If it were the sole purpose of all Christian organizations to bring into general practice the civilizing precepts of their founder, they would become the most powerful agents in the world to human advancement and the betterment of social conditions, but these precepts are made subordinate by them, and are neither valued or estimated beyond their jurisdiction. They count nothing as saving qualities without the acknowledgment of certain doctrines and methods accompanying them. Those beautiful sentiments of charity and kindness, always so precious to the hearts of men, and growing more so as the ages advance, were not adopted nor promulgated entirely for civilizing purposes, but mostly with the selfish view of capturing humanity to church interests. With a like purpose, knowing the mystic tendency of the masses, the supernaturalisms, made a part of these attractive precepts, were adopted and upheld; bringing into the world an endless multitude of barren illusions, provoking acrimonious contentions among men, to no good purpose whatever, and filling the pages of history with a description of scenes that are a torture even to the memory.
It is given only to those now living, and who have experienced the longest terms of life, to personally compare the past with the present, so far as their limited sojourn in the world extends. They are living witnesses to the wonderful changes in society and its beliefs during the short period of two generations only. They have seen many of these ancient supernatural dreams in all their power of authority, and have watched them wilt, and finally disappear, under some silent influence, after argument and reason had exhausted themselves against them in vain. They have listened to those weekly expositions of infernal horrors, common at one time, in all the fear and trembling of childhood, and have later, witnessed the theories and beliefs which inspired them, with many others equally obnoxious to reason, relegated to silence and disuse, as antiquated and worn furniture, no longer serviceable, is consigned to the rubbish heap. Only two generations ago they have seen the literature of the churches in leather bound books occupying the best filled, and most easily reached shelves of the libraries, and now laying neglected among the dust of the cellars; not one retained for reference, and even their titles forgotten. They have seen, in their time, the clutches of superstition compelled to relax its hold upon the throats of many a worthy human enterprise. They have witnessed the triumph of science in its many skirmishes with tradition, and have been interested lookers-on, while the famous battle of evolution raged. They have seen it from start to finish, and the amusing spectacle of its end, when theology, metaphorically speaking, dragged its bruised and trembling body out of the dust; and wiping the blood from its pale and troubled face, unblushingly declared, as it had in every like outcome before, that there had been no conflict.
With all this, and within their own era of two generations only, they have seen the world arise to such prodigies of advancement, such marvels of practical charity and such activities in the pursuit of knowledge, in so close and quick succession as to fill them with bewilderment and wonder, and they will recognize, at least such of them as reflect upon the matter, that after conflicts innumerable, and setbacks and suppressions, the scientific have prevailed over the theological methods, and are at work in all the glories of their triumph, and that the ancient modes of thought are at last masters of the civilized world after nearly two thousand years of battle. The thread of civilization has been taken up and spliced at its point of rupture sixteen centuries ago. All this activity in the building of roads, bridges and aqueducts, this tunnelling of mountains and rivers, this straining to make available for the services of man all the elements of nature, this untiring search to increase the comforts and conveniences of life, this higher regard for pure secular learning, regardless of where it may lead, this diversion of art from the purposes of religious expression only, to an exhibition of nature in all her beautiful forms, this greater toleration of opinion, this coming back to the earth in short, after a long period of phantom chasing in the clouds, is neither more nor less than the revival of paganism. But paganism with its brutalities filtered out, and the best, and only civilizing parts of christianity, its hope of immortality, its lessons of virtue, its brotherhood and socialism retained, the superstitions of paganism buried forever, and those of christianity gradually dropping one by one into their graves.
He, who now at three score and ten, remembers when the sound of the flint and steel was a necessary prelude to the morning fire, when the open fire place with its crane and pot hooks was the only resource for warmth and cooking, when the largest city on the American continent was without sewers or water conduits, when a river steamer was a wonder upon which the curious gazed, and ocean ones unheard of, when railroads were in an experimental stage, when the belief that ghosts flitted about the graveyards was unquestioned and undenied, when Satan was said to have stalked upon the earth in person, his presence seriously considered and accounted for by many of the churches, when witchcraft, only in the throes of death but not yet buried, had many adherents in animated defence, when the electrical experiments of Franklin were reckoned in some places as the trifling of an infidel with the spirit of evil, can best appreciate, by the comparison which reminiscence affords, of these wonderful changes in thought, and the significant accompaniment of increased mental activity in all things benefitting the race. The close relations exhibited in this comparatively brief period between the growth of rationalism, and that accelerated movement all along the line of science, learning, and everything tending to place humanity on a higher plain, is more than a mere coincidence. It is the operation of cause and effect, better understood and acknowledged upon a closer examination.
