FASHIONABLE CHRISTIANITY. 
327 
And you had already returned to this before us, poor St. Fran- 
cis d’Assises — you who fraternized so tenderly with the lamb, the 
most universal and definite manifestation of tlie word wliicli our planet can 
receive, and whose indisputable facts of organic structure and passional 
function conciliate all intellects and rational perceptions with the Bible of 
science. Without wishing to deny or to invalidate inspiration, I find it as 
partial and as little to be trusted as a practical guide, as our modern de- 
velopments of clairvoyance. Its very vagueness defeated its use among the 
Jews and other nations of old, who fulfilled the prophecies only in their 
destruction and dispersion. Its morality is a partial and limping com- 
promise with the institutions of incoherence — the isolated household and 
competitive workshop, whence all social evils spring and renew them- 
selves. The most sublime precepts of Christ are still slimed with the trail 
of the serpent, and subordinated to the axiom of Render unto Caesar the 
things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God^s : which, 
being practically interpreted, has meant the partition of the goods of this 
world between- the feudal baron or merchant prince, representatives of the 
political government on the one side, and the clergy of the established 
churches, representatives of God, on the other side. 
What has been the function of the producing people Clearly to ‘‘ ren- 
der unto'’ If we examine even the philanthropy and devotion of the 
Christian religion, such as it is now received, considering this as the su- 
preme type ; we find it treacherous, one-sided, and unsound, a beggarly af- 
fair of charity without justice, inspiring at most the life and action of a 
few exceptional good men, in spite of false environment and temptations to 
evil, while neglecting the organization of labor, the only real basis of either 
justice or charity. The spiritual wings which Christianity has lent the 
pious, have been but the flappers of the flying-fish, raising him a little 
while into an element unsuited to his existence, and exposing him to new 
troubles and dangers. 
For the few elect who really gain the peculiar inspiration and change of 
heart which belongs to the Christian life (and which is a magnetic and 
psychological fact that I am very well satisfied of) , what thousands and mill- 
ions become miserable hypocrites ! What disgusting orgies do we not be- 
hold in the churches and camp-meetings of the Methodists, and other nu- 
merous sects in the vulgar aspirations to this state. 
Worship, and special religious ceremonials, only mock the misery of a 
people destitute both materially and spiritually, of all that should vindi- 
cate the providence of God ; and the religions which accommodate their doc- 
trines and acts of worship to the miseries of civilized and barbarous insti- 
tutions, are infamous slanders on the character of God, and pernicious in 
the highest degree to true social progress, as they consecrate those false 
views of destiny by which philosophy evades its duty of research for the 
