False Religions.

Thames Star, Volume XI, Issue 3535, 24 April 1880, Page 1

False Religions.

Few travellers trained to appreciate beauty and magnificence in all t beir manifestations can bare surveyed tbe gorgeous temples in which the early Indians and Egyptians enshrined their grotesque idols and tbeir strange conceptions of Diety, without the half, involuntary exclamation:—" Thank God for a 1 false religion, or at least for the marvel* lous productions it has inspired." The same sentiment rises still more irresistibly in the minds of cultivated Christians, when standing in the plains of fiaalbec or Palmyra, by the wgste shores of Pcestum, or at the foot of the unrifalled Parthenon, and thinking what sort of gods were they whose worship suggested those exquisite monument! to the finest races of the ancient world, and carried taste almost to inspiration:—'• Thank God for a false religion!" A similar imprtision forces just the same utterance from r the zealous Protestant, if he be a man 1 of culture as well as zeal, as he cornea forth from the Duomo of Florence or Milan, from St. Mark's at Venice or I St. Peter's at Home, and Barrels at the glorious structures which intense devotion , to what he deems little lest thananti* j Christian faith could rear in the dark days of Catholic supremacy. " Thank God! ". jhe exclaims " for a false religion!" And theu as be turns homeward, and stands lost in admiration near the front of {Salisbury, or Westminster, or Lincoln, or any other of our own cathedrals, he hears his phrase echoed at his side by the Methodist or Ranter, issuing from a bare, unlovely, whitewashed Bethel in a neighbouring alley, who, half shocked at the unholy thougl, can yet scarcely deny that even the surpassing purity of his own creed does but imperfectly atone for the comparatively wretched house of God in which it lias to be repeated. The con* trast between the temples inspired by the false faith aud the true is painful eren to him. But false religions have inspired grauder monuments than temples and cathedrals and demand our gratitude for_ achievements of a nobler character. They hare been the parents of courage; obedience, endurance, and self-sacrifice. In proportion to the measure of their truth, according to the tenets of their creeds aud the fancied attributes of tbeir Deities, they have guided for £ rood or evil the morals of mankind; but .they have given to their votaries power to do and to I>ear, with little direct reference to the characteristics of the faith itself. Often the gods worshipped have been hideous,' monstrous,. impossible, immoral; often the doctrines held have been revolting and maleficent; often the purest faiths have been disfigured by Che most, incongruous corruptions : but good or bad, true or false, they have nearly all bud one feature in common —the faculty thej inspired of dethroning the present and suppressing self. The direction of tbeir influence has been deter* mined by their essence:—the amount of that influence, their motive power over humanity, has been in proportion to the absoluteness of the credence. they com* manded. They bave inspired the subliniest virtues and tbe most frightful crimes; but men have died and slain with about equal confidence for all alike; all alike have had their martyrs and their heroes; life, eaße, pleasure, earthly possessions have, been readily sacrificed by the devotees of every faith, at tbe dictate of. its authorities and in the certainty of its rewards. In thanking God for false religions, therefore, as for true ones, re are grateful for that which is common to them all—the power they possess of inspiring human fortitude and human effort;

Recognising tllien, that many fal« religions hare exercised in tome respects

an derating influence on mankind, and that others, in which truth and error are mingled in various proportions, still largely operate for good, we perceive, too, that in all cases they, have this strength and ennobling grace, mainly if not entirely, because they are firmly held, because no doubt mingles with the faith of the worshipper, or impairs the blind simplicity of his devotion. If he had any misgivings he oould not " greatly dare or nobly die." It is only his certainty that sends him to the battle-field, or sustains him at the stake, or 'enables him to bear up through the long and weary martyrdom of life. The very, salt of his religion to him lies in his absolute conviction of its truth. If he were not positively certam of its divine origin and sanction, it would lose its magic hold upon his actions and motions. Now, it is {>recisely this certainty (to which all reigioas pretend and which is essential to the influence of them all) which, nevertheless, thoughtful and sincere minds know to be the one element of falsehood, the one untrue dogma, common to them all. They may differ in everything else; the gods they proclaim may be as discrepant as light and darkness, the articles of their creed may be very approximately true or very manifestly false, their codes of morals may be severally beneficent or noxious, the spirit breathing through them may be the loveliest or the harshest: —but they all agree in affirming that their faith came to them by more or less direct revelation from on High, admits of no question, and contains no flaw. In this they all err: (all except one, at leasts everyone admits) —the votaries of each believe that all others lie except their own ; philosophers insist that there is and can be no exception. We Europeans know that the Orientals err in maintaining that Buddha or Vishnu was incarnated in this form or in that, and taught the true faith to man. We Christians know that Jupiter and Minerva never appeared in human shape to give consistence and sanction to the Pagan creeds. We Jews are certain that the law given to Moses on Mount Sinai was never abrogated by a later and sublimer prophet. We Protestants know that the Holy Spirit never dictated to the successors of St. Peter the strange dogmas of salvation which those successors are now issuing in its name to votaries who are bound to accept them as absolute and certain truth. We Unitarians and other Dissidents entirely repudiate many of the doctrines which the English Church submissively receives from councils and congresses at which the Spirit of the Most High was asserted to preside; and what the orthodox regard jas certain we reject as utterly unsound. And, finally, we Philosophers and men of science know with a conviction, at least as positive as that of any of these believers, that they are all wrong, that no such dicta have ever been delivered, and that no such knowledge about the Unknowable can ever be reached. It is, therefore, just this special claim to certainty (to absolute authoritative truth), which is; the inspiring and life-giving power, to all religions, which is also the one false element common to them nil. Here then is the startling conclusion alluded to at the outset. It seems that error is necessary to float and tivify truth, that religions bold and exercise their mighty and elevating sway over human imagination and volition .by one fundamental assumption or assertion common to them all and in which they are all alike false.—" Enigmas of Life,"