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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 24a

Love in Religion: A Mystery

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Love in Religion: A Mystery.

"God so loved the World that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life "—[John iii, 16].

"Christ died for the ungodly."—[Romans v, 6].

"Let love be without dissimulation."--[Rom. xii, 9],

"Behold I show you a mystery."—[1 Cor. xi, 51].

Even accepting Christian doctrines as true, there is surely something very anomalous in the fact, or rather statement, that God so loved this wicked world—so much better than his own good son—that not only did he scourge him and put him to grief, but actually caused him to be murdered—for the benefit of the wicked !! Now if God be a good being, how can he love the world, which is said to be so desperately wicked, and the sinners in it in particular, and sacrifice for their benefit his own only son—said to be without spot or blemish? Why is it that he loves sinners and ruffians exactly ninety-nine times better than virtuous persons? "There is more joy in heaven," Jesus said, "over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons who need no repentance." (Luke xv, 7). One would have thought that such preference and love of sinners instead of good persons would rather have been characteristic of hell, and that in heaven one righteous man would have been preferred to at least ninety-nine sinners. The moral apprehension of the world, though greatly susceptible of improvement, has certainly made a considerable advance upon that of Jesus, and of Christianity—the religion of sinners. Let us hope that the next religion may be one adapted to the requirements and advantage of good moral men, rather than of page 2 the worst. To love the evil better than the good is not only obviously immoral, but is possible only in complete misconception of good and evil, and can produce none but immoral results.

But though this doctrine of divine love was confessedly devised in the particular interest of sinners, can it be shown to have resulted in any advantage to them? Though God gave his own good son for the special benefit of all these bad sinners that he loved so much better, yet it appears not to have benefited them at all; for they have still to work out their own salvation with fear and trembling just the same as before. In fact they are now much worse off; for they have not only still to save themselves as best they can, but they have the additional difficulty put in their way of having also to believe that Christ has already saved them, though they have still to save themselves. I fail to see any honesty or propriety in wishing to be saved from the appropriate consequences of one's own acts. We could not then learn wisdom. What we should want is justice and fair play as we earn it—which is scarcely to be expected from a God who loves the evil ninety-nine times better than the good, apparently for the exquisite pleasure of torturing them eternally afterwards.

What, then, has this divine love done for any one here? Has it, as stated, introduced peace on Earth and good-will to men? Nay ! I tell you—in the words of Jesus—it has brought "not peace, but a sword : "a had he been a real prophet, he might have added—the flames of Smithfield, the massacre of St. Bartholomew, and the tortures of the Inquisition. Christianity is remarkable for having, even more than any other religion, aroused what the prince of historians calls "the exquisite rancour of theological hatred."b

How is it, then, that love has been put forward as the leading feature of Christianity, unless to take away our breath at starting with a monstrous camel, so that every other absurd doctrine may be afterwards swallowed whole, page 3 and with ease, as a mere insignificant gnat? What love, what respect, what feeling but of radical antipathy can possibly subsist between the creator of a hell and those for whose torture he created it? Or between moral beings and one who loves the wicked ninety-nine times better than the good? Why is the word love used in such a connection at all, when the word Hate would evidently be so much more appropriate? The man most like the Christian God is, in my mind, Frederick the Great, who once, it is said, had a man flogged for saying he deeply respected His Majesty. "But I want you to love me, you rascal," exclaimed Frederick, "and I'll make you!" So he ordered him fifty lashes to compel him to love him!!!

There can be nothing more immoral or absurd than the teaching of Jesus on the subject. He says, in nearly the same words, In Mat. v, 43-4, and Luke vi, 35, "Ye have heard that it hath been said thou shalt love thy neighbour and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you." And in Luke xiv, 25-6, we read,—" And he turned—(yes, he turned)—and said unto them, 'If any man come unto me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters,—yea and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Thus you are to love your enemies and hate your friends and relations!!! Could any teaching be more outrageously immoral and absurd? Whence came such contradictory and incongruous nonsense?

