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Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 December 1883, Page 1

The Pope has addressed a letter to three of his Cardinals, in which he expresses his desire that the resources of the Vatican Library should be available for the vindication of " the truth." This is one of the greatest of the world's Libraries, and why it should have been kept closed to the historian so long is one of the secrets of the Roman curia. It is not certain that the concession now granted with a flourish of trumpets will prove of much value. The object indicated by the letter is to enable the historian to prove from authentic documents that the rule of the Roman Pontiffs is not " an obstacle to the welfare and " greatness of Italy." But the task of thus educating the rising generation of Italian patriots is not to be thrown open, as it were, to public competition. Words of deep import faithfully reflect the policy of the Holy See : " We do not doubt, Beloved Sons, that the weight " of your office and the reputation of your merits will " secure the co-operation of learned men skilled in his- " torical writing, to each of whom you will be able to " assign the task best suited to his abilities, and in " accordance with certain rules which we have sanc- " tioned." When the historian has thus been carefully selected and " sanctioned" by the Pope and his Cardinals, who will doubt his impartiality in the work of defending the Church ! Is it still true that the historian needs his patron ?

Were it not for the grand assumption that the Church is the fountain of all good and must be defended, the Pope's letter might be taken by many as a sign of progress. Some of his maxims and sentiments are elevated. He recommends that—" Strenuous efforts " should be made to refute all falsehoods and untrue " statements by ascending to the fountain heads of " information, keeping vividly in mind that «the first " law of history is to dread uttering falsehood; the " next, not to fear stating the truth; lastly, that the "historian's writings should be open to no suspicion "of partiality or of animosity.' " Sound doctrine, the reader will assuredly admit. But it is immediately followed by that which contains a double meaning and cannot meet with the same general assent: " Manuals " are also needed for the use of schools, which, while " leaving truth intact, shall put aside all that is " harmful to youth." The word " harmful " might be construed to mean anything which deprecated the " Temporal Power " ; and here we should expect the " sanctioned " historian to write according to his cue, bringing into the foreground the documents which established ' the truth ' of that bulwark of the Church. In the early ages of the Church, a©ti-Christian writings were unscrupulously destroyed, and Libraries burned with the connivance of Christian Bishops. If the Vatican contained the works of Celsus as well as the reply of Origen, if it included the volumes of the Serapion, the learned and sceptical world might well await with breathless anxiety the opening ..wide its doors. Still it no doubt contains priceless treasures peculiar to itself, and the questions arise, —why should these have been concealed," or be now surrounded with restrictions suggestive of timidity ?

There was no good reason why the evidence taken last session before the Select Committee in support of the Education petitions should not have been published. The evidence, it is true, was mostly on one side, and hostile to the established system of public instruction. The fear on the part of the supporters of the system was that ex parte evidence would be likely to bias the public mind. The rule of judicial procedure, however, does not hold good here, for the reason that the public is not deprived of evidence and facts on the other side, but is supplied with all that enables it to form a correct judgment continually. The working of the system is in itself the best evidence in its favour. Besides, it is a great advantage to have the case of the other side disclosed. Its own strength and weakness are equally revealed, and everyone now knows what the Roman and the Anglican hierarchy want, with the reasons they are able to advance. The political candidature of Bishop Moran of Dunedin made it evident that the secular system had more friends than enemies. The alliance of Rome and Canterbury in a Parliamentary paper has made it well nigh impossible for public money to be filtered through the fingers of the priests under any elementary scheme of education, if busybodies are only prevented from pulling down the fabric piecemeal in order to satisfy their fads. But there is an indispensable condition to the maintenance of the system, and that is the political education and earnestness of the people. At present they hold the fort, and have only to recognise a mitred head as the common enemy, to make the position impregnable.

