“ A FAITHLESS WORLD.”

Freethought Review, Volume II, Issue 21, 1 June 1885, Page 10

“ A FAITHLESS WORLD.”

In a recent number of the ‘ Contemporary Review,’ Miss Frances Power Cobbe contributes an interesting article under the above heading. This estimable lady and accomplished writer essays a conclusive answer to Mr. Justice Stephen’s opinion that we can get on very well without what is termed religion, and that it matters not whether there is or is not a God or a future state, In concluding an article in the ‘ Nineteenth Century,’ this able and distinguished lawyer expressed his views of life and duty so pleasantly as to lead us to suppose that he is happily one who would choose to see us all through life with more songs than sighs. “ This world seems to me a very good world,” remarked Mr. Justice Stephens, “ if it would only last. Love, friendship, ambition, science, literature, politics, commerce, professions, trades, and a thousand other matters, will go equally well, as far as I can see, whether there is or is not a God or a future state.” To this Miss Cobbe shrinks back in trepidation and dismay, and valued friend to liberal religious thought though this lady is, it is evident that she lacks entire faith in human nature to attain every requisite for human progress and welfare. Advocates of “ reverent freethought ” terrify themselves with lurid pictures of “ an orphan world without the consciousness of God,” and leave everything realizable on this nether earth to wander in dreamland at their own sweet will. In criticising Mr. Justice Stephens, it is very commendable that Miss Cobbe should begin by defining her words. To Miss Cobbe, “ religion ” means definite faith in a living and righteous God ; and, as a corollary, in the survival of the human soul after death. From this definition, therefore, it is evident that sacerdotal laws and theological morality have not yet been discarded by the devout author of “ Religious Duty; ” and from

it, too, one can easily determine in what dreadful deeds of ommission and comission the world’s faithlessness would consist. The first visible change in a “faithless world ” would be the non-existence of public and private worship; of preaching; the secularization or destruction everywhere of cathedrals, churches, and chapels ; and the extinction of the clerical profession. ‘The Enquirer’ remarks:—“A caustic critic might answer that religion might not suffer from a very considerable diminution of the present practice of preaching, and might even survive the total extinction of the clerical profession.” It would, at any rate, be a happy relief to hear no more of charges of contumacy, of imprisonment, and of the lucrative work of the ecclesiastical lawyer. But when Miss Cobbe, or others, affirm that the philanthropic work accomplished by the various churches constitute a sum of beneficence inconceivable as emanating from any secular organization, the affirmation, to my mind, rather proves the faithlessness of Miss Cobbe, or others, in the benevolent instinCts of our common humanity than the possible existence of her ideal “ faithless world.” Even the seventh clay of rest is assured us by the very physical wants of human society. The weakest part of Miss Cobbe’s criticism, however, is where that lady indulges 'in sentimental phrases concerning “ Divine sanctions,” “ gratitude for the gifts of Divine love,” etc., and the reference to pessimism as at all applicable to those who arc of Mr. Justice Stephen’s temperament, and who entertain views of things as they are such as he has expressed, is at once ludicrous. Mr. Justice Stephen is strictly logical, and frankly admits that Christian charity must not be expected when Christian theology becomes exploded. In opposition to this, Miss Cobbe draws a sharp distinction between the charity of science and the charity of religion, and asserts that they arc not merely different but altogether opposed. Christianity says, though it were difficult to find it practised as Christianity —“ The strong ought to bear the burdens of the weak. Blessed are the merciful, the unselfish, the tender-hearted, the humble-minded.” And science, “the available providence of man,” is parodied as follows:—“ The supreme law of nature is the survival of the fittest, and that law, applied to human 'mortals, means the remorseless crushing-down of the unfit. The strong and the gifted shall inherit the earth, and the weak and simple go to the Avail, Blessed are the merciless, for they shall obtain useful knowledge. Blessed are the self-asserting, for theirs is the Kingdom of this world and there is no other world after it.” A very copious explanation, but yet one that will bear a little better interpretation. It does appear to me the best form of charity to teach that the race is to the swift and that the battle is to the strong, when experience leaves us to discover that it invariably is so. The Rev. Mr. Pearson says science and Christianity are not antagonistic ; others have remarked the same ; and perhaps it were well that the disputed point should first he left for settlement among Christians themselves. We shall then, perhaps, hear less concerning true science having made the most brilliant progress in lands most illumined with the light of Christianity ! Yet it does seem very unphilosophical on the part of Miss Cohbe to blame the hard facts, which a scientific view of life has revealed to us, with a view to their removal, rather than to lament the existence of the facts themselves by casting a glamour over them by a reference to Christian beliefs. Who, having read John Stuart Mill’s posthumously published essays on Religion, can forget his indictment of nature for its cruelties ? “ The indictment, however severe,” writes Mr. W. J. Potter, “is a valid enough argument against the method of those theological writers [Miss Cobbe may be included here] who are in the habit of calling out only the good things from nature in order to prove the existence of an all benevolent as well as ail powerful personal Being, who created the universe just as he wished it to be. But the thoughtful reader, when he has had time to catch his breath after getting through Mill’s terrific charge, will see that the philosopher’s indictment against nature is quite as one-sided as is the theologian’s pica for uniform evidences of benevolent design. With that more scientific theory of nature

which regards it as the evolution of the forces and phenomena of life, it is seen that pleasure and pain mingle together as essential agents in the process of development — the pain being no less necessary than the pleasure, but the pleasure always holding the dominant control.” But the fact is the existence of faith is wholly essential to the well-being of man in every relation of life, and Miss Cobbe’s ‘Faithless World ’ is as harmlessly unreal as Richter’s dream of Atheism, and of an orphan world. The paper referred to, however, in the ‘ Contemporary Review ’ for December, is one w r ell deserving a thoughtful perusal, and it is to be hoped Mr. Justice Stephen will think it worthy a rejoinder by him one of these days. Free Lance.