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1236 lines
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19 page printout.
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.
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II
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By Jeremiah S. Black.
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1881
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"Gratiano speaks of an infinite deal of nothing, more than any
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in all Venice: his reasons are as two grains of wheat hid in two
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bushels of chaff; you shall seek all day ere you find them; and
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when you have them they are not worth the search."
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Merchant of Venice.
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The request to answer the foregoing paper comes to me, not in
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the form but with the effect of a challenge, which I cannot decline
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without seeming to acknowledge that the religion of the civilized
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world is an absurd superstition, propagated by impostors, professed
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by hypocrites, and believed only by credulous dupes.
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But why should I, an unlearned and unauthorized layman, be
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placed in such a predicament? The explanation is easy enough. This
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is no business of the priests. Their prescribed duty is to preach
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the word, in the full assurance that it will commend itself to all
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good and honest hearts by its own manifest veracity and the
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singular purity of its precepts. They cannot afford to turn away
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from their proper work, and leave willing hearers uninstructed,
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while they wrangle in vain with a predetermined opponent. They were
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warned to expect slander, indignity, and insult, and these are
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among the evils which they must not resist.
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It will be seen that I am assuming no clerical function. I am
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not out on the forlorn hope of converting Mr. Ingersoll, I am no
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preacher exhorting a sinner to leave the seat of the scornful and
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come up to the bench of the penitents. My duty is more analogous to
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that of the policeman who would silence a rude disturber of the
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congregation by telling him that his clamor is false and his
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conduct an offence against public decency.
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Nor is the Church in any danger which calls for the special
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vigilance of its servants. Mr. Ingersoll thinks that the
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rockfounded faith of Christendom is giving way before his assaults,
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but he is grossly mistaken. The first sentence of his essay is a
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preposterous blunder, It is not true that "a profound change has
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taken place in the world of thought" unless a more rapid spread of
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
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By Jeremiah S. Black.
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the Gospel and a more faithful observance of its moral principles
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can be called so. Its truths are everywhere proclaimed with the
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power of sincere conviction, and accepted with devout reverence by
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uncounted multitudes of all classes. Solemn temples rise to its
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honor in the great cities; from every hill-top in the country you
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see the church-spire pointing toward heaven, and on Sunday all the
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paths that lead to it are crowded with worshipers. In nearly all
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families, parents teach their children that Christ is God, and his
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system of morality absolutely perfect. This belief lies so deep in
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the popular heart that, if every written record of it were
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destroyed to-day, the memory of millions could reproduce it
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to-morrow. Its earnestness is proved by its works. Wherever it goes
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it manifests itself in deeds of practical benevolence. It builds,
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not churches alone, but almshouses, hospitals, and asylums. It
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shelters the poor, feeds the hungry, visits the sick, consoles the
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afflicted, provides for the fatherless, comforts the heart of the
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widow, instructs the ignorant, reforms the vicious, and saves to
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the uttermost them that are ready to perish. To the common
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observer, it does not look as if Christianity was making itself
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ready to be swallowed up by Infidelity. Thus far, at least, the
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promise has been kept that "the gates of hell shall not prevail
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against it."
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There is, to be sure, a change in the party hostile to
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religion -- not "a profound change," but a change entirely
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superficial -- which consists, not in thought, but merely in modes
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of expression and methods of attack. The bad classes of society
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always hated the doctrine and discipline which reproached their
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wickedness and frightened them by threats of punishment in another
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world. Aforetime they showed their contempt of divine authority
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only by their actions; but now, under new leadership, their enmity
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against God breaks out into articulate blasphemy. They assemble
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themselves together, they hear with passionate admiration the bold
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harangue which ridicules and denies the Maker of the universe;
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fiercely they rage against the Highest, and loudly they laugh,
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alike at the justice that condemns, and the mercy that offers to
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pardon them. The orator who relieves them by assurances of
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impunity, and tells them that no supreme authority has made any law
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to control them, is applauded to the echo and paid a high price for
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his congenial labor; he pockets their money, and flatters himself
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that he is a great power, profoundly moving "the world of thought."