"Behold I show you a mystery."

The word Love originally meant—and still mainly means—Sexual Feeling; and its use now in religion is altogether extravagant and illegitimate, not to say hypocritical. It was at first, and is still, so used,—not because it represents a truth, as we have seen that it does not, but because it appeals most powerfully to human sensual sympathies, and was—and is, therefore—the most efficient engine of priestcraft. Of course the love of God is now represented as of that less passionate description which is page 4 known as filial, or parental rather than sexual; though the terms used to describe it are frequently as extravagant as if it were sexual. And the fact is that there is less justification for the former than the latter; for the sexual feeling had far more than the æsthetic faculty to do with the origin of religion, and was the main basis of it for thousands of years before the invention of the doctrines of a future state of existence, or even of a personal God. And this was not unnatural. The fact of facts which attracts and engrosses the attention of philosophers today, almost as much as it did in the childhood of the world is the reproduction of organic beings. The generative power in Nature has excited the wonder of philosophers, as well as of the superstitious, in all ages; and it is not very surprising that its instrument should have formed the first object of worship, or that the cunning should—as its priests—have traded upon the ignorance of their neighbours. In all ancient mythologies this was a universal and prominent feature—to an extent which it is scarcely compatible with modern ideas of decency even to mention. Rites and ceremonies now regarded as too obscene for description, but which are not without mention in the Bible,c were certainly public and compulsory in Egypt and Syria, and probably everywhere else. It is to such religious sacraments that allusion is made in Genesis vi, 2-4, where it is stated that "when the sons of God "— which really means the priestly caste—"saw the daughters of men that they were fair, they took them wives of all which they chose. There were giants in the Earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God "— (the priests)—" came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown," For reviving similar mysteries long afterwards in Rome, the worship of Isis, which had been there introduced from Egypt, was prohibited. Hence originated the numerous stories of heroes divinely born of virgins ages before the similar birth of Jesus; and hence naturally arose Accidents like that for page 5 which Joseph was minded to put away his wife privily. These were anything but idle fables. They had everything to do with the origin of religion, and particularly with that of the doctrine of divine love. There is much of this in the Bible which I cannot even quote, for the same reasons that make it so difficult now-a-days to follow this clue, and discover that for which there is yet ample evidence, but which it is next to impossible to publish outside a Free Discussion Society.

Religion, as ancient historians confess, was originally invented as a means whereby the few who then held a monopoly of knowledge—the then priestly caste—might control and govern the ignorant masses. It is also certain and admitted that religion for ages consisted of a system of double doctrine—the esoteric,—which was the secret or sacred doctrine and knowledge held by, and taught exclusively to, the initiated in their mysteries; and the exoteric, which was thought safe and proper to be, and was, taught to the people. The esoteric secret doctrine it was made heinously criminal to reveal to the uninitiated; and thus not only was the esoteric knowledge, which was power indeed, preserved as a priestly privilege and monopoly, but thus also has this come to be now only with great difficulty ascertained. Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Plutarch, and many other ancient authors mention the fact, and tantalise us by frequently touching upon forbidden subjects, but stop short, adding that it is not permitted to reveal more. Upon the best authorities, we know that the severest penalties were threatened and executed upon any of the initiated who divulged the secret doctrine, and upon any of the uninitiated who attempted to learn it. This seems to me obviously the true key to the story of the Garden of Eden, in which knowledge was absolutely prohibited, and those who presumed to divulge and to learn it were both eternally cursed. The plural Elohim—mistranslated as the singular Lord God (who had not then been invented) means the Priestly Caste; and all the absurdity in the 22nd verse of Gen. III thus vanishes. It was the priests—not the Lord God—who said, "Behold the man has become as one page 6 of us, to know good and evil, and now, lest he" get more, let us degrade him to the servile class for ever. Had he gone a little further, and taken an apple off another tree, death would have been the inevitable penalty.

