FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN.

 [BY S. G. MEE] 

"OH, Dogma ! Dogma! how dost thou trample underfoot, love, truth, conscience, justice ! Was ever a Moloch worse than thou ?" Such was the pathetic exclamation of one who, having seceded from their orthodoxy, found himself ostracised and denounced by those nearest and dearest to him—especially by his elder and once much-prized brother, Now I am alone in the world," he continues, "I can trust no one. The new acquaintances who barely tolerate me, and old friends, whom reports have not reached —if such there be—may turn against me with animosity tomorrow, as those have done from whom I could least have imagined it."  These were the words wrung from the brave but bleeding heart of the now long time ardent and illustrious apostle of Free thought, Francis William Newman, when suffering from the loss of the old fraternal affection of that notorious convert to, and champion of Ultramontanism (that ne plus ultra of fettered thought)—his once beloved and benignant brother, the English Cardinal Newman.

But, albeit, as poor Byron, when viewing the timidity and pusillanimity of this so creed shackled world says:—

" Men grow pale

Lest their own Judgments should become too

 bright.

And their Freethought be crime, and earth

 have too much light,"

so did not valiant Nonconformist Newman. Taking to heart Tennyson's exultant exclamation—"Truth against the world "—Our hero, in his earliest life, stood, and still stands forth as the pioneer and hastener onwards of a more intellectual, united, and compassionate era. For all this, as one of his ardent admirers. Mr. Charles Bright, tells, "he has been hugely misrepresented, abused, vilified by Christian antagonists." But (as Mr. Bright trenchantly adds) " to be thus abused, is but to say, in other words, that he is a faithful reformer and an outspoken worshipper of his highest ideal of 'Truth, Wisdom, and Love,"

For many years the works of Francis Wm. Newman have, to the present writer, been as a light shining in a great darkness. But not only the writings, but the life—the beautiful and unswerving " fidelity to conscience "—of this King of Thought inspires me with a love and veneration for him amounting to a positive passion. I view him as one who—perhaps more than any man living —tells of " what the world will he, when the years have died away "—when creeds shall be supplanted by deeds ; when our commerce shall be diverted of its present ubiquitous deadly and destructive banes; when, in a word, to deal in and manufacture those "brewed enchantments " (as Milton has it) which so degrade and deteriviate our race, will, everywhere, as in progressive America, be deemed the "gigantic crime of crimes." Professor Newman, as I will shortly show, endorses to the utmost the dictum of the late Richard Cobden—" Every day's experience goes to confirm me in my opinion that the Temperance Cause lies at the foundation of all social and political reform."

Many years ago I made copious extracts from the priceless " Phases of Faith " of Professor Newman ; and I now with delight transcribe for the MINER a few of these :—

" Nowhere, from any body of priests, clergy, or ministers is religious progress to be anticipated until intellectual creeds are destroyed."

" Religion and fanaticism are, in the embryo, but one and the same ; to purify and elevate them we want a cultivation of the understanding, without which our moral code may be infinitely depraved."

" The man who worships a friend for a God may be in some sense spiritual but his spirituality will be a devilish fanaticism, having nothing in it to admire or approve."

" Bibliolatry not only paralyses the moral sense ; it also corrupts the intellect and introduces a crooked logic, by setting men to the duty of extracting absolute harmony out of discordant materials."

Finally Professor Newman finds himself lodged in three inevitable conclusions :—

" I. That the moral and intellectual powers of man must be acknowledged as having a right and duty to criticise the contents of the Scriptures.'

" 2. When so exerted, they condemn portions of the Scriptures as erroneous and immoral.'

" 3. The assumed infallibility of the entire Scriptures is a proved falsity, not merely as to physiology and other scientific matters, but also as to morals. '

Referring to his unhappy brother having embraced Catholicism, Newman says :—" it is to me a painfully unsolved mystery how a mind can claim its freedom in order to establish its bondage. "

" For the peculiarities of Romanism," he says " I feel nothing, and I can pretend nothing, but contempt, hatred, disgust, or horror. But this system of falsehood, fraud, and unscrupulous and unrelenting ambition will never be destroyed while Protestants keep up their insane anathemas against opinion."

Professor Newman tells us that he renounced the Christian creed for the following reasons :—-(1 ) I found that my old belief narrowed my affections; (2) It taught me to bestow peculiar love on the people of God ; and it assigned an intellectual creed as one essential mark of his people. Its theory was one of selfishness—that is, it inculcated that my first business must be to save my soul from future punishment, and to attain future happiness."

So finding himself in exactly the same perplexing position as the world's authentic "guides, philosophers, and friends,"—the late Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson (both of whom were intended for the church,) that is to say, being conscientiously unable to (as Mr, Bright puts it) "subscribe to the bondage of the church for the sake of worldly advancement, " Newman "resigned his fellowship,' and once for all turned his back on the ' primrose path ' which for him would have led, almost indubitably, to the highest rates of the Episcopal Bench." And how much more noble and exemplary such conduct appears than that of many others (notably as pointed out in an admirable little "leader " in the Sydney Bulletin, that of the Rev. Charles Strong ) who still for mere pay and rations, remains amongst the " black dragoons." He contemptuously secedes from these; and, as a free lance in the ranks of literature, has for a long lifetime being doing deadly battle, not against " the old extinct Satans," but against the (as Carlyle tells us) "real soul-devouring world-devouring Devils that now are to wit, thoughtless, thriftless animalism, Distilled Gin, and Stupor, and Despair. Carlyle sincerely loved uncompromising Francis Newman ; and, in that noblest of all biographies, his " Life of John Sterling " speaks of him as one of " an ardently inquiring soul, of fine University and other attainments, of sharp-cutting restlessly advancing intellect, and the mildest pious enthusiasm ; whose worth, since better known to all the world, Sterling highly estimated ;-—and indeed practically testified the same ; having by will appointed him guardian to his eldest son."

We have glanced at Francis Newman as the stern iconoclast of current creeds; let us now list to what he has to say concerning the pet and ghostly commerce of the Capital of Christendom—London; and his remarks will, alas! apply likewise to all our colonial cities :—

" Walk upon the outmost area on any side and you will find London to be in constant and rapid growth. Roads are laid out ; drains and cellars are made; and before a single house besides has arisen, lo! a lofty gin palace stands already at every chief corner of a district at present unpeopled. And for what has it been licensed ? To drain of the wages of the laborers, who are about to build the other houses. It is feared lest they should save something for wives and children in the winter ! It is feared that they will not be enough starving workmen if from any cause trade become slack. What can such conduct in magistrates mean ? Are they such fanatics as to say, " Perish frugality, perish morality, perish female honour, perish the safety of the metropolis, but give us still our bright gin palaces "? I do not believe this; I interpret their conduct otherwise. A large part of it is explained by the fact that one of them has a kinsman or a close friend in the brewers' trade ; another has put money into some brewing association or distillery ; another is a wine merchant: another is interested in a religious society to which some rich brewer is very liberal. Now will any one tell me that it is no hardship to the community to have at every corner drinkshops, which are so easily made dens of fraud ? And can any one pretend that an aristocracy cares much for morality, for honour or for justice to the lower classes, which deliberately sustains such a system ?