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There is another totally false notion expressed in the opening
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paragraph, namely, that "they who know most of nature believe the
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least about theology." The truth is exactly the other way. The more
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clearly one sees "the grand procession of causes and effects," the
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more awful his reverence becomes for the author of the "sublime and
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unbroken" law which links them together. Not self-conceit and
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rebellious pride, but unspeakable humility, and a deep sense of the
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measureless distance between the Creator and the creature, fills
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the mind of him who looks with a rational spirit upon the works of
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the All-wise One. The heart of Newton repeats the solemn confession
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of David: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
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the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained; what is man that
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thou art mindful of him or the son of man that thou visitest him?"
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At the same time, the lamentable fact must be admitted that "a
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little learning is a dangerous thing" to some persons. The scaliest
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
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By Jeremiah S. Black.
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with a mere smattering of physical knowledge is apt to mistake
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himself for a philosopher, and swelling with his own importance, he
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gives out, like Simon Magus, "that himself is some great one." His
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vanity becomes inflamed more and more, until he begins to think he
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knows all things. He takes every occasion to show his
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accomplishments by finding fault with the works of creation and
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Providence; and this is an exercise in which he cannot long
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continue without learning to disbelieve in any Being greater than
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himself. It was to such a person, and not to the unpretending
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simpleton, that Solomon applied his often quoted aphorism: "The
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fool hath said in his heart, there is no God." These are what Paul
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refers to as "vain babblings and the opposition of science, falsely
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so called;" but they are perfectly powerless to stop or turn aside
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the great current of human thought on the subject of Christian
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theology. That majestic stream, supplied from a thousand unfailing
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fountains, rolls on and will roll forever.
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Labitur et labetur in omne volubilis aevum.
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Mr. Ingersoll is not, as some have estimated him, the most
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formidable enemy that Christianity has encountered since the time
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of Julian the Apostate. But he stands at the head of living
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infidels, "by merit raised to that bad eminence." His mental
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organization has the peculiar defects which fit him for such a
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place. He is all imagination and no discretion. He rises sometimes
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into a region of wild poetry, where he can color everything to suit
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himself. His motto well expresses the character of his
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argumentation "mountains are as unstable as clouds:" a fancy is as
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good as a fact, and a high-sounding period is rather better than a
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logical demonstration. His inordinate self-confidence makes him at
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once ferocious and fearless. He was a practical politician before
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he "took the stump" against Christianity, and at all times he has
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proved his capacity to "split the ears of the groundlings," and
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make the unskillful laugh. The article before us is the least
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objectionable of all his productions. Its style is higher, and
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better suited to the weight of the theme. Here the violence of his
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fierce invective is moderated; his scurrility gives place to an
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attempt at sophistry less shocking if not more true; and his coarse
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jokes are either excluded altogether, or else veiled in the decent
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obscurity of general terms. Such a paper from such a man, at a time
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like the present, is not wholly unworthy of a grave contradiction.
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He makes certain charges which we answer by an explicit
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denial, and thus an issue is made, upon which, as a pleader would
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say, we "put ourselves upon the country." He avers that a certain
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"something called Christianity" is a false faith imposed on the
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world without evidence; that the facts it pretends to rest on are
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mere inventions; that its doctrines are pernicious; that its
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requirements are unreasonable, and that its sanctions are cruel. I
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deny all this, and assert, on the contrary, that its doctrines are
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divinely revealed; its fundamental facts incontestably proved; its
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morality perfectly free from all taint of error, and its influence
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most beneficent upon society in general, and upon all individuals
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who accept it and make it their rule of action.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
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By Jeremiah S. Black.
