Thomas Inman

“ Who is the God to whom we shall offer our sacrifice? He who gives life. He who gives strength; whose blessing all the bright gods desire; whose shadow is immortality; whose shadow is death.... He who, through His power, is the only King of the breathing and the awakening world. ”

“ The origin of life is, even to us, with all our lights, as great a mystery as it was to the ancients. To the primitive races of mankind the formation of a new being appeared to be a constant miracle, and men very naturally used as tokens of life, and even worshipped, those objects or organs by which the miracle appeared to be wrought. Thus, the glorious sun, that "god of this world," the source of life and light to our earth, was early adored, and an effigy thereof used as a symbol. ”

“ In the course of a not very long life, I have heard, upon many occasions, the argument that the persistency of the Roman Catholic Church, in spite of its abominable corruptions, its utter contempt for truth, its outrageous cruelty, its glaring superstition, its intolerable arrogance, and its rapacious covetousness, proves that it is, and must ever be regarded as a divine institution. But this argument loses all its weight when we find that the religion of the Mexicans, which the Spaniards declared to have sprung from the Devil, had the virtues, as well as many vices, of the Roman faith. ”

“ This fulness of life has been the summum bonum, the highest good, which mankind has sighed for in every age and clime. For this the alchemists toiled, not to advance chemistry, but to discover the Elixir of Life and the Philosopher's Stone. But what nature refused to science, the gods, it was believed, would surely give to the pious! and the glorious prize referred to has been promised by every religion. "I am come that they might have Life, and that they might have it more abundantly." ”

“ As hour after hour passes, and anxiety deepens into fear, I am like a hardy fellow under the lash: at first the stripes are borne with firmness, but as another and another falls, not only does-the pain seem keener, but the mental power which gives courage to bear the cutting agony diminishes, and the pent-up feelings are vented in a roar of anguish, or a groan of despair. ”

“ It was this intimation which led me to identify the tortoise as a male symbol. Any person who has ever watched this creature in repose, and seen the action of the head and neck when the quadruped is excited, will recognise why the animal is dear to the goddess of amorous delight, and that which it may remind her of. In like manner, those who are familiar with the ram will know that it is remarkable for persistent and excessive vigour. Like the cat, whose salacity caused it to be honoured in Egypt, the ram was in that country also sacred, as the bull was in Assyria and Hindostan. ”

“ If, then, an individual is resolved to walk by faith alone in matters of religion, he is bound to join himself to that church wherein the divine founder is habitually and visibly present; to whose saints the saviour has appeared, and given stigmata like those which were produced in the original by the barbarous nails and spear of the Roman soldiers. For the votaries of faith—pure and unadulterated belief in things divine—the only legitimate home is the bosom of the Papal Church. Why, then, do not men, like Mr Gladstone, join it? Simply because their faith is not a pure and confiding one. ”

“ In the ancient mythology of India, it is recounted that of old the gods in council united together to procure, by one supreme effort, the Amrita cup of immortality, which, after the success of their scheme, they partake of with their worshippers. Even for the Buddhist, his cold, atheistical creed promises a Nirvana, an escape from the horrors of metempsychosis, a haven of eternal calm, where "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain, for the former things are passed away;" "there the weary be at rest." ”

“ I believe that God did not make men, any more than the beasts, to damn the largest number of them throughout eternity. I believe that all who aver that they have been selected by the Creator from all the world besides as the only recipients of salvation are wrong, and deceivers of the people. In fine, I believe that God's "tender mercies are over all his works." The common opinion that the Almighty so revels in cruelty, that He makes creatures to torture them, is a horrible one to me—fit only to come from impotent Pagan priests. ”

“ The tree of knowledge, the tree of life, the serpent that tempted Eve, and still tempts man by his subtlety, are so many figures of speech which the wise understand, but which to the vulgar are simply trees and snakes. In a fine old bas-relief over the door of the Cathedral at Berne, we see an ancient representation of the last judgment. An angel is dividing the sheep from the goats, and devils are drawing men and women to perdition, by fixing hooks or pincers on the portions of the body whence their sins sprang. ”

“ Interest, unfortunately, determines the actions, even of our divines, more than a rigid uprightness.
We are thus at the foundation of those causes which are in operation to make the thoughtful laity distrustful of the clergy—it is, that the latter are not honourable or strictly veracious—they preach one doctrine, and act upon another. Honesty is on their lips, but self-interest in their hearts. From the Pope to the humblest deacon, there is a conscious reticence in every mind—an inner belief that their pretensions are not tenable, yet an outward determination to proclaim them at all hazards ”

“ The greatest curse to a nation is not a bad religion, but a form of faith which prevents manly inquiry. I know of no nation of old that was priest-ridden which did not fall under the swords of those who did not care for hierarchs.
The greatest danger is to be feared from those ecclesiastics who wink at vice, and encourage it as a means whereby they can gain power over their votaries. So long as every man does to other men as he would that they should do to him, and allows no one to interfere between him and his Maker, all will go well with the world. ”

“ It is a thankless task to pursue the current of the Christian religion through the dark scenes which shrouded it, from the time when it was adopted by a few "unlearned and ignorant men," until it emerged as a power able to shake empires—from the period wherein its professors were burned and otherwise tortured to death, to the days when their own Christian successors racked, roasted, and tormented their opponents, with a malignancy and cruelty as great as that which they themselves had execrated when practised upon their predecessors. ”

