APPENDIX ONE
From the introduction to “The Indictment Of Eternal Torment—The Self-negation Of A Monstrous Doctrine,” E. D. Slough, F. L. Rowe, Publisher, pages 9-18, 1914, evangelist, church of Christ.
“During the dark ages, when superstition and tyranny reigned over the better judgments of men, dominating every civil right of liberty, and subduing ever aspiration to advance intellectually, the gospel light was in chaotic blackness, handicapped by an intolerant mob of ungodly and profane rulers, whose highest ambition was to reduce humanity to a condition of absolute serfdom and ignorance, that they might eternally fleece them of their gold and their blood, that they themselves might revel in beastly sensuality and luxury. So that age is a historical reality, the blackest, the most inhuman, the most vile, and intolerant that ever disgraced the ledger of events. And a memorial to all coming ages of the fruits of ungodliness.
Under such a series of profligacy, licentiousness, idolatry, ignorance, and superstition, nothing could result but the very condition that did result. And the very horror of it all, it all occurred under the garb of religion. In that sacred name, which has been a thousand times desecrated, dungeons have been prepared, fires have been kindled for martyrs, and every device genius could contrive was made the tool of usurpation and diabolical power to suppress the liberty of thought, that the mind of men might be effectually bound in the fetters of espionage to serve the god of greed, and the Lucifer’s called priests and rulers. And even a mind with a tendency to reason for itself was persecuted and intimidated from every source by the instruments of brute degenerates, and has accomplished just what these men anticipated—A plane where the few do the thinking for the many.
Eventually, this resulted in a revolution, costing the blood of countless hosts of men and women and children, and because of the confusion of main, it broke up into numerous factions and parties, each confined and circumscribed by the same principles which had dominated their rights under the galling yoke that had just thrown off. And with them also, a departure from set rules and fixed principles, was another denunciation, and so sensitive to those creeds where those parties that they would shrink back from one of their member who would have the audacity or courage to question their truths as they would from a leper or an infectious disease. Sheltered thus under religious zeal, the hearts of men become congealed and settled into a condition of mimics, rejecting all ideas not in harmony with that of their own teacher.
An inquisition of chains and torches is not less preferable than the perpetual subjection to doctrines, which palsy the mind; and against which men dare not lift a voice lest they decried as heretics, and a menace to the cause of Christ. This age of the world, prolific with the religious “isms” of men, eager to separate themselves in the livery of sect, and follow a favorite crowd under which they were reared, is the true menace to the cause and progress of truth.
Thus far I have spoken in a general way. But there is a particular way to which I wish to call your attention. For so long as men close their eyes to possible light, they cannot see. Out of this mass of Egyptian darkness light is slowly evolving. I can see the breaking of the dawn, and the reflected rays of light shooting over the hills! But with this twentieth century civilization, we (the Church of Christ) dare not say we have reached the summit of knowledge, the pinnacle of perfection. To do so would be an expression of egotism, for all who have scanned the word of God will be constrained to say with Paul, “Oh, the depths of the riches both of wisdom and knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his ways past finding out.”
Men of renown and scholarship have for ages sought for proof on the pages of nature’s book, for the immortality of the souls of all men. My aim will be to show they have all alike failed. Truth is modest in the presence of great men. Speculation is the field of their exploration. No wonder these profound thinks are baffled to astonishment as they wrestle with the deep things of God, building as they do great structures upon the passing phantoms of the brain. The popular feeling that somehow by irrevocable fate, or unchangeable law, once in being always in being. The delusion which tells of in inborn principle in man both immortal in indestructible, that as we depart here instantaneously awake in a new world with new power and realizations, and upon which fabrication has been built eternal torment, purgatory, and a host of other doctrines, have been sounded out from out pulpits, periodicals, funeral sermons and fireside talks. It has permeated every village and hamlet; it is world wide in its scope, and its defense.
We charge our neighbors with crooked reasoning. They can justly retort, thou are the man. For we are no less bound up with early training than those whom we criticize. We dare not raise the voice against the tenets of faith more than they, without expecting in return a volley denunciation and contempt. Picturing the future of the unsaved with all the horror that words can employ, an eternity of woe and misery, and everlasting existence of torture. And the very illustrations used to prove it are a positive denial of it. And yet I presume not one of them has noticed it, because they use the same proofs over and over.