The bursting forth, as it were, during this century of the united energies of mankind in the direction of knowledge, is an expansion after the removal of a pressure that has borne down upon them for ages. Those great things that men have accomplished lately, they were as capable of centuries ago, and it is not surprising that they had not until recently made greater advances, when we estimate the weight of opposing forces. There had been for centuries nothing more discouraging to the formation of scientific hopes and ambitions than the theological methods of thought, and the atmosphere which surrounded them. The more that atmosphere was saturated with the doctrines of the churches, the more repellent it was to any intellectual effort toward outside things, and especially one requiring such a monopoly of mental energy and attention as to interfere with the Christian ideas of constant and unremitting devotion. There was no cultivated field, during the thousand years of supreme church jurisdiction, where an independent scientific ambition could germinate. Within the church such an ambition was impossible. It was not only against the spirit, but the very letter of its teachings. Its foundation was laid by its victory over science, in its overcome of which, it proclaimed divine assistance and authority. It already possessed a knowledge of all things appertaining to the earth and the “firmament” above it which the Almighty desired men to know. The earth was not round, it was the center of the universe. It stood still while the sun moved daily over its surface, getting back each morning into its place with the help of angels. The rainbow was a sign placed in the heavens for a purpose. Every known phenomenon of nature was accounted for by scriptural reference. The method of the creation of the world and the origin of man and of woman also, the church possessed in circumstantial detail. The moment true science began its work, and ran counter to any of this fund of knowledge, assumed to have been furnished by the Almighty, the trouble began. But the trouble was not altogether with the honest investigator. If his discovery tended to disprove what was known as scriptural truth, and inadvertently had been allowed to gain the public ear, every prelate in the church began contriving to refute it. A new opportunity for fame was opened to every ambitious theologian, and there immediately began in rebuttal a spinning of texts, and a style of metaphysical argument, from one end of the church to the other, which remain to this day as the most remarkable curiosities of sinuous reasoning and constrained thought on record. All questions of a scientific character had but one method of settlement, were they authorized or denied by scripture? If denied as they usually were, the disturber was either burned at the stake or made to recant. Fame, that chief incentive to all high effort, offered none of its rewards beyond theological circles, and during the ten centuries of complete church supremacy, any advance in knowledge which did not stir the animosity of theologians gained less public attention and applause than the wearing of a hair shirt or a crown of thorns. During a thousand years the church had kept the world slumbering in the darkness of barbarism and superstition punishing with death those it could not convince. Any doubter of generally accepted beliefs, either in religion or science, who can support his position with plausable argument, is entitled at least to the consideration of being a thinker. The constant taking off of every such one, during a term counted by centuries, could have no other effect than to reduce the average of intellectual vigor in the whole. The husbandman, who removes from his acres of growing grain the tallest and heaviest stalks, and instead of saving them for seed, destroys them, insures, in time, the misfortune of dwarfed fields and diminished harvests. The church, since its complete victory over paganism in the fourth century, had not produced with its supreme control over all learning a single noted man of science, or one promising to be such, whom it had not either suppressed or tortured to death, not a painter or poet who had not devoted his genius principally to superstition or sensuality, not a historian whose veracity is not doubted, and not a single towering man of letters. This, too, in a people, among whom mingled the descendants of the Greek masters of literature and philosophy. When, about four centuries ago, secular learning and free thought began their first open advances since pagan days, the church, finding in every such movement some disturbance of its traditions, and making no account of their benefit to mankind, brought all its powers to bear for their suppression. In laying to do so it pursued the same cruel policy it had adopted in former contests. These cruelties and intimidations were practiced at a time when within the church were openly perpetrated corruptions of the most glaring character; which together, loosened its hold upon the consciences of men, and made possible that revolt and division known as the Reformation, early in the sixteenth century. Coming nearer our own time, and having to deal with theological conditions not yet entirely removed, a little more detail is necessary.
