FREE THOUGHT LECTURE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 4630, 18 December 1876, Page 3

FREE THOUGHT LECTURE.

Mr Charles Bright delivered the first of a series of "Six Sunday Free Thought Lectures " last evening, at the Princess Theatre, Notwithstanding the unfavourable weather, there were about 80 persons in the dress circle, and the pit and stalls were crowded. The subject was: "Progress and its Opponent, Popery— Roman Catholic and Protestant."

The lecturer remarked that all men were more or less cowards, and were best pleased to travel with the crowd, even should tlioir conviction* point in another direction ; that a pioneer of progress in any direction social, scientific, or theological—must be a bold mun to encounter tlie opposition inevitably offered by those whose interests would suiter, as well as the misunderstanding, aversion, and hate, perhaps, of the greater part of mankind. The priesthood of all ages wee foremost in the opposition to progress, and foremost of all stands that of the Konian Catholic Church. The Church of h-ngland, and other minor churches and sects, professed great freedom of thought, but still set bouuds and lines beyond which it was not lawful to travel, and more or less ostracised or damned those who leaped the boundaries set to thought and investigation. Such conduct w.is the result of a lamentable want of faith, and had not men been found from time to time bold enough to defy the powers that woulii fetter their freedom of thought, we in the present day Bhould not be able to meet as at present without molestation. Among the many whose reputations have been the subject of post mortem malignity by "men of God" were mentioned Thomas Paine, a man of great private benevolence, and associated witri Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin (described as a good man of no religion) in tiie establishment of American independence, and afterwards figuring in the French Revolution, endeavouring to instruct the turbulent masses in the distinction between liberty and lawlessness, writing the " Age of Reason" partly while in anticipation of arrest, and the rest in prison, having fallen under the displeasure of Robespierre ; Voltaire, whoso advice was '• to adore God and act as an honest man ;" Dcseart. s who considered the existence of an infinite and all-wiso power as more than mathematically demonstrated from his own existence as a finite and imperfect being ; Spinoza (the most eminent J=w since the time of Jesus), who regarded the whole universe, of which t!;is earth is but an infinitesimal portion, as the stupsndous manifestation of the existence of a being absolutely infinite ; Lord Bolingbroke, the inspirer of Pope's " Essay on Man," from which the le turer quoted; David Hume, who at tbe close of hie career declared that he had no enemies, except, indeed all the Whigs, all the Tories, and all the Christians; Thomas Hobbes and others, together with Theodore Parker, agaitist whom even Unitarian pulpits were closed, and people warned not to look him in the face, but whose name will eventually become distinguished union? thn eminent reformers of the present century; Carlyb, also, who has rescued the memory of Oliver Cromwell from obloquy, and shown that even Voltaire had been grossly maligned. Two positions only were logically possible—complete freedom, or entire Bubmis.-ion to priestly authority, ai;d the career of the brothers Newman was taken a3 an example of courses logically determined—John Henry Newman, at the age of 45, resigning his Anglican honours to become Father Newman, and his brother Fr*ncis refusing his degree at Baliol College, because he could nut subscribe to the Thirtynine Articles, and writing "Phases of Faith," " The Soul," and other books of like character. The Roman Catholic position was at least a comprehensible and logical one. The priesthood prescribe therclig'on, aud the laity are to accept the prescription and make no wry faces about it. The encyclical letters of Popes Gregory XVI. and Pius IX. condenined theliberty of the Press, liberty of conscience andof worship, liberty of speech, and in express words insisted that the Eoraan Pontiff could not come to terms with

Progress, Liberalism, and Modern Civilisation. That was at all events intell'gible ground, whereas the manifestoes of tho various petty Pontiffs they iniuht wot of—Popes of the Dunedin Young Men's Christian Association and the like, which recommended people to think for themselves, and then laid down lines beyond which they were not to think at nil—were Simply ridiculous, TJlfl spread of Free Thought must

rapidly cause tha abolition iirtnesc, to* was it not evident that as the subject of Theology became better underatood, Christeaaom wonld inevitably.be divided between those who regarded Free' Thinking as a good thing and those who looked upon it as, an.,,evil thing? It' wm only the log in which the patter had been enveloped that enabled 'men /otherwise rational to trim between thoie two. positions)—to uphold the right of private judgment in theory and condemn it in practice—to attempt to build up a religion on the basis of reason, and to ostracise the reason which was to act as basis. <■ Those facts were becoming clearer every day, and the consequence was that all educated men were taking sides. Freethinkers were no longar loth to declare themselves Freethinkers, and those averse-to liberty of opinion and speech would find themselves gradually but certainly falling back upon Popery. Losing her temporal power, the Church of Borne of late years has, to use the words of Gladstone—the most eminent of modern statesmen — " refurbished every rusty tool that she was supposed to have laid aside for ever, and made most strenuous efforts to regain the spiritual authority she once en joyed. On the, side of progress were ranged the names of. Disraeli, Gladstone, and Bismarck who had—the first two by the pen, and the latter in a more tangible manner—laid their hand on the paw of priestcraft as soon as it appeared, the pamphlets of W. E. Gladstone and hiß opponents having caused an excitement unprecedented in the civilised world. The present day required that every effort should bemadato ensure complete freedom of thought, and thorough belief in the Fatherhood of God, and the Brotherhood of-Man, a3 the most effectual means to promote real progress. The lecturer concluded by saying that interlying and complicating the religious d fferences in the struggle between the spirit of progress and the spirit of I'opery, the social question was now demanding settlement, and came in and added bitterness to the strife. The religious conflict would be of little use if it did not eventuate in a better social system as well as a nobler faith. Then, indeed, wonld the Divine Fatherhood be something more than a name, and " The whole round earth be every way Bound by gold chains about the feet of God."