The Story of My Mind

was completely divorced from the supernatural. It emphasized the deed, and ignored the creed; or rather, it believed in the creed of the deed. I invited the leaders of this movement to a

This interchange of platforms resulted in my accepting a call from the New York Society for Ethical Cult

ither ex-ministers of the Christian church, like myself, or had, at one time, studied for the Christian ministry. In the beginning, the movement was consistently and fearlessly Rationalistic. Adler had a lecture on Atheism in which he boldly exposed the weakness of the theistic po

of the morals of its members and of the public, and therefore, like the church, it began to fight "sin," studiously ignoring the debasing superstitions and the bondage of dogma which not only had bankrupted, both mentally and morally, whole nations, but which had also withered the greatest civilization the world had ever seen, and surrendered humanity to the keeping of "the dark ages" for a thousand years. This change in the program of the Ethical Societies greatly pleased the Orthodox world, and all fear of menace or danger to its theological interests from that direction was dissipated. Catholic and Protestant clergymen vied with each other in expressions of admiration for the work of the Ethical Societies, and all praised the tact which the leaders of the movement displayed in refraining from criticisms of the churche

g an organization that started as an "Atheistic," or at least, a non-religious society. But the invitation to join the Ethical Societies without leaving their own churches had the effect of drawing the new movement into closer relations with the religious bodies, which in our opinion has greatly handicapped the Ethical lecturers, and impaired their leadership in the world of thought. It is not my intention to bring a charge of deliberate surrender to the churches against th

maintaining a significant silence on questions the free discussion of which would offend the churches, and in the second place, by indirectly endeavoring to bolster up, by new interpretati

rers think they Have accomplished. I have only to quote from authoritative Christian sources to show how prejudicial to the interests of morality is the teaching of the churches. For an Ethical Movement systematically to ignore the evil which the churches do by sacrificing reason to dogma is in the nature of treason to its own principles. The whole trend of Christian teaching is that Ethics is secondary. How can the Ethical Societies afford to ignore so fundamental an untruth? Both the established and the non-conformist chu

ticle of the Ch

rms the basis of the Reformed churc

er so diligent to frame their lives according to the light of nature; and to

to save those who shall believe in him. And this is also the teaching of leaders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon and General Booth. The burden of Luther's message was that "Christ had come to abolish the Moral Law." The liberty which Luther proclaimed assured the believer that even the decalogue shall not be brought into account against him, "nor its violation be allowed to disturb the conscience of the Christian." ** In the same spirit, Spurgeon cried in his London Tabernacle, Sunday after Sunday, for nearly half a century: "Thirty years of sin shall be forgiven, and it shall not take thirty m

nster Ca

, quoted by Cotter

pag

gue, to commit theft, murder, massacre, and acts of oppression and brigandage,-every departure from the ritual of Israel was visited by immediate and clamorous punishment. Both Judaism and Christianity make their special objective, not character, but the creed. How, then,

nd believes another, thunder against it with all their might. This should be done not from motives of hatred or combativeness, but in the spirit of faithfulness to the best interests of man. It is error, and not its victims, against whic

fted into the sheltered harbor where it hugs the wharves made fast by posts and ropes. Both these movements started out for the sea, but not a vessel flying their flags can now be encount

health, but also by their attempts, incredible as it may seem, to discredit science and to seek in metaphysics, or in a sort of attenuate

he fundamentals of the Movement, we see full traces of this deplora

t. * * * It is then that we come to realize that in the moral command there is something awful." The language is not very clear-perhaps because the thought is not very clear-but we believe its meaning is that, a moral command is awful because we cannot understand it. Prof. Adler seems to make of duty a new kind of a god. The qualities and attributes of the deity he bodily transfers to his successor-Duty. Accordingly, Duty becomes just as mysterious and awful as God, and we can

possibility of explaining in terms of sensible experience, the existence of a personal infinite; but now Prof. Adler wishe

lling it "narrow, secular, materialistic and paltry," as Prof. Adler does in this lecture-when no better explanation is offered than a mere rhetorical recommendation "to draw back the curtains and see the majesty and inexplicable augustness of it"? What are these curtains? Who put them there to hide such "august

l the moral evolutionary view, which asserts that the moral law is a law of our nature, and in so far, the universal nature. * * * We leave the

n accord with the known facts, then it is not scientific. But if it is in harmony with the facts, what do we gain by rejecting it in

stincts of the race, what is it? If it is a ready-made, or made to order voice, or a voice not made at all-but, well, an unfathomable something commanding us in tones of the categorical imperative-who placed it there? God, or chance? If conscience, in straight words, is a natural product in the same sense that the brain or the human hand is, then there is no good reason for throwing

do not see, but the hand we feel." Is not this an attempt to make ethics as mystifying as theology? If this "hand," of which the professor speaks, is end

t necessary to perplex an audience with visions of a "hand," and "a face that belongs to the hand which we do not see," i

ding their obsolete and obstructive dogmas they can join the Ethical Movement, is compelled by the very exigencies of the mesalliance to tarry in the region of fog and obscurity. And this confusion in thought, this l

n. In our opinion such a rapprochement would only redound to the glory of an institution that has proven itself not only incapable of saving the world, bu

x at the same time. We recommend this thought to the consideration of the Ethical lecturers. And no institution can make others honest, if it i

nd earth, the sea and all that in them is,' in innumerable churches, they are either propagating what they may honestly know, and, therefore, are

efres

the example of inconsistency. With a rigour which even in a dogmatist of the theological schools would be considered excessive, Emanuel Kant argued that so imperative was the duty to tell the truth that, even to save one's self or another from murder, there must be no departure from it. If you saw an assassin with a drawn dagger running after a man or a woman, and he asked y

estroyer of character, later on came to ignore altogether the existence even of degrading superstitions, and were content to be a

igion de

an be no enlightenment under the church. Even as the light of the sun can not enter a dungeon, the light of knowledge can not penetrate the mind which it has been the aim of the church to keep shut. The condition of the spread of knowledge

de by side with the old-it mus

"We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by faith, and not for our own

ticles of the Churc

urches teach to yo

tri

refrain from combating so injurious a teaching wi

he efforts of the new teachers will be confined strictly to giving moral e