There is no room to doubt that an ancient people subsisted, pre-historically, who had made considerable progress in arts and sciences, of which its rulers—a priestly caste,—carefully maintained a strict monopoly. The site of their power is known to have been somewhere between the 40th and 50th degrees of north latitude.d It was there that they used the lost parent language, from which most European languages, including Greek and Latin, and, of course, English, &c., were derived, in common with the scientifically constructed but now obsolete language—the ancient Sanscrit, the recent study of which has thrown a flood of light upon this subject. The power of this ancient people was apparently destroyed by some means in pre-historic times. Its name, language, and precise location are alike unknown. The approximate date of the collapse of its power, and of the migration of its probably lineal descendants (the Brahmans) thence to India—where alone is maintained to this day its identical system of Caste—is reckoned by Bunsen at some six to eight thousands of years ago, which is most likely a considerable under-estimate. We know that this people existed. We know, philologically, that "there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone forth through all the Earth, and their words to the end of the world."—(Psalm xix, 3). We know astronomically that the oldest observations preserved in India of rising and setting stars are calculated for a high latitude, and indicate, so far, their location as about latitude 50°.e We may discern also that many of our customs and conventional ideas can, from their persistence and strength their peculiar nature, and even their unreasonableness, page 7 have had their origin only, in the very remote past, in such a parentage.

The religion of this ancient people—judging from the rigid persistence, and almost universality, of some special modes of thought and action which they have bequeathed to us, and which still prevail among us, though utterly incongruous with the later acquisitions and present tendencies of the human intellect, must have been the original parent of nearly all other existing religions. It is known to scholars as the obsolete Phallic worship, the relics of which abound, recognised or unrecognised, throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, and even in America, although the worship itself has long been superseded. But in India we find still subsisting the veritable esoteric Phallic worship itself—surviving as Lingam worship—among those Brahmans who brought it with them from Upper Asia many thousands of years before the date of the Christian and Jewish alleged Creation;—the Brahmans being, there is thus reason to believe, the direct descendants of the governing class of the old Phallists. Their religion was based entirely upon sexuality. Its representative emblem was also the actual object of worship, as it is—as the Lingam—in India to-day; and by means of a system erected upon this basis they appear to have tyrannised over their ignorant slaves to an almost incredible degree,—probably so much as at last to provoke their own destruction. Their method consisted of exoteric imposition of arbitrary restrictions upon sexual commerce, and the enforcement of them to an extent which is now scarcely comprehensible. Although the system has been more or less transformed or disguised in Europe for many thousands of years, the relics are visible at every step. Gigantic Phallic emblems used to be placed singly or in pairs, upright at the doors of the temples; and this is the real origin of all our church towers and steeples,f and of the curious unsymmetrical position that they frequently occupy, which has, I believe, no other explanation. The page 8 cross itself was a Phallic emblem ages before Christianity. Thus some of the most prominent ornaments of our city are really genuine Phallic emblems. This is scarcely surprising when it is known how the whole Bible teems with Phallic legends. The manorial right of cuissage, which survived to the fourteenth century, was a survival of Phallism, though it had relaxed into mere mercenary extortion.

I have already pointed out that the story of Eden is one descriptive of punishments for intrusions upon the sacred mysteries. That the first effect of the acquisition of knowledge by Adam and Eve should be the perception of their own nakedness is very peculiar and unaccountable unless as a direct Phallic allusion. There is no room to doubt that many of our other conventional notions of decency are not only entirely artificial, but arose in Phallism alone. The strength of a prejudice is an infallible symptom of its age. Children are at first quite unconscious of any feelings of this sort, though they soon acquire them with facility. Such a feeling, therefore, is not original at all, but learned; and the strict method of Phallism—of enforced early exoteric instruction—was obviously the most certain to create the public opinion in which their power, as that of a small minority—lay, and the best fitted to hand down what they taught to a distant posterity. Would those who are now so unnaturally shocked at the sight of a nude human form be as confident in upholding their prejudices as moral if they knew that they were but mechanically conforming to a tyrannical exoterical precept of obscene Phallism, as they would call it?

