Some thirty years ago, after a period of laborious study, I became the House Surgeon of a large Infirmary. In that institution I was enabled to see the practice of seven different doctors, and to compare the results which followed from their various plans of treatment. I soon found that the number of cures was nearly equal amongst them all, and became certain that recovery was little influenced by the medicine given. The conclusion drawn was that the physician could do harm, but that his power for good was limited. This induced me to investigate the laws of health and of disease, with an especial desire to discover some sure ground on which the healing art might safely stand. The inquiry was a long one, and to myself satisfactory. The conclusions to which I came were extremely simple—amounting almost to truisms; and I was surprised that it had required long and sustained labour to find out such very homely truths as those which I seemed to have unearthed.

Yet, with this discovery came the assurance that, if I could induce my medical brethren to adopt my views, they would deprive themselves of the means of living. Men, like horses or tigers, monkeys and codfish, can do without doctors. Here and there, it is true, that the art and skill of the physician or surgeon can relieve pain, avert danger from accidents, and ward off death for a time; but, in the generality of cases, doctors are powerless. It is the business of such men, however, to magnify their office to the utmost. They get their money ostensibly by curing the sick; but it is clear, that the shorter the illness the fewer will be the fees, and the more protracted the attendance the larger must be the "honorarium." There is, then, good reason why the medical profession should discourage too close an investigation into truth.

But, outside of this fraternity, there are many men desirous of understanding the principles of the healing art Many of these have begun by noticing the style of the doctor's education. They find that he is taught in "halls," "colleges," and "schools," for a certain period of time; and then, at about the age of two-and-twenty, he is examined by some experienced men, and, if considered "competent," he pays certain fees, and is then licensed to practise as physician. As all regular doctors go through this course, it is natural that all should think and act in a common way, and style their doctrines "orthodox." It is equally certain that to such opinion the majority adhere through life. But it has always happened, that many men and women have aspired to the position of medical professors, without going through the usual career; or, having done so, they have struck out a novel plan of practice, which they designate a new method of cure. These have always been opposed by the "orthodox," and the contest is carried on with varying success, until the general public give their verdict on one side or the other. Into the motives which sway the respective combatants we will not enter; our chief desire being to show that each set is upheld by those who are designated "laymen," whose education has not been medical The most intelligent on the heterodox side have been clergymen; and many have been the complaints of "orthodox" doctors, that "the parsons" should patronize, so energetically as they do, medical "dissenters."

As the "clerk" takes pleasure in examining the therapeutical doctrines of his physician, so the medical professor frequently inquires closely into his clergyman's theological views and feels himself at liberty to accept or oppose them, as the "clerk" adopts or attacks him and his theory and practice. It would, indeed, be disrespectful in the listener not to pay intelligent heed to the discourses which emanate from the pulpit. I have myself listened to the preaching of hundreds of university graduates, and of men who never took a degree, and have noticed that the same diversity of style exists amongst them, as is to be found in medical men. Some order a certain plan of treatment for a soul, which they assert to be grievously affected, and give no reason for what they say or do. Others give their motives for everything which they affirm, and for the plan which they prescribe for cure. Under the ministry of one of the last I sat for many years. Conspicuous for sound judgment, and for a peculiarly clear oratory, his sermons were to me an intellectual treat. From the exordium, forwards, I followed his words closely, and lost none of his arguments. But I soon became conscious that he never once carried his reasoning to its logical conclusion. Still further, it was manifest that certain things were by him taken for granted; and it was held to be culpable to inquire into the reality of those assumptions. In fine, it was evident, that there was a Bluebeard's closet in the house of God, into which, in the preacher's opinion, it was death to pry!

With the idea which was gradually forced upon my mind, that there was a systematic suppression of the truth in the pulpit, I very carefully searched the Bible, with which I have been familiar from infancy, and upon which, it is asserted, all our faith is founded. At this time, too, a casual inquiry into some ancient cognomens, which have descended to us from remote antiquity, induced me to examine into ancient faiths generally. With this became associated an examination of all religions, and their influence upon mankind.

I found that in every nation there have been, and still are, good men and bad, gentle and brutal, thoughtful and ignorant. That the best men of Paganism—Buddha, for example—did not lose, by comparison, with the brightest light of Christianity; and that such large cities as London and Paris, have as much vice within them as ancient Rome or modern Calcutta. I found, moreover, that there is a culpable colouring in the accounts given by Christian travellers of Pagan countries. The clerical pen rests invariably and strongly upon the bad points of every heathen cult, and contrasts them with the best elements of Christianity. I do not know that it has ever instituted a fair comparison between corresponding characters in each faith. As an illustration of my meaning, let us regard the stern virtue of the Roman Lucretia, who committed suicide, her body having been forcibly defiled by the embraces of another than her husband, even though the ravisher was a prince. She had heard nothing of the Jewish law or Christian gospel, nevertheless she was far better than the wives of the nobles in the courts of Louis the XIV. and XV., who gladly sold themselves and their daughters to the royal lechers. These, unlike the Italian woman, were instructed both in the law and the gospel; they attended one place or another of Christian worship daily or weekly. Nay, if report be true, "the eldest son of the Church," when he visited the "parc aux cerfs," made each fresh virgin, victim of his passion, duly say her prayers before she assisted him to commit adultery, and herself permitted fornication! We sympathize with Paul and the early Christian fathers in their denunciations of the Romans and Greeks for obscenities practised in honour of their gods; but, at the same time, we feel sure that, had those apostles and teachers lived in the middle ages, they would have denounced, with greater warmth, the murders which were constantly being perpetrated in honour of Jesus.

