D.—PENALTIES OF NEGLECT.
The conversion of Rome, which theologians are fond of representing as the crowning miracle of Christianity, was a natural consequence of its pessimistic tendencies, which could not fail to recommend themselves to the instincts of a decrepit generation. “Worn-out sensualists consoled themselves with the hope of a better hereafter. Cowards pleased themselves with the idea of fulfilling the duty of meek submission to the injustice of the ‘powers that be.’ Monastic drones denounced the worldliness of industrial enterprises. Physical indolence welcomed the discovery that ‘bodily exercise profiteth but little.’ Envious impotence insisted on the duty of self-abasement. Transgressors against the health-laws of Nature relied upon the efficacy of the prayer-cure. Stall-fed priests sneered at the lean philosopher who wasted his time upon laborious inquiries, while he might wax fat on faith and the sacrifices of the pious. The demon-dogma was a godsend to the spiritual poverty of the elect. The so-called scholars of the Galilean church, who could not encounter the pagan philosophers on their own ground, found it very convenient to postulate a spook for every unknown phenomenon.… Despots before long recognized the mistake of persecuting a creed which inculcated the duty of passive submission to oppressors” (Secret of the East, p. 54).
They also recognized the advantage of a spiritual excuse for the infamy of their ingratitude to the secular benefactors of mankind. Cæsar and Trajan [[179]]treated the humblest centurion as a friend rather than as a servant. Constantine and Justinian treated the ablest ministers like slaves who can be forced to toil, and turned out to starve after having worn out their strength in the service of the Lord’s anointed. Belisarius, after repeatedly saving his master from well-deserved ruin, was sacrificed to the spite of a crowned harlot, and left to beg his bread in the streets of the city which his valor alone had for years protected from the rage of hostile armies. Aetius, who had saved all Europe by stemming the torrent of Hunnish conquest, was treated like a rebellious slave for refusing to betray his brave allies, and the stipulated pay of his veterans was squandered on pimps and clerical parasites. Charles Martel, whose heroism turned the scales against the power of the invading Moriscos, was openly reviled by the very priests who owed him the preservation of their lives, as well as of their livings; his image was dragged in the mire, his soul consigned to the pit of torment—all for having defrayed the costs of his campaign by tithing prelates as well as laymen. Columbus was loaded with chains by the pious prince whose castles he had filled with the treasures of a new world; the philosopher Vanini was betrayed to death by a Christian spy who had for years enjoyed his confidence and his hospitality. John Huss was surrendered by the imperial priest-slave whose own hand had signed the document of his safe-conduct. The earl of Stafford was sacrificed by the crowned Jesuit who divided his time between prayers for the theological interests of his subjects and plots for the [[180]]subversion of their political liberties. The dogma of self-denial has not prevented our financial pharisees from amassing fortunes that would dwarf the spoils of a Roman triumphator; but the hospitality of Mæcenas has not survived the religion of Nature. Our philosophers have to study the problems of life in a personal struggle for existence; our poets have to choose between starvation and hypocrisy. Patriots are left to the consoling reflection that virtue is its own reward. The endowers of theological seminaries seem to rely on the mercy of Christ to cancel the odium of their shortcomings in the recognition of secular merit. Kepler, Campanella, and Spinoza perished in penury. Locke and Rousseau, the recognized primates of the intellectual world, were left to languish in exile, admired and neglected by a host of “friends”—Christian friends—in every city of the civilized world. Schubert, Buerger, and Frederick Schiller, the idols of a poetry-loving nation, were left to fight the bitter struggle for existence to an extreme of which all the records of pagan antiquity furnish only a single parallel. Anaxagoras, the founder of a philosophic school counting its disciples by thousands, was left to languish in exile, till the rumor of his extreme distress brought the most illustrious of those disciples to the sick-bed of his neglected teacher. “Do not, do not leave us!” he cried, in an agony of remorse; “we cannot afford to lose the light of our life!”
“O Pericles,” said the dying exile, “those who need a lamp should take care to supply it with oil!”
But how many lights of our latter-day lives have [[181]]thus been extinguished before their time! Not one of the plethoric British aristocrats who spiced their leisure with the sweets of poetry ever dreamed of relieving the cruel distress of Robert Burns, or of cutting the knot of the financial embroglio that strangled out the life of Sir Walter Scott.