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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



important factor, unlocking moral energies which 

 might otherwise remain imprisoned and unused. 

 If the preacher thoroughly fdel that words of 

 enlightenment, courage, and admonition, enter 

 into the list of forces employed by Nature her- 

 self for man's amelioration, since she gifted man 

 with speech, he will suffer no paralysis to fall 

 upon his tongue. Dung the fig-tree hopefully, 

 and not until its barrenness has been demon- 

 strated beyond a doubt let the sentence go forth, 

 *' Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ? " 



I remember, when a youth in the town of Hali- 

 fax, some two-and-thirty years ago, attending a 

 lecture given by a young man to a small but select 

 audience. The aspect of the lecturer was ear- 

 nest and practical, and his voice soon riveted at- 

 tention. He spoke of duty, defining it as a debt 

 owed, and there was a kindling vigor in his words 

 which must have strengthened the sense of duty 

 in the minds of those who heard him. No specu- 

 lations regarding the freedom of the will could 

 alter the fact that the words of that young man 

 did me good. His name was George Dawson. 

 He also spoke, if you will allow me to allude to 

 it, of a social subject much discussed at the 

 time — the Chartist subject of " leveling." " Sup- 

 pose," he said, " two men to be equal at night, 

 and that one rises at six, while the other sleeps 

 till nine next morning, what becomes of your lev- 

 1 cling ? " And in so speaking he made himself 

 the mouth-piece of Nature, which, as we have 

 seen, secures advance, not by the reduction of all 

 to a common level, but by the encouragement 

 and conservation of what is best. 



It may be urged that, in dealing as above with 

 my hypothetical criminal, I am assuming a state 

 of things brought about by the influence of reli- 

 gions which include the dogmas of theology and 

 the belief in free-will — a state, namely, in which 

 a moral majority control and keep in awe an im- 

 moral minority. The heart of man is deceitful 

 above all things, and desperately wicked. With- 

 draw, then, our theologic sanctions, including the 

 belief in free-will, and the condition of the race 

 will be typified by the samples of individual wick- 

 edness which have been adduced. We shall all, 

 that is, become robbers, and ravishers, and mur- 

 derers. From much that has been written of late 

 it would seem that this astounding inference finds 

 house-room in many minds. Possibly, the peo- 

 ple who hold such views might be able to illus- 

 trate them by individual instances : 



" The fear of hell's a hansman's whip, 

 To keep the wretch in order." 



Remove the fear, and the wretch, following his 

 natural instinct, may become disorderly; but I 

 refuse to accept him as a sample of humanity. 

 " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die," is 

 by no means the ethical consequence of a rejection 

 of dogma. To many of you the name of George 

 Jacob Holyoake is doubtless familiar, and you 

 are probably aware that at no man in England 

 has the term atheist been more frequently pelted. 

 There are, moreover, really few who have more 

 completely liberated themselves from theologic 

 notions. Among working-class politicians Mr. 

 Holyoake is a leader. Does he exhort his fol- 

 lowers to " eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ? " 

 Not so. In the August number of the Nineteenth 

 Century you will find these words from his pen : 

 " The gospel of dirt is bad enough, but the gos- 

 pel of mere material comfort is much worse." 

 He contemptuously calls the Comtist champion- 

 ship of the working-man " the championship of 

 the trencher." He would place " the leanest lib- 

 erty which brought with it the dignity and power 

 of self-help " higher than " any prospect of a 

 full plate without it." Such is the moral doctrine 

 taught by this " atheistic " leader ; and no Chris- 

 tian, I apprehend, need be ashamed of it. 



Most heartily do I recognize and admire the 

 spiritual radiance, if I may use the term, shed by 

 religion on the minds and lives of many personal- 

 ly known to me. At the same time I cannot but 

 observe how signally, as regards the production 

 of anything beautiful, religion fails in other cases. 

 Its professor and defender is sometimes at bottom 

 a brawler and a clown. These differences depend 

 upon primary distinctions of character which reli- 

 gion does not remove. It may comfort some to 

 know that there are among us many whom the 

 gladiators of the pulpit would call "atheists" and 

 " materialists," whose lives, nevertheless, as test- 

 ed by any accessible standard of morality, would 

 contrast more than favorably with the lives of 

 those who seek to stamp them with this offensive 

 brand. When I say " offensive," I refer simply 

 to the intention of those who use such terms, and 

 not because atheism or materialism, when com- 

 pared with many of the notions ventilated in the 

 columns of religious newspapers, has any particu- 

 lar offensiveness for me. If I wished to find men 

 who are scrupulous in their adherence to engage- 

 ments, whose words are their bond, and to whom 

 moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively un- 

 known ; if I wanted a loving father, a faithful 

 husband, an honorable neighbor, and a just citi- 

 zen — I should seek him and find him among the 

 band of " atheists " to which I refer. I have 



