PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.
One other preliminary word should be said before coming directly to Mr. Schroeder's theory and argument, and that in relation to the authorities on which the gentleman relies for the support of his views. Of course I am not unacquainted with the old controversy concerning the degree of credibility to be allowed to interested witnesses, and also the suspicion that attaches to witnesses for the miraculous. I have too long sustained in public debate an unpopular cause not to have heard the cry that the witnesses for the truth for which I contended were "interested witnesses;" notwithstanding those who were my opponents, at the same time accepted Christianity on the testimony of "interested witnesses," and discarded entirely the testimony of unfriendly witnesses, or "interested witnesses" on the opposite side of the case. I trust that the suggestion in this paragraph will indicate the unfairness of discrediting and discarding entirely the testimony of the witnesses for Joseph Smith's account of the origin of the Book of Mormon, on the ground that they are "interested witnesses," and taking for truth the statements of the "interested witnesses" on the other side of the controversy.
I have some acquaintance also with that school of thought which discredits witnesses of the miraculous. I am familiar with the laborious exposition of that theory by the late Professor Huxley in his article on "The Value of Witnesses to the Miraculous;"[6] and also with his controversy on the same subject with Dr. Henry Wace, prebendary of St. Paul's Cathedral, and other Church of England ministers.[7] One could scarcely live in this critical age of ours and be unaware of the existence of the school of thought which undertakes to bar from the court of public debate the testimony of those who are witnesses of things held to "transcend human experience." Such testimony, it is said, suggests "credulity on the one hand and fraud on the other."[8]
[Footnote 6: The Nineteenth Century Review, March, 1889.]
[Footnote 7: The Nineteenth Century Review, February, 1889; also March, April, May and June of the same magazine.]
[Footnote 8: "A supernatural relation cannot be accepted as such, * * it always implies credulity or imposture," Renan's "Life of Jesus," introduction, p. 45.]
And still, both in the history of the past and now, witnesses of the so-called miraculous are factors to be reckoned with in our world's controversies.
It may be true that the future will disclose the fact that very much which in the past has been regarded as miraculous, as transcending "all sane, human experience," to use a phrase of Mr. Schroeder's, is only such because of human ignorance at the time of a witnessed event, and that miracles only exist for the ignorant. Still I concede that one needs to be upon his guard respecting this class of evidence, for man's love for the marvelous leads him into strange self-deceptions, as also the practice of deception upon others. But while conceding this on the one hand, on the other I desire to call attention to a matter entirely neglected by Mr. Schroeder, namely, the general untrustworthiness of testimony in religious controversies, where those considering themselves orthodox feel called upon to resist what are supposed to be religious innovations. The truth of this is supported by all ecclesiastical history. Even pious men, where the innovations especially contravene particular doctrines or theories of established institutions in which they are interested, often become utterly unreliable as witnesses in matters where their opponents are concerned.
So universally is the fact here pointed out accepted that citations of particular instances are scarcely necessary as proof. But lest others forget the fact, as Mr. Schroeder apparently has forgotten it, let me ask: Is Roman Catholic historical testimony regarded as reliable where facts relating to Protestants and the Protestant movement are concerned? Where does Martin Luther stand if the testimony of Catholic contemporaries or the representations of Catholic historians are to determine his place in history? A treatise upon the "Protestant Reformers" and the value of the sixteenth century "Reformation," based wholly upon "Bossuet's Variations," and other writers of his kind, would not be regarded as of any special value among intelligent people. And Catholics have fared but little better at the hands of Protestants. The testimony of either party against the other is quite generally regarded with suspicion by those who stand aloof from their controversies, while the respective parties to the discussions mutually denounce each other as false witnesses, until "Catholic lie" and "Protestant misrepresentation" are cries and counter-cries that echo and re-echo through all the pages of Catholic and, Protestant controversial and historical literature.
But let us look further up the historic stream of sectarian animosity. What of Jesus, the Son of God himself? If the sectarian Jews, his contemporaries, are alone to be the accepted witnesses of his words and actions and character, what would be the effect of their testimony upon the historic Christ? It would make him base born, a wine bibber, an associate of harlots, publicans and sinners; it would make him an innovator of sacred customs, a desecrator of the temple, a seditious person, a blasphemer. And so well did the sectaries of his day succeed in making themselves believe that the populace of Jerusalem surged through the streets crying "crucify him, crucify him!" and he was condemned by the Sanhedrin to death, from which fate not even a friendly disposed Roman procurator could save him. The sectarian Jews suborned witnesses, who either swore falsely against the Christ, or wrongly interpreted his words and actions; and all this in a holy zeal for the preservation of the established order of things among the Jews. After his resurrection the same characters bribed the Roman guard set to watch the sepulchre, put a lie into their mouths, and pledged their influence as a guarantee against punishment from their superior officers for the neglect of duty involved in the falsehood they were bribed to tell.[9] What was Paul's experience with the same sectarian Jews after he became a proselyte to the Christian faith? Briefly told, the same in character as his master's.[10] So well known is the fact of sectarian bitterness; such the zeal of the orthodox for the established faith, that the Emperor Julian, usually called the "Apostate," who both understood and derided the theological disputes of the hostile Christian sects, invited to the palace the leaders of the hostile sects, that he might enjoy the agreeable spectacle of their furious encounters.
[Footnote 9: Matthew xxvi, 59-70; see also xxvi, xxvii.]
[Footnote 10: See Acts of the Apostles from Chapters viii to xxvii, inclusive.]
"The clamor of controversy sometimes provoked the emperor to exclaim, 'Hear me! The Franks have heard me, and the Alemanni;' but he soon discovered that he was now engaged with more obstinate and implacable enemies; and though he exerted the powers of oratory to persuade them to live in concord, or at least in peace, he was perfectly satisfied, before he dismissed them from his presence, that he had nothing to dread from the union of the Christians."[11]
[Footnote 11: "History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," by Edward Gibbon, chap. xxiii.]
Such the bitterness of sectarian strife, in which the orthodox party has ever been as harsh, as untruthful, as unscrupulous, as resourceful at invention of evil things, as savage and cruel as the heretics have been. Nay, in the sum of such things the preponderance is on their side.