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How shall this be determined? Not by what we call divine
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revelation, for that would be begging the question; not by
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sentiment, taste, or temper, for these are as likely to be false as
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true; but by inductive reasoning from evidence, of which the value
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is to be measured according to those rules of logic which
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enlightened and just men everywhere have adopted to guide them in
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the search for truth. We can appeal only to that rational love of
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justice, and that detestation of falsehood, which fair-minded
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persons of good intelligence bring to the consideration of other
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important subjects when it becomes their duty to decide upon them.
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In short, I want a decision upon sound judicial principles.
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Gibson, the great Chief-Justice of Pennsylvania, once said to
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certain skeptical friends of his: "Give Christianity a common-law
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trial; submit the evidence pro and con to an impartial jury under
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the direction of a competent court, and the verdict will assuredly
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be in its favor." This deliverance, coming from the most
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illustrious judge of his time, not at all given to expressions of
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sentimental piety, and quite incapable of speaking on any subject
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for mere effect, staggered the unbelief of those who heard it. I
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did not know him then, except by his great reputation for ability
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and integrity, but my thoughts were strongly influenced by his
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authority, and I learned to set a still higher value upon all his
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opinions, when, in after life, I was honored with his close and
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intimate friendship.
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Let Christianity have a trial on Mr. Ingersoll's indictment,
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and give us a decision secundum allegata et probata. I will confine
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myself strictly to the record; that is to say, I will meet the
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accusations contained in this paper, and not those made elsewhere
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by him or others.
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His first specification against Christianity is the belief of
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its disciples "that there is a personal God, the creator of the
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material universe." If God made the world it was a most stupendous
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miracle, and all miracles, according to Mr. Ingersoll's idea are
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"the children of mendacity." To admit the one great miracle of
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creation would be an admission that other miracles are at least
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probable, and that would ruin his whole case. But you cannot catch
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the leviathan of atheism with a hook. The universe, he says, is
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natural it came into being of its own accord, it made its own laws
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at the start, and afterward improved itself considerably by
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spontaneous evolution. It would be a mere waste of time and space
|
||
to enumerate the proofs which show that the universe was created by
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a pre-existent and self conscious Being, of power and wisdom to us
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inconceivable. Conviction of the fact (miraculous though it be)
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forces itself on every one whose mental faculties are healthy and
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tolerably well balanced. The notion that all things owe their
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origin and their harmonious arrangement to the fortuitous
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concurrence of atoms is a kind of lunacy which very few men in
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these days are afflicted with. I hope I may safely assume it as
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certain that all, or nearly all, who read this page will have sense
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and reason enough to see for themselves that the plan of the
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universe could not have been designed without a Designer or
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executed without a Maker.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
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By Jeremiah S. Black.
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But Mr. Ingersoll asserts that, at all events, this material
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world had not a good and beneficent creator; it is a bad, savage,
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cruel piece of work, with its pestilences, storms, earthquakes, and
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volcanoes; and man, with his liability to sickness, suffering, and
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death, is not a success, but, on the contrary, a failure. To defend
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the Creator of the world against an arraignment so foul as this
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would be almost as unbecoming as to make the accusation. We have
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neither jurisdiction nor capacity to rejudge the justice of God.
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Why man is made to fill this particular place in the scale of
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creation -- a little lower than the angels, yet far above the
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brutes; not passionless and pure, like the former, nor mere
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machines, like the latter; able to stand, yet free to fall; knowing
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the right, and accountable for going wrong; gifted with reason, and
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impelled by self-love to exercise the faculty -- these are
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questions on which we may have our speculative opinions, but
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knowledge is out of our reach. Meantime, we do not discredit our
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mental independence by taking it for granted that the Supreme Being
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has done all things well. Our ignorance of the whole scheme makes
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us poor critics upon the small part that comes within our limited
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perceptions. Seeming defects in the structure of the world may be
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its most perfect ornament -- all apparent harshness the tenderest
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of mercies.
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"All discord, harmony not understood,
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All partial evil, universal good."
