Gems.

Freethought Review, Volume I, Issue 11, 1 August 1884, Page 4

Gems.

From W. K. Clifford’s Lectures and Essays.

Where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than presumption to believe.

If men were no better than their religions, the world would be a hell indeed.

Truth is a thing to be shouted from the housetops, not to be whispered over rosewater after dinner, when the ladies are gone away.

Do I seem to say: “Let us eat and drink for to-morrow we die? ” Far from it; on the contrary, I say: “ Let us take hands and help for this day we are alive together.”

To become crystallised, fixed in opinion and mode of thought, is to lose the great characteristic of life, by which it is distinguished from inanimate nature-The power of adapting itself to circumstances.

Bring your doctrines, your priesthoods, your precepts, yea, even the inner devotion of your soul, before the tribunal of conscience ; she is no man’s and no God's vicar, but the supreme judge of men and Gods.

If there is one lesson which history forces upon us in every page, it is this ; Keep your children away from the priest, or he will make them the enemies of mankind.

It cannot be true of my race and yours that to keep ourselves from becoming scoundrels we must needs believe a lie. The sense of right giew up among healthy men and was fixed by the practice of comradeship. It has never had help from phantoms and falsehoods, and it never can want any.

No real belief, however trifling and fragmentary it may seem, is ever truly insignificant ; it prepares us to receive more of its like confirms those which it resembles before, and weakens others ; and so gradually it lays a stealthy train in our inmost thoughts, which may some day explode into overt action, and leave its stamp upon our character for ever. It is idle to set bounds to the purifying and organising work of Science. Without mercy and without resentment she ploughs up weed and briar ; from her footsteps behind grow up corn and healing flowers ; and no corner is far enough to escape her furrow Provided only that we take as our motto and our rule of action, —Man speed the plough. The dim and shadowy outlines of the superhuman deity fade slowly away from before us ; and as the mist of his presence floats aside, we perceive with greater and greater clearness the shape of a yet grander and nobler figure of Him who made all Gods and shall unmake them. From the dim dawn of history, and from the inmost depth of every soul, the face of our father Man looks out upon us with the fire of eternal youth in his eyes and says ; "Before Jehovah was, I am!" W. C. A.