In like manner, we may greatly regret, with the writer of Psalm xiv., that amongst "the children of men, there is none that doeth good; no, not one;" but we must equally bow before the statement of Ezekiel (ch. xxii. 30), that there was no more propriety amongst the so-called "chosen people of God," than amongst the Gentile Canaanites and Babylonians.

Again, we feel pain when we find the great ones of the earth—aye, and many small ones too—seeking out for villains, "willing to commit murder for a mede," and lament that lawgivers should secretly encourage lawlessness; but we cannot forget that Jesus of Nazareth is represented, in John vi. 70, to have selected a devil to bring about certain ends—see also John xiii. 26, 27, in which the agency is well marked.

Modern divines tell us that war, tumult, hatred, malice, quarrels of all kinds, and murder come from the devil, and are the direct result of our fallen nature; nevertheless, we remember that Jesus is reported to have said—"I came not to send peace, but a sword; I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against the mother," &c. (Matt. x. 34, 35). When we institute comparisons like these, the balance is not uneven. I found, moreover, that the sharply defined line, commonly drawn between Paganism and Christianity, is worthless—the doctrines of the latter being, in many respects, identical with, or deduced from, the former.

It seemed necessary, therefore, to ascertain whether, in religion, any other line than the one in vogue in Europe, could be drawn with certainty.

The result of my observations showed a wonderful similarity to exist between the clerical and medical profession; and I feel that, if my views about the cure of souls and bodies were generally adopted, there would be no need either for parson or for doctor. Instead of discovering, as I had hoped to do, which of all the rival sects of Christendom is the best one, I found that all were unnecessary, that many are degraded in doctrine and bad in practice; and that, if any must exist, the one which effects the least mischief should be the one selected for general adoption. It required much courage to allow myself to believe that doctors have, taking everything into consideration, done more harm in the world than good, and still more to announce my conviction that Christianity was even more culpable than medicine. The physician, when professing to cure, has too often assisted disease to kill; and he who has had the cure of souls, has invented plans to make believers in his doctrine miserable. The first fills his coffers proportionally to the extent to which he can protract recovery; the second becomes rich in proportion to the success with which he multiplies mental terrors, and then sells repose. The one enfeebles the body, the other cripples the intellect, and aggravates envy, hatred, and malice. Both are equally influential in preventing man from being such as we believe that the Almighty designed him to be.

Though we oppose the old plan of medication of body and mind, we are far from asserting that there is no value in an honest doctor, either of divinity or medicine. On the contrary, I have a stronger faith in my own profession, as it has been reformed, than ever I had ere the light of good sense had shone upon it; and I have a far more confident trust in the religion propounded by F. W. Newman, in Theism, than in that current amongst Christians in general But in such schemes of physic and faith, very few "ministers" are necessary, shams find no place, and emoluments are small A man who communes with his God requires no priest, mediator, middle-man, or saint—whether virgin, martyr, or both—to intercede for him.

Holding such opinions as these, it is not probable that I shall find many followers. I do not seek them. My aim has been to set good sterling stuff before the world, so that any one, whose self-reliance is great, may receive strength. There are many who would rather die with a physician close beside them when they are ill, than live without a doctor; and there are few who would not rather enjoy the fear of hell with the orthodox, than be with heretics free from such terrors—"For sure, the pleasure is as great in being cheated, as to cheat." To all such our writings are caviare. Yet, even to them, we would say that we have warrant for our belief in statements, to which the orthodox cannot reasonably object—viz., "If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted?" (Gen. iv. 7); "In every nation, he that feareth God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him" (Acts x. 35); "He that doeth righteousness, is righteous" (1 John iii. 7).

Let me contrast my own views with those generally current amongst us. I believe that God did not make men, any more than the beasts, to damn the largest number of them throughout eternity. I believe that all who aver that they have been selected by the Creator from all the world besides as the only recipients of salvation are wrong, and deceivers of the people. In fine, I believe that God's "tender mercies are over all his works." The common opinion that the Almighty so revels in cruelty, that He makes creatures to torture them, is a horrible one to me—fit only to come from impotent Pagan priests. That Jehovah selected about one million of bad men, out of about four hundred other millions equally bad, solely because their progenitor, Abraham, consented to murder and burn his son, is to me a frightful blasphemy; and, lastly, that God has no tender mercies for nine-tenths of the human race, is to convert our conception of the Author of all good into the conventional "Devil." The comparison may be summed up thus: I believe in God, the Father of all things; the so-called orthodox believe in the God Satan. I do not know anything in all my studies which excited my attention more painfully than the result of the analysis of Jehovah's character, as given in our Bible. Kind to those who are said to please Him, He is a fearful demon to all who are said to oppose Him.