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But worse errors are imputed to God as moral ruler of the
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world than those charged against him as creator. He made man badly,
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but governed him worse; if the Jehovah of the Old Testament was not
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merely an imaginary being, then, according to Mr. Ingersoll, he was
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a prejudiced, barbarous, criminal tyrant. We will see what ground
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he lays, if any, for these outrageous assertions.
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Mainly, principally, first and most important of all, is the
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unqualified assertion that the "moral code" which Jehovah gave to
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his people "is in many respects abhorrent to every good and tender
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man." Does Mr. Ingersoll know what he is talking about? The moral
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code of the Bible consists of certain immutable rules to govern the
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conduct of all men, at all times and all places, in their private
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and personal relations with one another. It is entirely separate
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and apart from the civil polity, the religious forms, the sanitary
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provisions, the police regulations, and the system of international
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law laid down for the special and exclusive observance of the
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Jewish people. This is a distinction which every intelligent man
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knows how to make. Has Mr. Ingersoll fallen into the egregious
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blunder of confounding these things? or, understanding the true
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sense of his words, is he rash and shameless enough to assert that
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the moral code of the Bible excites the abhorrence of good men? In
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fact, and in truth, this moral code, which he reviles, instead of
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being abhorred, is entitled to, and has received, the profoundest
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respect of all honest and sensible persons. The second table of the
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Decalogue is a perfect compendium of those duties which every man
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owes to himself, his family, and his neighbor. In a few simple
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words, which he can commit to memory almost in a minute, it teaches
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him to purify his heart from covetousness; to live decently, to
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injure nobody in reputation, person, or property, and to give every
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one his own. By the poets, the prophets, and the sages of Israel,
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
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By Jeremiah S. Black.
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these great elements are expanded into a volume of minuter rules,
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so clear, so impressive, and yet so solemn and so lofty, that no
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pre-existing system of philosophy can compare with it for a moment.
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If this vain mortal is not blind with passion, he will see, upon
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reflection, that he has attacked the Old Testament precisely where
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it is most impregnable.
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Dismissing his groundless charge against the moral code, we
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come to his strictures on the civil government of the Jews, which
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he says was so bad and unjust that the Lawgiver by whom it was
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established must have been as savagely cruel as the Creator that
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made storms and pestilences; and the work of both was more worthy
|
||
of a devil than a God. His language is recklessly bad, very
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defective in method, and altogether lacking in precision. But,
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apart from the ribaldry of it, which I do not feel myself bound to
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notice, I find four objections to the Jewish constitution -- not
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more than four -- which are definite enough to admit of an answer.
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These relate to the provisions of the Mosaic law on the subjects of
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(1) Blasphemy and Idolatry; (2) War; (3) Slavery; (4) Polygamy. In
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these respects he pronounces the Jewish system not only unwise but
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criminally unjust.
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Here let me call attention to the difficulty of reasoning
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about justice with a man who has no acknowledged standard of right
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and wrong. What is justice? That which accords with law; and the
|
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supreme law is the will of God. But I am dealing with an adversary
|
||
who does not admit that there is a God. Then for him there is no
|
||
standard at all; one thing is as right as another, and all things
|
||
are equally wrong. Without a sovereign ruler there is no law, and
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||
where there is no law there can be no transgression. It is the
|
||
misfortune of the atheistic theory that it makes the moral world an
|
||
anarchy; it refers all ethical questions to that confused tribunal
|
||
where chaos sits as umpire and "by decision more embroils the
|
||
fray." But through the whole of this cloudy paper there runs a vein
|
||
of presumptuous egotism which says as plainly as words can speak it
|
||
that the author holds himself to be the ultimate judge of all good,
|
||
and evil; what he approves is right, and what he dislikes is
|
||
certainly wrong. Of course I concede nothing to a claim like that.
|
||
I will not admit that the Jewish constitution is a thing to be
|
||
condemned merely because he curses it. I appeal from his profane
|
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malediction to the conscience of men who have a rule to judge by.
