“I thank the goodness and the grace (grays?)
Which on my birth have smiled,
And made me in these Christian days (dace?)
A happy English child.’*
But now that I am a man, this same consideration fills me with bitterest sorrow and anguish, so that I am ready to bellow:
I curse the evil and disgrace
Which have my birth defiled,
Who would have been in other case
A happy Muslim child!
Yea, when I contrast these glowing and glorious prospects held out to the faithful by the Kur-ân, with the everlasting singing in white night-gowns, amidst the howling of elders and composite beasts all over eyes (what our Heine terms “all the menagerie of the Apocalypse”), in adoration of a God like a jasper and sardine stone to look upon, and of a Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes; then do I wring my hands and beat my breast and tear my hair, sighing and sobbing, moaning and groaning, weeping and lamenting most piteously – Alas! and alas! and alas! why was I bom in a Christian land and reared for the Christian Heaven? Would that I had been born among the Muslims and brought up in the faith of El Islâm! So should I be now looking forward (for from such a generous faith never, never would I have lapsed) unto a Paradise worthy of the name; revelling in anticipations of four-score thousand servants, uncloying courses of three hundred dishes, unlimited strong wine without inebriation, six-dozen wives of the refulgent celestial virgins, aging not themselves, aging not me; perpetual youth, unsating and unexhausting raptures, for ever, and ever, and ever; and instead of having to sing my own throat hoarse, I should have the angel Isrâfeel to sing for me. Ah, dear God! Thou most Compassionate! Thou most Bountiful! Thou to whom all things are possible! grant that I may even yet be converted from a doleful Christian infidel into a blessed Muslim true believer! O God the All-merciful, save me from the terrors and tortures of our Sankey and Moody Christian heaven! O God the All-gracious, let me lie secure in the arms of six-dozen hooreeyehs of Paradise of El Islam! Amen, and Amen.
THE CHRISTIAN WORLD AND THE SECULARIST
(1876.)
The Christian World of the 1st inst. has another note on the article on “Some Muslim Laws and Beliefs.” As Mr. Foote responded to the first note on behalf of the Secularist, I, as the author of the obnoxious article, which was mainly mere compilation from the work of a Christian scholar and gentleman, may say a few words on my own behalf in reply to the second, which is as follows: —
“A correspondent writes: – In your ‘Notes by the Way’ last week there is a painful, though not unseasonable, quotation from a writer on ‘Muslim Laws and Beliefs.’ This, as coming from a Secularist, is deplorable enough. It is very much more so that the late Viscount Amberley, a son of a veteran statesman, should in his ‘Analysis of Religious Belief,’ which might indeed more justly be termed ‘A Panegyric of all Heathen Beliefs, and a Travesty of that of the Christian,’ have given a like description of the paradise of the Koran, and should have sneeringly told us that the Christian Scriptures, in their pictures of the heavenly life, ‘strangely overlook this enjoyment’ of ‘ever virgins’ never growing old, who are to ‘supply the faithful with the pleasure of love’ (vide Vol. II., p. 200). This is but a specimen of the disdainful and derisive tone with which this writer, who at length leaves himself stranded in a region of the dreariest Atheism, continually speaks of that Book which what he terms ‘the illusions of our younger days’ might have taught him o respect.”