How can any reasonable man hold the opinion that the Devil instigated all atrocities of the Syrians, Chaldees, Assyrians, Romans, Turks, Tartars, Saracens, Affghans, Mahometans, and Hindoos, and believe that the good God drowned the whole world, and nearly every single thing that had life; that He ordered the extermination, not only of Midianites and Amalekites, but slaughtered, in one way or another, all the people whom he led out of Egypt—except two—merely because they had a natural fear of war. What was the massacre at Cawnpore to that in Jericho and other Canaanite cities? I say it with sober seriousness—in sorrow, not in anger—as a thinking man, and not as an advocate for, or against, any religious view, that it is an awful thing for any nation to permit a book to circulate, as a sacred one, in which God and the Devil are painted in the same colours.

Into this analysis of religion I was led to enter from the observation of a friend, who challenged me to find, in any non-Hebraic or non-Christian country, a faith or practice equal to that current amongst the followers of Moses and Jesus, or to discover any spot in the wide world where there is, or has been, a civilization equal to that which existed in Judea, and the parts inhabited by Christians. In consequence of this defiance, it became more than ever necessary for me to study the nature of the current faith and practice of Christendom, and to inquire how far the latter was dependent upon the former—that is to say, whether the practices of civilization are due to our religion, or have gradually grown up in spite of it. The next point was to pay similar heed to the doctrines and manner of life common amongst those to whom our Bible has been wholly unknown.

Many of the conclusions to which I came have already appeared in the second volume of Ancient Faiths, under the heads of "Religion," "Theology," &c.; but others came upon me when that book had been completed, and the present supplement is designed with the idea of expressing, still further, the extent of my views, and the evidence upon which they are founded—with special reference to the differential value of Christian and unchristian faith and practice.

As was natural, this involved the question constantly before my mind in the preceding volumes—viz., "Is there in reality anything in the Hebrew and the Christian theology essentially different from that promulgated by the leaders of divinity in other countries?" This point has repeatedly been discussed, and amongst the orthodox there is no difficulty in allowing the existence of a strong similarity in all systems of religion; but the value of the fact is supposed to be reduced to ridicule by the monstrous assertion, that Moses and Jesus taught all the world. Amongst the books which came under my notice, whilst prosecuting my search, was a very remarkable one, called The Modern Buddhist, now The Wheel of the Law, which is an account of the religious thoughts of a Siamese monarch, with a statement of his conversations with Christian missionaries. In this the British churchman and non-conformist can see themselves as others see them; and the Asiatic has quite as great, perhaps even a superior, right to call the European "poor and benighted," as the Christian has to call the Buddhist "a miserable Pagan."

Notwithstanding my endeavours to be perfectly "judicial," and to give what I believe to be an impartial account of the subjects which I describe, I have been, by certain critics, accused of special pleading. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to deny the charge, for each reader must judge of my fairness, or otherwise, for himself. But, on the other hand, I retort most strongly, by averring that I have not met, in the whole course of my reading, a religious work by an orthodox divine, which does not "bear false witness against its neighbours."

There is in all both a suppressio veri and a suggestio falsi, which makes the honest inquirer almost entirely reject their books. In addition to this, there is in them a recklessness of statement and assertion which is unequalled, except in the fierce controversies of ancient doctors. The perfect contempt which certain puny divines, who have endeavoured to throw dirt upon the present Bishop of Natal, show for the laws of evidence, and the systematic way in which they avoid every real point at issue, are marvellous to those who know that such people have had an university education, have studied logic, and profess an unlimited respect for truth. In future years the theological writings, generally, of our time will be as much objurgated by enlightened, earnest, and thoughtful readers, as Protestants of to-day abuse the theology and prurience of Sanchez, Thomas Aquinas, and Peter Dens.

In conclusion, I would wish to add, that I am conscious, from the amount of correspondence which I have had on the subject in hand, that there is not only a wide, but a constantly extending dissatisfaction with the current theology taught by the ministers of all denominations—excepting, as a body, the Unitarians, and such individuals as Bishop Colenso, Bishop Hinds, Mr Voysey, and others. The laity are awaking to the fact that priests are strenuously endeavouring to quench the light of reason in the fogs of faith. Unless the Protestantism, of which Great Britain was once so proud, decides to drift into Papism—the only legitimate harbour for those who reject reason for a guide—it must thoroughly reform itself, and ruthlessly reject, as "necessary to salvation," every article of belief which is not only nonsensical or absurd, but which has unquestionably descended from a grovelling Paganism. To this end we hope that our essays will contribute.