Liberty in the Nineteenth Century

by Frederic May Holland

Ingersoll is not merely a destroyer but an earnest pleader for what he calls the gospel of cheerfulness and good health, "the gospel of water and soap," the gospels of education, liberty, justice, and humanity. He regards "marriage as the holiest institution among men"; but holds that "the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more; and that is the right to be protected." He believes fully "in the democracy of the family," and "in allowing the children to think for themselves." He is not so much interested as Bradlaugh was in political reform and social progress, but has often taken the conservative side; and his speaking in public has been more like an occasional recreation than a life-work. Some of his lectures have had an immense circulation as pamphlets; and his Biblical articles in the North American Review attracted much notice. He is never at his best, however, without an audience before him; and he sometimes writes too rapidly to be strictly accurate.

IV. A better parallel to Bradlaugh is furnished by Mr. B. F. Underwood, who was only eighteen when he began to lecture in Rhode Island. The great revival of 1857 was in full blast; and he showed its evils with an energy which called down much denunciation from the pulpit. He spoke from the first as an evolutionist, though Darwin had not yet demonstrated the fact. To and fro through the Connecticut valley went the young iconoclast, speaking wherever he could find hearers, asking only for repayment of expenses, and sometimes failing to receive even that. His work was interrupted by the war, in which he took an active and honourable part. When peace was restored, he studied thoroughly the Origin of Species and the Descent of Man; and he began in 1868 to give course after course of lectures on Darwinism in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. The new view had been nine years before the public, but had received little or no support from any clergyman in the United States, or any journal except The Investigator.

For thirty years Mr. Underwood has been busily propagating evolutionism on the platform, as well as in print. No other American has done so much to make the system popular, or has reproduced Herbert Spencer's statements with such fidelity. He has taken especial pains to prove that "evolution disposes of the theory that the idea of God is innate," as well as of the once mighty argument from design. He has said a great deal about the Bible and Christianity, but in a more constructive spirit than either Bradlaugh or Ingersoll. He has discredited old books by unfolding new truth. Among his favourite subjects have been: "What Free Thought Gives us in Place of the Creeds," "The Positive Side of Modern Liberal Thought," "If you Take away Religion, what will you Give in its Place?" "The Influence of Civilisation on Christianity." He has always shown himself in favour of the interests of working-men, and also of women's rights and other branches of political reform. During the twelve years ending in 1881, he lectured five or six times a week for at least nine months out of twelve, often travelling from Canada to Arkansas and Oregon. Occasionally he spoke every night for a month; but he has seldom lectured in summer, except when on the Pacific coast.

His lectures in Oregon in 1871 on evolution awoke much opposition in the pulpits. Two years afterwards he held a debate in that State against a clergyman who was president of a college, and who denounced evolution as in conflict with "the Word of God." Such views were then prevalent in that city; but in 1888 it was found by Mr. Underwood to have become the seat of the State University, where the new system was taught regularly. Underwood, like Bradlaugh, has always challenged discussion, and he has held over a hundred public debates. The first was in 1867; and some have occupied twenty evenings. Most of his opponents have been clergymen; and a hundred and fifty of the profession were in the audience at one contest in Illinois in 1870. How much public opinion differs in various States of the Union is shown by the fact that nine years later the doors of a hall which had been engaged for him in Pennsylvania were closed against him, merely because he was "an infidel." His friends broke in without his consent; and he was fined $70. The first lecture which he tried to give in Canada was prevented by similar dishonesty. Another hall was hired for the next night at great expense; but much interruption was made by clergymen; and when suit was brought for damages through breach of contract, the courts decided that bargains with unbelievers were not binding in Canada.