. . The ruling classes of England have shown themselves utterly untrustworthy and immoral as to all that concerns the trade in intoxicants."

Such is the unequivocal language— such the drastic denunciations—of one of the noblest, and truest friends of the workers and wealth gatherers of the world.

Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld. : 1874 - 1954), Thursday 4 May 1882, page 2

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article77184791

MR. JOSEPH COOK.

 [BY S. G. MEE]

" IN this age of reason it is a singular some might think as I do, a painful— spectacle to see numbers rushing to a public hall to hear a man prove (or attempt to prove) fables to be facts. Yet in crowding to hear " the theological elephant," Joseph Cook (for that is the appellation given him by one of his clerical admirers), such a spectacle has lately been afforded to the inhabitants, of Brisbane. I myself, slightly caught the contagion, and went once with the eager crowd to listen to the lecturer, who, according to Spurgeon, was effectually " exploding the pretensions of modern science ; " and is, in the opinion of a professional theologian (James McCush) a heaven-ordained man, possessing as much power of eloquence as Parker, and vastly more acquaintance with philosophy than the mystic Emerson."

 After listening for a few minutes to this—according to theologians—intellectual phenomenon, I could not but think that a famous sentence of Carlyle would well apply to their much-belauded Boston lecturer. " If," says the sage of Chelsea, "a good speaker—an eloquent speaker—is not speaking the truth, is there a more horrid kind of object in creation ? Of such speech I hear all manner and kind of people say it is excellent ; but I care very little about how he said, it, provided I understand it, and it be true. Excellent speaker ; but what if he is telling me things that are untrue, that are not the fact about it ; if he has formed a wrong judgment about it ; if he has no judgment in his mind to form a right conclusion in regard to the matter ? An excellent speaker of that kind is, as it were, saying : ' Ho, every one that wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true, come hither."

Now (and here's the pity of it), the orthodox world everywhere persistently wants to be persuaded of the thing that is not true. Were it not so, they would certainly prefer the immortal and truthful writings of an Emerson or a Parker to the obstreperous dramatic performances called lectures (as one of his Indian critics has it) of a Joseph Cook.

Mr. Cook calls that (according to a great poet) Heaven-lighted lamp in man —Reason—a rushlight. Evidently with Mr. Cook, as with millions of others, orthodoxy is " the insane root that takes his Reason prisoner." But the late illustrious Theodore Parker firmly believed with Shakespeare that—

He that made us with such large discourse,

 Looking before, and after, gave us not 

That capability and reason,

To fust in us unused.

Well may the orthodox be fiercely inimical to Theodore Parker, when he has the audacity to declare that " the Popular Religion is unmanly and sneaking. It dares not look Reason in the face, but creeps behind Tradition, and only quotes.

To hear its talk one would think that God was dead—or at least asleep ;" and the foregoing brings to my mind what the mystic Emerson also says upon this point:—"The stationariness of religion the assumption that the age of inspiration is past, that the Bible is closed ; the fear of degrading the character of Jesus by representing him as a man ; indicate with sufficient clearness the falsehood of our theology. It is the office of a true teacher to show us that God is, not was ; that he speaketh, not spake." And such a teacher I for years have felt Ralph Waldo Emerson to be. He is one who, to quote his own beautiful words, has "converted life into truth." I feel him verily to be be, as he says, "part or particle of God." "Follow your Reason, wheresover it may lead you " he commands us. List, further, to his vital creed,—" Man is conscious of a universal soul, within or behind his individual life, wherein, as in a firmament, the natures of Justice, Truth, Love, Freedom, arise and shine. This universal soul he calls Reason ; the sky, with its eternal calm, and full of ever-lasting orbs, is the type of Reason."

The above are the words of the great American philosopher, whom Mr. Cook cooly bragged of having converted to orthodoxy ; but who, through his son, indignantly repudiated this astounding assertion—adding that he never read Mr. Cook's lectures."

The MINER has not, I know, space for a lengthened notice of each of Mr. Cook's lectures in Brisbane ; but his sole mission—strange as it may appear— seems to be, to undertake to prove the unprovable, and to defend the indefensible. Mr. Cook might well exclaim, "save me from my friends!'' He bragged of having been intimate with R. M. Emerson. We have just seen what the revered sage of Concord thought of Joseph and his very shallow books Mr. Cook, in his pamphlet " Method of Meeting Modern Unbelief," also speaks of his friend Mr. Fiske, as a brilliant man and an agnostic; but who to this hour, is plunging in the Serbonian bog of the Spencerian philosophy " This is what Mr. Fiske thinks of Mr. Joseph Cook and his literary performances : — " If we were to go through with Mr. Cook's volumes in detail we should find little else but misrepresentation of facts, misconceptions of principles. . . . . . . I have not treated him seriously, or with courtesy, because there is nothing in his matter, or in his manner, that would justify, or even excuse, a serious method of treatment. The only aspect of his career, which really affords matter for grave reflection, is the ease with which he succeeded for the moment in imposing on the credulity, and in appealing to the prejudices of his public."

Albert Huxley has emphatically declared that "Ecclesiasticism in science is unfaithfulness to truth." Mr. Cook (for £40 per night) is prepared to prove that Orthodoxy and Science are Siamese twins. As an "eclectic," the Australasian says of him,—"He has followed the monster Modern Science into the den, dragged it forth to the daylight, trounced it well with his logical club, drew its teeth and cut its claws, delicately inserted a ring into its nose, and led it as a tame and harmless monster upon numberless platforms to the edification of the orthodox in many parts of the world."

 To the edification of the orthodox ; but certainly not to that of the intellectual, who still regard science, not as a mole-eyed monster, but as a veritable star-eyed Deity !

In one of his lectures—to the uproarious delight of his Orthodox audience —Mr. Cook stoutly defended the Scripture six-day-creation theory ; but qualified that belief by giving it as his opinion that, in Genesis, a day signified an indefinite period of time. I, for one, fear that this definition, if practically acted upon by the orthodox, will tend to bring them into disrepute. One brings an advertisement (for instance) to the MINER, saying it should be paid for "to-day" ; but, when once inserted, and payment requested, the impecunious pietist tells Mr. O'Kane's collector that, according to the dictum of the infallible champion Cook, "day" means and "in-definite period !" How would that acte.

