“Christianity.”
“There you labour under a mistake. New Amazonians did not discard Christianity. It was Christianity which declined to help them. When New Amazonia was first peopled by the colonists from Teuto-Scotland, the adult colonists were, as you doubtless know, all women. It was the intention of these women to govern their State with as much success as was compatible with the rejection of conventionality and traditionary laws. It had hitherto been their lot to be excluded from a great proportion of national privileges, which had been usurped by the masculine sex for ages. In casting about for the principal causes of their limitations of fairplay, they found, them, or thought they did so, in the doctrines of Christianity. One of the principal Christian writers indeed, seemed to be quite as much bent upon insulting, humiliating, and subjugating woman, as he was upon spreading the Christian cause. New Amazonian leaders found that they could not take an active part in public affairs without violating all the rules laid down for woman’s guidance and man’s encouragement by the Apostle Paul. It was a case either of Christianity and reversion to Slavery, or a sort of Unitarianism and Freedom, and they did not hesitate long as to what choice to make. They were not likely, being intelligent beings, to inaugurate a retrogressive movement by instructing their boys in tenets which constantly preached the inferiority and subservience of women, especially as they believed St. Paul’s utterances on matters feminine to be dictated more by spite than by honest conviction.”
“And what were their grounds for this belief?”
“Their reasons are easily explained. We have it on reliable authority that Saul of Tarsus, whose parents were Greeks, not Jews, but who had himself adopted the Jewish persuasion, was a man of very violent passions and prejudices. He hated the Christians, and took delight in helping to exterminate them. It was when in Jerusalem, bent upon some such mission, that he was introduced to the daughter of the Jewish High Priest, and fell passionately in love with her. To his intense mortification, his proposal for her hand was rejected, and he henceforth hated both women and Jews, becoming enthusiastically Christian by way of a change.”
“But, even if this be true, the fact that Paul is not believed in here would hardly account for the repudiation of the doctrines taught by the other apostles of Christianity.”
“I think it would. You see, Paul was a man of great ability, who had had the advantage of studying under one of the greatest teachers of the age. His words carried weight with them, and influenced those with whom he associated. His writings and influence are inseparable from Christianity. Even were this not so, there is only too much proof given in History that of all bigots and fanatics, Christian bigots and fanatics are the most cruel, relentless, and implacable. Christ Himself would have repudiated a religion which has made His name an excuse for robbery, oppression, murder, and immorality.”
“You surely exaggerate enormously. All Christians disseminate the doctrines preached by Christ in His famous Sermon on the Mount. The Ten Commandments especially are taught to all young Christians.”
“Yes, and a fine mockery it has been, to be sure! You will remember that one commandment adjures us to refrain from making ‘any graven image, nor the likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or in the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.’ We are forbidden to bow down to such things, or to worship them. And yet how small a proportion of Christian peoples ever obeyed these injunctions! Until the time of one Martin Luther, God himself was utterly set aside in the Christian churches, which were filled with images and shrines, before which deluded suppliants poured out their vain supplications. Christianity had been entirely supplanted by Idolatry, and existed as such only in name. Again, we are forbidden to take the name of the great Life-giver in vain, and yet what do we find recorded? Priests, calling themselves Christians, professed to have the power to grant forgiveness of sins in the name of the Almighty! Some of these sins were actually in futuro, and whether past, or still to be committed, their confession to a priest, accompanied by the gift of a sum of money, ensured a free pardon from Heaven. Of course, the money was always required, and those who were too poor to pander to priestly greed were remorselessly consigned to Purgatory. Murder, of course, was strictly forbidden, and yet the advocates of Christianity murdered and tortured thousands of people, simply because they presumed to differ slightly in opinion from those in office. Stealing was prohibited; but the priests were willing to take the last mite from the oppressed poor, rather than abate one jot of their lazy, sensuous privileges. As for the sin of covetousness, in whom has it ever shown itself more rampant than in the men whose chief energies were directed towards appropriating the wealth of all with whom they came in contact, for the joint benefit of themselves and the Church?”
“I grant you all this. But it refers to a state of things which has long since passed away.”
“Has image-worship passed away? Do priests work for the pure love of God, or do they look upon their vocation as a means of making a livelihood more to their taste than some others? Is the priestly office the guerdon of merit and ability? Or is it still the perquisite of those who have money and family influence at command? Do priests exercise universal charity and kindly feeling? Have they given up thinking that none but themselves and a few like-minded individuals will be allowed to enter Heaven? Do they feel as much reverence for goodness in the lowly, as they do for grandeur in high places? Do they discourage the presence in their churches of disreputable persons, if these persons happen to be rich, and are able to be used as pecuniary aids? In a word, are the churches possessed of truly Christ-like qualities, without which none can be a Christian?”