Mr. Youmans tells us also that when the conception of a separate and future life arose in men’s minds, such a life could not have been supposed to differ much from that of the present order of things. This he takes for granted, owing to the profound ignorance which, according to advanced science, characterized the primitive men; and he illustrates this view by some examples of savages, who bury food, weapons, implements, etc., with the bodies of their dead friends. But, “as knowledge accumulated, the conception grew incongruous, and underwent important modifications, so that similarity gradually passed into contrast. The intimacy of the intercourse supposed to be carried on between the two worlds decreased; the future world was conceived of as more remote, and as having other occupations and gratifications more consonant with developing ideas of the present life.” Such is the professor’s theory. We need hardly say that, as a scientific theory, it has no value. Science is based on facts; but here we have nothing but dreams exploded by history as well as by philosophy. The origin of the belief in hell is not to be traced to the profound ignorance of the primitive man. This profound ignorance is not a fact but a fiction. The assumption that man’s intellect was originally in an undeveloped condition, and that it has gone on improving all along till it became able to discover the incongruousness of its previous notions and to give them up, is another fiction. That the “accumulation of knowledge,” such as obtained among infidel nations, could enlighten them on a question as to which nothing can be definitely known on merely natural grounds, is a third fiction; whilst the truth is that the pretended knowledge of the heathens, like the pretended science of our modern sceptics, has been rather a source of innumerable absurdities, by which the primitive holy and healthy traditions of the race have been obscured, corrupted, and disfigured.
But the professor has more to say in support of his “scientific” view. “Rude conceptions regarding good and evil could not fail to be early involved with considerations of man’s futurity. Good and evil are inextricably mixed up in this world, which seems always to have been regarded as a faulty arrangement, and, as there was little hope of rectifying it here, the future life came to be regarded as compensatory to the present.... This idea of using the next world to redress the imperfections and wrongs of this grew up early and survives still, and it has exerted a prodigious influence in human affairs.” It is evident that the consideration of man’s futurity, to be rational, must involve the consideration of man’s moral nature; for the futurity of a moral being is necessarily connected with the moral order. It would be folly to deny that virtue deserves reward, or that vice deserves punishment; and even the most stupid understand that the future of a scoundrel must differ from the future of a saint. This universal belief “survives still,” as Mr. Youmans himself testifies, and is not “growing obsolete,” as he pretends, but is still universal in our civilized society. Of course a dozen or two of advanced thinkers may be found who reject this universal belief; for, as they suppress God and worship Nature, they would be embarrassed to explain how the good can be rewarded and the wicked punished by their blind goddess that has no knowledge of the moral law. But this shows only the “profound ignorance” of such advanced thinkers regarding things supersensible, and proves to demonstration that, in spite of all their pretensions, they do not belong to the civilized world. The early men, whose conceptions our professor denounces as “rude,” were better and deeper philosophers than he is. They recognized a personal God, the eternal source of morality, the judge of his creatures, the rewarder of justice, and the punisher of crime. They knew, therefore, that the problem of good and evil was to be solved “not by the absorption and disappearance of evil,” but by separating the good from the bad, “the good being all collected in a good place, and the bad ones all turned into a bad place.” Mr. Youmans does not like this solution. He seems to insinuate that the true solution implies the absorption and disappearance of evil. He seems to say: Let virtue be rewarded, but let not wickedness be punished. He may have his reasons for preferring this solution, but we have none for accepting it. Reason as well as revelation declare it to be unacceptable.
What follows is a vulgar tirade against priesthood. All priests indiscriminately are denounced by our liberal professor for having taught the existence of heaven and hell. He says:
“As the grosser superstitions were gradually developed into systematic religions, a priestly class arose, and religious beliefs were embodied in definite creeds. Fundamental among these was the belief in heaven as a place of happiness, and of hell as a place of torment for the wicked. To one or other of these places, it was held, all men are bound to go after death; but to which depended—and here the office of the priesthood assumed a terrible importance, for they knew all about it and had the keys. It is impossible to conceive any other idea of such tremendous power for dominating mankind as this! It raised the priesthood and the ecclesiastical institutions into despotic ascendency, brought it into unholy alliance with civil despotism, and became the mighty means of plundering the people, crushing out their liberties, darkening their hopes, and cursing their lives.”
