The Charges Against the Popular Science Monthly. 553 



the "same opinions" upon this subject, as the writer in 

 the Post affirms. 



The paragraph just quoted would have been more sat- 

 isfactory if it had been more explicit ; for here, if any- 

 where, clear distinctions are demanded. What does the 

 writer mean by "pronounced atheistical tendencies" and 

 "pronounced atheists " ? Does he mean that their atheism 

 is avowed, or imputed ; that they pronounce themselves 

 atheists, or are so pronounced by others? These are not 

 only different things, but the distinction is here very ma- 

 terial ; so that it becomes necessary, before we can find out 

 who are truly atheists, to have the test by which they are 

 known. Because a man is called an atheist, are we to hold 

 that he is therefore, in fact, an atheist ? We were once 

 accosted by an inquisitive Irishman thus: "D'ye b'lieve m 

 the mother o' God ? " "No." "Be gorry, ye're an athe- 

 ist ! I wouldn't be in yer boots for twenty pound." Was 

 that a satisfactory basis of classification ? Prof. Huxley 

 had a cook who got on a drunken spree, and made such a 

 row in the house that the police were called. As she was 

 hustled through the yard, she sent back a blast, of which all 

 that could be understood was an emphatic " damn athish I " 

 Is Prof. Pluxley, therefore, to be ranked as a " pronounced 

 atheist " ? But, if a drunken cook is not an authority on this 

 point, is a sober bigot any better ? It is the common and 

 very foolish trick of religious partisans to stigmatize those 

 who differ from them in their views of Deity as atheists. 

 Each one identifies God w'ith his own scheme of belief, and, 

 if that scheme is objected to, the objector is denounced as 

 a denier of God. Particularly where the conception of 

 God is low, gross, and materialistic, is every higher view 

 charged with atheism. There is, however, no honest diffi- 

 culty here. We have exactly the same means of knowing 

 atheists that we have of knowing Baptists or Buddhists — 

 that is, by what they profess and teach. We should call 



