burdens from the building of pyramids to that of temples, was in accordance thereto. The peculiar faith of foreigners, is called that of heathenism, as if they were the only barbarians. Peculiar faith that admits Polygamy as the Hebrew patriarchal dispensation, demoralizes most ignominiously, the world, Rational law that emanates from rational religion, excludes all such peculiar faith, and its felonious customs. Constitutional representative republicanism, requires rational laws that legalizes marriage according to the arbitrament of nature, that approximates equality of number in the sexes. When peculiar faith prevails, the people are liable to any amount of false steps and position, as any amount of such faith may be added. Reformation will never heal the corruption, as it is too partial, therefore conservative revolution is necessary to exclude the errors of faith, that are too powerful for reformation. All peculiar faith is priest faith, from which we might ask the good Lord to deliver us, were it not useless to ask delivery from the worst of all corrupt governments, when the world's people make themselves participant in their corrupt ignorance and degrading superstition. All that adopt peculiar faith, have never appreciated the universe author, and may expect to be cashiered by the holy chancery, if they knowingly continue the error, along with all those that join peculiar faith churches from any but pure motives. There are low characters of all persuasions, that are reckless of the laws of God and man, conscience and mind. All priest-faith dies hard, with its many heads this dragon has to be cut down. CONFESSION. CONFESSION is boasted of as a triumph in peculiar faith, when securing by remorse of conscience a few dollars overdrawn. Rational religion prevents all that at first, by one of its chief attributes, honesty. Do we hear of the numerous murders concealed and confession withheld; the thousands of corruptions unknown and unredressed? The priestocracy's confessional the most desirable of all, to be made for the highest of all crimes, blasphemy to the God of the universe. Of the fornication and adultery, that may lead to murder and many miseries. What confessional of faith can sin make to sin? Arrest not by reckless impiety God's attributes, sinful, weak mind. Thou canst reach the very elements of proper sense, to assume this character. Undertake not to define the limits and character of God, the fountain of all wisdom. Recall thy libel, and repent of thy iniquity and blasphemy. Let us hear only of religion that reason can hail as affording all the elements of greatness of mind, dignity of character, performance of duty, and rendition of highest allegiance to the Almighty. It is idle, useless, and absurd, to expect any other means than through the responsible mind of each rational being, to overcome all obstacles in life, and reach all that belongs to it in its whole duty. How important, then, is confession to a mortal! We can neither speak to the world, nor indite a book, without recurring to the requirements and responsibility of rational mind that denounces all such stuff. All we say and do, are by, through, and for mind, not ignorant stultified priests. But all this is of a piece, with the other ridiculous machinery of priestocracy and peculiar faith. When the world becomes enlightened, then peculiar faith cannot exist. It will die an ignoble death, the tool of absolutism. Citizens, patriots, and philanthropists, decide this mighty question, the sooner the better. Then the narrow and contracted policy of nations and societies can be liberalized, and the whole world march onward to true greatness and its inherent glory, by its most extensive comprehension of unity. Then the remotest parts of the earth will come to know each other; and even China will open her ports voluntarily to the good of all; and the inside, as the outside barbarians, will unite in its completion. There will be no violation of the trust of the mighty boon, mind; and all nations will impeach and discard all other bibles but that of rational mind. They will adopt what is now instituted, The Order of the Universal Brotherhood, that embraces all the essentials and principles becoming to all societies, for it embraces all. The Order of Odd Fellows and Temperance, Masons, and all can now unite on this mighty basis for universal good, and be necessarily absorbed thereby. Peculiar faith has been a curse upon mind wherever it has been introduced. There can be no exception. The history is that of sophistry and absolutism, forever antagonistical to mind's rights. The Egyptian faith supplanted the Hindoo, and much of Europe and Africa. The faith of Bhudda supplanted the Egyptian or Brahmin for a time, but was finally expelled from the supremacy. The doctrine of Bhudda has invaded China, but the state faith of Confucius holds it in abeyance. Christianity was introduced there centuries ago, and yet makes no progress. Mahometanism supplanted much of the faith of Asia, and kept military rule over Hindostan, till christianity comes over the same country, by the sword, pure military power, to rule out Mahometanism and Brahminism. With all, there is a mighty jar, and but