Often have my friends exhorted me to be cautious in the agitation of convictions contrary to the established teaching of the Christ; that it would be in opposition to all the scholarship of the world. That I would be practically alone, and bring the scorn of the religious world upon me. Yet those same friends would give a world painting of eternal torment that would make Hopkins turn over in his grave and give a sigh of relief. Henceforth let the logically remove the serious objections against their peculiar tent, with the word of God, rather than by scholastic writers. Thought it be an error, they would not call a long nurtured theory in question in fear of combating scholarship. Verily, scholarship will not tear down its own building. Shall we muzzle out inherited right of free thinking and free speaking and bow to the mandates of theological speculations? Shall we decide that investigation of disputed points of the Bible ought to be suppressed to honor the scholarship back of them? There is no delusion in the name of religion preached among men that has no scholarship back of it. Then why oppose error at all? Though I should get no hearing, I prefer to be alone in the truth, than with the multitude in error. But I am not along. Thousands are in sympathy with these arguments, many of them representing the highest channels of learning. But, on the other hand, thousand of great learned men have lived in error all their lives, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. While many of the weak and lowly have found the truth and laid hold of it. If all ages of the world many thing have been withheld from the wise and prudent, and revealed unto babes. Learning too often leads to speculation, rather than an earnest search for the truth”…The Bible cannot agree with “Tom and Dick” if “Tom and Dick” do not agree with one another. But “Tom and Dick’s” faith should not have any intrinsic weight on the subject. We protest against their policies. They have confused the public mind by grinding out of their theological burrs, new meanings into common words. They have thrown false colors over the scriptures. They have inherited in a large measure their faith, and in this way religious heredity has muzzled the powers of their reason. So why let tom and dick forever close our eyes and seal our mouths, dictating to us a religious teaching? On its very face it is an obvious farce and an extravagant burlesque on the great architect of the universe.
The issue before us in this work is that unfounded theory of “natural immortality, or the deathless nature of the soul,” which if ever established must include the dog and the bear. Let that dogma be confirmed and the whole structure of eternal torment must stand forever unscathed. Fundamental to the entire doctrine is this theory. If it stand, the conclusion is inevitable. If it falls, the whole fabric built upon it crushes into atoms.
…Some one may ask what does it matter if we do believe it? It matters much. Let me point you to some of its mischief. What caused Universalism to rise up and deny the future retribution? That very doctrine of natural immortality. How did it cause it? This way—they believed the spirit of man indestructible. They saw a furnace of fire in scripture opening its jaws to receive countless hosts. They know the fire could only torture such a spirit. They saw no release from it: they saw in the distant eternity the writhing millions of humanity no nearer the end of their suffering than when they entered. They thought “horror!” Such would make God a tyrant, more terrible than a thousand inquisitions of the dark ages. They cried “absurdity.” They cried right, too. So they devised a crude escape. They figured it all away, and agreed to take all men into heaven irrespective of moral qualification. All punishment became to them reformative, and, ultimately, the last man would depart for glory.
From whence came the soul-benumbing ingredients of Calvin’s Eternal Election of much of the human race to everlasting misery in a lake of fire, regardless of moral attire, choice or conduct” Came it not from the gangrenes of putrescent mental sore? Came it not from a scattering mind, incapacitated to gather, associate and concentrate evidence? With him, the deathless nature of the soul was a profound reality—it was unquestionable—to doubt was to exhibit weakness. He saw God revealed in scripture with powers sweeping all infinity. He saw some intimations of an election, a pre-election, a foreknowledge, and following this lead he unconsciously forced to the grossest absurdity the mind of man can entertain. Lay your premises in error, and draw your conclusions in harmony, and you have a falsehood masquerading in your brain in the guise of the angel of truth.
What caused induced the rise of “spiritualism?” That dark, deceitful pretense of talking with the dead. Any one may talk to the dead, but the dead answers not. These people also were repulsed by the doctrine of endless misery, and immediately rejected the Bible, but held tenaciously to the eternal perpetuity of the spirit of man, and invented a diabolical fare for its chart of unseen activity. Notwithstanding the Divine denunciations against it as the work of devilish agencies.
Upon what is “Purgatory” and Saint Worship” founded? Are not its entire fortifications resting upon that one delicate thread? These delusive and pernicious evils of Catholicism, destined to drag man and women, boys and girls down to an irredeemable fate, under the “spell” that a failure hear means but a little longer term of purification in the fires of Purgatory.
Again, from that theory, legions of infidels and atheist have been created: besides, thousands more have wandered off into every form and bypath of delusion. Denying the conclusions and consequences to which the theory leads, man have given wings to scores of false notions withdrawing from it entirely, or making some sour of apology for God as did Thompson in the “Theism,” “that it belongs to the necessities of existence and cannot therefore be otherwise.”
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