“ In fact, everything which in shape, habits, or sound could remind mankind of the creators and of the first part of creation was regarded with reverence. Thus tall stones or natural pinnacles of rock, the palm, pine, and oak trees, the fig tree and the ivy, with their tripliform leaves, the mandrake, with its strange human form, the thumb and finger, symbolised Bel, Baal, Asher, or Mahadeva. ”

“ But now, when it has become a tenet of the church of Rome, that its head is absolutely infallible in all matters of dogma and doctrine, it is probable that the demand of faith from the laity may equal, if not exceed, that made upon professed Jesuits.
In religion, the only place in which uncompromising faith finds its home, is the Papal. That demands unlimited belief in everything ecclesiastically promulgated, hatred of everything dogmatically condemned, and acquiescence in every sacerdotal command. Amongst that sect, doubting is an offence, and opposition is a crime. ”

“ We cannot regard this as a result of simple intellectual indolence, or ignorance. The only cause to which we can attribute it, is that weakness which, by most people, is called moral cowardice; a fear, not so much of Mrs Grundy—the world and its dread laugh—but the fear of some unseen, unknown, incomprehensible danger to themselves—of dangers that have no reality, except in an imagination which has been moulded long before the mind was capable of thought, but whose hold upon the individual is such, that he shrinks from the mental effort necessary to efface its impressions. ”

“ To regain his position, Jupiter found a man—a son of his own—whom he had begotten by lying three nights in the heart of the earth, or, as the fable has it, in the arms of Alcmena—Hercules by name, to attack the allied monsters, and thus with the aid of a mortal the gods became victorious. Just as in more modern days the divine mission and position of Jesus of Nazareth and Mahomet of Mecca, have been determined by the arms of human warriors. The power of men in heaven is wonderful, considering how great is their weakness upon earth! ”

“ It is my belief that, for a man to obey an instinct which is implanted in his nature, is not "a sin" against God.
To see this in a fair light, let us assume, as we have a right to do, that it is an instinct in the nature of all known creatures, to increase and multiply their like. To avoid doing so intentionally, is a contravention of one of the Creator's laws. If this be so, then celibacy is a sin, as great, indeed, as if one were to refrain from food of all kinds; and no one can be considered as worthy of the name of good, who remains unpaired without just cause. ”

“ I assert, without fear of contradiction from any thoughtful man, that the main inducements held out by our divines to persuade their hearers to embrace Christianity, are an awful painting of the horrors of hell, and an assurance not only of escaping it, but of gaining a place quite different to the Devil's kingdom, provided only that the plan adopted by the theologian is followed to the letter. Neither Buddhists nor Christians seem ever to have studied the laws of nature, or the works of the Supreme, with any largeness of mind or understanding. ”

“ I believe that the Power has never made, nor can ever make, a mistake; that all its works are perfect, and that where they seem to us to be otherwise, it is from our ignorance of their design.
It seems to me that lions and lambs, sharks and gudgeons, that hawks and chickens, form a portion of a grand scheme: that the distinct classes of animals were originally perfect; that they may deteriorate, yet never advance beyond perfection. I do not believe that a lion could become, under any circumstances, a bull; a bear a camel, or a pig an elephant. ”

“ In some he recognizes the fact that communications only take place between the one party and the other by signs, which not only may be, but very generally are, misinterpreted on both sides; in others he is able to see, or, at least, he comes to the conclusion, that the untaught barbarians have not a single idea which is not connected with eating and drinking, war, revenge, and love;—that such, indeed, resemble brute beasts, who have no more conception of hell or heaven, God and the soul, than an elephant has of aerostation, or a crow of theology. ”

“ From the moment that Christianity became a political power, its history resembled that of any tyrant or other ruler, and it is filled with misrepresentation, lying, fraud, the records of fighting and slaughter, of brutal passions, frightful laws, and horrible punishments; in fact, the record of political Christianity is that of a Devil in sheep's clothing. Even Calvin, one of our cherished reformers, burnt another Protestant almost in the same year as the Papists burnt Ridley and Latimer. ”

“ For a man only to give a half confidence, is to cripple to that extent the capacity of the one who is responsible.
Religious faith, then, involves the necessity of an absolute and blind confidence in the priestly pilot selected as a conductor through life to eternity; it precludes inquiry, discourages thought upon the most important matter which every man has to consider, and makes of a rational being an intellectual slave. In few words, it reduces its votary to the position of a tool, and renders him, so far as religion is concerned, mentally blind. ”

“ Men positively have met to clothe, and now have invested, a man with an attribute of God, and millions of Christians will, by those men, be compelled to consider themselves bound by the decision! "See how these Christians love!" they are persecuted by the world at first, then they persecute their oppressors, and massacre each other; educated by Jesus, they gradually encourage ignorance until they reach a superstition as crass as the darkness of a dense fog in a moonless night. ”

“ The mythological idea, therefore, of a divine child coming from a celestial father and a terrestrial mother, has nothing profound therein, for it is essentially a bungling contrivance of some stupid man. On the other hand, such a notion could only be entertained where a grovelling or anthropomorphic idea has prevailed, or is cherished amongst a credulous people. To put the subject into the fewest words possible, a god has never—so far as thoughtful men can judge—been said to be the father in the flesh of a human being, except by frail women, or vain, foolish, or designing men. ”

“ Chaos was generated first, and then the wide-bosomed Earth—the ever stable seat of all the Immortals that inhabit the snowy peaks of Olympus and the dark dim Tartarus in the depths of the broad-wayed earth, and Eros—the fairest of the immortal gods, that relaxes the strength of all, both gods and men, and subjugates the mind and the sage will in their breasts. ”