Phallism existed solely by exoterically prohibiting—or licensing—to the uninitiated what was esoterically the sacred monopoly of the privileged caste. What was kept Secret became sacred; and "sacred" has meant ever since, simply, protected from, free criticism. Many of our conventional notions on the subjects of modesty and chastity are indisputably due to the same source, and even the rapid growth of the principle of individual liberty has as yet done little towards breaking down ancient Phallic exoteric prohibitions, though their effects are beginning to page 9 be seen to be both immoral and pernicious. What was strictly forbidden exoterically to the people was sacred and legal within the temples to the initiated. The general prostitution in the Phallic temples of Babylon, Syria, and Egypt, and the worse practices at Jerusalem and elsewhere—for which we have the testimony of the Bible—(1 Kings xv, 12, and 2 Kings xxiii, 7, &c.),—were there honorable and holy, as at this day in India. The deep degradation of European civilisation in its Prostitution is the exoteric brand originally imposed for the profit of the Phallic temples. It is my deliberate opinion that, until the subject is understood in this light, nothing effectual can be done towards the removal of this putrid sore of modern society, which I nevertheless believe to be quite preventibleHence this Paper. Our practice is even more demoralising than that of Phallism or Brahmanism. For the essence of immorality consists in doing what is admitted and felt to be wrong and evil. "There is Nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean." (Rom. xiv. 14). The consistent recognition of this principle is essential to the successful treatment of this subject.

Now the Christian Church has been the principal means of exaggerating and intensifying the evil of the legacy left us by the old Phallic priesthood, and is to-day the great obstacle to all improvement. It is itself a natural offspring of Phallism, and of the worst part of it—its ignorant exoteric side. It maintains many of its tyrannical prohibitions against freedom of individual action, and blindly condemns altogether what Phallism condemned only exoterically. It has not only perpetuated but actually sanctified a prostitution of a far more degraded type (because esteemed to be unclean, and therefore—to it—actually unclean) than even that of Phallism and Brahmanism, which was not esteemed to be—and therefore was not—unclean. By its contradictory introduction of love into its theology it has added insult to injury, and has furnished a bitter satire upon good intentions generally, which Paul seems almost to have had in view when he wrote, "Let love be without dis page 10 simulation." The men who did this evil thing doubtless meant well, like the old Phallists. It is the results of the system that I condemn and proceed to expose.