|
||
Such persons will readily see that his specific objections to the
|
||
statesmanship which established the civil government of the Hebrew
|
||
people are extremely shallow, and do not furnish the shade of an
|
||
excuse for the indecency of his general abuse.
|
||
|
||
First. He regards the punishments infected for blasphemy and
|
||
idolatry as being immoderately cruel. Considering them merely as
|
||
religious offenses, -- as sins against God alone, -- I agree that
|
||
civil laws should notice them not at all. But sometimes they affect
|
||
very injuriously certain social rights which it is the duty of the
|
||
state to protect. Wantonly to shock the religious feelings of your
|
||
neighbor is a grievous wrong. To utter blasphemy or obscenity in
|
||
the presence of a Christian woman is hardly better than to strike
|
||
her in the face. Still, neither policy nor justice requires them to
|
||
be ranked among the highest crimes in a government constituted like
|
||
ours. But things were wholly different under the Jewish theocracy,
|
||
where God was the personal head of the state. There blasphemy was
|
||
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
a breach of political allegiance; idolatry was an overt act of
|
||
treason; to worship the gods of the hostile heathen was deserting
|
||
to the public enemy, and giving him aid and comfort. These are
|
||
crimes which every independent community has always punished with
|
||
the utmost rigor. In our own very recent history, they were
|
||
repressed at the cost of more lives than Judea ever contained at
|
||
any one time.
|
||
|
||
Mr. Ingersoll not only ignores these considerations, but he
|
||
goes the length of calling God a religious persecutor and a tyrant
|
||
because he does not encourage and reward the service and devotion
|
||
paid by his enemies to the false gods of the pagan world. He
|
||
professes to believe that all kinds of worship are equally
|
||
meritorious, and should meet the same acceptance from the true God.
|
||
It is almost incredible that such drivel as this should be uttered
|
||
by anybody. But Mr. Ingersoll not only expresses the thought
|
||
plainly -- he urges it with the most extravagant figures of his
|
||
florid rhetoric. He quotes the first commandment, in which Jehovah
|
||
claims for himself the exclusive worship of His people, and cites,
|
||
in contrast, the promise put in the mouth of Brahma, that he will
|
||
appropriate the worship of all gods to himself, and reward all
|
||
worshipers alike. These passages being compared, he declares the
|
||
first "a dungeon, where crawl the things begot of jealous slime;"
|
||
the other, "great as the domed firmament, inlaid with suns." Why is
|
||
the living God, whom Christians believe to be the Lord of liberty
|
||
and Father of lights, denounced as the keeper of a loathsome
|
||
dungeon? Because he refuses to encourage and reward the worship of
|
||
Mammon and Moloch, of Belial and Baal; of Bacchus, with its drunken
|
||
orgies, and Venus, with its wanton obscenities; the bestial
|
||
religion which degraded the soul of Egypt and the "dark idolatries
|
||
of alienated Judah," polluted with the moral filth of all the
|
||
nations round about.
|
||
|
||
Let the reader decide whether this man, entertaining such
|
||
sentiments and opinions, is fit to be a teacher, or at all likely
|
||
to lead us in the way we should go.
|
||
|
||
Second. Under the constitution which God provided for the
|
||
Jews, they had, like every other nation, the war-making power. They
|
||
could not have lived a day without it. The right to exist implied
|
||
the right to repel, with all their strength, the opposing force
|
||
which threatened their destruction. It is true, also, that in the
|
||
exercise of this power they did not observe those rules of courtesy
|
||
and humanity which have been adopted in modern times by civilized
|
||
belligerents. Why? Because their enemies, being mere savages, did
|
||
not understand and would not practice any rule whatever; and the
|
||
Jews were bound ex necessitate rei -- not merely justified by the
|
||
lex talionis -- to do as their enemies did. In your treatment of
|
||
hostile barbarians, you not only may lawfully, but must
|
||
necessarily, adopt their mode of warfare. If they come to conquer
|
||
you, they may be conquered by you; if they give no quarter, they
|
||
are entitled to none; if the death of your whole population be
|
||
their purpose, you may defeat it by exterminating theirs. This
|
||
sufficiency answers the silly talk of atheists and semi-atheists
|
||
about the warlike wickedness of the Jews.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
But Mr. Ingersoll positively, and with the emphasis of supreme
|
||
and all-sufficient authority, declares that "a war of conquest is
|
||
simply murder." He sustains this proposition by no argument founded
|
||
in principle. He puts sentiment in place of law, and denounces
|
||
aggressive fighting because it is offensive to his "tender and
|
||
refined soul;" the atrocity of it is therefore proportioned to the
|
||
sensibilities of his own heart. He proves war a desperately wicked
|
||
thing by continually vaunting his own love for small children.
