SECULARISM differs from Christianism in so far as it accepts only the teachings which pertain to man, and which are consonant with reason and experience.

Parts of the Bible have moral splendor in them, but no Christian will allow any one to take the parts he deems true, and reject as untrue those he deems false. He who ventured to be thus eclectic would be defamed as Paine was. Thus Christians compel those who would stand by reason to stand apart from them.

To accept a part, and put that forward as the whole—to pretend or even to assume it to be the whole—is dishonest. To retain a portion, and reject what you leave, and not say so, is deceiving. To contend that what you accept as the spirit of Christianity is in accordance with all that contradicts it, is to spend your days in harmonising opposite statements—a pursuit demoralising to the understanding. The Secularist has, therefore, to choose between dishonesty, the deception of others and deception of himself, or ethical principles independent of Christianity—and this is what he does:

The Bible being a bundle of Hebrew tracts on tribal life and tribal spite, its assumed infallibility is a burden, contradicting and misleading to all who accept it as a divine handbook of duty.

In papers issued by religious societies upon the Bible it is declared to be "so complete a system that nothing can be added to it, or taken from it," and that "it contains everything needful to be known or done." This is so false that no one, perceiving it, could be honest and not protest against it in the interest of others. Recently the Bishop of Worcester said: "It was of no use resisting the Higher Criticism. God had not been pleased to give us what might be called a perfect Bible."* Then it is prudence to seek a more trustworthy guide.

If money were bequeathed to maintain the eclectic criticism of the Scripture, it would be confiscated by Christian law. So to stand apart is indispensable self-defence. Individual Christians, as I well know, devote themselves with a noble earnestness to the service of man, as they understand his interests; but so long as Christianity retains the power of fraud, and uses it, Christianism as a system, or as a cause, remains outside the pale of respect. Prayer, in which the oppressed and poor are taught to trust, is of no avail for protection or food, and the poor ought to know it. The Bishop of Manchester declared, in my hearing, that the Lord's Prayer will not bring us "daily bread," but that "it is an exercise of faith to ask for what we shall not receive." But if prayer will not bring "daily bread," it is a dangerous deception to keep up the belief that it will. The eyes of forethought are closed by trust in such aid, thrift is an affront to the generosity of heaven, and labor is foolishness. But, alas! aid does not come by supplication. The prayer-maker dies in mendicancy. It is not reverence 'to pour into the ears of God praise for protection never accorded. Dean Stanley, admirable as a man as well as a saint, was killed in the Deanery, Westminster, by a bad drain, in spite of all his Collects. Dean Farrar has been driven from St. Margaret's Rectory, in Dean's Yard, by another drain, which poisons in spite of the Thirty-nine Articles; and Canon Eyton refuses to take up his residence until the sanitary engineers have overhauled* the place, which, notwithstanding the invocations of the Church, Providence does not see to. To keep silence on the non-intervention of Providence would be to connive at the fate of those who come to destruction by such dependence.

True respect would treat God as though at the least he is a gentlemen. Christianity does not do this. No gentleman would accept thanks for benefits he had not conferred, nor would he exact thanks daily and hourly for gifts he had really made, nor have the vanity to covet perpetual thanksgivings. He who would respect God, or respect himself, must seek a faith apart from such Christianity.

A divine, who excelled in good sense, said: "Dangerous it were for the feeble brain of man to wade far into the doings of the Most High. Our soundest knowledge is, to know that we know him not; and our safest eloquence concerning Him is our silence; therefore it be-hoveth our words to be wary and few."*

Mrs. Barbauld may have borrowed from Richard Hooker her fine line:

An earnest Christian, not a religious man (for all Christians are not religious), assuming the professional familiarity with the mind of God, said to me: "Should the Lord call you to-day, are you prepared to meet Him?" I answered: Certainly; for the service of man in some form is seldom absent from my thoughts, and must be consonant with his will. Were I to pray, I should pray God to spare me from the presumption of expecting to meet him, and from the vanity and conceit of thinking that the God of the universe will take an opportunity of meeting me.

Who can have moral longing for a religion which represents God as hanging over York Castle to receive the soul of Dove, the debauchee, who slowly poisoned his wife, and whose final spiritual progress was posted day by day on the Castle gates until the hour of the hangman came? Dove's confession was as appalling as instructive. It ran thus:

By quoting these lines, which Burns might have written, the writer is sorry to portray, in their naked form, principles which so many cherish. But the anatomy of creeds can no more be explained, with the garments of tradition and sentiment upon them, than a surgeon can demonstrate the structure of the body with the clothes on. Divine perdition is an ethical impossibility.

Christianism is too often but a sour influence on life. It tolerates nature, but does not enjoy it. Instead of giving men two Sundays, as it might,—one for recreation and one for contemplation,—it converts the only day of the poor into a penal infliction. It is always more or less against art, parks, clubs, sanitation, equity to labor, freedom, and many other things. If any Christians eventually accept these material ideas, they mostly dislike them. Art takes attention from the Gospel. In parks many delight to walk, when they might be at chapel or church. Clubs teach men toleration, and toleration is thought to beget indifference. Sanitation is a form of blasphemy. Every Christian sings:—

But sanitation assassinates these "servants of the Lord." In every hospital they are tried, condemned, and executed as the enemies of mankind. If labor had justice, it would be independent, and no longer hopeless, as the poor always are. Freedom renders men defiant of subjection, which all priests are prone to exercise. Secularism has none of this distrust and fear. It elects to be on the side of human progress, and takes that side, withstand it who may. Thus, those who care for the improvement of mankind must act on principles dissociated from doctrines repellent to humanity and deterrent of ameliorative enterprise.