The Holy Ghost has never been accurately defined or described. He has always been a winged influence—a divine aroma; a disembodied essence; a spiritual climate; an enthusiastic flame; a something sensitive and unforgiving; the real father of Jesus Christ.
A few years ago the clergy had a great deal to say about the Holy Ghost, but now the average minister, while he alludes to this shadowy deity to round out a prayer, seems ta have but little confidence in him. This deity is and always has been extremely vague. He has been represented in the form of a dove; but this form is not associated with much intelligence.
Formerly it was believed that all men were by nature wicked, and that it would be perfectly just for God to damn the entire human race. In fact, it was thought that God, feeling that he had to damn all his children, invented a scheme by which some could be saved and at the same time justice could be satisfied. God knew that without the shedding of blood there could be no remission of sin. For many centuries he was satisfied with the blood of oxen, lambs and doves. But the sins continued to increase. A greater sacrifice was necessary. So God concluded to make the greatest possible sacrifice—to shed his own blood, that is to say, to have it shed by his chosen people. This was the atonement—the scheme of salvation—a scheme that satisfied justice and partially defeated the Devil.
No intelligent Christians believe in this atonement. It is utterly unphilosophic. The idea that man made salvation possible by murdering God is infinitely absurd. This makes salvation the blossom of a crime—the blessed fruit of murder. According to this the joys of heaven are born of the agonies of innocence. If the Jews had been civilized—if they had believed in freedom of conscience and had listened kindly and calmly to the teachings of Christ, the whole world, including Christ's mother, would have gone to hell.
Our fathers had two absurdities. They balanced each other. They said that God could justly damn his children for the sin of Adam, and that he could justly save his children on account of the sufferings and virtues of Christ; that is to say, on account of his own sufferings and virtues.
This view of the atonement has mostly been abandoned. It is now preached, not that Christ bought souls with his blood, but that he has ennobled souls by his example. The supernatural part of the atonement has, by the more intelligent, been thrown away. So the idea of imputed sin—of vicarious vice—has been by many abandoned.
Salvation by faith is growing weak. People are beginning to see that character is more important than belief; that virtue is above all creeds. Civilized people no longer believe in a God who will damn an honest, generous man. They see that it is not honest to offer a reward for belief. The promise of reward is not evidence. It is an attempt to bribe.
If God wishes his children to believe, he should furnish evidence. He should not endeavor to make promises and threats take the place of facts. To offer a reward for credulity is dishonest and immoral—infamous.
To say that good people who never heard of Christ ought to be damned for not believing on him is a mixture of idiocy and savagery.
People are beginning to perceive that happiness is a result, not a reward; that happiness must be earned; that it is not alms. It is also becoming apparent that sins cannot be forgiven; that no power can step between actions and consequences; that men must "reap what they sow;" that a man who has lived a cruel life cannot, by repenting between the last dose of medicine and the last breath, be washed in the blood of the Lamb, and become an angel—an angel entitled to an eternity of joy.