The quarter century before and the century following the Reformation was a remarkable era in the world’s history. It was noted throughout as a desperate and continuous struggle by men of science to dispel the darkness that had so long enveloped the Christian world. The art of printing, then recently discovered, and just coming into practical working effect, and the thoughts of men thereby communicated from one to the rest with a facility never before known, had the effect of arousing mental activities everywhere. From a load only partially removed men began exploring regions of science that had been interdicted, and a great movement in positive knowledge began. The most enlightened men of the time went over to the Reformation, and if within that body, they had found the shelter and encouragement they deserved, the sixteenth century and the one following it would have been the most brilliant period on record except our own, for scientific discoveries and the world’s advancement. Such a conclusion is justified by taking note of the wonderful men of genius who came into the world during that time, who, with all the restrictions and limitations cast about them by the two churches, laid such new foundations in truth and learning, that nothing was to be done by subsequent workers in the same lines but build upon them. Buffon, who may justly be called the father of natural science, with powers of research and gifts of presenting results showing genius of a high order, by his simple statement of truths which are to-day truisms in science, was dragged forth by the leaders of the Reformation, and forced to recant publicly and to print his recantation. “I abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses.” Linnaeus, the founder of a scientific system in botany, and the discoverer of sex in plants, was constantly hampered and constrained in his thoughts by the threats of the Reformation. A pretended miracle of turning water into blood appeared in his vicinity, and after looking into it carefully he reported that the reddening of the water was caused by dense masses of minute insects. When news of this explanation reached the ears of the Protestant bishop he denounced this scientific discovery as a “Satanic Abyss.” “When God allows such a miracle to take place,” said he, “Satan endeavors, and so does his ungodly and worldly tools, to make it signify nothing.” Descartes, the founder of modern philosophy, and ranked among the foremost mathematicians of his day, yet, his constant dread of persecution from Protestantism led him steadily to veil his thoughts, and to suppress them when they threatened to interfere with theological beliefs. Leibnitz, the great thinker, who came so near to the discovery of evolution, Spinoza, and later Hume, Kepler, Kant, Newton and many others, which want of space prevents mention were likely to have done much more for science had not the theological atmosphere of the Christian churches been so unpropitious.
The true story of Galileo, the monumental shame of Christianity, cannot be told without implicating the younger with the older church. The Reformation looked on complaisantly and approvingly while this crime was being committed. It was in complete accordance with its beliefs and methods. The Copernican system, on account of the adoption of which, Galileo was persecuted was as strenuously and bitterly denounced by Protestants as Catholics. Luther says “People gave ear to an upstart astrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolved, and not the sun and moon. This fool wishes to revise the whole system of astronomy, but sacred scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.” The recantation of this venerable scientist, worn out with imprisonment and sorrow, and in fear of torture and death, is as follows: “I Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner on my knees before your eminences, having before my eyes the Holy Gospel, which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse and detest the error and the heresy of the movement of the earth.” As the sphericity of the earth was suggested by Aristotle, and its movement had been a matter of earnest discussion by theologians for ages, we see fit to transcribe here the argument of one of them, made a long time ago it is true, but nevertheless a fair sample of the theological methods of thought. It is copied from a book written by one Scipio Chiaramonti, and dedicated to Cardinal Barberini. “Animals which move have limbs and muscles, the earth has no limbs and muscles, therefore it does not move. It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the Sun, etc., turn round. If the earth revolves it must also have an angel in the center to set it in motion; but only devils live there; it would therefore be a devil who would impart motion to the earth.” All branches of the Protestant church condemned the theory of the earth’s movement. Calvin asked, “Who will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?” Wesley also denounced the new theory, declaring it to “tend toward infidelity.” The grand men who were coming forward in their efforts to advance knowledge unavoidably encroached upon many of the “truths of scripture” and both churches were equally engaged in their efforts to suppress them, by argument if possible, but if not, by fire and stake. The Protestant church, which has always made a claim of especial enlightenment, vied with the other in its cruel and relentless warfare upon what is known among the churches as heresy, the proper definition of which is reason and common sense. We have said that the case of Galileo was the monumental shame of Christendom; the case of Servetus was a monumental crime, which Protestantism alone must answer for.
