Part 49

It is not the wicked we should hate, but wickedness.

Be like God, compassionate, merciful.

Judge not your neighbour when you have not been in his place.

He who charitably judges his neighbour shall be charitably judged by God.

Do not unto others that which it would be disagreeable to you to suffer yourself, that is the main part of the law; all the rest is only commentary.

From the Old Testament come such morals as:

Let him give his cheek to him that smiteth him (Lam. iii. 30).

Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself (Lev. xix. 18).

He that is of a lowly spirit shall obtain honour (Prov. xxix. 23)

The meek shall inherit the land (Ps. xxxvii 11).

History and ancient literature prove that Christianity did not bring a new moral code, did not inaugurate peace, nor purity, nor universal brotherhood, did not originate the ideal human character: but checked civilisation, resisted all enlightenment, and deluged the earth with innocent blood in the endeavour to compel mankind to drink old moral wine out of new theological bottles.

Three of the greatest blessings men can have are freedom, liberty of conscience, and knowledge. These blessings Christianity has not given, but has opposed.

It is largely to the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the Arabs and the Indians, to patriots, heroes, statesmen, scholars, scientists, travellers, inventors, discoverers, authors, poets, philanthropists, rebels, sceptics, and reformers that the world owes such advance as it has made towards liberty and happiness and universal loving-kindness.

This advance has been made in defiance of Christian envy, hatred, and malice, and in defiance of Christian tyranny and persecution. After fighting fiercely to defeat the advance of humanity, after slaying and cursing the noblest sons and daughters of the ages, the defeated Christians now claim to have conquered the fields they have lost, to have bestowed the benefits they have denied, to have evolved the civilisation they have maimed and damned.

As a Democrat, a Humanist, and a Socialist, I join my voice to the indignant chorus which denies those claims.

THE SUCCESS OF CHRISTIANITY

We are told that the divine origin and truth of Christianity are proved by the marvellous success of that religion. But it seems to me that the reverse is proved by its failure.

Christianity owed its magnificent opportunities (which it has wasted) to several accidental circumstances. Just as the rise of Buddhism was made possible by the act of King Asoka in adopting it as the State Religion of his vast Indian kingdom, was the rise of Christianity made possible by the act of the Emperor Constantine in adopting it as the State religion of the far-stretched Roman Empire.

Christianity spread rapidly because the Roman Empire was ripe for a new religion. It conquered because it threw in its lot with the ruling powers. It throve because it came with the tempting bribe of Heaven in one hand, and the withering threat of Hell in the other. The older religions, grey in their senility, had no such bribe or threat to conjure with.

Christianity overcame opposition by murdering or cursing all who resisted its advance. It exterminated scepticism by stifling knowledge, and putting a merciless veto on free thought and free speech, and by rewarding philosophers and discoverers with the faggot and the chain. It held its power for centuries by force of hell-fire, and ignorance, and the sword; and the greatest of these was ignorance.

Nor must it be supposed that the persecution and the slaughter of "Heretics" and "Infidels" was the exception. It was the rule. Motley, the American historian, states that Torquemada, during eighteen years' command of the Inquisition, burnt more than ten thousand people alive, and punished nearly a hundred thousand with infamy, confiscation of property, or perpetual imprisonment.

To be a Jew, a Moslem, a Lutheran, a "wizard," a sceptic, a heretic was to merit death and torture. One order of Philip of Spain condemned to death as "heretics" the entire population of the Netherlands. Wherever the Christian religion was successful the martyrs' fires burned, and the devilish instruments of torture were in use. For some twelve centuries the Holy Church carried out this inhuman policy. And to this day the term "free thought" is a term of reproach. The shadow of the fanatical priest, that half-demented coward, sneak, and assassin, still blights us. Although that holy monster, with his lurking spies, his villainous casuistries, his flames and devils, and red-hot pincers, and whips of steel, has been defeated by the humanity he scorned and the knowledge he feared, yet he has left a taint behind him. It is still held that it ought to be an unpleasant thing to be an Infidel.

And, yes, there were other factors in the "success" of Christianity. The story of the herald angels, the wise men from the east, the manger, the child God, the cross, and the gospel of mercy and atonement, and of universal brotherhood and peace amongst the earthly children of a Heavenly Father, whose attribute was love--this story, possessed a certain homely beauty and sentimental glamour which won the allegiance of many golden-hearted and sweet-souled men and women. These lovely natures assimilated from the chaotic welter of beauty and ashes called the Christian religion all that was pure, and rejected all that was foul. It was the light of such sovereign souls as Joan of Arc and Francis of Assisi that saved Christianity from darkness and the pit; and how much does that religion owe to the genius of Wyclif and Tyndale, of Milton and Handel, of Mozart and Thomas a Kempis, of Michael Angelo and Rafael, and the compilers of the Book of Common Prayer?

There are good men and good women by millions in the Christian ranks to-day, and it is their virtue, and their zeal, and their illumination of its better qualities, and charitable and loyal shelter of its follies and its crimes, that keep the Christian religion still alive.

Christianity has been for fifteen hundred years the religion of the brilliant, brave, and strenuous races in the world. And what has it accomplished? And how does it stand to-day?

Is Christianity the rule of life in America and Europe? Are the masses of people who accept it peaceful, virtuous, chaste, spiritually minded, prosperous, happy? Are their national laws based on its ethics? Are their international politics guided by the Sermon on the Mount? Are their noblest and most Christlike men and women most revered and honoured? Is the Christian religion loved and respected by those outside its pale? Are London and Paris, New York and St. Petersburg, Berlin, Vienna, Brussels, and Rome centres of holiness and of sweetness and light? From Glasgow to Johannesburg, from Bombay to San Francisco is God or Mammon king?

If a tree should be known by its fruit, the Christian religion has small right to boast of its success.

But the Christian will say, "This is not Christianity, but its caricature." Where, then, is the saving grace, the compelling power, of this divine religion, which, planted by God Himself, is found after nineteen centuries to yield nothing but leaves?