In the Criminal Code Bill introduced last session in the General Assembly, Blasphemy is thus dealt with : " Whether any particular published matter is or is not " a blasphemous libel is a question of fact—But no one " is guilty of publishing a blasphemous libel for ex- " pressing in good faith and in decent language, or " attempting to establish by arguments used in good " faith and conveyed in decent language, any opinion "whatever upon any religious subject." As the Bill will probably become law at no distant date, Freethinkers should consider whether it contains any restriction on liberty. The definition of Blasphemy reduces the offence to a question of taste, and unless an arbiter elegantiarum be set up to decide what is and what is not permissible, it is quite within the bounds of probability that successful prosecutions might follow. Suppose we were to say, what Freethinkers believe there is good historical ground for maintaining, that Jehovah was merely the tribal god of the Jews, as mythical as Baal, Chemosh, Bel, and the rest of them, an orthodox jury might find the language " indecent " and blasphemous. The Rev. Joseph Cook of Boston would' certainly have no scruple in applying either adjective. Yet in our view it would only be a fair and moderate expression of opinion on* a question of historical evidence. But supposing the extreme case of a Foote caricaturing Christian mythology, even then we can see no criminal offence. Majorities and minorities ought to have the same rights, and while there is no

blasphemy in ridiculing the faith of an Infidel (if we may express the paradox), there should be none in ridiculing the faith of a Christian. There should no longer therefore be such a thing as the crime of Blasphemy known to the law.

Bishop Luck, of Auckland, thinks the State has no conscience, and that the Atheistic State has no sense of duty. Before the Select Committee on Education last session, this Bishop expressed himself to the effect that— The State has no conscience whatever ; it is " very elastic, and whether we are Jews, Protestants, " Catholics, Mohammedans, it does not matteY one bit to " the State." The meaning of this is that the State has no religious consciencea very different thing from having no conscience. But the State at any rate professes to be the guardian of liberty of conscience, and in making the profession it claims to have a conscience on this point of duty. The State seems to have a very clear conscience when it makes a law and votes money that no child shall grow up without the means of education. And it appears to be acting moreover with a conscience when it refuses to allow religious jealousies, hatreds, and feuds to interfere with the duty it has undertaken to perform. Bishop Luck gives another definition when he observes: "We have " States of all colors and shadesthe atheistic amongst "the rest which admits no duty." If he means no religious duty, he is expressing a truism, but if he means no duty whatever, he should have been asked to name the State. When the French Republic banished the Jesuits, it at once provided with princely liberality the secular schools which it intended should replace those of the Order of Loyola. The atheistic sense of duty is founded on the welfare of mankind in this life, and is of the strongest and deepest.

The veteran secularist William Swanson put the following question to Bishop Luck : " Are you aware " of any Catholic State, where there is a Catholic " majority, where they do not allow some of the State " funds for education " ? The answer was thus given : " The Catholic Church never gives any grant to any " religious education which it does not know to be the " true one. This great cry for State education is " entirely one of our own times." The Catholic Church admits of no compromises, and of course if it believes in itself it is quite justified in pursuing the policy. But let us see if the State should not be influenced to act in a similar way. The Catholic Church presumably feels itself to be right and every other church to be wrong. The State, however, 'without a conscience' knows nothing about one church being right and another wrongit has no knowledge on the pointand being in this state of oblivion it solves the difficulty by refusing to recognise any church. In this dilemma the State has no alternative but to cut the Gordian knot and reject all demands from the rivals until they have agreed on a common religion, or found out what Pilate was in search of—Truth. The more the State attempts to compose the differences and adjust the claims of the warring sects, the further will it become involved in the maze of their interminable pretensions. It can only do as the Roman Governor did, and wash its hands. Before the " great cry for State education," we had the education of the churches, and let it be placed on the record how well and satisfactorily under the direction of ' conscience' they performed their duty!