The persecution of Michael Servetus by John Calvin, one of the leaders of the Reformation, was one of the most unjust and inhuman exercises of religious authority that the world has seen. There were many features in this tragedy of burning at the stake, that were out of the common. The victim was a man of unblemished character, of great learning, and a scientist, with a genius for investigation. He was a skilled practitioner of medicine, out of which profession he derived his income. He had made some advances in medical science, coming so near to a discovery of the circulation of the blood, that it is quite likely, but for his untimely death, he would have reached it instead of Harvey, many years afterward. His active mind had led him to devote much of his leisure to the study of theology, and, laboring among its problems, he strove to reconcile a number of orthodox beliefs and doctrines with the scientific knowledge of his time, not combating them or contriving at their destruction, but by changing the sense of words, to make them apparently accord with known elements of truth. He was an ardent supporter of the Reformation, and a friend and admirer of Calvin, and he began and maintained for some time, a correspondence with him, with the view of obtaining his advice and support. The proposed modification in the sense of scriptural texts, was not favorably received by Calvin, and the two were drawn into a controversy, which finally became acrimonious. The world, at present, partially recovered from its long period of hypnotized reason, is able to appreciate the small value of the questions which engaged these two men, and which led one to strike the other down to death, and it is also able to judge how much Servetus was in advance of his adversary in their discussions.
Calvin maintained, that under instructions from God, through the Bible, an infant, dying without baptism, could not escape the tortures of Hell, a locality described by the same authority, as a place of horrors, of endless burning amid sulphurous fires, of never ending thirst, and of a “weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth” through all time to come. Servetus expressed his doubts of the justice of this infliction upon sinless infants, and attempted to show that it was not authorized by the Sacred Book. He also denied the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, as it was commonly received. He did not deny a kind of Trinity in the unity of God, but believing that it was merely formal, and not personal, mere distinctions in the divine essence, and that, as generally understood, it was a dream, and an invention of the Fathers of the Church. He also asserted, upon good authority, that there was a Christian doctrine before there was any adoption of the Hebrew legends; that these legends did not become a part of the church, until nearly a century after the great moral teacher had met his cruel death. He also came as near as he dared, to expressing his belief, that the Son was merely a man, with the divine inspiration in a large degree. Such advanced ideas as these, asserted with the positiveness of conviction, and backed with unanswerable argument, were the cause of his undoing.
Calvin, at this time, was at the head of a church already powerful. He ruled it with an autocratic will, and upon all questions of doctrinal beliefs, he was the last court of appeal. He had long accepted the homage of his followers, as one selected by the Almighty for their spiritual guidance, and, with the common weakness of humanity, he became arbitrary and despotic in his management of church affairs. He was always ready to advise and direct, and in his first letters to Servetus, assumed some show of argument while denying his doctrines. Servetus answered him, not with that deference that his adversary usually received, but in all the spirit of earnest debate. Nothing more exasperating to Calvin could have occurred, and to cap the climax of affront, his adversary, a mere layman, published a book “Christianity Restored” setting forth his advanced views, and with a reckless temerity, sent the reformer a copy. The controversy between them immediately degenerated into mutual recrimination and abuse. Calvin’s anger was raised to a white heat, when he saw the errors and blasphemies, as he regarded them, and which he had vainly sought to combat, confided to the printed page, and thrown broadcast upon the world. Besides the alleged heretical matter of the book, he found himself taken to task, declared to be in error, and his most cherished doctrines controverted. But he discovered withal some matter in the book which pleased him. His enemy had committed himself in abusing the Papacy: evidence sufficient to convict him at once of blasphemy in the Roman Catholic city of Vienne in France where Servetus then resided, and he proceeded at once to put the cruel scheme of his death into execution. By information to the authorities at Vienne through dictated letters, he succeeded in having Servetus thrown into prison there, from whence he escaped, and became an outcast for months. The malignant and inhuman manner in which this Christian leader followed his innocent victim, could scarcely have occurred upon any other question but a religious one, and his murderous intent, from the first, is shown by a letter from Calvin to a friend in which he says, “Servetus wrote to me lately, and besides his letter sent me a great volume of his ravings, telling me, with audacious arrogance, that I should find there things stupendous and unheard of until now.” He offers to come thither if I approve; but I will not pledge my faith to him; for, did he come, if I have any authority here, “I should never suffer him to go away alive.” And he proved himself, in this instance, true to his word.