Phallism was the origin and parent of nearly all known religions. It probably began in wonder at the mysterious phenomena of organic reproduction. Able and energetic men arose far superior to the herd of ignorant slaves and half animals by whom they were surrounded, whom they found it impossible to enlighten, but whom it was necessary to govern. They found that the sexual instinct was a means by which they could most effectually control the stupid masses, and—doubtless with the best intentions—they traded upon it,—probably for the good of all. They did so by enforcing a strict monopoly of the superior knowledge which they possessed and assiduously cultivated. They governed the people—probably well at first, for they brought them through a long period when progress must have been most difficult. But in doing so they inevitably organised and firmly established a priestly caste, and then naturally followed abuse of the enormous power they wielded. Then, after long ages of tyranny, the people, goaded to desperation, and probably assisted by traitors among their governors, rose in their numerical might, and destroyed not only the power—but also the civilisation and culture of their oppressors. These had certainly lasted for ages; for a system which has left such enduring vestiges behind it must have prevailed for many thousands of years. When afterwards the Phallic power was annihilated, some remnants of the ruling caste migrated to India and established themselves there; while their exoteric doctrines overspread the nations of Europe, which adopted as real religion—being unable to divest themselves of—the fictions that had been taught them. Doubtless a few of the priestly class were also dispersed through Europe, and made the most of their superior knowledge as priests and hierophants. The mythologies and traditions of which we have the earliest historical intelligence were the result of several thousands of years of confusion of conflicting systems; but all had a common phallic source, and preserved the leading characteristics of Phallism. page 11 These were, first—a dominant priestly class, who maintained (and of course abused) the monopoly—as far as possible—of knowledge; secondly, the practice of sacrifice, which originally was provably nothing but contributions exacted from the uninitiated by the priests—first in their own behalf, but afterwards in the name of Gods; and thirdly, together with the worship of a host of personified local deities, that of the supreme generative power of Nature generally identified with the Sun, as the obvious periodical regenerator of life. In many places Phallism itself survived for some thousands of years, and even into historical time. We have distinct accounts of it at Babylon, in Syria, and in Egypt. The worship of Isis and Osiris was entirely Phallic, and so was that of Mylitta, Atys, Adonis, Demeter, and Bacchus. At Byblos Venus was at first adored under the form of a plain round black pillar—a true phallus; but eventually the worship of personal deities superseded that of the phallus itself. Through pre-historic ages the Phallus had been adored at Mecca, and Mahometanism was an unconscious attempt to restore the primal worship of the Great Original generative power in a personal form. The subordinate deities were abolished as idolatrous, but the sacred white and black stones which the faithful Hadjis now kiss in the holy Caaba at Mecca are really the old Phallus and Cteis themselves. The worship of Priapus, which was nearly identical with Phallism, was common—later—not only at Rome, but through the greater part of Europe; and the emblems are to be seen by any one to-day in the exhumed cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii, although elsewhere they have been generally removed on grounds of decency. Up to the middle of the last century it was customary in some Italian churches, till attention was called to the fact by visitors, for pious women to make votive offerings of waxen phallic emblems, of which a full description is given by Payne Knight in his work on the worship of Priapus. Similar Phallic emblems, but said to be made of gold, were, you will remember, placed by the Philistines in a coffer by the Ark of God at Ekron, according to the 6th chapter of the 1st Book of Samuel, which is essentially a page 12 phallic legend like all the early Jewish books. The then Jewish God—who, as a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, was plainly the Phallus itself—was evidently pleased with those phallic offerings, and accepted them, though he slaughtered 50,070 Jews because some one looked into the ark. The Jews are clearly proved by their own books to have been Phallists from the beginning up to the time of the captivity, when the books (so-called) of Moses were first produced, and Jehovah, as a great original generator or phallus, the pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, was promoted over the local phalli or wooden ashera—mistranslated groves in the Bible to disguise the fact. These ashera or genuine phalli were set up in the temple itself, and the women wove hangings for them in the phallic houses that were by the temple.g The phallism is unmistakable through the books of Samuel h and Kingsi and Ezekielj also. Circumcision was obviously a phallic rite, and the asserted conception and birth of Jesus—may not improperly be called—a phallic wrong.

The idea of a future life appears, according to Diodorus Siculus, to have arisen in Egypt, and to have spread thence almost within historical time. The doctrine of love is of course phallic in origin, but the æsthetic or spiritualised form of it, adopted by Plato first and afterwards by Christian enthusiasts, was evidently only one feature among others derived from Buddhism, which has a superior title to be called the Religion of Love, as it is without the incongruities and many of the extravagances that disfigure and stultify Christian theology. Buddha's affection was really that of a good man for men, and pity for their besotted ignorant miserable condition. I know nothing phallic about Buddhism. To assert the subsistence of anything of the nature of love between an almighty good deity and bad men is to ignore the moral attainments of man and court solecism on every hand. Christianity preserves more of Phallism than Buddhism, and deserves rather to be called the religion of hate, whether as ex- page 13 hibited in the alleged relations of the Deity and his creatures, or in the conduct of its votaries to each other.