I do not doubt that the quotation was painful to the Christian correspondent, since it is always painful to have our lifelong prejudices shocked by those who have never shared them, or who have attained freedom from their yoke. One might give not a few quotations from any number of the Christian World which would be very painful to a pious Muslim. Nor do I doubt that the quotation was not unseasonable, for quotations from the Secularist must always be seasonable in an influential Christian periodical, when they tend to expand the Christian narrowness, and show that there is much to be said in favor of other beliefs. And I admit that, like many other things coming from a Secularist, it must have been deplorable enough to a Christian suckled on the Bible, and assured in his unreflecting ignorance that it is the one true word of the three-in-one true god. But the correspondent finds it very much more deplorable that a son of a veteran statesman should agree with the Secularist – as if the sons of veteran statesmen were naturally expected to be sunk deeper than other persons in the prevailing superstition. The correspondent who, we may presume, has always been taught, and has never doubted, that all heathen beliefs are wholly devilish, and that the Christian belief is wholly divine, thinks that Viscount Amberley’s book is a panegyric of the former and a travesty of the latter. If the unfortunate correspondent had the courage and intelligence to enter upon a real analysis of religious belief, he would soon discover that he and his co-religionists have been all along travestying every form of what they call heathenism. With amusing simplicity he is astonished that Lord Amberley gives a like description of the paradise of the Kur-ân to that which I gave in the Secularist, as if he could have been accurate in giving any other, when mine was drawn from one of the most careful and accurate of writers, the Oriental Englishman, unequalled in his knowledge of Arabic literature and life! Why, in the very week following the attack on the Secularist, the Christian World’s twin sister, the Literary World (perhaps incited thereto by its study of our vilified paper), showed that it had been reading or dipping into Lane, by an article on him under the queer title of “A Man of One Book,” he being distinguished for three – “The Manners and Customs of the Modem Egyptians,” the translation of the “Arabian Nights,” with its peerless notes, and the monumental “Arabic Lexicon”; and the said queerly-named article echoed the general praise of his thoroughness and accuracy, and repeated the statement of those who knew him, that he was a deeply pious man. I am not concerned with the defence of Lord Amberley, and shall therefore not follow further the correspondent’s remarks on his book, save to note that a man who says that any such writer “leaves himself stranded in a region of the dreariest Atheism,” proves himself by this one phrase utterly incompetent to study that word or understand its subject matter; and, as ignorant and incapable, had better confine himself to the Sunday-school, the Young Men’s Christian Association, the religious tea-meeting, and street-corner raving.
It may be as well to say something on my own account, in addition to the vigorous remarks of Mr. Foote, in reply to the first note of the Christian World, and vindication of the passage it impugned. And first, as to the Book of Revelation, which claims to be prophetic, and stands in our Bible as the work of St. John the Divine. Luther, indeed, who was not afraid to pass an independent judgment, said, “I look upon the revelation as neither apostolic nor prophetic;” but it is received as both by our English Protestants, and continually referred to by them as the record of a genuine and authentic vision. But I assert, without fear of contradiction, that if they had never known it, and some missionary brought home an account of its marvels as belonging to the faith of some Polynesian islanders, they would be filled with wonder and compassion at the monstrous superstitions of those poor heathen barbarians. Yes, Exeter Hall and the readers and writers of the Christian World itself, would assuredly invoke help to enlighten the degraded idolaters who believed in a heaven whose God was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine; in the midst of whose throne, and round about whose throne, were four beasts – a lion, a calf, a man-faced monster, an eagle – each with six wings, and full of eyes before and behind and within; which beasts never rested day nor night from saying, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty;” and which, moreover, worshipped a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes – a figment more extravagant than the many-headed and many-armed idols of India. And so with the other enormities of the Apocalypse. Our civilised gentlemen of the Christian World can only believe that they believe these things, because hallowed associations and unreflecting faith blind their judgment to the obvious absurdity of the imagery and the conspicuous non-fulfilment of the prophecy, which again and again claims to announce events then at hand, to come quickly.
In the next place I assert that the everlasting monotonous singing of the praises of the lamb, the interminable senseless routine, is not a whit more spiritual, while infinitely less alluring, than the occupations of the Mohammedan Paradise. If it be answered that enlightened Christians have nobler ideas of heaven, I reply that such anticipations are not warranted by the New Testament, and that magnanimous Muslims have also nobler anticipations of paradise, for which there is warrant in the Kur-ân. And while on the subject of spirituality, I may remark that the pure monotheism of the Muslim and the Jew is immensely more spiritual, as well as more rational, than the monotritheism of the Christian, which not only deifies a man, but juggles with a so-called mystery that cannot be expressed in words without self-contradiction, cannot be conceived in thought, and, by the confession of its own apologists, defies reason.