This bit of declamation might safely be left without answer. But to clear up the confusion made by the scientific writer, we will ask him to explain what he understands by the word “priesthood.” Does he mean the ministers of all religions without exception, or the ministers of false religions only? Does he involve in the same sentence the priest of God and of Christ with the priest of Baal and of Moloch? or does he admit that a distinction should be made? Perhaps he will smile at our simplicity in asking a question about which his habitual readers can entertain no doubt, it being evident that a man who worships nothing but matter and force is a natural enemy of Christ and of his ministers. Nevertheless, as no one must be allowed to snarl and bite without motive, we insist on an explanation. If the Christian priesthood is not involved in his denunciations, then Mr. Youmans’ eloquence is all thrown away; for it is by the Christian priesthood that the doctrine of hell has been most efficiently taught and inculcated all the world over. If, on the contrary, as it is logical to assume, the Christian priesthood is involved in his denunciations, then Mr. Youmans’ brain is surely not in a sound condition. A man in full possession of his reasoning power would never have thought of connecting the Christian priesthood with despotism, or of charging them with plundering the people, crushing their liberties, darkening their hopes, or cursing their lives. No; the professor is not in full possession of his faculties in this matter. Were it otherwise, he would be guilty of the most odious slander. In some of his articles, which we have analyzed not long ago, we had already found what might be taken as unmistakable signs of scientific aberration. The reader may still remember how the professor countenanced the conception of the unthinkable, how he advocated continuous evolution without any actual link of continuity, and how he made life spring from dead, inert matter. But now it is the Christian priesthood that makes an unholy alliance with civil despotism and crushes the liberties of the people! This assertion cannot be excused by the plea of bad logic; for it regards a matter of fact, not of speculation, and logic, whether good or bad, has nothing to do with it. Only a natural or preternatural derangement in a man’s brain can account for the oddity of such a charge. We say natural or preternatural, because it sometimes happens, even in this age of advanced civilization, that a man who makes profession of militant infidelity is taken possession of, either consciously or unconsciously, by “the father of lies,” who makes a fool of him in this world the better to secure his everlasting ruin in the other. We repeat that a man of sound mind, and free from satanic influence, would never make such a silly and unhistorical denunciation of the priesthood as Prof. Youmans has ventured to make. He would rather say that the Christian priesthood has been the most earnest champion of popular liberties in all times and in all countries, as all ecclesiastical and secular history testifies. He would say that their ascendency, far from being despotic, was kind and paternal, and calculated to win, as it did, the love of the people without ceasing to command their respect. He would say that this ascendency was not derived from their threats of the torments of hell, but was the reward of their virtuous life, ardent charity, singular prudence, and superior education; and was used, not to plunder the people, but to protect them against baronial, royal, and imperial plunderers.
Plundering is a masonic virtue; witness the great French Revolution in the last century, and the policy of Italy, Germany, and Switzerland in the present. And who are the men that plunder the American people but the infidel politicians who do not believe in hell? Mr. Youmans may depend upon it, no judicial, legislative, or executive power will ever put a stop to such a wholesale plundering until they humbly kneel before the priest, and conjure him to take in hand the education of our citizens and to revive in them a salutary fear of hell. It is not the fear of hell that “curses the lives” or “darkens the hopes” of men. All the world knows, on the contrary, that there has never been on the face of the earth a thriftier and happier people than the Christian has been. Of course criminals are troubled by the remembrance of hell, their lives are galled, and their hopes are darkened; but we presume that Mr. Youmans does not mean to patronize them. After all it is not the priests that have created hell; they merely warn the sinner of its existence, that he may mend his ways and be saved. Indeed, it is sin, not hell, that darkens the hopes and curses the life of man.
From the bitter tone of the passage we have been refuting it would appear that Mr. Youmans is extremely jealous of the authority and ascendency of the priesthood. The jealousy is very natural. The priest, who teaches the Gospel backed by the authority of the universal church, is a very serious obstacle to the propagation of false scientific or unscientific belief. Therefore it is that Mr. Youmans cannot bear to see the Christian priesthood revered and esteemed by the people, and does his best to destroy their reputation and authority. At this we are not astonished; for modern unbelief is so destitute of intrinsic grounds and so incapable of defending itself that it is constrained to go out of its lines and try a diversion. Accordingly, it takes the offensive. But when the offensive is carried on with no other weapons than those recommended by Voltaire, “Mentez, mentez toujours; il faut mentir comme des diables,” then tranquillus judicat orbis terrarum, the world, though wicked, will be heard to pronounce its sentence against the offender.
The professor adds:
“So productive an agency of unscrupulous ambition could not fail to be assiduously cultivated, and the conception of hell, the most potent element in the case by its appeal to fear, was elaborated with the utmost ingenuity. Language was exhausted in depicting the terrors of the infernal regions and the agonies of the damned. We by no means say that these ideas were mere priestly inventions, but only that they grew up under the powerful guidance of a class consecrated to their exposition and incited by the most powerful worldly motives to strengthen their influence. In order to enforce belief, to compel obedience to ecclesiastical requirements, to coerce civil submission, and to extort money, people were threatened with the horrors of hell, which were pictured with all the vividness of rhetorical and poetic fanaticism. As the hierarchical spirit grew in strength and became a tyrannical rule, obedience to its minutest rites was enforced by the most appalling intimidations.”
We did not know, before we read this passage, that preaching the Christian doctrine of hell was productive of “unscrupulous ambition”; we rather thought that it was productive of deep and sincere humility. The preacher of the Gospel believes in the Gospel, and knows that hell is awaiting the bad and “unscrupulous” priest no less than the bad and unscrupulous layman. Hence, if the priest assiduously cultivated the thought and elaborated the doctrine of hell, it would appear that the priest could not be “unscrupulous”—at least, not so unscrupulous as those professors who get rid of hell by the final “absorption of evil.” Nor do we understand why a wise man should complain that the priests assiduously cultivated and elaborated the doctrine of hell, and that “language was exhausted in depicting the terrors of the infernal regions.” This fact should be a matter of congratulation, not of blame; for the terrors of hell “exert a prodigious influence,” as the professor acknowledges, in human affairs; they discourage crime, fortify virtue, and contribute to the maintenance of those conditions without which human society would be transformed into a lair of ferocious beasts. A professor who pretends to a high place among the friends of civilization should have seen this.