gates of heaven were opened; and, on the other, an irresistible
dilation, which not only raised the waters from their
depths, broke up the fountains of the great abyss, and raised
its powerful waves to the level of the highest mountains, but
which caused immense stratifications of calcareous carbonate,
under the double pressure of a great heat and a pressure equal
to eight thousand atmospheres.—Gansen, p. 195.

The same author gives us the following, which will be beneficial
to the scholar: “Water is dilated 1-23 in passing from
the temperature of ice melting to that of water boiling. An
elevation of from sixteen to seventeen degrees Reaumer will
then increase its volume 1-111. Now, we find by an easy calculation
that the quantity of water necessary to submerge the
earth to the height of 1-1000 of the radius of our globe is
equal to 1-333 of its entire volume, or 1-111 of its third. If,
then, we suppose that the one third of the terrestrial globe is
metallic (at the mean specific gravity of 12-1/2), that the second
third is solid (at the weight of 21), and that the remaining
third is water; then, first, the specific gravity of the entire
globe will be equal to 5-1/2 (according to the conclusions of
Maskeline and of Cavendish); and, secondly, it will have been
sufficient for the submersion of the earth to the height of
6,368 metres, or 1,546 metres above Mount Blanc; that the
temperature of the mass of the water in the days of the deluge
should have risen to sixteen degrees Reaumer is a reasonable
conclusion.” This calculation also has reference to the unnecessary
idea that the flood was universal. But why is it that a
few men recognize the existence of a God omnipotent and ridicule
the flood?

The sufficiency of the ark is also called in question. Buffon
says the various species of four-footed animals may be
reduced to two hundred and fifty. And Dr. Hales shows conclusively
that the ark had the capacity of bearing forty-two
thousand four hundred and thirteen tons. He says: Can we
doubt of it being sufficient to contain eight persons and about
[pg 111]
two hundred and fifty pair of four-footed animals, together
with all the subsistence necessary for twelve months, with the
fowls of the air and such reptiles and insects as can not live
in water? Besides places for the beasts and birds and their
provisions, Noah might find room in the third story for thirty-six
cabins occupied by household utensils, instruments of husbandry,
books, grains and seeds, for a kitchen, a hall, and a
space of about forty-eight cubits in length to walk in. In
addition to all this, it is conceded, by the very best minds conversant
with ship building, that Moses’ description of the
dimensions of the ark are the descriptions of one of the very
best floating vessels that ever rested upon the waters. This
fact has puzzled the minds of many unbelievers who seem to
think there was but little scientific knowledge in that early
period. They do not believe that God was with Noah. He
Was.

The Mosaic Law In Greece, In Rome, And
In The Common Law Of England.

There is no logical reason against the thought that God gave
to man law in the gift of speech or language. Speech is not
natural to man. He does not express his feelings and passions
with sighs and groans systematically and invariably as
do the lower animals. The speechless child has no order of
this kind; the lower kingdom differs widely from man in this
respect; the same animals have the same manner of expressing
their feelings and passions throughout the world; but
man has language to express ideas. Infants learn to speak by
imitation; they do not speak naturally. Language is the
result of education, of the imitative faculty of man. “It has
been experimentally demonstrated that a man who has never
heard the articulations of the human voice can never speak.”
So deafness always carries dumbness along with it when that
deafness is from birth, or contracted in early childhood. I
have in my mind at the present moment two bright-eyed girls
in their “teens,” who contracted deafness in infancy from the
[pg 112]
spotted fever; both are destitute of speech. If there ever was
a language of nature it was abandoned when artificial language
was taught. The greatest philosophers have failed to
account for the origin of language or speech. The Pagans
have declared that it was a gift from the gods. If all the
inhabitants of the world could be congregated, and all would
consent to the use of one and the same vocabulary, then we
might, through universal training in that vocabulary, have an
universal language. How could such a convention be assembled?
The truth is, the origin of language or speech is
neither natural or conventional, but imitative, and it is a
fact, beyond the possibility of cavil, that the thing must have
existed before it could have been imitated. With whom did
it exist? “We think by words, and infants think by things.”
Words were from God.