As to the “hysterical buffoonery,” I have yet to learn that there is anything hysterical in a jolly burst of Rabelaisian laughter. And as to the “poor hollow mockery,” I can assure the writer in the Christian World that the mockery was quite rich, sound and genuine in relation to the Apocalypse of his idolised book and the popular Protestant Moody and Sankey heaven. (By the bye, can anyone inform us whether Mr. Sankey is really a Jew, and not a Christian Jew, as I have heard positively asserted on Hebrew authority?) As to the “blasphemous irreverence” and the “horrible and blasphemous invocation,” I deny the possibility of blasphemy where there is no belief. A man may blaspheme that which he accounts worthy of reverence, because in speaking evil of it he violates his own convictions and holiest feelings. But if for me there is no God, how can I blaspheme him? Speaking contemptuously of him, I but contemn nothing. If the writer in the Christian World were accused of blasphemy for reviling Jupiter and Venus, Brahma and Vishnu, Baal and Moloch, the Goddess of Reason and Mumbo Jumbo, he would reply, I cannot blaspheme false gods, meaning simply gods in whom he has no faith. Just so,
I say that I cannot blaspheme the trinity-in-unity of the Christian, which to me is non-existent, absurd, impossible. It would be well for the writers and readers of the Christian World to ponder these things.
THE ATHANASIAN CREED
(1865.)
On Christmas day, as on all other chief holidays of the year, the ministers and congregations of our National Church have had the noble privilege and pleasure of standing up and reciting the creed commonly called of St. Athanasius. The question of the authorship does not concern us here, but a note of Gibbon (chapter 37) is so brief and comprehensive that we may as well cite it: – “But the three following truths, however strange they may seem, are now universally acknowledged. 1. St. Athanasius is not the author of the creed which is so frequently read in our churches. 2. It does not appear to have existed within a century after his death. 3. It was originally composed in the Latin tongue, and consequently in the western provinces. Gennadius, patriarch of Constantinople, was so much amazed by this extraordinary composition, that he frankly pronounced it to be the work of a drunken man.” (This Gennadius, by the bye, is the same whom Gibbon mentions two or three times afterwards in the account of the siege and conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, a.d. 1453).
Whoever elaborated the Creed, and whether he did it drunk or sober, the Church of England has made it thoroughly her own by adoption.
Yet it must be admitted that many good churchmen, and perhaps even a few churchwomen, have not loved this adopted child of their Holy Mother as warmly as their duty commanded. The intelligently pious
Tillotson wishes Mother Church well rid of the bantling; and poor George the Third himself, with all his immense genius for orthodoxy, could not take kindly to it. He was willing enough to repeat all its expressions of theological faith – in fact, their perfect nonsense, their obstinate irrationality, must have been exquisitely delightful to a brain such as his; but he was not without a sort of vulgar manhood, even when worshipping in the Chapel Royal, and so rather choked at its denunciations – “for it do curse dreadful.” He could keep the faith whole and undefiled by reason, yet did not like to assert that all who had been and were and should in future be in this particular less happy than himself, must without doubt perish everlastingly.
On the other hand one of our most liberal Churchmen, Mr. Maurice, has argued that this creed is essentially merciful, and that its retention in the Book of Common Prayer is a real benefit. Mr. Maurice, however, as we all know, interprets “perish everlastingly” into a meaning very different from that which most members of the Church accept. And his opinions lose considerably in weight from the fact that no man save himself can infer any one of them from any other. For example, if you are cheered up a bit by his notions as to “Eternal” and “Everlasting,” you are soon depressed again by his pervading woefulness. Of all the rulers we hear of – the ex-king of Naples, the king of Prussia, the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, Abraham Lincoln, and the Pope included – the poor God of Mr. Maurice is the most to be pitied: a God whose world is in so deplorable a state that the good man who owns Him lives in a perpetual fever of anxiety and misery in endeavoring to improve it for Him.
What part of this creed shocks the pious who are shocked at all by it? Simply the comprehensive damnation it deals out to unbelievers, half-believers, and all except whole believers. For we do not hear that the pious are shocked by the confession of theological or theoillogical faith itself. Their reverence bows and kisses the rod, which we cool outsiders might fairly have expected to be broken up and flung out of doors in a fury of indignation. Their sinful human nature is shocked on account of their fellow-men; their divine religious nature is not shocked on account of their God: yet does not the creed use God as badly as man?