 Oh, how specious—how horribly sophistical—is the logic of orthodoxy! How its defenders twist and turn plainest words to suit their purpose ! Who, listening to this theological contortionist's defence of the Mosaic cosmogony, does not, more than ever, revere the character and the authentic preaching of the "priests of Science ?" Listen to what Professor Huxley says upon this point :—"In this nineteenth century, as at the dawn of modern physical science the cosmogony, of the semi-barbarous Hebrew is the incubus of the phîlosopher and the opprobrium of the orthodox. Who shall number the patient and earnest seekers after truth, from the days of Galileo until now, whose lives have been embittered, and their good name blasted, by the mistaken zeal of Bibliolaters ? Who shall count the host of weaker men whose sense of truth has been destroyed in the effort to harmonise impossibilities ? Orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of thought. It learns not, neither can it forget ; and though at present bewildered, and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning and the end of science, and to visit, with such petty thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive Judaism. Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive tendencies. The majesty of FACT is on on their side, and the elementary forces of Nature are working for them. Not a star comes to the meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice of their methods—their beliefs are one with the falling rain and the growing corn. By doubt they are established, and open enquiry is their bosom friend. Such men have no fear of traditions, however venerable, and no respect for them when they become mischievous and obstructive ; but they have better than mere antiquarian business on hand ; and if dogmas which ought to be fossil, but are not, are forced upon their notice, they are too happy to treat them as non-existant."

[To be continued]

Northern Miner (Charters Towers, Qld. ), Saturday 14 October 1882, page 2

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/77185871

The Bible Turned Inside Out

 The Polytechnic Hall was crowded to overflowing as usual, last night, when Mr. Tyerman delivered his eighth lecture on The Bible Turned Inside Out. He began by expressing his gratification at the continued and increasing interest manifested in the course of lectures on the Bible. The subject was most important to all present.

 If the Bible was what Christians claimed for it, let it be proved, and he would accept it. But if it was not, and the more he examined it the more he was convinced it was not, then let the popular delusion respecting its divine authority and obligation be dispelled. Some Protestant Christians regretted the Reformation, because they feared what they deemed evil had outweighed the good resulting from it. The right of private judgment so often boasted, was excused to a degree, and led to consequences never anticipated by the reformers. When the authority of Rome was repudiated, there was no ground logically tenable till the position of radical and independent freethought was reached. The people were exercising their right of private judgment, not merely to the extent of endorsing the Protestant, rather than the Catholic, faith, as was expected, but to the extent of questioning the grounds of all faith and all religion. The result was that in a rapidly increasing number of cases, the orthodox claims for the Bible were denied, and ecclesiastical Christianity was rejected. Hence many of the clergy of the Church of England openly denounced the Reformation as a mistake, and believed the only safety of the Church was in returning to the fold, and putting themselves under the authority of the Church of Rome.

 The Bible had been proved to be destitute of historic credibility in many parts ; was it scientifically correct and trustworthy ? Let its teachings on the subject of creation be impartially examined in the light of modern science, and their falsity would soon appear. Before the dawn of modern science the opponents of the Bible had to rely chiefly on argumentation ; now they could appeal to facts and figures to sustain their objections. The clergy generally had been bitterly opposed to science, especially the science of geology. Because it disproved the Biblical account of creation it was denounced "of the devil," and its fearless advocates were branded as Godless Infidels. Some Christian teachers said the Bible did not profess to teach science. But it gave oracular deliverances on subjects within the province of science, and if it had been inspired by God those would have been correct, whereas in most cases they were notoriously false. Others attempted to harmonise the Bible and science, and boasted they had succeeded. Yes ! but how ? By surrendering everything that science demanded. That was an easy way of reconciling differences. In every case, when a collision had occurred between science and the Bible, the latter had been forced to yield. Geology had triumphed over Genesis most completely. The Bible plainly taught that this world and the universe were created in six days, about six thousand years ago. No fair principles of interpretation could make the first chapter of Genesis mean anything else ; but to save the credit of the Book, it was assumed by Christians that a long interval might exist between the first and second verses, and that the days meant long, indefinite periods. Such an interpretation was utterly unwarranted ; it was a contemptible subterfuge that would not be resorted to by the members of any learned profession but the clerical. There had never been a creation. Matter was eternal ; and most religious writers now spoke of " formation " rather than creation. Then the Bible was false as to the date of that formation. The testimony of geologists was adduced by the lecturer to prove that the earth had existed for millions of years. Mantell, Lyell, Agassis, Bunson, and others were quoted to show that man had existed on earth thousands of years before the time allowed by the Bible— at least, fifty thousand years before. The questions of light existing before the sun was created, of the sun, moon, and stars being intended merely for this tiny earth, of the serpent and the earth being cursed, and the human race coming from one pair, were discussed ; and it was argued that the Bible was absolutely false on all these points.

Herald (Melbourne, Vic.), Tuesday 5 May 1874, page 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/244336220

FREETHOUGHT v. FETTERED THOUGHT.

 Mr. Charles Bright lectured on the above subject at the Theatre Royal, last evening, to a well-filled house.

