Marriage is a civil contract, and God is not one of the contracting parties. It is a contract with which the church has no business to interfere. Marriage with us is regulated by law. The real marriage—the uniting of hearts, the lighting of the sacred flame in each—is the work of Nature, and it is the best work that nature does. The ceremony of marriage gives notice to the world that the real marriage has taken place. Ministers have no real interest in marriages outside of the fees. Certainly marriages by Justices of the Peace cannot cause the mental, moral and financial decay of a State.
The things pointed out by the Governor were undoubtedly produced by the decline of Christianity, but they are not evils, and they cannot possibly injure the people morally, mentally or financially. The Governor calls on the people to think, work and pray. With two-thirds of this I agree. If the people of New Hampshire will think and work without praying they will grow morally, mentally and financially. If they pray without working and thinking, they will decay.
Prayer is beggary—an effort to get something for nothing. Labor is the honest prayer.
I do not think that the good and true in Christianity are declining. The good and true are more clearly perceived and more precious than ever. The supernatural, the miraculous part of Christianity is declining. The New Testament has been compelled to acknowledge the jurisdiction of reason. If Christianity continues to decline at the same rate and ratio that it has declined in this generation, in a few years all that is supernatural in the Christian religion will cease to exist. There is a conflict—a battle between the natural and the supernatural. The natural was baffled and beaten for thousands of years. The flag of defeat was carried by the few, by the brave and wise, by the real heroes of our race. They were conquered, captured, imprisoned, tortured and burned. Others took their places. The banner was kept in the air. In spite of countless defeats the army of the natural increased. It began to gain victories. It did not torture and kill the conquered. It enlightened and blessed. It fought ignorance with science, cruelty with kindness, slavery with justice, and all vices with virtues. In this great conflict we have passed midnight. When the morning comes its rays will gild but one flag—the flag of the natural.
All over Christendom religions are declining. Only children and the intellectually undeveloped have faith—the old faith that defies facts. Only a few years ago to be excommunicated by the pope blanched the cheeks of the bravest. Now the result would be laughter. Only a few years ago, for the sake of saving heathen souls, priests would brave all dangers and endure all hardships.
I once read the diary of a priest—one who long ago went down the Illinois River, the first white man to be borne on its waters. In this diary he wrote that he had just been paid for all that he had suffered. He had added a gem to the crown of his glory—had saved a soul for Christ. He had baptized a papoose.
That kind of faith has departed from the world.
The zeal that flamed in the hearts of Calvin, Luther and Knox, is cold and dead. Where are the Wesleys and Whitfields? Where are the old evangelists, the revivalists who swayed the hearts of their hearers with words of flame? The preachers of our day have lost the Promethean fire. They have lost the tone of certainty, of authority. "Thus saith the Lord" has dwindled to "perhaps." Sermons, messages from God, promises radiant with eternal joy, threats lurid with the flames of hell—have changed to colorless essays; to apologies and literary phrases; to inferences and peradventures.
"The blood-dyed vestures of the Redeemer are not waving in triumph over the ramparts of sin and rebellion," but over the fortresses of faith float the white flags of truce. The trumpets no longer sound for battle, but for parley. The fires of hell have been extinguished, and heaven itself is only a dream. The "eternal verities" have changed to doubts. The torch of inspiration, choked with ashes, has lost its flame. There is no longer in the church "a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind;" no "cloven tongues like as of fire;" no "wonders in the heaven above," and no "signs in the earth beneath." The miracles have faded away and the sceptre is passing from superstition to science—science, the only possible savior of mankind.