A chemist secures some air, and analyses it into its ultimate constituents, and states with precise numerals the proportions of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid therein. Just so the author of this creed secures the Divinity and analyses it into Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and just as precisely he reports the relations of these. A mathematician makes you a problem of a certain number divided into three parts in certain ratios to each other and to the sum, from which ratios you are to deduce the sum and the parts. Just so the author of this creed makes a riddle of his God, dividing him into three persons, from whose inter-relations you are to deduce the Deity. An anatomist gets hold of a dead body and dissects it exposing the structure and functions of the brain, the lungs, the heart, etc. Just so the author of this creed gets possession of the corpse of God (He died of starvation doing slop-work for Abstraction and Company; and the dead body was purveyed by the well-known resurrectionist Priestcraft), and cuts it open and expounds the generation and functions of its three principal organs. But the chemist does not tell us that oxygen, nitrogen, and carbonic acid are three gases and yet one gas, that each of them is and is not common air, that they have each peculiar and yet wholly identical properties; the mathematician does not tell us that each of the three parts of his whole number is equal to the whole, and equal to each of the others, and yet less than the whole and unequal to either of the others; the anatomist does not tell us that brain and lungs and heart are each distinct and yet all the same in substance, structure, and function, and that each is in itself the whole body and at the same time is not: while the author of this creed does tell us analogous contradictions of the three members and the whole of his God. And the chemist, the mathematician, and the anatomist do not damn us (except, perhaps, by way of expletive at our stupidity) if we fail to understand and believe their enunciations; but the author of this creed very seriously and solemnly damns to everlasting perdition all who cannot put faith in his. In other words, the chemist, the mathematician and the anatomist try to be as reasonable and tolerant as human nature can hope to be; while the author of this creed aims at and manages to reach an almost superhuman unreason and intolerance.
Giving him the full benefit of this difference, the fact remains that in other respects he treats his subject just as they treat theirs. He, a pious Christian, professing unbounded adoration and awe of his Divinity, coolly analyses and makes riddles of and dissects this Divinity as if it were a sample of air, a certain number, a dead body. This humble-minded devotee, who knows so well that he is finite and that God is infinite, and that the finite cannot conceive, much less comprehend, much less express the infinite, yet expounds this Infinite with the most complete and complacent knowledge, turns it inside out and upside down, tells us all about it, cuts it up into three parts, and then glues it together again with a glue that has the tenacity of atrocious wrongheadeduess instead of the coherence of logic, puts his mark upon it, and says, “This is the only genuine thing in the God line. If you are taken in by any other, why, go and be damned;” and having done all this, finishes by chanting “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost!” And the pious are not shocked by what they should abhor as horrible sacrilege and blasphemy; they are shocked only by the “Go, and be damned,” which is the prologue and epilogue of the blasphemy. Were the damnatory clauses omitted, it appears that even the most devout worshippers could comfortably chant the “Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost” immediately after they had been thus degrading Father, Son, and Holy Ghost to the level and beneath the level of their low human understanding. And these very people are horrified by the lack of veneration in Atheists and infidels! What infidel ever dealt with God more contemptuously and blasphemously than this creed has dealt with him? Can it be expected that sane and sensible men, who have out-grown the prejudices sucked in with their mothers’ milk, will be reconverted to reverence a Deity whom his votaries dare to treat in this fashion?
Ere we conclude, it may be as well to anticipate a probable objection. It may likely enough be urged that the author and reciters cf the creed do not pretend to know the Deity so thoroughly as we have assumed, since they avouch very early in the creed that the three persons of the Godhead are one and all incomprehensible. If the word incomprehensible, thus used, means (what it apparently meant in the author’s mind) unlimited as to extension, just as the word eternal means unlimited as to time, the objection is altogether wide of the mark.. But even if the word incomprehensible be taken to mean (what it apparently means in the minds of most people who use the creed) beyond the comprehension or capacity of the human intellect, still the objection is without force. For in the same sense a tuft of grass, a stone, anything and everything in the world is beyond the capacity of the human intellect: the roots of a tuft of grass strike as deeply into the incomprehensible as the mysteries of the Deity. Relatively this creed tells us quite as much about God as ever the profoundest botanist can tell us about the grass; in fact, it tells relatively more, for it implies a knowledge of the Final Cause of the subsistence of God, which no future botanist can tell or imply of the grass.