|
||
Babes -- sweet babes -- the prattle of babes -- are the subjects of
|
||
his most pathetic eloquence, and his idea of music is embodied in
|
||
the commonplace expression of a Hindu, that the lute is sweet only
|
||
to those who have not heard the prattle of their own children. All
|
||
this is very amiable in him, and the more so, perhaps, as these
|
||
objects of his affection are the young ones of a race in his
|
||
opinion miscreated by an evil-working chance. But his
|
||
philoprogenitiveness proves nothing against Jew or Gentile, seeing
|
||
that all have it in an equal degree, and those feel it most who
|
||
make the least parade of it. Certainly it gives him no authority to
|
||
malign the God who implanted it alike in the hearts of us all. But
|
||
I admit that his benevolence becomes peculiar and ultra when it
|
||
extends to beasts as well as babes. He is struck with horror by the
|
||
sacrificial solemnities of the Jewish religion. "The killing of
|
||
those animals was," he says, "a terrible system , a shedding of
|
||
innocent blood," "shocking to a refined and sensitive soul." There
|
||
is such a depth of tenderness in this feeling, and such a splendor
|
||
of refinement, that I give up without a struggle to the superiority
|
||
of a man who merely professes it. A carnivorous American, full of
|
||
beef and mutton, who mourns with indignant sorrow because bulls and
|
||
goats were killed in Judea three thousand years ago, has reached
|
||
the climax of sentimental goodness, and should be permitted to
|
||
dictate on all questions of peace and war. Let Grotius, Vattel, and
|
||
Pufendorf, as well as Moses and the prophets, hide their diminished
|
||
heads.
|
||
|
||
But to show how inefficacious, for all practical purposes, a
|
||
mere sentiment is when substituted for a principle, it is only
|
||
necessary to recollect that Mr. Ingersoll is himself a warrior who
|
||
staid not behind the mighty men of his tribe when they gathered
|
||
themselves together for a war of conquest. He took the lead of a
|
||
regiment as eager as himself to spoil the Philistines, "and out he
|
||
went a-coloneling." How many Amalekites, and Hittites, and Amotites
|
||
he put to the edge of the sword, how many wives he widowed, or how
|
||
many mothers he "unbabed" cannot now be told. I do not even know
|
||
how many droves of innocent oxen he condemned to the slaughter. But
|
||
it is certain that his refined and tender soul took great pleasure
|
||
in the terror, conflagration, blood, and tears with which the war
|
||
was attended, and in all the hard oppressions which the conquered
|
||
people were made to suffer afterwards. I do not say that the war
|
||
was either better or worse for his participation and approval. But
|
||
if his own conduct (for which he professes neither penitence nor
|
||
shame) was right, it was right on grounds which make it an
|
||
inexcusable outrage to call the children of Israel savage criminals
|
||
for carrying on wars of aggression to save the life of their
|
||
government. These inconsistencies are the necessary consequence of
|
||
having no rule of action and no guide for the conscience. When a
|
||
man throws away the golden metewand of the law which God has
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
provided, and takes the elastic cord of feeling for his measure of
|
||
righteousness, you cannot tell from day to day what he will think
|
||
or do.
