And is this a “Study in Psychology”? Yea, verily! Scientific Psychology is the only thing that goes to the very bottom of it, and defines and classifies every element, every fact in human experience. Man cannot build a home on a piece of ground where a slaughter-house disputes every square yard of ground with the tombstones of a graveyard. Clericalism is ever the one or the other, and frequently both; denying to man the right to build a home for himself anywhere, except by its permission and according to its plans and specifications, fixing the rent and the revenues for all future time.
The Premier of Spain to-day is disputing this prerogative of Rome, and the graveyard has been thrown open. The pity, the marvel of it all is, that the people generally do not seem to care, and call any statement of facts “sensational” or “panicky.”
I am told by some very good people that these references to Popery seem irrelevant, and by others, that they mar the symmetry of my essay.
They are reminded that we are dealing with real and permanent values, and with what man may do and ought to do for himself.
Lying squarely across this upward pathway of man, to be pursued by free choice and personal effort, is the dogma of the Vicarious Atonement and the forgiveness of sin, of which “His Holiness” claims to hold the exclusive agency.
Through appeal to superstition and fear this preposterous and sacrilegious claim to-day, as in all the past, paralyzes the will and discourages the personal efforts of millions of men and women. Between that blind credulity which makes personal effort unnecessary, and the miracle and dogma which make it seem useless, the upward and onward march of man is hindered or annulled, notwithstanding the fact that many men and women lead noble lives who are yet communicants of the Church, both Catholic and Protestant. True, they may, with little thinking, reason and reflection from early education and “lip-service,” give intellectual assent to these dogmas. But the lives they lead and the personal effort put forth prove them “better than their creeds.” They say with the lips, “Christ has forgiven us,” or “Jesus will save us,” and while they are saying these things they go to work saving themselves by “leading the life” through personal effort and experience.
In other words, they “save themselves” in spite of their creeds and superstitions.
It is, therefore, with this exact “measure of values,” that we are dealing; and the necessity and value of these considerations are nowhere so plain to-day, or so imperative, as just here, in the face of these demoralizing dogmas and pretensions of men, who contradict all natural law and steal unblushingly the prerogatives of God, as his “Vicegerent.” The marvel of it is that it excites neither surprise nor protest, but is treated with a smile of good-natured complacency outside its circle of dupes.
He who treats it seriously, as a thing that, more than any other, demoralizes, discourages and paralyzes millions, is regarded as “sensational,” “emotional,” or an “alarmist.”
In the face of all the facts, of which the daily papers are full, and the record of the Vatican crowded, I prefer that my own arraignment shall stand. No one who knows half these facts can dispute or gainsay them. We are making history here to-day, as mankind has had to make it in all the past, in the face of these “Lions in the path” of civilization and progress.