We are often told that our civilisation is infinitely indebted to Christianity; but on the other hand it could be shown that Christianity has been infinitely indebted to civilisation, because it became the adopted religion, the official religion, of the races that happened to be in the swim and current of European progress. Indeed, our European progress has been in exact proportion as the civil law and pre-extant common law have got the upper hand of the ecclesiastical usurpation. What did Christianity do for Italy, its birthplace? If it was such a renovator of the ancient worn-out world, why did it not renew old Rome when its salvation had been adopted? What did it do for Greece? for Egypt? for the Mexicans? for any of the ancient races or civilisations? As Jerrold said truly, "We owe much to the Jews," but what do the Jews owe to Christianity? Its success has been as a parasite fed on the life of the recent races. The line of renewal was that of the races, whereas all the good results have been claimed for the Christian Creed. Thackeray was once attracted to an elderly gentleman at table who was in the habit of maintaining that everything really good or great in modern literature came directly or indirectly from Pindar. "At all events," said one of the guests, "Pindar did not write 'Vanity Fair'!" "Yes, sir," said the old gentleman with his customary assurance, "Yes, sir, he did; in the highest and noblest sense, Pindar did write 'Vanity Fair'!" In like manner it has been the custom to label every virtue as Christian that had been evolved as human, ages and ages before our own era, at which time every good thing was re-dated, christened, and re-named, as if it were the result of an historical Christ! Indeed, one expects to hear of the elements of pure air, fresh water, and clear sunlight being christened under this name, in the same way that the well-known healing by means of Mental Medicine, which was practised by the pre-Christian races, has been designated "Christian Healing." We shall probably have Christian Lunacy or Christian Idiocy! Yet the fact remains that the direst, bloodiest enemies of the human race in Europe have been the most besotted supporters of the doctrines called Christian. On the other hand if it were possible to eliminate from the factors in European civilisation the direct worth and hereditary influence of those free-thinkers who have not accepted the Historical Christian creed, what, think you, would remain of the progress that was made during many centuries? The only hold the system has ever obtained on the most intellectual of men has been the hold of the rack! the death-grip of the stake! and the embracing fires of martyrdom! Has it ever struck you how little the great minds of the past--the Shakspeares and Go‰thes, those "serene creators of immortal things"--troubled themselves about Christianity? How loftily they tower and overtook it. What preacher from the pulpit ever thinks of arraigning the present social conditions as based on the rights of the stronger and the wrongs of the weaker? On the contrary, it has been accepted as a divine arrangement that suffering humanity was the cheapest thing--with a never-ending supply--for manuring the soil, for the greasing of wheels, for coining money out of. They never question whether this is the right basis of the national life. They rejoice in the scriptural assurance that the poor ye have always with you, on purpose to keep down the price of labour; or, we may add, keep up the supply of children to the brothels of the rich, at the lowest possible figure! Christian civilisation to-day is compatible with such a state of Society as was recently revealed by the Pall Mall Gazette. We have been assured that the one great sacrifice of the Son of God did put an end to individual human sacrifice! But Christianity has been compatible with the masses of the people of Europe being offered up for ever in one great sacrifice. And what matters the mode, if you are sacrificed?
Honey and milk are sacrifice to thee,
Kind Hermes, inexpensive Deity!
But Heracles demands a lamb each day,
For keeping, as he says, the wolves away.
What matters it, meek browsers of the sod,
Whether a wolf devour you or a God?
The pretended stewards of the mysteries of God have left it for the future to create the very consciousness of wrong in a myriad ways, that their religion has never yet taken into account. As the dogs of Dives, they have now and again given a lick to the sores of Lazarus, and promised him the healing hereafter. But when have they banded together and fought against the social system that dooms the many to poverty--that creates Lazarus as well as his sores?
When they have made large fortunes, and grown very rich, and death is drawing near, some Christians do wax charitable and grow liberal of alms. They do build large and comfortable houses for broken-down paupers to die in; they do supply hospitals for the refuge of those who are ailing and afflicted. But a good deal of the money has been donated for hell-fire insurance, and perhaps these paupers were left all through their working-life to pig together in hovels and slums, the breeding-places of pestilence, which were sure to create the diseases you treat so generously when too late. They starved, and suffered, and sickened, that wealth might accumulate for others! Peabody bequests are all very well in their way; but if the Peabody wealth had been spread in preventing the poverty and crime of the nation, instead of being wrung out of labour, and accumulating to cause these evils, how much better and more blessed would have been the prevention than the late attempt to cure, or rather to help bolster up a state of things which is relief of its running sores! We do not want to become paupers, as we must ever be if we are to be forever pauperised. On reading lately that Belgravia had turned out to carry its broken victuals round in scrap-carts to the starving poor, I declare it struck a glow of shame into my face as if I had received the insult of a blow, to think of the unnecessary necessity! You need not wonder if the poor should damn the charity that is offered to them in the name of religion, as a bribe for them not to ask for justice; or that they should turn a deaf ear to all talk about the bread of heaven when they lack the bread of earth; or the milk of human kindness when their babes are perishing for lack of a little morning-milk from the cow! It is here that Christianity, after 1800 years, is an utter failure, and these are some of the things the Coming religion must go to the root of to be of any use for this world or any other. I know a poor old man in England who, for 40 years, worked for one firm and its three generations of proprietors. He began at a wage of 16s. per week, and worked his way, as he grew older and older, and many necessaries of life grew dearer and dearer, down to six shillings a week, and still he kept on working, and would not give up. At six shillings a week he broke a limb, and left work at last, being pensioned off by the firm with a four-penny piece! I know whereof I speak, for that man was my father. At the same time, as you are well aware, during those 40 years any possessor of capital might have put it out to usury, and without lifting a finger himself
it would have been quadrupled. Such are two of our naturalised laws of capital and labour. The one is the complement of the other; you cannot have the one without the other, and any religion that is not directed to help revolutionise this state of society is damned already, under whatsoever name!
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