The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 1883. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1079, 6 March 1883, Page 2

The Temuka Leader. TUESDAY, MARCH 6, 1883. FREEDOM OF THOUGHT.

The lecture given by Madame Lotti Wilmot in the Volunteer Hall last Sunday evening was the first we have ever heard on the subject of Freethought. As the subject is therefore more or less new to us we may be pardoned if we exhibit a little more than ordinary interest in it. No doubt Madame Wilmot will set us down as very ignorant because of our want of knowledge of the subject matter of her lecture. Ladies of such brain power as Madame Wilmot, at any rate, generally come to such conclusions respecting persons who chance to differ in opinion from them. But, even so, we must confess our ignorance of the subject, and add that wc came away from the lecture

without having been enlightened. In j

saying this we do not wish it to be in* | ferred that it was through Madame j W ilmot’s incapacity to impart informa- I tion, or the impossibility to penetrate the density of our skull, that we came away without learning anything. On the contrary, we. must say that Madame Wilmot treated her subject very ably and eloquently. It was not her fault if she failed to enlighten us. It was the fault of the subject on which she was lecturing. To our mind this mischievous rubbishy nonsense which is called freethought cannot be upheld by anyone who is not, to use a familiar phrase, a shingle short—or a screw loose, at any rate. According to Madame Wilmot freethought means not disbelief in the existence of a Supreme Being, but she says that the Freethought Societies that she has visited in this colony are net in the right path in that direction, and that they are all astray because they do not think at all. This is candour indeed. It is certainly thoughtless innocents we should expect to meet with in such an institution. Madame Wilmot has a great contempt for them. Sho believes in a Supreme Being, and the whole burden of her lecture was—do away with all ministers of religion, never mind that which has been taught from times immemorial, think for yourselves, and become spiritualists. The only thing new to us in all this is the thoughtlessness of those who call themselves Freethinkers, but that d>d not surprise us, and hence our reason for saying that we learned nothing new at the lecture. If Madame Lotti Wilmot after having expatiated on the depravilies of orthodoxy showed us something better to put in its stead, we should be very glad to give the subject our consideration, and, as sho would say herself, investigate it. But she only asks us to give up a substance for the purpose of grasping at a shadow, —a very shadow-spiritualism. Madame WTlmot is a clever woman—a thinking woman, evidently—and it surprised us very much to hear her standing up before intelligent people, and asking them to give up an institution which has civilised such parts of the world as it has obtained sway over for the newfangled notion of spiritualism, which has been the cause of sending many persons to asylums. We have known persons who were driven to madness in I’iinara and elsewhere by this fearful fraud spiritualism, and are we to give up Christianity for that ? But even if we did, what would be gained by it ? Is it not giving up one mystery for another? Is not spiritualism as incomprehensible as the most mysterious thing in religion? Will not the mind he left in darkness as to the hereafter? Is man one shadow nearer acquiring knowledge as to his future state ? Not one iota ; he is as ignorant as ever, and will remain so until he solves the great problem himself by shuffling off the mortal coil. Neither religion nor spiritualism, nor any other ism, can enlighten him on the hereafter to any definite extent, and as that is the great and all-absoibing subject on which he yearns for information he is as wise in one as in the other. Is it not very reasonable to say then that the person who gives up religion for spiritualism is slightly inclining towards lunacy ? And as for the Freethought bunkum, what is it ? Every living man is a freethinker, that is if he possesses thinking faculties. We are a thorough staunch uncompromising believer in orthodox religion, and yet there is not a subject under the sun —and we even include the sun himself—on which we do not think with as much freedom as the winds of Heaven roam through space. It does not matter to us if religion says the world is only 6000 years old, and science says it is millions of years old, we still feel convinced by the evidence of our own senses of the existence of a Supreme Being, whom we disignate God, and we worship him. The discrepancy as to the world’s age does not alter our belief one single iota, and we think that we cannot bo far wrong in paying our homage to,that God iu the peculiar way which tradition tells us is correct. But even if we doubted the existence of God we think we should just follow the same rule, for the very reason that by being religious we cannot lose anything in this world ; while, if there is a hereafter, our chances must be considerably improved by it, and if there is not, we shall be just as well off as the atheist. No one can lose by being religious. If there is a God he will gain ; if there is not he will not lose. Freethought is a misnomer. Whoever invented that name wanted thinking capabilities. Some of those who tank themselves as Freethinkers believe in God; some of them do not, while some of them never

think of either God, or devil, or here-

after. The only things to which they give any attention is the satisfaction of their sensual appetites. They have no consciences, and have no restraining influences beyond the law of the land. There may be honest, honorable men and women amongst them, but there e.x« more honest, more honorable, more generous, and better men believing in orthodox religion. It is not the fault of religion that there are scoundrels professing it, nor are the misdeeds of Governments to be attributed to it. If the world were all Freethought peaple, there would be rich men looking after themselves instead of the poor ; there would be villains, murderers, and scoundrels of all kinds practising more wickedness than there is going on at present. The poor man would be as poor and as discontented, the rich man would be as rich, as arrogant, and as unmindful of his fellow-being ; and everything would be just as bad, if not worse, than at present. It is therefore a very foolish thing to suggest a change from bad to worse just because there chances to be some sentences in the Bible which people cannot understand. We must see something better than orthodox religion before we give it up, anyhow.