Both inductively from history and deductively from doctrine it thus appears, then, that love is entirely out of place in religion, and has been improperly associated with it—either "with dissimulation" or in utter ignorance of its origin and effect. Yet there can be no doubt that there is an intimate connection between the religious sentiment and sexuality, whether it originated in Phallism or not. No religion was ever initiated without some attempt to innovate upon or qualify the relations of the sexes. The Nunawading prophets and the Wroeites here, the Shakers, Spiritualists, and Perfectionists in America, the Muckers in Germany, and the Saints of the Agapemone in England, all illustrate this observation in various ways. The larger sects (Buddhism alone excepted) equally corroborate it and prove a connection between the phenomena. Mahometanism and Mormonism were both revolts—the former against ancient, and the latter against modern, monogamy as the expression of exoteric Phallic prohibition. The Great Protestant Reformation was simply the culmination of the persistent struggle—during more than 1,000 years—between the Christian Church on the one hand and the Clergy and Laity on the other; the Church insisting upon clerical celibacy (which meant general prostitution), and the Clergy and people fighting for clerical marriage. History bears witness that the Christian Church maintained this struggle, not to enforce the ascetical principles upon which celibacy was first ostensibly introduced, but with a purely mercenary object; for it tolerated and encouraged illegitimate sexual connections of the Clergy, so long as they did not marry; while the Clergy, to their credit be it said, and the Laity also (for obvious reasons), contended for clerical marriage to obviate the necessity for illicit connections. The mercenary object of the Church was this: From the early part of the 4th century married priests almost always misappropriated for their families and themselves the revenues of the Church, and so detracted from its wealth and power."k The page 14 interest of celibate clergy centred in the Church, and they could excuse themselves to their lay charges in the words of St. Paul (1 Cor. ix, 11). "If we have sown unto you spiritual things, is it a great matter if we shall reap your carnal things." To such an extent did they reap them that the monasteries and convents had become, in the fifteenth century, huge brothels; that in some places the children of the Clergy are known to have outnumbered those of the lay populationl; that some bishops were known to have from 60 to 70 natural children, while others kept as many concubinesm; that the priests, until the 16th century, customarily paid a regular license called "cullagium" to keep concubines, whether they did so or not;n and that there are numerous historical proofs that it was a usual thing throughout Europe for the parishioners of a new pastor to assemble and insist, for the protection of their wives and daughters, upon his taking a concubine forth with.o It was for such irregularities that indulgences were openly sold by the Church, until the people could stand it no longer, and the Reformation ensued—not, as pretended, to vindicate freedom of religious opinion, but to secure protection from the wholesale prostitution of the women of Europe by the Christian priesthood,p The Church, to get temporal wealth and power, had actually converted Europe into a sacred brothel as completely as if every chapel or convent had been a Phallic temple, and these facts constitute the only real title of the Christian Church to be called the Religion of Love! This is the way that the Clergy used to keep up—as the Bishop says—the morals of the people!!! Public opinion compels secresy in such matters now, but it is impossible to doubt that the same rule prevails.

This is not, however, all that the Christian Church has done to saturate European Society with sanctified prostitution. Its perpetuation of the Phallic Institution of marriage as an ecclesiastical ceremony, and, as an page 15 indissoluble contract, has contributed largely to the same result, and the Protestants are therefore, of course, so far implicated, as much as the Roman Church. This evil is culminating in England, and a social revolution to remedy it is but a question of time. For the excess of the number of women is nearly 4 millions now, and is rapidly increasing; while, maugre the augmenting population, the number of marriages is steadily and not slowly diminishing. This is the work of the religion of love!! Marriage is too often miserably unhappy, and must remain so while legally indissoluble. Inducement is thus offered to misbehaviour. Marriage should last—like any rational contract of association—solely during good behaviour, for which a reason would then exist; and the contract should be at once dissoluble without expense—at the desire of either party to it. The evident tendency of modern opinion, and even legislation towards increasing the liberty of individuals, and the steady though slow decline of religion, afford some prospect of progress in the direction of rational morality in this respect. The obstinacy, however, of prejudices derived from sources so ancient as Phallism is necessarily enormous, and is the principal cause of the delay. Our Phallic inheritance appears also in the conventional objection to modern Malthusianism; the sole feasible defence against poverty. Good things come, and bad things go; but very slowly.

