Orthodoxy offers a substitute for the sins of such as believe; Liberalism expects every man to answer for his own acts. (Independent Pulpit.)

CHRISTIANITY AND MATERIALISM COMPARED.

Christianity Teaches: 1. The existence of a God infinite in presence, yet a personal being; infinite in knowledge, yet a being who cogitates, contrives, plans, and designs, like man; infinite in power, yet the author of a world full of imperfections; infinite in goodness (as well as power), yet permits martyrs to expire amid flames, and patriots and philanthropists to languish in dungeons; unchangeable, yet at a certain time after a beginningless state of inaction, aroused from his idleness and made a universe out of nothing; is not the cause of evil, yet the creator of everything and everybody save himself; is free from infirmities, yet is pleased with some things and displeased with others; is without body, parts, or passions, and yet is of the masculine gender. 2. The original perfection of everything. 3. The existence of a devil—a creature made by God, and the author of evil that will exist forever. 4. That man is a “fallen creature,” and unable to improve by his own unassisted efforts. 5. That man can be “saved” only through the blood and merits of Christ. 6. That belief in the Christian system involves moral merit; disbelief, sin. 7. That it is man’s duty to worship God by prayer and praise. 8. That a comparatively small portion of mankind in the future will be happy; the greater portion will be in torment eternally. 9. That man has received a book revelation, of which, however, but a comparatively small part of the race has ever obtained information. 10. That reason should be subordinated to the teachings of the Bible. 11. That the acts of the Jews, such as are practiced now by barbarians only, were commanded by God, and were, therefore, right. 12. That there are mysteries contrary to experience and reason, which must nevertheless be believed. 13. Although God has given man a revelation, there is great uncertainty as to what he meant to say on several subjects of great importance. 14. That woman is man’s inferior and subordinate, was made for his gratification and convenience, while man was made for himself and the glory of God. 15. That God has approved and sanctioned polygamy, slavery, and despotism. 16. That man should take no thought for the morrow. He should pattern after the lilies of the field. 17. That man’s ills and sufferings are ascribable largely to the immediate agency of a personal, malicious Devil—a being of extended presence, of almost infinite knowledge, of great strategy, and immense power. 18. That Jesus was God Almighty incased in human flesh. 19. That the golden age of the earth was in the past. Materialism Teaches: 1. The self-existence, the eternity, and the sufficiency of nature, and the universality and invariableness of natural law. 2. That in the history of this world there has been an evolution from the simple to the complex, from the special to the general, from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous. 3. That good and evil are relative terms. All morality is founded on utility and evolved by the wants and necessities of human existence. Honesty is right, not because a God has so declared, but because man’s security, safety, and happiness are promoted by it. 4. That man’s condition, although imperfect, is improvable by his own unaided efforts. 5. That man should look to himself and not to a spectacle of suffering and death of eighteen hundred years ago, for improvement and elevation. 6. That belief and unbelief are involuntary and without moral merit or demerit. 7. That instead of worshiping God, we should direct all our efforts to improve ourselves, letting “gods attend on things for gods to know.” 8. That man, wherever he may exist, it is rational to believe, will be fitted to his condition. An unbroken everlasting sleep, which probably awaits us all, affords no ground for fear. And how infinitely preferable to a future state of punishment in which the majority of our race will be forever miserable! 9. That the teachings of reason and the lessons of experience are the only revelations man has received. 10. That the Bible should be tested by the same rules of historical and modern criticism that are applied to other ancient documents. 11. That the barbarous acts of the Israelites, like those of other ancient nations, were the result of their undeveloped, and uncivilized condition. 12. That the universe is full of mysteries, above our comprehension, but none contrary to our reason. 13. That the difference of opinion among Liberals is consistent with their common position that man has no infallible standard. That the enlightened reason of man is the highest and best standard he possesses. 14. That woman is man’s equal and natural companion—exists for him only in the sense in which he exists for her. 15. That slavery, polygamy, and despotism are evils whenever and wherever they exist. 16. That man should attend to the affairs of this world, and, contrary to the notion of Jesus, should take “thought for the morrow.” 17. That evil is due to natural causes. Man can gradually remove the evils that afflict him by becoming acquainted with his nature, relations, and surroundings. 18. Jesus was probably a reformer, a “come-outer,” an “Infidel” of his time. We can esteem him as a benefactor without worshiping him as a God. 19. The present is better than the past, and the golden age of the world is in the future. B. F. Underwood.

“Safest to Believe.”

It has often been argued that credulity is safer than skepticism—that “it is safest to believe;” inasmuch as if a man believes in heaven and hell, and there be no such places, he is, if no gainer, at least no loser; whereas the Infidel may lose, and cannot gain. Upon the same principle, it were safest to believe all the religions of the world at once—Christian, Mohammedan, Jewish, Hindoo, Confucian, and all the rest; because it is but insuring the matter by halves to trust to one only. If Allah be not the only God and Mahomet be an imposter, there is no harm done and nothing lost; and if there be not a paradise in another world, there has been a pleasant dream of anticipated joys in this.

Let us ask, is the balance of profit and loss fairly struck? Are the chances all in favor of the believer and all against the skeptic? Is there nothing to be thrown into the opposite scale? Surely much. If religion be a fallacy, it is a fallacy pregnant with mischief. It excites the fears without foundation; it fosters feelings of separation between the believer and the unbeliever; it consumes valuable time that can never be recalled, and valuable talents that ought to be better employed; it draws money from our pockets to support a delusion; it teaches the elect to look upon their fellow men as heathen and castaways, living in sin here, and doomed to perdition hereafter; it awakens harassing doubts, gloomy despondency, and fitful melancholy; it turns our thoughts from the things of the world, where alone true knowledge is found; it speaks of temporal miseries and temporal pleasures as less than nothing and vanity, and thus fosters indifference to the causes of the weal and woe of mankind; worse than all, it chains us down to an antiquated orthodoxy, and forbids the free discussion of those very subjects which it most concerns us to investigate. If religion be a fallacy, its votaries are slaves. Whereupon, then, rests the assertion, that if the believer does not gain, he cannot lose? Is it nothing to lose time and talents, to waste our labor on that which is not bread, and our money upon that which profiteth not? Is it nothing to feel that the human beings that surround us are children of the devil and heirs of hell? Is it nothing to think that we may perhaps look across the great gulf and see some one we have loved on earth tormented in a fiery lake; and hear him ask us to dip a finger in water that it may cool his parched tongue? Is it no loss to live in disquiet by day, and in fear by night; to pass through dark seasons of doubt and temptation, and to be conscious that we are but as strangers and pilgrims here, toiling through a weary valley of cares and sorrows? Is it no loss to hold back when truth oversteps the line of orthodoxy, and when there ought to be free discussion, to shrink before we know not what? Is all this no loss? Or, is it not rather the loss of all that a free and rational being most values?

Those engaged in the trade of religion, imagine themselves to have a mighty advantage against Infidels upon the strength of the old, worn out argument that whether the Christian religion be true or false there can be no harm in believing; and that belief is, at any rate, the safer side. Now to say nothing of this old popish argument, which a sensible man must see is the very essence of popery, and would oblige us to believe all the absurdities and nonsense in the world: inasmuch as if there be no harm in believing, and there be some harm and danger in not believing, the more we believe, the better; and all the argument for any religion whatever would be, that it should frighten us out of our wits; the more terrible, the more true; and it would be our duty to become the converts of that religion, whatever it might be, whose priests could swear the loudest, and damn and curse the fiercest. This is a wolfish argument in sheep’s clothing. (Truth Seeker tract.)