The nineteenth century opened with progress, as it were, on the gallop. In 1804 the first locomotive engine was started in England, at the same time that the first screw steamer was run at New York. It is needless to enumerate all the inventions of scientific men during the century, which are so well known to every one. Suffice it to say that, in a marvellously short space of time, the whole face of Europe has been changed. Railways cross each other at all points, like a huge network; telegraph wires link together as one place all important centres of population; public buildings are protected from nature’s freaks by lightning conductors; lighthouses dot the whole length of our coasts; the penny postage conveys our thoughts to and fro throughout the length and breadth of the land; a free press ventilates our grievances and enlightens our minds; hospitals and dispensaries minister to the sick and maimed wherever we go; and the Habeas Corpus Act endows each well-disposed individual with freedom and liberty. What a metamorphosis to be effected in so short a time!
The lesson we learn from such a cursory glance as this necessarily is at the intellectual progress of Europe during the last two thousand years is full of the deepest meaning. We cannot help being struck by the dogged manner in which the Christian religion has opposed all progress, ruthlessly murdering in cold blood any who dared to suggest that the now-established and universally-accepted theories might possibly possess some little of the truth. Every new scientific truth or discovery has been denounced by the Church, every great benefactor to the human race persecuted and hunted to death by the sleuth-hounds of bigotry and intolerance, and every European war or massacre hatched out of religious differences. To this very day the Church, though robbed of all its old power to inflict evil and misery, persists in its denunciation of all scientific discoveries; and not one of the numerous sects which at present divide the Christian Church is exempt from this charge. Hegel, Bunsen, John Stuart Mill, Rénan, Huxley, Darwin, Tyndall, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Carpenter, Herbert Spencer, Emerson, Haeckel, Schopenhauer, Victor Hugo, and, in short, all the leaders of thought of our century, have incurred the bitter hostility of the various Christian sects; and yet what a heirloom the works of these men form for the coming generation!
The discovery of the power of chloroform and ether to relieve pain was denounced by the Church because it was proposed to apply it to the relief of the agony of childbirth, the natural inheritance of woman under the divine curse of Eden; the abolition of slavery was also opposed by these human parasites because the practice was ordered in the Bible; and it is well known how the priests of the Church utilised for their own purposes those abominable texts of the Old Testament, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” and “Neither shalt thou countenance a poor man in his own cause.”
The Middle Ages bear attestation to the fidelity of the priesthood to their sacred oracles. Have not two honest citizens of London quite lately undergone one whole year’s imprisonment for the grave sin of ridiculing the notion of the Hebrew and Christian gods being other than creations of man’s imagination? This very lecture will probably be the means of bringing down the wrath of the priesthood—State Church and Nonconformist alike—upon its author. And why? Are the facts untrue? Just the reverse. The writer, historian, or pseudo-scientist who writes volumes of falsehoods for the purpose of propping up for a short time longer priestcraft and tyranny will assuredly fare well at the hands of these insinuating gentlemen of the cloth; but let the man who dares to write the honest, unvarnished truth beware! His fair name, his business, and his social and family ties will be undermined and destroyed in an incredibly short space of time. All honor, therefore, be given to those brave ones who have dared to stand before the world and speak out the truth in the cause of humanity! They have done their share in helping forward the march of intellect, in stifling superstition, and in uprooting ignorance. The state of Europe to-day, as compared with its condition two thousand years since, is overwhelming evidence of the continual progress of civilization, which, in spite of the opposition from its old enemy, the Church, in the past and, to a limited extent, in the present, has proved to the world that it must, of necessity, continue for all time as one of the great and immutable laws of Nature.
GENESIS I. 1, according to authorised Hebrew version, with final letters, but without vowel points and breathings.
בראשיתבראאלהיםאתהשמיםואתהארץ
“In the beginning the ram (or lamb)-sun-gods (or the good gods) renovated (reorganized or re-started) the heavens and the earth.”
This refers to the commencement of the Persian new-year, at the vernal equinox, Aries, the ram or lamb.
GENESIS I. 1, according to the Samaritan Pentateuch, transcribed into ante-Masoretic, or original Hebrew, as written before the invention of the five final letters.
בראשיתבראהעזאתהשמימואתהארצ
“In the beginning the goat renovated the heavens and the earth.”
This refers to the commencement of the Egyptian new-year, at the winter solstice, Capricornus, the goat.
Fac Simile of fragmentary MS. of sixth century (Luke XX.9.10.), written in Greek and partially
covered with Syrian writing of 10th century.
Copied from “Secular Review,” of March 27 1886.
Small fragment from John’s Gospel, taken from the Cotton Manuscript.