Two lessons we must have as a capital to work with, and all
else that we need will grow legitimately out of exercise in
those two. “First, The elementary ideas. Second, The elementary
words significant to them.” Such was doubtless
given man, as the Bible teaches, as a capital stock, and all
languages are, directly or indirectly, from this original stock,
and its results upon the human understanding; for who can
set limits to possibilities of the human mind when once it is
furnished with a capital stock and learned the art of its use?
In Europe twenty-seven languages are known, which are
kindred branches from three roots, and these three roots are
scions of one stock; all languages are traceable to one stock.
The Bible alone accounts for the origin of speech, which was,
doubtless, the origin of law. Chaldea, Media, Persia, Phœnicia
and Egypt, under the sovereignty of Chedorlaomer, had
everything in legislative knowledge to learn from the Hebrews.
This “Chedorlaomer was king of Elam, in Persia, in
the times of Abraham. He made the cities in the region of
the Dead Sea his tributaries; and on their rebelling he came
with four allied kings and overran the whole country south
and east of the Jordan. Lot was among his captives, but was
rescued by Abraham.” See Zell’s Encyclopedia. Lycurgus,
[pg 113]
a celebrated legislator of Sparta, who was born 926 years
before Christ, gave an agrarian law that finds its prototype,
without its defects, in the agrarian law of the Hebrews. Solon,
one of the seven wise men of Greece, who died 558 years
before Christ, transcribed, from the laws of Moses, the laws
prohibiting certain degrees in marriage. The laws of descent,
among the Grecians, are almost identical with the laws of descent
among the Jews. The Grecians borrowed many laws
from the Hebrews. They had their harvest vintage festival;
the presentation of the best of their flocks; the offering of
their first fruits, and the portion prescribed to their priests;
the law against garments of divers colors; protection from
violence to the man who fled to their altars; the law prohibiting
all from the altar who had touched a dead body or any
other impurity; the law prohibiting from the priesthood all
those having blemishes upon their persons. All these laws,
found in the Athenian code, had their origin with the laws of
the Hebrews—were taken from Moses.

During the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, who was the
brother of Darius, and who ascended the throne of the kingdom
of Persia in the year 465 before Christ, the Jews were
scattered all over the kingdom of Persia, and their laws were
the subject of conversation and notoriety. Haman speaks of
them to the king as differing from the laws of all other people.

The oldest and most noted legislators and wise men took
their laws from the law of Moses. The Egyptians and the
Phœnicians borrowed from the Jewish laws. Ancient and
modern writers affirm that the individuals commissioned by
the Senate and tribune under Justinian to form the “Twelve
Tables” were directed to examine the laws of Athens and the
Grecian cities. This took them at once to the consideration
of many of the laws of Moses. Zell, in his Encyclopedia, says:
The glory of Justinian’s reign is the famous digest of the
Roman law, known generally as the Justinian code, which was
compiled out of the Gregorian, Theodorian and Hermogenian
codes, by ten of the ablest lawyers of the empire, under the
[pg 114]
guiding genius of the Jurisconsult Tribonian. Their labors
consisted, first, of the “Statute Law.” Second, The “Pandects,”
a digest of the decisions and opinions of former magistrates
and lawyers. These two compilations consisted of
matter that lay scattered through more than two thousand volumes,
now reduced to fifty. Third, The “Institutes,” an
abridgement in four books, containing the substance of all the
laws in the elementary form. Fourth, The laws of modern
date, including Justinian’s own edicts, collected into one volume
and called the “New Code.”

The word “Pandects” is a term of great importance in the
investigation of the origin of the Roman laws; it points directly
and certainly to the fact that the Roman laws, known as
the Pandects, were gathered from all laws, for such is the import
of the term itself when it is associated with the term laws.
Moreover, it is a Greek term, showing at once that the Grecian
laws contributed largely to the Pandects of the Roman
laws. The term is defined by Liddel and Scott in the words,
all-receiving, all-containing, so the
Pandects were gathered
from all laws, consequently from the laws of Moses as well as
from the Grecian laws, which were largely from the laws of
Moses. This relationship, existing in the science of law, between
the laws of the Bible and the Roman laws gotten up
under Justinian, can be set aside by the infidels when stubborn
facts, as well as similitude, are set aside.

Sir Matthew Hale says: Among the many preferences
which the laws of England have above others, the two principal
ones are, the hereditary transmission of property and the
trial by jury, which originated with the Jews, for, by the law
of Moses, the succession in the descending line was to the sons,
the oldest having a double portion. If the son died in his
father’s lifetime, the grandson heired the portion of his father.
Trial by jury was first suggested in the administration of penal
justice among the Jews. Such trials came off publicly in the
gates of the city, and their judges were elders and Levites,
taken from the general mass of the citizens. “A part of the
common law, as it now stands, was first collected by Alfred
[pg 115]
the Great, youngest son of Athelwolf, or Ethelwolf, King of
the West Saxons, who took the crown in 871. It is asserted
by Sismondi, in his history of the fall of the Roman Empire,
that when the above named prince caused a republication of
the Saxon laws he inserted several laws taken from the Judaical
ritual into his statutes to give new strength and cogency to
the principles of morality. So it is a common thing in the
early English reports to find frequent references to the Mosaic
law. Sismondi also states that one of the first acts of the
clergy under Pepin and Charlemagne, of France, was to introduce
into the legislation of the Franks several of the Mosaic
laws found in the books of Deuteronomy and Leviticus. It
is truthfully said that the entire code of civil and judicial statutes
throughout New England, and throughout the States first
settled by the descendants of New England, were the judicial
laws of God as they were delivered by Moses. From God
himself one nation, and one only, received their laws, and
they are worthy of being regarded as models for all succeeding
ages. The learned Michaelis, who was professor of law in the
University of Gottingen, says that a man who considers laws
philosophically, who would survey them with the eye of a
Montesquieu, would never overlook the laws of Moses.”