|
||
|
||
Third. But Jehovah permitted his chosen people to hold the
|
||
captives they took in war or purchased from the heathen as servants
|
||
for life. This was slavery, and Mr. Ingersoll declares that "in all
|
||
civilized countries it is not only admitted, but it is passionately
|
||
asserted, that slavery is, and always was, a hideous crime;"
|
||
therefore he concludes that Jehovah was a criminal. This would be
|
||
a non sequitur, even if the premises were true. But the premises
|
||
are false; civilized countries have admitted no such thing. That
|
||
slavery is a crime, under all circumstances and at all times, is a
|
||
doctrine first started by the adherents of a political faction in
|
||
this country, less than forty years ago. They denounced God and
|
||
Christ for not agreeing with them, in terms very similar to those
|
||
used here by Mr. Ingersoll. But they did not constitute the
|
||
civilized world; nor were they, if the truth must be told, a very
|
||
respectable portion of it, Politically, they were successful; I
|
||
need not say by what means, or with what effect upon the morals of
|
||
the country. Doubtless Mr. Ingersoll gets a great advantage by
|
||
invoking their passions and their interests to his aid, and he
|
||
knows how to use it. I can only say that, whether American
|
||
Abolitionism was right or wrong; under the circumstances in which
|
||
we were placed, my faith and my reason both assure me that the
|
||
infallible God proceeded upon good grounds when he authorized
|
||
slavery in Judea. Subordination of inferiors to superiors is the
|
||
groundwork of human society. All improvement of our race, in this
|
||
world and the next, must come from obedience to some master better
|
||
and wiser than ourselves. There can be no question that, when a Jew
|
||
took a neighboring savage for his bond-servant, incorporated him
|
||
into his family, tamed him, taught him to work, and gave him a
|
||
knowledge of the true God, he conferred upon him a most beneficent
|
||
boon.
|
||
|
||
Fourth. Polygamy is another of his objections to the Mosaic
|
||
constitution. Strange to say, it is not there. It is neither
|
||
commanded nor prohibited; it is only discouraged. If Mr. Ingersoll
|
||
were a statesman instead of a mere politician, he would see good
|
||
and sufficient reasons for the forbearance to legislate directly
|
||
upon the subject. It would be improper for me to set them forth
|
||
here. He knows, probably, that the influence of the Christian
|
||
Church alone, and without the aid of state enactments, has
|
||
extirpated this bad feature of Asiatic manners wherever its
|
||
doctrines were carried. As the Christian faith prevails in any
|
||
community, in that proportion precisely marriage is consecrated to
|
||
its true purpose, and all intercourse between the sexes refined and
|
||
purified. Mr. Ingersoll got his own devotion to the principle of
|
||
monogamy -- his own respect for the highest type of female
|
||
character -- his own belief in the virtue of fidelity to one good
|
||
wife -- from the example and precept of his Christian parents. I
|
||
speak confidently, because these are sentiments which do not grow
|
||
in the heart of the natural man without being planted. Why, then,
|
||
does he throw polygamy into the face of the religion which abhors
|
||
it? Because he is nothing if not political. The Mormons believe in
|
||
polygamy, and the Mormons are unpopular. They are guilty of having
|
||
not only many wives but much property, and if a war could be hissed
|
||
up against them, its fruits might he more "gaynefull pillage than
|
||
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
wee doe now conceive of." It is a cunning maneuver, this, of
|
||
strengthening atheism by enlisting anti-Mormon rapacity against the
|
||
God of the Christians. I can only protest against the use he would
|
||
make of these and other political interests. It is not argument; it
|
||
is mere stump oratory.
|
||
|
||
I think I have repelled all of Mr. Ingersoll's accusations
|
||
against the Old Testament that are worth noticing, and I might stop
|
||
here. But I will not close upon him without letting him see, at
|
||
least, some part of the case on the other side.