Mr. Bright said that he meant by freethought, thought unfettered by fears of external authority — thought submitted to the guidance of reason and conscience. Few persons consciously abandoned their right of thought, yet the majority of mankind did not think freely because they dare not. Even those who claimed to enjoy freedom would look on heedlessly, and see their children taught to believe that the practice of freethought was to be shunned, not courted. People were afraid to doubt Buckle, the historian of civilization who declared that doubt, or scepticism, was the necessary precursor of all progress. But if freedom of thought were a good thing, every restriction placed upon it by legislation, public opinion, or education, must be an evil, and tho past history of the world abundantly proved this to be the case, for it was in reality but the record of one long struggle between those who had asserted their right to think and those who, possessed of power, had attempted to dictate thoughts to mankind. In this conflict the unseen but never unfelt spirit force, or mind, usually termed God, had played a remarkable part. In reality, it had been perpetually impelling men to think freely, to throw off the bondage of custom and superstition, leave the darkness of worn-out ideas, care less for learning how other men think or had thought, come forth into the air of heaven, interrogate nature face to face, and catch the inspiration of truth from the fountain-head. All systems of religion had originated with the open souls who had thus acted. But while the spirit force, the infinite mind, or by whatever name might be designated, that impulse towards advancement which even materialists recognised as operating in the race had been thus active in promoting freedom of thought, the images of God mankind had from time to time set up had been regarded as the fiercest denouncers of such freedom, the most powerful because least comprehensible combatants on behalf of dogmatism, fettered thought, and mental slavery. Having traced this conflict in the history of Christendom, and alluded to many social fetters on freethought, the lecturer proceeded to contend that among Protestants the main supporters of fettered thought or unalterable creeds, at this day, were those whom a modern writer designated as the weaker sexes — the women and clergy. There were, of course, grand exceptions, but as a rule both were trained to be servile worshippers of Fashion— fashion in dress, in thought, in creed, and in speech. Until women were emancipated from this thraldom, religion as a trade, a thing of form and dress, would be maintained to the detriment of true worship. There was some-thing, to his mind, sad and nauseous in men being trained from boyhood to do the praying for a lot of people, and direct them the way to Heaven, as though God lived in the centre of a maze— a sort of Fair Rosamond's bower, and needed a band of trained University men to act as ciceroni and Ushers of the Black Rod. If a man, be he trained or not, had anything to teach his fellows, in the name of truth let him speak out ; and if his voice were worth the listening to, people would come to hear without being beaten and driven thereto by the devil's bastinado. But to pick boys out of a family and set them apart as sucking priests, to cram into their brains a quantity of stuff called "theology," to examine them to see if they had enough of this stuff in them, to bind them over solemnly never to look further than they had been taught, and then to license them to pray, to mouth out praises and petitions to " Gawd,"— there was something in that repellent to reason, repulsive to taste, and utterly subversive of those finer feelings of natural worship which the true priest—the poet— indicated to all sincere souls and loving hearts.

Sydney Daily Telegraph (NSW ), Monday 10 November 1879, page 3 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/239283105

ON THE PARSEES AND THEIR RELIGION.

 Of all the Oriental races inhabiting our Indian dominions, perhaps there is no one so fitted to excite interest and inspire respect as that of the Parsees. They are the lineal descendants of the people belonging to the celebrated nation of old, ruled over by kings bearing such names as Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, and Artaxerxes. They belong to the Indo-European family of mankind; in other words, they are more akin to ourselves than they are to the Jews, the Arabs, and other nations of Semitic descent. Though the Persians warred so long and so fiercely with the Greeks, yet were they ethnographically allied to them, as is proved from their language. If it be conceded that the Zend, the language of the Parsee sacred books, was once a genuine form of human speech ; and that, though perhaps originally Median, it did not essentially differ from that of the Persian tribes, who subsequently rose to be the dominant power in the Medo-Persian empire, then, was the affinity of the Persians to the Greeks more close than either party ever admitted. For example, where, in conjugating a well-known verb, the Greeks thus proceeded— didomi, didos, didoti, the people using the Zend tongue said dadhami, dadhahi, dadhaiti ; and for the word with which the Greeks finished off, didõnti, the Zend had didĕnti. The overthrow of the Persian army by Alexander the Great, for a time snatched from the Persians the sceptre they they so long had borne ; and when the Greek dominion was at length overthrown, it was not they, but the Parthians, who succeeded to power in the East. Though the Parthians were for a time so formidable that they struck terror into the heart of imperial Rome, and figure in the literature of the Augustan age, very much as the Turks did in our own, two or three centuries ago, yet were they too uncivilized long to continue in possession of sovereign power on so large a scale ; and, in the third century of the Christian era, the Persians revolted against the semi-barbarous domination, and succeeded in setting up a new empire, which proved an insurmountable barrier to Roman progress in the East. To give this revived Persian sovereignty cohesion, it was deemed politic that if possible there should be unity of faith, which was the reason for those fierce persecutions of Christians by the Persian Zoroastrians with which the students of ecclesiastical history are familiar. The weapon of religious intolerance which they had stooped to use, was ultimately wielded against themselves by the Mohammedans with murderous effect ; and, before the contest ended, the Persians of the national Zoroastrian faith were but few in number, and of those few, a very large proportion had been compelled to flee from their native country and seek an asylum in the West of India. There they are still to be found. In 1847, Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, to whose elaborate writings on the subject of the Parsees and their faith, we have been much indebted in the preparation of this article, estimated their numbers as follows:— "The Parsees," he says "in Western India, now amount to about 50,000 souls. Of these, according to a census made about five years ago, 20,183 are resident in Bombay. In the collectorate of the Northern Konkan, there are 1451. There are about 200 in the Portuguese settlement of Daman. About fifteen years ago, 10,507 dwelt in the town of Surat ; but the number of these is now understood to be very considerably reduced." There are a few in most other Indian cities ; we believe they are in the British settlements in China ; and we have met one in the City of London, clad in the ordinary costume of his race. Indeed, a good many are known to be in the English metropolis. In connection with the wide diffusion of this fragmentary remnant of an ancient dominant race, it is interesting to note a passage in the prophecies of Jeremiah. " And upon Elam [the province of Elymais, or Persia generally] will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them towards all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. . . . But it shall come to pass in the latter days that I will bring again the captivity of Elam, saith the Lord." (Jeremiah xlix. 36 and 39.) 

The religion of this ancient people is one of no slight historic interest. Amid all the idolatries of the East, there has always been a tendency in the more intellectual heathen minds, to admit a supreme Being ruling over the inferior gods. The Persians seem to have been less successful in groping their way to the conception of a supreme Being than some other heathen nations ; for the name given to their highest divinity is Time without bounds. There is here lamentable deficiency. One of the many attributes of God is, undoubtedly, time without bounds ; but the personification of that one quality of the divine nature gives a very inadequate conception of that nature as a whole. If a catechism of Parsee doctrine were to be drawn out, one question would naturally be, "What is God?" To which the answer would be returned, "Time without bounds." How inferior to the reply in a noted Christian catechism — that drawn up by the Westminster Assembly of Divines. " God is a spirit ; infinite, eternal, unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." How different the emotion, excited by the answer, God is "time without bounds," from that inspired by the brief, but all-comprehensive Scriptural reply, " God is Love."

