Are there no good, nor happy, nor worthy men and women to-day outside the pale of the Christian churches? Amongst the eight hundred millions of human beings who do not know or do not follow Christ, are there none as happy and as worthy as any who follow Him?
Are we Rationalists so wicked, so miserable, so useless in the world, so terrified of the shadow of death? I beg to say we are nothing of the kind. We are quite easy and contented. There is no despair in our hearts. We are not afraid of bogeys, nor do we dread the silence and the dark.
Friend Christian, you are deceived in this matter. When you say that Christ is the only true teacher, that He is the only hope of mankind, that He is the only Saviour, I must answer sharply that I do not believe that, and I do not think you believe it deep down in your heart. For if Christ is the only Saviour, then thousands of millions of Buddhists have died unsaved, and you know you do not believe that.
Jeremy Taylor believed that; but you know better.
Do you not know, as a matter of fact, that it is as well in this world, and shall be as well hereafter, with a good Buddhist, or Jew, or Agnostic, as with a good Christian?
Do you deny that? If you deny it, tell me what punishment you think will be inflicted, here or hereafter on a good man who does not accept Christianity.
If you do not deny it, then on what grounds do you claim that Christ is the Saviour of all mankind, and that "only in Christ we are made whole"?
You speak of the spiritual value of your religion. What can it give you more than Socrates or Buddha possessed? These men had wisdom, courage, morality, fortitude, love, mercy. Can you find in all the world to-day two men as wise, as good, as gentle, as happy? Yet these men died centuries before Christ was born.
If you believe that none but Christians can be happy or good; or if you believe that none but Christians can escape extinction or punishment, then there is some logic in your belief that Christ is our only Saviour. But that is to believe that there never was a good man before Christ died, and that Socrates and Buddha, and many thousands of millions of men, and women, and children, before Christ and after, have been lost.
Such a belief is monstrous and absurd.