A struggle has began, which promises to be one of the fiercest that thiscentury has seen, between the bigots and persecutors on the one hand andthe supporters of free speech on the other.
It appears, then, worth while to look closely into this Christian creed,which claims the right to imprison and torture men of pure life fornon-belief in its tenets. Christianity threatens us with persecutionhere and damnation hereafter if we do not believe its doctrines. "Hethat believeth not shall be damned," says Jesus. "He that believeth notshall be imprisoned and pick oakum," says Mr. Justice North. The threatof damnation would trouble us little if it stood alone-we could putoff consideration of that until we arrived in the other world; but thethreat of imprisonment here is unpleasant. If we are to burn for everhereafter, the Christians might really allow us to enjoy ourselves here;is their malice (like their hell) such a bottomless pit that an eternityof torture is not enough to fill it up?
Let us see what we must believe on peril of damnation and Newgate. (1)We must believe the "Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments tobe of divine authority;" (2) we must believe each "one of the personsin the Holy Trinity to be God," while (3) we also believe that there arenot "more gods than one;" (4) we must believe the "Christian religionto be true;" we are strictly forbidden to publish any "ludicrous matterrelating to God, Jesus Christ, or the Bible, or the formularies of theChurch of England as by law established," and are warned that we shallnot be saved by our remarks being "intended in good faith as an argumentagainst any doctrine or opinion."
(1) We must believe the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testament tobe of Divine Authority.
This first demand on our faith is a very large one, and can only be metby refusing to read any scientific book, to look at any geological orantiquarian collections, to study any kind of natural knowledge; we musterase from our memories all the facts we have learned about the world;we must reject purity and decency of morals; we must revert to acondition of barbarous ignorance and barbarous conduct before we canbelieve very many parts of the Holy Scriptures are of divine authority.Still, as we are to be imprisoned and damned for not believing this, wemust try, and we had better examine a little more exactly what we areto believe on divine authority. Only some of our imposed feats ofleger-de-foi will be examined. Those who can accomplish these will notbungle over the rest.
It is of divine authority that god made "a firmament in the midst of thewaters" and divided the waters, putting some above it and some below,and this firmament is "heaven" (Gen. i., 6-8