little proselytism. All exclude rational religion, and its lofty social adoration of God the Creator. Mind to-day, has to seek the true faith, that rules out all by most potent reason. Judaism has been divested of much value by Christianity, Mahometanism and Mormonism, superseding it. Judaism has but little to complain, as she innovated in rational faith. The christian faith soon splits as all peculiar faith. The potency of councils is invoked in vain to preserve its unity. Arianism splits the church into fragments--that are with difficulty collected-after mutual triumphs and losses, massacres and bloodshed. Not only many bishops are exiled and banished, but the Crusades were gotten up by false faith-people. The bible is upheld by the vile sophistry of false-faith people. The idea of hero-worship, demigods, a mere matter of sophistry and flattery, arose in the days of popular ignorance, when deep cunning prevailed over true wisdom. Religion, most rational, must rule the mass, human nature, and all its speculation. Put yourself on principle, and you are fortified in defence against the fiercest assaults of the world, and competent to meet your God-creator. This is what is called virtue, and is certainly rational religion. The world must get rid at once of all the fool systems of peculiar faith. Every world-patriot should scout that miserable position that causes talents and creative genius to pay obeisance to it, instead of exalting themselves and the world to its designed elevation. The Roman absolutism, armed with the potency of infallibility, loses nevertheless its eastern churches, that became Greek, and finally many of its western, by protestantism.. Its pure orthodoxy is rank heterodoxy at the tribunal of mind, after all the sanguinary contests to secure it. She warred by crusades, ineffectually, for centuries, to obtain conquests, but her gospel was put back by Mahometanism, and now the pope has been a curse upon his own country, seeking to murder republicanism, to maintain an usurpation. What first principles of humanity or religion has this power, that has prostituted all at the shrine of mind's basest corruption? More injury has been done the whole world, under the pretence of faith, than by all other means whatever. The world would have been far happier and better, without any peculiar faith at all. All such faith has only presented the world the shattered fragments of a broken brotherhood, that rational religion justly revolts at. What is the world benefited by the persecution of dissenters, the bloody tragedy of the Vaudois, the rebellious clergy? Whether "the interior of Asia, for many hundred miles square, had never been visited by any christian missionary" until 1849, or not, rational minds have the assurance that God is omnipresent, and that mind is the rightful guardian. What matters it whether the Brahmins profess to teach science by divine authority, if the ignorance and superstition of the world did not enslave mind to believe their pretences? All such imposition would die of itself if mind rightly counteracted it. The light of mind-science never irradiated the crusade ages, and consequently superstition and bigotry, not religion, prevailed. If mind could have had the mastery all had been right. But peculiar faith cannot be enforced by the sword, nor propagated sincerely by all the delusion of sophistry. How can the God of religion, favor any species of superstition? Efforts have been made in all continents, but arms and conquests will not do. Rational religion decides against peculiar faith, and she will, ere long, be scouted from the face of the earth. The Indian of America believes in a Great Spirit, the Great First Cause, that puts to blush the asserter of the plurality of gods. How impiously and blasphemously has God been treated, by the peculiar faith bar barians! How cruelly have God's creatures been treated by them! What, for centuries, was done for the millions of Indians? They have felt the force of the peculiar faith dispensation of the whole-the fire-water and the arms of the whites something more potent than the gospel, to give them a receptacle to the spirit land. Yet they cling, with a laudable tenacity, to the Great Spirit. Is not conquest made of all pagans, and would it not be of all other sects, by the sword, had the sword been available on the day of trial? But the cimeter of the Mahometan was too strong for the sword of the Christian at that time. Now, when civilization has spread, the Christian only wars on the pagan, and the partially civilized in creed, as the natives of the various continents, if they are behind in the use of weapons of war of the present day. But it is all still pagan against pagan. Who can deny the crimes of bibles of tradition, that gave each sect inheritance of all that it could get, as the propagation of their peculiar faith accompanied the con quest? To possess the lands of the heathen, the elect did God service in the action of possession! The majority of the world is not aware of the remote consequences of these real heresies on principles. What but the sword will define the rights of orthodoxy of peculiar faith? What shall stop the progress of such crime? Principles