Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

"You are too clever, young as you are, to be allowed to fall into the vulgar belief shared by the maids; and therefore I must tell you what it would not be best for them to know,--that the dead do not live in any form whatever."

Ernestine started, and gazed at her uncle.--"What?"

"Yes, yes; I tell you truly, whoever is dead is dead; that means, he has ceased to be; he neither feels nor thinks; a few bones are all that there is of him; and they are good for nothing but to convert into lime or manure for the fields."

Ernestine hearkened breathless to his words. "But where then are the spirits, uncle?"

"There are no spirits."

"Then shall we never go to heaven?"

"Of course not; those are all fables, invented to induce common people to be good. They must believe in rewards and punishments after death, to enable them to bear the trials and deprivations of their lot in life. They would rebel against all control, and be in perpetual mutiny, without the prospect of compensation after death. So there are wise philosophers in every country, composing what is called the Christian Church, who have invented many beautiful legends,--which you call the Bible. Superstition is founded upon the weakness and folly of mankind, upon ignorance of the true laws of nature; and the churches of every age and clime have used it as the stuff of which they have made leading-strings for the people. But the educated man, breathing only a pure, intellectual atmosphere, is free from such fetters. Science leads him with a loving hand to heights whence she points out to him the natural laws of the universe, and, in place of the prop of which she deprives him, gives him strength to stand alone."

Ernestine was ashy pale; her lips moved, but no sound issued from them; she clenched her hands, and felt as if crushed by some terrible, unheard-of mystery. She could hardly bear to listen to what her uncle was saying, and yet she caught greedily at every word; she could not bear to believe him, and yet she could not but distrust, now, what the pastor had taught her. She was ashamed not to be as clever as her uncle had called her: the poison that he had instilled into her mind worked quickly.

"But, uncle, can what so many people believe be all false? Old people and children, kings and emperors, beggars and rich men, all go to church:--is there any one except you who does not go?"

Leuthold laughed louder than was his wont. "It is easy enough to answer you, dear child. In the first place, there are multitudes of men besides myself who belong to no church. In the second place, the number of people who profess to believe a creed is no proof of its truth, but only of the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of those professing such belief. Millions of men have been pantheists, and counted all those who did not share their faith criminal. Every religion condemns all others as erroneous. Which is right? As long as all were ignorant of the causes of the mighty and glorious operations of nature, these were ascribed to supernatural agencies and regarded as revelations of the divine. Thunder and lightning, light and air, all were governed, according to the ancients, as among savages at the present day, by their own several deities; every natural event was ascribed to some being, half man, half god; and thus heaven and earth were peopled with good and evil spirits, friendly or hostile to mankind. This superstition fled at the approach of science, or at least it became weakened,--etherialized. With increasing knowledge of natural laws, the sensual gods of Greece and Rome lost form and substance, and finally vanished, to be replaced by a true appreciation of the elements as such, and a faith in a central Providence ruling all things wisely and well. This is a great improvement; but it is not enough. We still have a Trinity,--a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; we still have angels, demons, and saints,--a multitude of good and evil deities, who have followed us down from old pagan times, and who, although more respectably apparelled, are still prepared to work all kinds of miracles. The more fully the laws of matter are laid bare to our searching eyes, the dimmer grows our religious belief,--as the shadow, which in the darkness we have taken for the substance itself, fades before the first ray of sunlight, which reveals the substance distinctly. The various gods of all ages and climes were only the shadows cast by the operation of natural laws; as soon as the light of science fell upon them, they vanished. Thus, religious fancy was driven away from this physical world, as the laws ruling it were discovered, and obliged to seek a more abstract domain; but even there it is not secure; for scientific inquiry, climbing from height to height, and gaining in vigour with every fresh advance, long ago began to follow it thither; and it must consent to still greater concessions, if it would not be driven from its last foothold,--its self-created heaven!"