 In next addressing themselves, to penetrate, if possible, the inscrutable mystery of the " origin of evil," they adopted, if they did not even originate, the well-known doctrine, that the two opposite principles of good and evil proceeded from two divinities about equal in power, who emanated from the Being already described as Time without bounds, and are subordinate to Him, and to Him alone. The good god is called Hormazd, and the evil one Ahriman, From the former sprung all that is good in creation, and from the latter, all that is evil. From Hormazd came light and the celestial luminaries, while Ahriman was the author of darkness. As is well known to all who have inquired into this subject, this doctrine of there being two creators of opposite characters, engaged in the formation of the world, and in perpetual conflict about its government, is censured in those parts of Isaiah, which are specially addressed to the Persian conqueror, Cyrus, as if he held this erroneous belief. " Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden. . . . I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me. I girded thee, though thou hast not known me, that they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. I FORM THE LIGHT, AND CREATE DARKNESS ; I make peace, and create evil ; I, the Lord, do all these things." (Isaiah xlv. 1, 5, 6, 7.) The language of the prophet is unmistakeably directed against the Parsee faith. There are not, he states, two gods, about equal in power, and in perpetual conflict. Satan is not god, and does not even require to be mentioned in connexion with the subject of creation. There is but one God, Jehovah, and none else. It is not true that it needed an Ahriman — an evil being, to create darkness ; it was done by that same Jehovah. Under Hormazd were a multitude of Amshapands (arch angels), and Izads (angels) ; while Ahriman rules over a hierarchy of evil spirits. The angels and archangels preside over different departments of nature, and are to be worshipped. So are the sun, and fire, with other emblems of and emanations from Hormazd. The will of Hormazd was revealed to men through means of the prophet Zoroaster, who was inspired to produce the Zend-Avesta (the Parsee Bible), the most important portion of which, called the Vandidad, details a conversation, held in the Zend language, between Hormazd and Zoroaster. The pains of hell shall not be eternal, but there shall be a general restitution of all things after the resurrection, Ahriman himself being annihilated, or in the opinion of some purified by the purgatorial fire of hell, and established in holiness and happiness. When Zoroaster lived it is very difficult to ascertain, the opinions on the subject being very conflicting. The most favourite conjecture is that he lived in the reign of Darius Hystaspes. If so, then, like Mohammed, he may have come in contact with Judaism, and borrowed some of its tenets, while incorporating with them speculations of his own. In both systems we have angels and archangels— the ministers of God for good ; in both, too, is an infernal as well as a celestial hierarchy. Both look forward to a resurrection and a judgment ; but Judaism, divinely revealed, avoids the three fundamental errors of the Zoroastrian faith. It does not look on the Supreme Being as a mere abstraction, consisting simply of eternity personified, but it attributes to Him conscious existence with the possession of power, intelligence, and infinite virtue. It will not hear of creature worship, or tolerate the error of according divine honours to the sun, or fire, or light. Finally it looks on Satan as simply a lapsed angel, whom God could in a moment annihilate, and whose power is infinitely small compared with that of God. Surely Zoroaster, or whoever originated the doctrine of the two opposite divinities, must have been a man of melancholic temperament, or must have been in a desponding mood when he first took up the notion that the author of evil was equally potent with the Author of good. Might he not have reflected that in the human frame there is no part of the complex machinery designed to inflict pain ? When deranged, pain will call attention to the fact that a remedy may be supplied ; but, we repeat, no apparatus is provided for the sole purpose of inflicting pain. Had an evil as well as a good creator been at work on our physical frames, it would assuredly have been different. Again, why libel darkness as if it could not emanate from a beneficent being ? Did Zoroaster or the originator of the Parsee faith never feel it a relief to his wearied eyes to have light for a time extinguished? One would have fancied that, when, after becoming wearied by study, he flung himself on the couch of rest, he would have felt that the casting of the soft curtain of night around him, that his eyes might obtain repose, was the work of a God rather than of a demon. And did he never feel that darkness was favourable to reflection, and that his speculations regarding the universe generally made progress, not when he was invited to observation by the sight of a landscape, or of a city lighted up by the luminary of day, but, on the contrary, when observation was precluded, because every object was hidden from view by the thick veil of night ? The instinct of true philosophy was wanting in the man who could not see anything but the doings of a demon in the creation of night.

Protestant Standard (Sydney, NSW), Saturday 22 April 1876, page 7 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/207786575

THE DIVINE BEING.

 A Paper read before the Brisbane Freethought Association, on Sunday, 25th February, 1877, by Mr. Gavin PETTIGREW.

 THE subject which I have undertaken to discuss to-night is one of such a profound nature that I may possibly be considered presumptuous in attempting to deal with it. At the commencement of the inquiry, I may here state that I have no hope of being able to throw any new light on this most mysterious subject ; but if I can only succeed in agitating thought on the question, I hope my effort may not prove altogether valueless.

 The science which professes to teach us about the nature and qualities of the Divine Being goes by the name of Theology. To any one who has studied theology from a disinterested standpoint, there can be little doubt that it has not yet taken its place amongst what are termed " the exact sciences." Whatever progress may be made in that direction in the future, at the present time we find a great variety of theories afloat on the subject of all theological research —the Divine Being.

 It may be urged by these learned “ divines,” who make theology a “ profession,” and live by it, that the facts of theology do not admit of the same kind of demonstration as those of a physical nature, seeing that they are principally of a metaphysical character. This is a fact that meets all honest inquirers after theological truth on the very threshold of their investigations, and if they attempt to proceed by scientific methods of research, they soon find that few, if any, theologic theories can be verified scientifically. Another difficulty is that of being deprived of the use of some of our best logical tools by the exigencies of the case. Reasoning by analogy, for instance, is a comparative failure when applied to theology, as there can be no proper analogy between Finite and Infinite.

 Such being the nature of the difficulties that stand in the path of theological science, we could hardly expect anything else than uncertainty in the region of theology. But, what are the facts? We meet with theologians on every side, differing widely from each other in their teachings, and although, for  the most part, incapable of proving the propositions they advance, yet, at the same time, actually insisting on the absolute truth of all their propositions with a dogmatic certainty and intolerance which professors of the  “exact sciences” would blush to exhibit.

 While the conditions are so unsatisfactory, on which a knowledge of Theology depends, forcing us to the conclusion that, if a science at all, it must necessarily be “the most speculative of any ; " still we find that it has engrossed the attention of some of the most highly developed minds that have lived in the world's history. From the speculations of Job as to the possibility of “ finding out God,” down to the latest cogitations of Herbert Spencer on the same subject, men in all ages and countries have desired to know something about the “ Power” behind the phenomena of Nature. Although we might reasonably expect man's knowledge of this “Power” to increase in proportion to his mental development, yet we find on com paring the theologies of the most ancient nations with these of modern times, that theology, as a science, has made little if any progress in the world during the last three or four thousand years. The theological conceptions of the ancient Brahmins differed very little from the most advanced ideas of God at present existing. In the sacred books of the Hindoos, the deity called Brahma was stated to be "immaterial, invisible, unborn, uncreated, without beginning or ending, and unapprehensible to the understanding.” Surely this “ God idea “ of the Hindoos, propounded probably 2,000 years before the Christian era, is quite as philosophic as that taught by moral philosophers in our age, and will bear favourable comparison with the idea of God presented by the learned “divines” of the orthodox Christian religion.