alone define the true extent of that position, that must be placed on the highest grounds of justice. We can see the miserable delusion of sectarianism, when one sect seeks wars, unlimited in country and time, on others, to stay the proselytism that was going forward, and the conversion of the people, by an eternal enmity. Races of men are not natural enemies, neither are professors of religion-the farthest from it, but all are natural friends, and would continue sincere friendship, but for faith charlatans, the real enemies of both and mankind. Which ought to be put down? Give us the value of enlarged and liberal views, without any bigoted policy of the age. It is our highest duty and right not only to abolish all others, but institute all that is necessary, legitimate and correct. We should have, at all times and occasions, a foreshadowing forecast, a judicious analogy and analysis. All classes are invoked and identified by inseparable interests and indispensable duties and business, from the physical laws of nature, that are paramount to man's pretences. The balance, or equilibrium of the universe, as paramount, can demand the right revolution and orbit of any system of worlds, that all harmony be maintained, and all right be executed. No less, in the moral world, has mind the right to restrict and require the same rule, to exclude the many avenues to base, degraded usurpations, and monopoly of tyrant powers. The best of those, avowing peculiar faith, cannot justify themselves before God. Even christians admit that they have many and stormy doubts about their having religion. This is honest, and would be consistent, when they find that it is utterly impossible for them to have any on any such impracticable basis. Who could doubt the rational position advanced in monotheism, that reverently and righteously only asks the aid of the God of nature. On our last day, and at the last moment, this position will present the only justification before God. Let not remorse, bitter and little availing, be yours on that important occasion. You must act up to the possession of your belief of the soul's immortality and respon...” sibility. You must perceive that sectarianism propagates and disseminates doctrines at enmity to God. The benevolence attributed to peculiar faith is through the innate principles of religion. It is idle to say that one system of peculiar faith exceeded another as better, when all are deficient in primary and paramount virtues and attributes. Wherein is any better? In departing from religion and God, and overwhelming by its greater influence the divine rights of mind? The peculiar faith that is best appreciated has been most destructive to the lives and interests of the sovereign people. The human mind is in a progressive state of improvement, independent of all such incidents of faith, and should have the intrinsic characteristics of religion. Did any author of any such system discover any principle, other than the constituent of the universe, all of which belong to God? No. Then all such are no creators, but usurpers and blasphemers of the Creator, impostors on men, only fit for vulgar belief, amenable to heaviest penalty. But what harm would ensue from belief of revelation, though false? It stands, as all false faiths, in the way of truth and rational religion. The extreme proof has been at Rome as elsewhere, all over the world. All on earth are punished for errors, more or less, and this thing of peculiar faith affects the whole world. Our errors beget penalties, more or less, and remorse is no little part at times. Reform belongs to the light of enlightened mind, and is constituted by repentance necessarily. Now, repentance for what, as expressed by peculiar faith? It is duty to God and man that constitutes religious and moral sentiments. What is the revelation of peculiar faith worth ? Is it anything like religion? As to all the science of peculiar faith, we must make allowances for what mind has done, and cannot, possibly, omit to mention its illustrious deeds. What shall atone for the omissions of peculiar faith, that pretends to usurp the claims of mind, through science? Which are most abominable, her pretences to religion or to science? Peculiar faith is the vilest impostor on earth. When we hear of the uncivilized embracing peculiar faith, that is evidence that they have not realized the proper benefit of civilization. The history of paganism proves this. Palestine has been ruled by the Jews, Romans, and Mahometanism, and has not yet seen the light of civilization. All Judaism, with all its pretensions, could not civilize the Hebrews? All the peculiar faiths of the world could not civilize the world! Civilization is an act of enlightened mind, not of peculiar faith; the first comprehends God's principles, the last the faith and acts of individual leaders. The result of peculiar faith tends to cause bishops to grow rich in a country of starving poor, that die poor by the million. No matter the injunction of peace, when self-interest dictates, we can observe popes, the professed representatives of peace, urge nations, monarchical or republican, to war, and even receive their own papal power in bloodshed of their own