Goguet, in his learned treatise upon the origin of laws, says:
The more we meditate on the laws of Moses the more we shall
perceive their wisdom and inspiration. They alone have undergone
no changes, amendments or retrenchments for more
than three thousand years, while all others have been receiving
amendments and additions.

Milman, in his history of the Jews, says: The Hebrew
law-giver exercised a more extensive and permanent influence
over the destinies of mankind than any other individual in
the annals of the world. The late Fisher Ames, a distinguished
statesman and jurist, said, “No man can be a sound lawyer
who is not well read in the laws of Moses.” The seat of this
law is the bosom of God, and her voice is the order, peace and
happiness of the world.

Did Adam Fall Or Rise?

The old scholastic ideas of “total hereditary depravity, and
miraculous conversion,” with their correllates, have driven
more minds into doubt and skepticism than most of men are
apprised of. The reasons are evident. First. Common sense
shrinks from them as ideas which are destructive of every
principle of human responsibility. Second. They are opposed
to the testimony of consciousness which asserts the soul’s freedom.
Third. They are opposed to correct ideas of justice as
it is administered in all governments, both human and divine.

“And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as
one of us to know good and evil.” Our fathers, of Calvinistic
type of faith, used to tell us that this language only asserted
Adam’s experience of conscious guilt; that he knew
good before he transgressed, and had experimental knowledge
of evil after he transgressed. This was the best they could do
and save their Calvinism, and even this would not have saved
it in the days of investigation like ours. The Lord did not
say, “The man is become as one of us knowing good and
evil,” but “the man is become as one of us to know good and
evil.” The old view of the subject virtually says, The Lord
had experimental knowledge of both good and evil, and that
the way in which Adam became Godlike was the way of the
transgressor. Then the greatest Godlikeness is the result of the
greatest sinning. What nonsense! The Bible says: “And the
eyes of them both were opened, and they knew they were naked;
and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons.”
The account also asserts that the “tree of knowledge of good
and evil” was “a tree to be desired to make one wise.” Total
depravity and its correllates could never have been found in
this context. This history is not responsible for it, nor for
the mischiefs it has produced.

The Heavenly Father knew, when he created man, that he
would fail upon trial. To have prevented this would have
been nothing short of an interference with man’s freedom,
[pg 117]
and consequently his responsibility, without which he could
not have been man. The Lord saw man in his alien state and
in his return to holiness. He “made of one blood all nations
of men to dwell upon all the face of the earth, and determined
the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation,
that they should seek the Lord.”—See Acts 17: 26. It was
necessary that man should become as God to know good and
evil in order that he might be continued upon trial in a world
of good and evil. To this end the Divine Ruler placed in the
test fruit, the fruit of the tree that was forbidden, a mental
lever to endow man with wisdom as God to know good and
evil, without which the man’s responsibility in relation to good
and evil could never have been.

The fruit of the tree of life was for man’s physical nature;
was to control the law of organic being, regulating waste and
supply so as to prevent the present effects of old age, and keep
man in perpetual conditions of youth. After man had sinned,
with the knowledge of good and evil, he was master of his
position, and now, lest he “put forth his hand and take of the
tree of life, and eat and live forever,” subjected to shame, to
torment, to anguish and tribulation, mental suffering, a lost
being in the state of abandoned fallen angels, with a possibility
of corrupting his conscience until it should be past feeling,
seared as with a hot iron, and so glory in his shame; or, otherwise,
be beyond the motive power of life and the restraining
power of death, the Infinite One placed him beyond the reach
of the tree of life. All of these ways or doings of the Heavenly
Father were right, were merciful, were best for man.
The ways of God are right. The ways of God are best.
Farewell to “total hereditary depravity, and farewell to all its
necessary correllations, such as miraculous conversion,” etc.

