Cæsar's Column: A Story of the Twentieth Century

and brains shrieks out its protest againstinsufficient nourishment; and this man comes to us and talks abouthis Old-World, worn-out creeds, which began in the brains ofhalf-naked barbarians, and are a jumble of the myths of ahundred-----"

  Here the speaker grew wild and hoarse with passion, and the audience,who had been growing more and more excited and turbulent as heproceeded, burst into a tremendous uproar that drowned every othersound. A crowd of the more desperate--dark-faced, savage-lookingworkingmen--made a rush for the platform to seize the clergyman; andthey would soon have had possession of him. But in this extremity Isprang to the front of the platform, between him and the oncomingmob, and by my mere presence, and the respect they have for me astheir friend, I stilled the tempest and restored order.

  "My dear friends!" I said, "be patient! Are you the men who boast ofyour toleration? You meet to discuss your sufferings and theirremedy; and when one tells you how he would cure you, you rise up toslay him. Be just. This poor man may be mistaken--the body of whichhe is a member may be mistaken--as to the best way to serve and savemankind; but that his purpose is good, and that he loves you, who candoubt? Look at him! Observe his poor garments; his emaciated figure.What joys of life does he possess? He has given up everything to helpyou. Into your darkest alleys--into your underground dens--wherepestilence and starvation contend for their victims, he goes at highnoon and in the depth of the blackest night, and he brings to theparting soul consolation and hope. And why not? Who can doubt thatthere is another life? Who that knows the immortality of matter, itsabsolute indestructibility, can believe that mind, intelligence,soul,--which must be, at the lowest estimate--if they are notsomething higher--a form of matter,--are to perish into nothingness?If it be true, as we know it is, that the substance of the poor fleshthat robes your spirits--nay, of the very garments you wear--shallexist, undiminished by the friction of eternity, aeons after ourplanet is blotted out of space and our sun forgotten, can you believethat this intelligence, whereby I command your souls into thought,and communicate with the unsounded depths of your natures, can beclipped off into annihilation? Nay, out of the very bounty andlargess of God I speak unto you; and that in me which speaks, andthat in you which listens, are alike part and parcel of the eternalMaker of all things, without whom is nothing made." [Applause.]

  "And so, my friends, every good man who loves you, and would improveyour condition, in time or in eternity, is your friend, and to bevenerated by you." [Applause.] "And while we may regret the errors ofreligion, in the past, or in the present, let us not forget itsvirtues. Human in its mechanism, it has been human in itsinfirmities. In the doctrine of the brotherhood of man and thefatherhood of God, which are the essential principles ofChristianity, lies the redemption of mankind. But some of thechurchmen have misconceived Christ, or perverted him to their ownbase purposes. He who drove the money-changers out of the temple, anddenounced the aristocrats of his country as whited sepulchres, andpreached a communism of goods, would not view to-day with patience orequanimity the dreadful sufferings of mankind. We have inheritedChristianity without Christ; we have the painted shell of a religion,and that which rattles around within it is not the burning soul ofthe Great Iconoclast, but a cold and shriveled and meaninglesstradition. Oh! for the quick-pulsing, warm-beating, mighty humanheart of the man of Galilee! Oh! for his uplifted hand, armed with awhip of scorpions, to depopulate the temples of the world, and lashhis recreant preachers into devotion to the cause of his poorafflicted children!" [Great applause.]

  "There is no Power in the world too great or too sacred to be used byGoodness for the suppression of Evil. Religion--true religion--notforms or ceremonies, but _inspired purpose_--should take possessionof the _governments_ of the world and enforce _justice!_ The purifiedindividual soul we may not underestimate. These are the swept andgarnished habitations in which the angels dwell, and look withunpolluted eyes upon the world. But this is not all. To make a fewvirtuous where the many are vicious is to place goodness at adisadvantage. To teach the people patience and innocence in the midstof craft and cruelty, is to furnish the red-mouthed wolves withwoolly, bleating lambs. Hence the grip of the churches on humanityhas been steadily lessening during the past two hundred years. Menpermanently love only those things that are beneficial to them. Thechurches must come to the rescue of the people or retire from thefield. A babe in the claws of a tiger is not more helpless than asmall virtuous minority in the midst of a cruel and bloody world.Virtue we want, but virtue growing out of the bosom of universaljustice. While you labor to save one soul, poverty crushes a millioninto sin. You are plucking brands from a constantly increasingconflagration. The flames continue to advance and devour what youhave saved. The religion of the world must be built on universalprosperity, and this is only possible on a foundation of universaljustice. If the web of the cloth is knotted in one place it isbecause the threads have, in an unmeaning tangle, been withdrawn fromanother part. Human misery is the correlative and equivalent ofinjustice somewhere else in society.