 Vishnu, alias Brahma, in Hindoo theology, is made to describe himself in the following words : — “I am the soul, O Arjuna, which exists in the heart of all beings, and I am the beginning, and the middle, and also the end of existing things.” Can anything be more comprehensive than that? Compare it for a moment with the Hebrew Jehovah, who is delineated in the Bible as a personal, jealous, and revengeful being, "who visits the iniquities of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate Him, and shows mercy unto these that love Him and keep his commandments," and tell me which is the higher conception ? How comes it that the heathen Hindoos should be in possession of such exalted ideas of God without a special revelation, which orthodox Christians grant only to the Hebrews? The question naturally arises, wherefore the necessity of a revelation from God to man, when man by his own unaided powers can thus acquire as truthful conceptions of the Divine Being as with a revelation ?

 Turning to the Persian idea of God, we find the following “confession of faith” in the Zend Avesta or Persian Bible : — “I ascribe all good things to Ahura Mazda (or Ormuzd) ; he is good, and has good, he is true, lucid, shining, and is the originator of all the best things of the spirit of Nature, of the growth in Nature, of the luminaries, and the self-shining brightness which is in the luminaries.” Zoroaster is generally acknowledged as the “ founder “ of the Persian religion, and it has been ascertained that it was in existence before the conquest of Bactria by the Assyrians, which took place about 1,200 B.C. It has been argued by some theologians that because there is a great similarity between the theology of the Persians and that of the Hebrews, that the former must therefore have borrowed their conceptions from the “ inspired “ writings of the latter. But to the unprejudiced critic the evidence goes to prove the very reverse; as from Jewish history we know that the religion of the Hebrews did not contain any ideas about the immortality of the soul or the existence of the god Satan, until after they had been taken captive to Babylon, some 600 years B C. Besides, it would require a wonderful stretch of the imagination to conceive of a people advanced in numbers and intelligence, as there is evidence of the Persian nation having been, contemporaneously with the existence of the Hebrews as a single family, or a small nomadic tribe, having necessity to borrow their theology from the latter. In claiming goodness as the special attribute of the Persian Deity, Zoroaster, in common with other theologians, had one great difficulty to contend with — to account for the existence of evil in the world. He mastered the difficulty in apparently a very reasonable way, viz., by investing an archfiend (Ahriman) with the power over evil, as Ormuzd had over good. This explained the mystery of evil, but the unity and power of the Divine Being was lost in this dualistic conception. Here, undoubtedly, was the source from which the Hebrews derived their conception of “ the adversary of Jehovah,” called Satan; and from them it has passed to us —becoming one of the chief “corner stones” of the orthodox theology. No doubt it is humiliating to think that this “ devil idea “ of 3,000 years ago, coming as it does from an “ uninspired source,” has been so long perpetuated and lovingly clung to by Christian theologians. To have to acknowledge its Pagan origin can hardly be agreeable to learned “ divines “ of our day, and yet there is no alternative, if history is to be respected at all.

 The “sacrificial idea” was a necessary sequence of such a belief in a God of Evil; and all the cruelties that have been perpetrated in the world with the object of propitiating the god Satan, are referable to this Zoroastrian conception. The “ Saviour idea “ may also be looked upon as the latest and ultimate development of this “ devilish belief.” It will thus be apparent that we are indebted to the Persians for the “ divinely-appointed plan of salvation,” which is amounted the Alpha and Omega of evangelical Christianity, 

Passing to China, that wonderful country, on whose surface are located nearly one-half of the human race, where they claim to have a history reaching as far back as 45,000 years, we find that they have not lived without the “ God idea.” There is evidence that some of their theologians have entertained as sublime conceptions of Deity as ever came from “ inspired penman “ or “ Divine Oracle.”

 In one of the Chinese “ Sacred Books,” called Taó te-King, written by Laotse about 520 B.C., is the following record of a belief in a Supreme Being : “ There existed a Being, inconceivably perfect, before heaven and earth arose. So still ! So supersensible ! It alone remains, and does not change. It pervades all, and is not endangered. It may be regarded as the mother of the world. I know not its name ; if I describe it I call it Tao. Constrained to give it a name, I call it Great ; as Great, I call it Immense; as Immense, I call it Distant ; as Distant, I call it Returning."

 In speaking of the name of the Divine Being, Laotse says : “ It is written Tao ; if it can be pronounced, it is not the Eternal Tao. The Nameless One is the foundation of heaven and earth. He who begins to create has a name ; Tao, the Eternal, has no name.” This conception of the Eternal Being as distinct from the Creator, is perhaps one of the most abstruse conceptions of Deity ever propounded, and nearly identical with that taught by the French spiritists at the present time.

 Lord Amberley, in his work entitled "Analysis of Religious Belief," in referring to the “ Taó-te-King,” says — “That of all sacred books it is the most philosophical ; it stands, indeed, on the borderland between a revelation and a system of philosophy, partaking to some extent of the nature of both." "Other teachers,” he goes on to say, '' have seen God mainly in violent and convulsive manifestations, and have appealed to miraculous suspensions of natural order, as the best proofs of His existence. Not so Laotse. He sees Him in a quiet unobtrusive, unapparent guidance of the world, in the unseen yet irresistible power to which mankind unresistingly submit precisely because never thrust offensively upon them. The Deity of Laotse is free from these gross and unlovely elements which degrade His character in so many other religions.” It seems, therefore, that theology amongst the heathen Chinese has little to be ashamed of by comparison with that of Christendom.

 There is not the least probability that “the special people of God,” who were entrusted with the “ only revelation from God to man,” had ever the slightest dealings with the people of China, and yet, unaided by the "light of revelation,” they were capable of arriving at juster and more philosophic conceptions of Deity than ever the Hebrews were, even with the special manifestations of Jehovah, to assist them. Surely the old apologetic argument of theologians regarding Pagan nations "having to borrow what glimpses of true theology they possess from the sacred writings of the Hebrews,” will not bear a moment's consideration in this case, as the Chinese nation was most probably in a comparatively high state of civilization at the time Abraham left his father's house on that expedition which resulted in the formation of the tribe of Hebrews ; and at the time when Jehovah promised to make of Abraham's seed a great nation, that would be as the sands on the sea shore for multitude, the Chinese must then have been such a nation ; while the Hebrews have never, and in all human probability never will, attain to such numerical strength as the Chinese. 