The fourth centenary of the birth of Martin Luther is being celebrated by Protestant Christendom'in honor of the lion of the Reformation. Luther had exactly those qualities fitting him for war with Rome. Possessed of unflinching courage and burning religious zeal, he returned blow for blow, eliciting the admiration of sturdy Germans whose rough sense of honor bound them to defend him against menaced dangers. Luther had studied the Bible, and failing to harmonise it with the half Pagan rites and doctrines of Rome, he founded the system of Bibliolatry which has obtained since his day among Protestants. Though we cannot admire the character, we shall not refuse our tribute of gratitude to a man who faced with unflinching bravery untold dangers, with a constancy never excelled, and with results highly advantageous to humanity. His dogmatism and ignorance were largely the fruit of the age in which he lived. We can now afford to laugh at his attack on Copernicus : " People (he contemptuously " remarked) gave ear to an upstart astrologer who " strove to show that the earth revolves, not the " heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. " Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some " new system which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool wishes to reverse the entire science "of astronomy. But Sacred Scripture tells us that " Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the " earth." It was confidence of this kind, though better founded, that enabled the monk to win against all the organisation and machinery of Rome. For his bravery and success we honor his memory. It was hardly his fault that he retained the vices of a monk, and saw but dimly in the first dawn of science what so few then were able to see with clearer vision.

The Protestant Bishop of Dunedin in a recent address to his Synod said : "It may be within your " recollection that last year I devoted a part of my " address to you to the consideration of certain possible " steps towards the reunion of divided Christendom." In token of his success in this direction, he mentioned that since his return from England in 1879, he had " been concerned in the reception of six ministers of " other communions into our own." It happened that two of these perverts were probationers for the Wesleyan Ministry, who, according to the statement of the Rev. Joseph Berry, Wesleyan Minister, went over without discharging certain debts of honor incumbent on them. On this point we do not care to dwell. Charges of the kind are often the result of disappointment and bitterness. The striking feature of the case is Bishop Nevill's happy idea and plan of promoting "the reunion of divided Christendom" by appropriating the novitiates of other churches. "It has always been the desire of my heart," the Bishop remarks, " that I " might be in some humble way instrumental thereto." The humbleness of the method of promoting the " reunion" goes without saying. If the ingenious Bishop and his coadjutors could only win the whole of the Wesleyan probationers, the Wesleyan Church would undoubtedly be " reunited " out of existence in a single age. And so the plan would be as effectual as it is " humble." On the other hand, if the ranks of the. novitiates should be duly recruited after every secession, it is difficult to see any approach to reunion. But if the students for the Ministry are inclined to receive calls from the Church of Henry, the Wesleyan foundations are certainly in some danger. Bishop Ncvill may have struck a rich vein.

Bishop Moran says there is no such thing as • a common Christianity,' and proudly rejects the apparent approach of other denominations towards an alliance on equal terms. That very wonderful exponent of science, Father Le Menant des Chesnais, has been the means of placing the Protestants in a rather invidious position. At his lecture in Wanganui, Anglicans, Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and a Freethinker ! occupied the platform. Of course the Freethinker was there out of sheer good nature and nothing more hurtful to his self-respect. At the conclusion of the missionary's dissertation, an Anglican, in a complimentary speech, exclaimed—" Thank God !we can "all stand on a common platform." He meant, probably, all Christians, and was trying to emphasise the necessity of their combining to withstand the steadily advancing flood of Freethought. Cardinal Manning and Bishop Moran are anxious for a Holy Alliance to be inaugurated in the ninth decade of the nineteenth century, but only on the express condition that their Church shall be its supreme head. They recognise no ' common platform' of Christianity, only a ' common platform ' against the Infidel. All is fish that come to their net—Anglicans, Wesleyans, Presbyterians. The poor Protestants no longer shriek defiance, but are asking for terms of accommodation. While they are cowering before the philosophical boldness and mental honesty of Freethought, Rome is beckoning to them to come and take shelter under her wings. Forgetting the chief corner stone of the Reformation —the right of private judgmentthey seem not disinclined to protect themselves against the exercise of that right carried to its logical conclusion, by placing themselves under the leadership of a corporation of priests that insists on mental submission or prostration as a cardinal virtue. The Mormons, who are the most consistent of Bible Christians, will not be refused admission to the ' common platform.' They can be classed with the heretical sects, the product of the Reformation movement, and all together enrolled as Helots in the army of Leo.