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Page 22
"This is all wrong," I said; "it savors of religious persecution."
"True," said Castleton, "it does; but the fact is as I state it. He
would if he ran for office lose enough votes from his own party to allow
his opponent to win."
"But, my dear doctor," I said, "I fail to catch your reasons for
thinking this man mistaken. You surely would not have him be untrue to
himself?"
"Oh, no--never that! I mean that he is intellectually mistaken in
thinking that the world is still to be benefited by agnostic agitation
among the masses. Voltaire had a good reason for proclaiming and
teaching his views, because in France, in his day, religious infidelity
was necessary to political liberty. Tom Paine had a good reason for his
course, because Christianity, misrepresented at that time by mistaken or
corrupt men, was arrayed on the side of the despot, and so continued up
to the beginning of the French Revolution. But this man has no good
excuse for a fight against church influence in the United States, now in
1877. The influence of the Christian church is now certainly exerted for
good, and does not attempt to restrict the liberty of any man, or of
society."
"But did you not just say that this agnostic's views would forever
prevent his election to public office, here in this great free country,
in the year 1877 and onward?"
"We cannot have a free country and not allow a man to vote against
another, even if his vote were influenced by the cut of a candidate's
trousers."
"Yes," I said; "but if the cut of a candidate's trousers influenced a
man's vote, such a man would be a good object for education. Your
agnostic would no doubt say that the influence of church is to be fought
so long as it judges of a man's capability to do one thing well by his
opinion on a totally different subject."
"You will never educate the people out of their prejudices; but I myself
should vote against this man because his course shows his views to be
inconsistent with statesmanship. No person desires to restrict another's
individual opinions; we only combat this man's because of their effects,
as he combats those of his opponents. There are as many agnostics,
proportionally, that would not vote for a Presbyterian, for instance,
for public office, as there are Presbyterians who, under like
circumstances, would not vote for an agnostic."
"But in what way does the belief, or want of belief, of an agnostic,
prevent an otherwise able man from being a statesman?" I asked.
"No doubt some of the best statesmen living are agnostics; but they are
not agnostic agitators. Men who are able to digest and assimilate
agnostic opinions, are able to initiate those ideas for themselves; and
only men who are able to properly digest and assimilate such ideas
should have them at all."
"Can you," I asked, "state an instance in which what you indicate as
premature education of the masses in agnostic ideas, might lead to
injury to the persons so instructed, or to society at large?"
"Yes, sir, I can. Your ignorant American--the 'cracker' element of the
South, your ignorant Italian, and your ignorant Irishman are injured by
taking away their religious beliefs. The first of these, when church
people, dress neatly, are honorable, and have some upward-tending
ambitions; whilst those of them that are infidels are reduced--men and
women--to a state of ambitionless inertia and tobacco saturation--if no
worse. The two latter are either under religious control, or under
secret-society control. If the lower-class Irishman or Italian,
unendowed with judgment to rightly use the little knowledge he already
possesses--to properly interpret his own feelings or guide his own
impulses--has not his church with its priestly control, he will have his
secret-society with its secret executive control, its bovine fury, and
its senseless pertinacity, the poison-bowl and the dagger. For my part,
if a man must either seek liberty from ambush, and learn independence
through treachery, or else be on his knees before a graven image, suited
to his mental calibre--let us keep him on his knees till he can rise to
something better than murder. Why, sir, an Irish Republican (a
rarity)--an editor, once said to me that some of our Irish emigrants
have hair on their teeth when they get to America; and, though I may be
wrong, I never see an Italian organ-grinder without first thinking of a
dagger between my ribs, and then settling down to a comfortable feeling
that if the fellow's a Catholic the confessional stands between me and
such a danger. The man who attempts to teach such fellows about complete
liberty should be responsible for any consequent acts."
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