Confucius, the Chinese sage, although the founder of a religion, was a moralist in contra-distinction to a theologian. Like Buddha in India, he aimed at practical religion, rather than speculative theology. As theology is the question in hand, I cannot at present deal with the religions of these most ancient nations. Through the researches of philologists and antiquarians, we are now in possession of a vast amount of knowledge in regard to the history and theology of nations, which, till lately, has been to us a " sealed book ;" and I am glad to know that researches of this kind are still being prosecuted with vigour. The diffusion of knowledge of this particular description cannot fail to teach us that theology is of human origin as much as any other product of the human mind, and it is eminently calculated to remove the prejudice existing in regard to the current Judaised-Christian religion, accounted orthodox, in which its theology is looked upon as “a patent right,” originally secured by the Hebrews.

 Amongst the ancient Egyptians theologic conceptions seem to have been rather vague ; while there is evidence that an unseen God was worshipped in Egypt more than 3,000 years before the Christian era, there is also the clearest proof that they were at a later period idolaters, worshipping different animals. The Egyptian mind seems to have been more distinguished for scientific investigation than theologic speculation. Ancient Greece doubtless derived its theology from Egypt, as its Polytheism abundantly shows. Although the Grecian Deities were often endowed with beautiful qualities, they were always human and imperfect.

 Jehovah, the God of the Hebrews, partook of the essentially selfish nature of that most narrow-minded and exclusive section of the human race. He was jealous, cruel, changeable, and vindictive in His dealings with man, seeking His own glory, and the aggrandisement of His "special favourites" (the Hebrews) at the expense of other peoples. Although we find in the Old Testament Scrip tares many passages conveying grand and elevated conceptions of Deity, still the persistent idea which crops up, over and anon, throughout the whole Book, seems to be this — That Jehovah was the God of the Hebrews only ; that His principal attention was devoted to their welfare, and that all the other nations of the earth might go to chaos for aught He was likely to do to prevent such a catastrophe.

 The millions of human beings in China and India seem to have been as nothing to Jehovah, when “ weighed in the balance " against a few thousands of the descendants of Abraham.

 Plainly enough Jehovah was too partial in His affections to be any one else's God than the Hebrews. He was not universal in His sympathies, as the Hebrews were a mere fraction of the human race.

 That Jehovah was a Deity made in the image of man, is most offensively apparent in different parts of the Bible; as for instance, in the beginning of the Book of Genesis, where we are told that He "rested on the seventh day,'' as if He were a being apart from the forces of Nature, and might allow the world to go on without Him. He is also described as walking in the Garden of Eden, " in the cool of the day,” just as a man with the common ideas of personal comfort would do. We are also told that on one occasion Moses "saw Jehovah's backparts."

 We smile when we read the descriptions given by antiquarians of the Assyrian Gods. Some of whom were "in the habit of sneezing,” while others were often so much affected as “to cause tears to roll down their cheeks,” but is not the God of the Hebrews quite as ridiculously human ? That such a God should be the popular conception of the Divine Being in this enlightened age, can only be accounted for by the extraordinary influence possessed by "professional" theologians, whose self-interest consists in maintaining supernatural religion in spite of reason and common sense. The theology of Jesus, which has been grafted on the old stock of Judaism, was doubtless a great improvement on the old system. It teaches that God is a father whose principal attribute is love. It is pleasing to know that this conception of the Divine Being is growing, and that the old conception of “ Omnipotent tyranny” is gradually losing ground.

 Leaving the fields of " theology proper,'' let us briefly consider the subject of Deity from a metaphysical standpoint.

 While personality is mostly implied in all " theologies," it is a noted fact the metaphysicians have generally concurred in attributing impersonality to the Divine Being.

 Spinoza, (one of the most profound thinkers that ever lived on this planet), after years of speculation on the nature of Deity, came to the conclusion that God and Nature were respectively, '' The Eternal Cause and the Everlasting Effect.” Hegel, the great German philosopher, defined Deity as “the sum of all reality.” Herbert Spencer, after a lifetime of philosophical research, uses the term “ Unknowable" to designate that ''persistent force," or formative principle, which he finds evidence of behind all phenomena ; while the famous Matthew Arnold evidently thinks he has made a step in the right direction, when he defines God as “ the power not ourselves, which maketh for righteousness.”

 It seems that the difficulty of naming the Divine Being is as hard to be overcome in our day as it was three thousand years ago. Admitting the existence of a Divine Being (which I have assumed from the beginning of this inquiry), I am willing to believe with Laotse, that "it is unnameable." God, the Divine Being, the First Cause, the Infinite, the Eternal, the Absolute, the Universal Father, the Self-Existent, in common with many more titles that have been applied to the subject of our inquiry, are only arbitrary terms used to describe something we cannot conceive of. We are forced to use them, as we use x and y in algebra. " the Egyptian's Orsires, the Hindoo's Brahma, the Hebrew's Jehovah, the Grecian's Jupiter, the Mahomedan's Allah, the Christian's Our Father, the Theist's Deity, and the Indian's Great Spirit, are in reality one and the same thing, although like different artists painting the same hero, they necessarily partake of the idiosyncracies of the painters." In trying to reason out "the problem of Deity," we soon discover that our mental powers are quite inadequate for the task; and as we cannot transcend the capabilities of the human mind, God must continue to be the Unknowable, as long as human nature continues to be conditioned.

 As to the possibility of ever being able to know what God is, the case is hopeless ; as “ to know God as he is, man must himself be God.”

 Many ingenious arguments have been advanced in proof of the existence of God ; but seeing that most thinkers are agreed as to the existence of a “power” to which so many names have been given, the great desideratum is a definition of this “power.” The Pantheistic conception of God immanent in Nature, is, in my opinion, one of the most logical and consistent beliefs in regard to Deity of any with which I am acquainted. There seems to be some little analogy to assist us in forming this conception, provided we can accept the theory of man's " dual nature" (body and soul). According to which theory, the man's body is supposed to be the outward visible manifestation of an inward invisible "something" which energizes the " physical form." In a somewhat similar relation the Pantheist conceives of God as the inward, invisible Essence, or life-giving “power,” of which the system of Nature is the visible outcome. In this case there can be no Divine Personality, no separate Existence of God apart from Nature, and having reached thus far with the Pantheist, there seems to be only a step to the conclusion, " that God is Nature, and Nature is God," and that the one cannot exist apart from the other. Viewed in this light each human being must be a part of Deity, in fact every “atom “ in existence must likewise be

 A part of that stupendous whole.

 Whose body Nature is, and God the soul.

