FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S THEOLOGY.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 3, 1 December 1883, Page 14

FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE'S THEOLOGY.

The following passages arc from an article by Florence Nightingale in Fraser’s Magazine in 1873. The article is headed “ A ‘ Note ’ of Interrogation,” and its aim is to interrogate whether the greater portion of the religious teaching of the present day is not misdirected, on the ground that it fails to inform men what is the true character of God : Is it not a simple impertinence for preachers and schoolmasters, literally ex cathedra, to be always inculcating and laying down what they call the commands of God, and never telling us what the God is who commands, often indeed representing Him as worse than a devil? “ Because lam God and not man.” But you represent Him as something far below man, worse than the worst man, the worst Eastern tyrant that was ever heard of. . “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength.” Ah, from the mouth of him who said these words, they are indeed the “ first and greatest commandment.” He who went about doing good, who called all of us who are weary and heavy laden to come to Him —who towards His cruel torturers and murderers felt nothing but “ Father forgive them, for they know not what they do —He might well say, “ Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” for he needed not to explain to us His character. But—and what a descent is here !—for us to lay it down as a command to love the Lord God ! Alas ! poor mankind might easily answer : —“ I can’t love because I am ordered of all can I love One who seems to make me miserable here to torture me hereafter. Show me that He is good, that He is lovable, and I shall love him without being told.” But does any preacher show us this ? He may say that God is good, but he shows him to be very bad. He may say that God is “ Love,” but he shows him to be hate, worse than any hate of man. As the Persian poet says —“If God punishes me for doing evil by doing me evil, how is he better than I?” And it is hard to answer. For certainly the worst man would hardly torture his enemy, if he could, for ever. And unless God has a scheme that every man is to be saved for ever, it is hard to say in what He is not worse than man. For all good men would save others if they could. A poor man, dying in a workhouse, said to his nurse after having seen his clergyman—“lt docs seem hard to have suffered so much here, only to go to everlasting torments hereafter.” Seldom has the feeling, which must be that of half the world, been so simply expressed. How then is it possible to teach either that God is “Love” or that God commands any duty ; unless God has a plan for bringing each and all of us to perfection ? How can we work at all if there be no such a plan? It is not enough that God should not be willing to punish everlastingly — show that He is good. He must be accomplishing a desiyn, “ invariable and without a shadow of turning,” the desire to save every one of us everlastingly. There must be no giving the go by to searching out, as the very first condition of religion, whether there be such a plan. * » * * * * Take c.a., some of the most familiar instances of mistakes, arising from not understanding the character of God. That God regards suffering as good in itself, that He pays well those who inflict it on themselves, is the basis on which was founded a very large polity in the Homan Catholic Church. That God has so let go man as to become essentially wicked, for which he has instituted no other system of help except letting Another pay the penalty for man, was the foundation of another theory of religion sometimes called “Evangelical.” That this barbarising doctrine docs not make man barbarous, at least not very, can only bo because men are so much better than their God. * * * * * It is of no use saying that God is just, unless we define what justice is. In all Christian times people have said that “ God is just,” and have credited Him with an injustice such as transcends all human injustice that it is possible to conceive, e.r/., that He condemns to “ everlasting fire,” for not being baptised, little babies who certainly could not get themselves baptised. What is the most horrible and wholesale infanticide compared with this ? Hot even that of the Frenchwoman farmer of babies who poured vitriol instead of milk down the babies’ throats, and dipped their heads in boiling water. For she certainly did not mean to do this for eternity. But would God be the more just, even though He docs not damn the little babies, if He does not save them—if He has no scheme by which the little babies, who were never asked whether they would come into this world or not, are to be brought to perfect happiness ? Also, there is extraordinary confusion about w hat happiness is. Whole books have been written to prove that there is a very equal distribution of happiness all over the world in all classes and conditions of men. “Paupers arc accustomed to pauperism, rich people are accustomed to ennui, savages to savagedom. All these have their pleasures.” This is the argument. Do people who argue thus ever ask themselves for one moment what happiness is ? Or do they really call the excitement of gin, the beastly momentary pleasure of sensuality, which alone diversify the miserable lives of hundreds of thousands of London poor, happiness ? Or do they call the dead lock of carriages in Hyde Park, which minister to the ennui of the rich, happiness ? And well may they write to prove that every man in London, taking the average, has £IO,OOO a year, as that every man, taking the average, has happiness. What a poor idea of happiness this is ! Is not the happiness of God, so far as we can conceive it, the only type of what happiness is? And why has God happiness? Not because He can do what He likes ; but because what He likes is good.