What is there so superior or so meritorious in the attitude of a religious man towards God? This good man prays: for what? He prays that something be given to him or forgiven to him. He prays for gain or fear. Is that so lofty and so noble?
But you will say: "It is not all for gain or for fear. He prays for love: because he loves God." But is not this like sending flowers and jewels to the king? The king is so rich already: but there are many poor outside his gates. God is not in need of our love: some of God's children are in need. Truly, these high ideals are very curious.
Mr. Augustine Birrell, in his Miscellanies, quotes a passage from "Lux Mundi"; and although I cannot find it in that book, it is too good to lose:
If this be the relation of faith to reason, we see the explanation
of what seems at first sight to the philosopher to be the most
irritating and hypocritical characteristic of faith. It is
always shifting its intellectual defences. It adopts this or
that fashion of philosophical apology, and then, when this is
shattered by some novel scientific generalisation of faith,
probably after a passionate struggle to retain the old position,
suddenly and gaily abandons it, and takes up the new formula,
just as if nothing had happened. It discovers that the new
formula is admirably adapted for its purposes, and is, in fact,
what it always meant, only it has unfortunately omitted to
mention it. So it goes on again and again; and no wonder that
the philosophers growl at those humbugs, the clergy.
That passage has a rather sinister bearing upon the Christian's claim for spiritual genius.
But, indeed, the claim is not admissible. The Churches have taught many errors. Those errors have been confuted by scepticism and science. It is no thanks to spiritual discernment that we stand where we do. It is to reason we owe our advance; and what a great advance it is! We have got rid of Hell, we have got rid of the Devil, we have got rid of the Christian championship of slavery, of witch-murder, of martyrdom, persecution, and torture; we have destroyed the claims for the infallibility of the Scriptures, and have taken the fetters of the Church from the limbs of Science and Thought, and before long we shall have demolished the belief in miracles. The Christian religion has defended all these dogmas, and has done inhuman murder in defence of them; and has been wrong in every instance, and has been finally defeated in every instance. Steadily and continually the Church has been driven from its positions. It is still retreating, and we are not to be persuaded to abandon our attack by the cool assurance that we are mentally unfit to judge in spiritual matters. Spiritual Discernment has been beaten by reason in the past, and will be beaten by reason in the future. It is facts and logic we want, not rhetoric.
SOME OTHER APOLOGIES
Christianity, we are told, vastly improved the relations of rich and poor.
How comes it, then, that the treatment of the poor by the rich is better amongst Jews than amongst Christians? How did it fare with the poor all over Europe in the centuries when Christianity was at the zenith of its power? How is it we have twelve millions of Christians on the verge of starvation in England to-day, with a Church rolling in wealth and an aristocracy decadent from luxury and self-indulgence? How is it that the gulf betwixt rich and poor in such Christian capitals as New York, London, and Paris is so wide and deep?