Both Bradlaugh and Underwood have usually spoken extempore, but both have been busy journalists. The American agitator wrote as early as 1856 for both The Liberator and The Investigator. His connection with the latter paper lasted until the time when a serious difference of opinion arose between those aggressive unbelievers who called themselves "freethinkers," or even "infidels," and those moderate liberals who belong to the Free Religious Association, and formerly supported The Index. This journal came in 1881 under the management of Mr. Underwood. His colleague, Rev. W. J. Potter, was nominally his equal in authority; but I know, from personal acquaintance with both gentlemen, that the real editor from first to last was Mr. Underwood. It was mainly due to him that much attention was given, both in the columns of the journal and in the meetings of the association, to efforts for secularising the State. He was in charge of The Index until it stopped at the end of 1886. In 1882 he held a discussion in Boston with the president of Williams College, and Professor Gray, the great botanist, on the relations between evolution and "evangelical religion." About four hundred orthodox clergymen were present. In 1897 Mr. Underwood was still in his original occupation. Early that year he lectured in Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Canada. He now believes, like Emerson, in "a higher origin for events than the will I call mine."

V. The difference of opinion among liberals, just referred to, grew out of the agitation for a free Sunday, which had been begun by Frances Wright in 1828. A call for "an anti-Sabbath convention" in Boston was issued by some Transcendentalists in 1848, when men had recently been imprisoned in Massachusetts for getting in hay, and in Pennsylvania for selling anti-slavery books. Churches were closed on Sunday against lecturers for any reform, however popular; and even the most innocent amusement was prohibited by public opinion. Only a moderate protest had any chance of a hearing; but Garrison and the other managers insisted in the call that "the first day of the week is no holier than any other," and refused to allow anyone who did not believe this to speak. Very little was said about what the Sunday laws really were; but most of the time was occupied with arguments that the Sabbath was only for the Jews, and that keeping Sunday is not a religious duty. This last assertion called out an earnest remonstrance from Theodore Parker; but his resolutions were voted down. The Garrisonians insisted, as usual, that the big end of the wedge ought to go in first; and their convention was a failure. Twenty-eight years went by without any protest of importance against Sunday laws in America.

Meantime the Free Religious Association was organised in Boston by Unitarian clergymen who were indignant at the recent introduction into their denomination of a doctrinal condition of fellowship. The first public meeting, on May 30, 1867, called out an immense audience. Emerson was one of the speakers; and he held his place among the vice-presidents as long as he lived. A similar position was offered to Lucretia Mott, but she declined on the platform. Her reason was that practical work was subordinated to theological speculation by the announcement in the constitution that the association was organised "to promote the interests of pure religion, to encourage the scientific study of theology, and to increase fellowship in the Spirit." These phrases were altered afterwards; but the association has always been, in the words of one of its leading members "a voice without a hand." Free religious conventions have regularly increased the confusion of tongues in that yearly Boston Babel called "Anniversary Week"; and there have been many similar gatherings in various cities; but not one in four of these meetings has given much attention to any practical subject, like the use of the Bible in the public schools. A vigorous discussion of the Sunday laws of Massachusetts took place in 1876, under peculiar circumstances to be described in the next section; but there was no other until 1887. The Index started in 1870; but it was largely occupied with vague speculations about theology; and its discontinuance in 1886 left the association without any organ of frequent communication among its members, or even an office for business. Dr. Adler, who became president in 1878, tried to awaken an interest in unsectarian education, and especially in ethical culture; but he resigned on account of lack of support; and the Ethical Culture societies were started outside of the association. Comparatively few of its members took any interest in the petitions presented by its direction to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1884 and 1885, asking for taxation of churches, protection of witnesses from molestation on account of unbelief, and rescue of the Sunday law from giving sanctuary to fraud. The president acknowledged in 1892 that there had been a "general debility for practical work." There seems to have been a lack of energy among the managers; and some of the members were too anxious to preserve their individuality, while others had too much regard for ecclesiastical interests. The Parliament of Religions next year, however, showed what good the association had done by insisting continually on fellowship in religion, and keeping its platform open to Jews, Hindoos, and unbelievers, as well as to Christians of every sect.

VI. Prominent among the founders of the Free Religious Association was Francis E. Abbot, who lost his place soon after as pastor of an independent society, because the Supreme Court of New Hampshire decided, on the request of some Unitarians for an injunction against him, that his opinions were "subversive of the fundamental principles of Christianity. He was the first editor of The Index; and there appeared in April, 1872, his statement of what are generally recognised as

"THE DEMANDS OF LIBERALISM

"1. We demand that churches and other ecclesiastical property shall no longer be exempt from just taxation.