What is lost? All the mistakes, all the falsehoods, all the absurdities, all the cruelties and all the curses contained in the Scriptures. We have almost lost the "hope" of eternal pain--the "consolation" of perdition; and in time we shall lose the frightful shadow that has fallen upon so many hearts, that has darkened so many lives.
The great trouble for many years has been, and still is, that the clergy are not quite candid. They are disposed to defend the old creed. They have been educated in the universities of the Sacred Mistake--universities that Bruno would call "the widows of true learning." They have been taught to measure with a false standard; they have weighed with inaccurate scales. In youth, they became convinced of the truth of the creed. This was impressed upon them by the solemnity of professors who spoke in tones of awe. The enthusiasm of life's morning was misdirected. They went out into the world knowing nothing of value. They preached a creed outgrown. Having been for so many years entirely certain of their position, they met doubt with a spirit of irritation--afterward with hatred. They are hardly courageous enough to admit that they are wrong.
Once the pulpit was the leader--it spoke with authority. By its side was the sword of the state, with the hilt toward its hand. Now it is apologized for--it carries a weight. It is now like a living man to whom has been chained a corpse. It cannot defend the old, and it has not accepted the new. In some strange way it imagines that morality cannot live except in partnership with the sanctified follies and falsehoods of the past.
The old creeds cannot be defended by argument. They are not within the circumference of reason--they are not embraced in any of the facts within the experience of man. All the subterfuges have been exposed; all the excuses have been shown to be shallow, and at last the church must meet, and fairly meet, the objections of our time.
Solemnity is no longer an argument. Falsehood is no longer sacred. People are not willing to admit that mistakes are divine. Truth is more important than belief--far better than creeds, vastly more useful than superstitions. The church must accept the truths of the present, must admit the demonstrations of science, or take its place in the mental museums with the fossils and monstrosities of the past.