Man is mentally endowed with wisdom by the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil; is kept from ruining himself
forever by being placed beyond the reach of the tree of life;
is continued upon trial in a world of good and evil; is responsible
through his knowledge of good and evil, and the motive
power of life, and the restraining power of death is preserved
[pg 118]
to control him for his own eternal good; and, blessed be the
name of our Heavenly Father, his eyes are open; so if man
goes to perdition he must go with his eyes open. In all this
we have perfect harmony with all Bible duty and truth, and
also with science and universal consciousness of freedom and
ability to choose and act. Not by a hair’s breadth has God
ever infringed upon the freedom of the soul to shape and
mould its own moral character, and shape its own moral destiny;
but he has done many wonderful things to better the
condition of the free soul—not forsaking it in the hour of
greatest need.

The soul’s free, voluntary service is that which constitutes
the requirement of religion in all the ages.

Did They Dream It, Or Was It So?

That there was such a person as Jesus Christ living in the land
of Judea at the time allowed by all Christians is no longer
disputed by unbelievers. That he lived a life far superior
to the lives of all other men is also conceded. If the powers
of life and death were under his control he was more than
human. If he rose from the dead he was the Son of God.
Did he rise? This is a question upon which the whole Christian
scheme hinges. What was the nature of the fact? Was
it one about which men could be mistaken? Was it a fact
which, occurring, addressed itself to the senses? If it was
the witnesses could not be mistaken. There is not a court in
the universe that would allow it.

There are things about which wise men may be mistaken,
but they are not things which address themselves to the senses.
Those are things in which fools may not, can not, be mistaken.
It is impossible for my wife to be mistaken about my presence
at this moment, but it is just as possible as it was for any of
the first witnesses of Christ’s resurrection to be mistaken.
They were not, they could not be mistaken. Then what becomes
of Strauss’s mythical idea. What folly it is to allow
[pg 119]
that those witnesses were perfectly honest, enthusiastically and
proverbially honest in all they said, and yet mistaken.

This moral honesty and enthusiasm which Strauss and
others allow to the credit of the witnesses is undoubtedly designed
as a feeler—a mere catering to the views of Christians
upon the character of the first Christians. Very good fellows
(?) after all. How is that? If one of my neighbors
would go into a court room to-morrow and testify under oath
that he was with me yesterday, and the court was in possession
of the fact that I was not with him, or near him at all, would
it allow honesty to the witness? Would not every sensible
man say, in his heart, he is a perjured witness? If he was
with Walker he knew it; and if he was not with him he
knew it.

Gentlemen, exercise all your shrewdness, adopt Strauss’s
idea of a mythical origin of the gospel of Christ, both as respects
his miracles, which were either seen or not seen, and as
respects his resurrection, then spread the blanket of honesty
and warm-hearted enthusiasm over those men who sacrificed
everything, life not excepted, for the testimony which they
bore, and the next day any well-instructed judge of our courts
would say, it is nonsense; they could not be mistaken about
any fact which addressed itself to their eyes and ears. Christ
rose from the dead if the witnesses told the truth; and the
witnesses told the truth if they were honest men; and if they
were not honest, labor, toil, suffering and martyrdom are no
evidences of sincerity.

Can you believe in harmony without believing in a harmonist?

Can you believe that all things in nature adjusted themselves
to each other?

Can you believe that life, and mind, and moral nature, each
and all came from where neither existed?

Miscellaneous.

Voltaire built a church to God at Ferney.

Can you believe that your great ancestors were apes?

Do you oppose the Bible and prefer its legitimate effects?

Huxley wants the Bible introduced into boarding schools.

Can you believe in design without believing in a designer?

Tyndal says the theory of evolution of species is utterly
uncredited.

Can you believe that the type which made these letters set
themselves up?

The Saturday Review says Hume used to go to church sometimes
in Scotland.

Can you believe that mind is the result of blind, unintelligent,
mechanical forces?

Tyndal says spontaneous generation is the one essential pillar
of evolution of species.

Tyndal says the failures to produce spontaneous life by experimenting
are lamentable.

Collins insisted on his servants going to church “that they
might not rob or murder him.”

Can you believe that worlds hung themselves together and
move themselves, as one grand whole, through space?

Can you believe that the correllation of things in nature
was without design? that such adaptations as light to the
eye was unintended?

Can you be honest in exerting your influence against the
religion of Jesus Christ while it is your candid conviction that
a country is better off with it than without it?

Do you sometimes say you prefer to live where there are
churches and Sunday-schools, and all their appliances for the
bettering of the condition of humanity, and at the same time
constantly find fault with the Bible and religion which creates
such things? If such is your course, are you strictly honest?