 I confess that there may be some difficulty in accepting the logical deductions of this belief ; at the same time, we must acknowledge that it has the grand merit of universality in its favour.

 Hear the Spiritualists' conception of the Divine Being, as follows :— “ To us God is the Infinite Spirit—Soul of all things, the incarnate Life Principle of the Universe, impersonal, incomprehensible, undefinable, and yet immanent in dew-drops that glitter and shells that shine, in stars that sail through silver seas, and angels that delight to do the immutable will. When we designate God as the Infinite Spirit, presence, and substance of Universal Nature, from whose eternally flowing life wondrous systems of worlds have been evolved, we mean to apply in the affirmative, all Divine principles; attributes, qualities, and forces, positive and negative— Spirit, as spirit substance ; and matter, as physical substance, or a solidified form of force, the former depending on the latter for its manifestations.”

 All this high-sounding language strikes me as being not a whit nearer the object of our study than the Pantheistic conception before mentioned. the Russian poet reaches quite as far when he says,

 Being above all beings, mighty one !

 Whom none can comprehend, and none explore,

 Thou fill'est existence with Thyself alone,

 Embracing all— supporting, ruling o'er,

 Being whom we call God, and know no more.

 There seems to be a point in the investigation which cannot be overpassed ; at the same time it may be useful to the mind to give these insoluble problems some attention, as if we only learn how ignorant we are on these subjects it must be highly profitable to us in our search after truth.

 In these speculations about the Divine Being, how much better would it be for society if it could be demonstrated that God is Unknowable. Would one theologian continue to " damn the soul" of his fellow-theologian because their conceptions of Deity did not agree, if the fact were recognised that all our theories regarding the nature of God are purely speculative, and the sum of our positive knowledge of the Divine Being nil ?

 Let us briefly consider what Christian theologians have to offer as a solution of the problem of Deity.

 They believe that God is Tripersonal. The only evidence that can be advanced in favour of this extraordinary proposition, is a stray passage or two from the New Testament, which seems to favour the supposition that Jesus held such a conception of Deity. But even supposing that Jesus and John and all the Apostles entertained such a conception, is that any proof to a rational being that the Divine Being is Tripersonal ?

 What possible evidence of the nature of Deity had they which we do not possess ? If the profoundest reasonings of men in the nineteenth century, with the accumulated experience of all history to guide them, prove conclusively that God is unknowable, is it at all probable that ever he was knowable ?

 If Christian theologians can supply any evidence on this point, by all means let it be forthcoming, as the world is much in need of it. I question, however, whether they can produce a particle of evidence (worthy the name) as to the existence of three persons in the Godhead. The fact that so many of the brightest intellects of the age are dissatisfied with the Christian evidence shows its worthlessness. I am aware that Christian teachers rely mainly on revelation for their knowledge of the Divine Being, and are often in the habit of asserting that human reason can never of itself discover the nature of Deity.

 Assuming the possibility of revelation, how are we to know whether it be true or false except by the use of reason ? Take for instance the “ revelations “ of Buddha, Jesus, and Mahomet (which Christians must admit are widely different from each other) and supposing that each " revelation " is in turn presented to me for my acceptance, how am I to determine which is true ? Obviously, by comparing the different statements, and accepting that which seems most probable. The fact that Christians accept the revelations of Jesus and reject those of Buddha and Mahomet, proves that they use the same faculty of reason, in discriminating between "true" and "false" revelation. It is therefore evident that revelation, instead of being superior to reason, must become subject to it, and that the more reasonable the revelation the more truthful it is likely to be.

 Surely no person in his senses would accept the revelation that appeared to him to be the most unreasonable; but this is actually what Christian teachers would have us do, when they ask us to believe that three are one, and that the Divine Being at one time inhabited the organism of a Jewish mechanic. Christian theology asserts that the Divine Being is divided into three parts, each of which is not a part, but the whole. That one part, " The Father," or God of the Hebrews, is located in a place called Heaven, where He has resided uninterruptedly since the time that He appeared to Moses at Mount Sinai. That the second part "The Son," appeared in Palestine some 1900 years ago, where he suspended the laws of nature on different occasions, and at his death ushered into the world a new system of moral government (rendered necessary through some defect in the original plan) whereby a person through the acceptance of this belief may reap moral harvests that he has never sown, and safely and conveniently prevent effects from following their producing causes.

 The third part of the Christian Deity is said to be generally operating for good in the human soul, although he has often to contend for the mastery with a " malignant being,” whose power seems to be all but omnipotent, and who continually disarranges and frustrates the intentions of this Tripersonal Deity. It must be very humiliating for Christians to consider that in spite of the efforts of the third part, aided with the sympathy and support of the first and second parts of Deity, and also the special assistance of the "servants of God," on earth in counteracting the work of the "Evil Power," still Satan seems to hold his own against such fearful odds, and is evidently in as powerful a position to-day as when he proffered Jesus all the kingdoms of the earth on condition that He worshipped him.

 If this be the "best light " of Christian theology, it seems little better than "a glow-worm's lamp" amidst the profound darkness that envelopes the mysterious subject of Deity.

 Some of the more honest and capable of orthodox theologians are beginning to confess as much ; and it is worthy of notice that the deepest thinkers amongst them are invariably the most cautious in making assertions regarding the nature of the Divine Being. A great change is observable in the tone of theological writers within the last few years; and no doubt the advance of science, and the spread of freethought, have had much to do in causing the adoption of that apologetic style which distinguishes the writings of " advanced " Christian theologians.

 As to the evils resulting from the teaching of dogmatic theology, I have only time to refer you to the persecutions, fiendish cruelties, and cold-blooded butcheries that have been perpetrated in the name of religion throughout the past, and the sectarian animosities, and uncharitable feelings that are still engendered through the mistaken idea that the nature and purposes of the Divine Being can possibly be known to any individual or church organisation. In view of the religious wars and martyrdoms that blot the pages of history and call forth the execrations of the civilised world, let us endeavour to kill dogmatic theology by introducing doubt, and by promptly demanding proof from these who assert that they have any positive knowledge regarding the nature or intentions of Deity.

 As once upon Athenian ground,

 Shrines, statues, temples, all around,

 The man of Tarsus trod

 Midst idolaltars ; one he saw,

 That filled his breast with sacred awe,

 'Twas "TO THE UNKNOWN GOD." 

Yet still, where'er presumptuous man 

His Maker's essence strives to scan, 

And lifts his feeble hands, 

Though saint and sage their powers unite, 

Ah ! still that altar stands.

Telegraph (Brisbane, Qld. ), Saturday 17 March 1877, page 5 https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/169512057