  "What the world needs is a new organization--a great world-wideBrotherhood of Justice. It should be composed of all men who desireto lift up the oppressed and save civilization and society. It shouldwork through governmental instrumentalities. Its altars should be theschools and the ballot-boxes. It should combine the good, who are notyet, I hope, in a minority, against the wicked. It should take onewrong after another, concentrate the battle of the world upon them,and wipe them out of existence. It should be sworn to a perpetualcrusade against every evil. It is not enough to heal the woundscaused by the talons of the wild beasts of injustice; it shouldpursue them to their bone-huddled dens and slay them." [Greatapplause.] "It should labor not alone to relieve starvation, but tomake starvation impossible;--_to kill it in its causes_.

  "With the widest toleration toward those who address themselves tothe future life, even to the neglect of this, the sole dogma of oursociety should be justice. If there is an elysium in the next world,and not a continuation of the troubled existence through which we arenow passing, we will be all the better fitted to enjoy it if we havehelped to make this world a heaven. And he who has labored to makeearth a hell should enjoy his workmanship in another and moredreadful world, forever and forever.

  "And oh, ye churches! Will ye not come up to the help of the peopleagainst the mighty? Will ye not help us break the jaws of the spoilerand drag the prey from between his teeth? Think what you could do ifall your congregation were massed together to crush the horrid wrongsthat abound in society! To save the world _you must fight corruptionand take possession of government_. Turn your thoughts away fromMoses and his ragged cohorts, and all the petty beliefs and blundersof the ancient world. Here is a world greater than Moses ever dreamedof. Here is a population infinitely vaster in numbers, moreenlightened, more capable of exquisite enjoyment, and exquisitesuffering, than all the children of Israel and all the subjects ofimperial Rome combined. Come out of the past into the present. God isas much God to-day as he was in the time of the Pharaohs. If Godloved man then he loves him now. Surely the cultured denizen of thisenlightened century, in the midst of all the splendors of histranscendent civilization, is as worthy of the tender regard of hisCreator as the half-fed and ignorant savage of the Arabian desertfive thousand years ago. God lives yet, and he lives for us."

  Here I paused. Although the vast audience had listened patiently tomy address, and had, occasionally, even applauded some of itsutterances, yet it was evident that what I said did not touch theirhearts. In fact, a stout man, with a dark, stubbly beard, dressedlike a workingman, rose on one of the side benches and said:

  "Fellow-toilers, we have listened with great respect to what ourfriend Gabriel Weltstein has said to us, for we know he would help usif he could--that his heart is with us. And much that he has said istrue. But the time has gone by to start such a society as be speaksof. Why, if we formed it, the distresses of the people are so greatthat our very members would sell us out on election day." [Applause.]"The community is rotten to
the core; and so rotten that it is notconscious that it is rotten." [Applause.] "There is no sound place tobuild on. There is no remedy but the utter destruction of theexisting order of things." [Great applause.] "It cannot be worse forus than it is; it may be better." [Cheers.]

  "But," I cried out, "do you want to destroy civilization??"

  "Civilization," he replied solemnly; "what interest have we in thepreservation of civilization? Look around and behold its fruits! Hereare probably ten thousand industrious, sober, intelligent workingmen;I doubt if there is one in all this multitude that can honestly sayhe has had, during the past week, enough to eat." [Cries of "That'sso."] "I doubt if there is one here who believes that the presentcondition of things can give him, or his children, anything betterfor the future." [Applause.]