To summarise. The doctrine of love in Religion, and in Christianity in particular, is not only a contradictory absurdity, but also a cruel insult to those who are treated as if they were hated. It is a direct though unrecognized relic of obscene phallism, which is really also the basis of all our religions (except Buddhism), and of most of the errors in our notions of Morality; such as sanctity,— meaning—protection from criticism; modesty and decency,—which mean simply—hypocrisy, for they veil no foulness that they do not create; also chastity—which is really public tyranny in strictly private matters, and respecting which public opinion is notoriously one-sided and divided. Its unequal application stamps it as an error, and its evil physical results, together with its social product—Prostitution— page 16 demonstrate it to be a monstrous evil. All these have their bases, not in utility but solely in ancient Phallic exoteric tyranny, and should be fearlessly examined and treated. The Christian Church has—for mercenary objects— perpetuated the foulness of phallism under the cloak of ascetic and æsthetic piety. A strictly rational morality is possible solely by understanding the whole subject of prostitution in its origin and history, as I have endeavoured to trace them under obvious difficulties. I have taken much pains to acquire this information—of which I have given you only the heads—respecting the causes of prostitution; with the view of cleansing our society from the foul stain upon our vaunted morality. There is no other way.

I hold that one who is not prepared to trust and follow his intellectual judgment, wheresoever it may lead, is unworthy of its possession. In asking you to discuss my conclusions, I hope for free criticism to test them in every possible way. I cannot expect you to apprehend my position perfectly from such a short and inadequate account of it, but if I stimulate enquiry into the matter, I scarcely look for more at present. That will be a great step gained; for the problem appears to have been generally given up as hopeless. And remember that "There is nothing unclean of itself; but to him that esteemeth anything to be unclean, to him it is unclean."

[My principal authorities are, Diodorus Siculus, Herodotus, Plutarch, the Bible, Wilkinson's "Ancient Egyptians," Bailly's "Astronomie Ancienne" and "Astronomic Indienne," Higgins' "Celtic Druids" and "Anacalypsis," Sir Wm. Drummond's "(Edipus Judaicus," Dupuis' "Origines de tous les Cultes," Dulaure's "Histoire abregee de differens Cultes," R. Payne Knight's "Worship of Priapus" and "Symbolical Language of Ancient Art and Mythology," Dr. Inman's "Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names" and "Ancient Faiths and Modern," Colonel Kennedy's and Coleman's works on "Hindoo Mythology," "The Dabistan," Sale's "Koran," and—an invaluable book—H. C. Lea's "History of Sacerdotal Celibacy."—H.K.R.]

Printed By J. Wing, 33 Wellington Street, Collingwood.

a Mat. x, 34.

b Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," Vol. II, 438.

c 1 Kings xv, 12. 2 Kings xxiii, 7, &c.

d See Sir Wm. Drummond's works; Godfrey Higgins' "Anacalypsis"; Bailly's "Astronomic Ancienne"; Proctor's "Saturn and his System" (appendix).

e See Bailly's "Astronomic Ancienne," and "Astronomic Indienne;" and Proctor's "Saturn and his System" (appendix).

f See Dulaure "Histoire abrégée de differens Cultes," vol. 2, page 84, and R. Payae Knight's "Worship of Priapus," and "Symbolical language in Ancient Art and Mythology," page 172.

g 2 Kings xxiii, 7.

h 1 Sain. vi.

i 1 Kings xiv, 24; xv, 12.

j Ezekiel xvi, 16-17.

k Lea's "History of Sacerdotal Celibacy," pp. 148-9, 324, 342-8, 396, and 401.

l Ib. p. 349.

m pp. 322, 349.

n (n) pp 271, 389, 422, 423.

o pp. 324, 855, 386.

p The Emperors Maximilian and Ferdinand represented this fact to the Pope and begged him to remedy it.—[See Lea, p. 457-61.]

c 1 Kings xv, 12. 2 Kings xxiii, 7, &c.

d See Sir Wm. Drummond's works; Godfrey Higgins' "Anacalypsis"; Bailly's "Astronomic Ancienne"; Proctor's "Saturn and his System" (appendix).

i 1 Kings xiv, 24; xv, 12.

l Ib. p. 349.

m pp. 322, 349.