fellow citizens. The true analysis of mind will prove the doctrines of peculiar faith fully carried out, as leading to bloodshed, and this proof is in the appeal to history. What were the murders of New England and Europe for witchcraft of all ages and both sexes, but from fanaticism of faith? The Quakers of that province were awfully persecuted, no less the dissenters, who were exiled to Rhode Island. It is mind, not doctrine, that has been falsely claimed, that imparts the noble principles of morality and religion, nothing else will on this earth. It is folly and stupid nonsense, to expect any other source. Faith must be subordinate to civilization, when it is peculiar. The best as it is by excellence claimed, makes its God one-third or one-fourth of an imbecile being. Men are better, as they are wiser, at this day, when a school-boy that has not had any peculiar education, contemns any murderous peculiar faith that burnt scholars at the stake for opinions in science! Peculiar faith is an impostor, dictating in science and government. What would she not do to-day, if mind permitted her? Any peculiar faith is as deep in the mud, as the others are in the mire. The novelty of a faith is no proof of its truth, which no custom nor fashion, but analysis, decides. All kinds of peculiar faith, the best that can be devised, perform the bloody oblations of superstition in human sacrifices, through all ages of its existence. Tory is peculiar faith by her fruits and deeds, not by her professions and faith: is one any better than the rest? Is there any proof of superiority, but as the emanation of a better age and more improved mental cultivation? If mind under any culture of peculiar faith, was peculiarly better a saint on earth, then we admit the superiority absolute, but we have to deny all the premises when the results are inadequate. What essential difference of goodness is there between any such faith ? Opinions or faith of men doubtful and uncertain, not trustworthy, do not alter God's position of things. What can be peculiar to any system, that is common in God's principles ? If mind carry out the principles, it elicits the best already, for its good and best happiness. Much good may be effected when mind has the ascendancy, but take mind away from the peculiar faith, and faith becomes fanatic and tyrannical. As to government of passions, the sins that are evils, resulting as the negative of conservative principles, science and philosophy teach their correction. What can peculiar faith avail with them, when mind has no control of the selfgovernment? What is the difference between good citizens well educated and well behaved, and those the best of any peculiar faith? The excellence and light of rational mind, equalize them. What then becomes of peculiar faith on its best behavior, and that under the restriction of civilization? But in its worst behavior, it is the fanatical scourge of the world. Unlike fire, it is the worst of masters, yet it is not fit to be owned as a slave. You cannot trust it with any power. It is useless, and has failed to meet the puffs of its advocates, but increases the sum of human misery. What can we do with it, when the attributes of God preclude its admission, its own demerits preclude its retention? Misery and evil, its concomitants, will result to human life, rational religion makes them the least, and the most of human happiness. The last invokes the aid of science and philosophy as the more wisdom, the less folly and wickedness. The earth has its mixtures and alloys, and rational religion can best temper them. Universal happiness cannot inure to man's soul while on earth, but a right education and morals can remedy the greatest defects and errors of mind. God has given the functions, mind must exert the actions and exercise. Peculiar faith ever degenerates into superstition, man-worship and imposition, when the whole comprehension of the subject is not in abeyance to the faculties of intelligent mind, the only beneficiary. Conscience all the time is to preside over this vast subject, and necessarily excludes all such faith that is too peculiar to be true. Ignorance presided at the first start of peculiar faith; now the best philosophy is most substantially the best supporter of the best religion. We can easily challenge refutation when miracles, the product of the grossest ignorance, are referable to imposition. Magic powers of psychology can be the cause of mental illusion and delusion; when analyzed are the beautiful exhibitions of natural phenomenon. The modern adoption of all pretences of this kind, as recognised by ancient fictions, has but little apology for the advocates. Rational religion, as directed by science, ought to preclude all such now. Mankind needs religion, not peculiar faith, as the first blesses, the last curses the world. All religion does promote honesty and truth, and will exclude peculiar faith that nurtures sophistry and false pretences. Men interested particularly in peculiar faith, that necessarily and universally depends on false pretences, will go to the extent necessary for that interest. Are the advocates of any peculiar faith any better than the rest of the world? In what? |