|
||
|
||
I do not enumerate in detail the positive proofs which support
|
||
the authenticity of the Hebrew Bible, though they are at hand in
|
||
great abundance, because the evidence in support of the new
|
||
dispensation will establish the verity of the old -- the two being
|
||
so connected together that if one is true the other cannot be
|
||
false.
|
||
|
||
When Jesus of Nazareth announced himself to be Christ, the Son
|
||
of God, in Judea, many thousand persons who heard his words and saw
|
||
his works believed in his divinity without hesitation. Since the
|
||
morning of the creation, nothing has occurred so wonderful as the
|
||
rapidity with which this religion spread itself abroad. Men who
|
||
were in the noon of life when Jesus was put to death as a
|
||
malefactor lived to see him worshiped as God by organized bodies of
|
||
believers in every province of the Roman empire. In a few more
|
||
years it took complete possession of the general mind, supplanted
|
||
all other religions, and wrought a radical change in human society.
|
||
It did this in the face of obstacles which, according to every
|
||
human calculation, were insurmountable. It was antagonized by all
|
||
the evil propensities, the sensual wickedness, and the vulgar
|
||
crimes of the multitude, as well as the polished vices of the
|
||
luxurious classes; and was most violently opposed even by those
|
||
sentiments and habits of thought which were esteemed virtuous, such
|
||
as patriotism and military heroism. It encountered not only the
|
||
ignorance and superstition, but the learning and philosophy, the
|
||
poetry, eloquence, and art of the time. Barbarism and civilization
|
||
were alike its deadly enemies. The priesthood of every established
|
||
religion and the authority of every government were arrayed against
|
||
it. All these, combined together and roused to ferocious hostility,
|
||
were overcome, not by the enticing words of man's wisdom, but by
|
||
the simple presentation or a pure and peaceful doctrine, preached
|
||
by obscure strangers at the daily peril of their lives. Is it Mr.
|
||
Ingersoll's idea that this happened by chance, like the creation of
|
||
the world? If not, there are but two other ways to account for it;
|
||
either the evidence by which the Apostles were able to prove the
|
||
supernatural origin of the gospel was overwhelming and
|
||
irresistible, or else its propagation was provided for and carried
|
||
on by the direct aid of the Divine Being himself. Between these
|
||
two, infidelity may make its own choice.
|
||
|
||
Just here another dilemma presents its horns to our adversary.
|
||
If Christianity was a human fabrication, its authors must have been
|
||
either good men or bad. It is a moral impossibility -- mere
|
||
contradiction in terms -- to say that good, honest, and true men
|
||
practiced a gross and willful deception upon the world. It is
|
||
equally incredible that any combination of knaves, however base,
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
would fraudulently concoct a religious system to denounce
|
||
themselves, and to invoke the curse of God upon their own conduct.
|
||
Men that love lies, love not such lies as that. Is there any way
|
||
out of this difficulty, except by confessing that Christianity is
|
||
what it purports to be -- a divine revelation?
|
||
|
||
The acceptance of Christianity by a large portion of the
|
||
generation contemporary with its Founder and his apostles was,
|
||
under the circumstances, an adjudication as solemn and
|
||
authoritative as mortal intelligence could pronounce. The record of
|
||
that judgment has come down to us, accompanied by the depositions
|
||
of the principal witnesses. In the course of eighteen centuries
|
||
many efforts have been made to open the judgment or set it aside on
|
||
the ground that the evidence was insufficient to support it. But on
|
||
every rehearing the wisdom and virtue of mankind have re-affirmed
|
||
it. And now comes Mr. Ingersoll, to try the experiment of another
|
||
bold, bitter, and fierce reargument. I will present some of the
|
||
considerations which would compel me, if I were a judge or juror in
|
||
the cause, to decide it just as it was decided originally.
|
||
|
||
First. There is no good reason to doubt that the statements of
|
||
the evangelists, as we have them now, are genuine. The
|
||
multiplication of copies was a sufficient guarantee against any
|
||
material alteration of the text. Mr. Ingersoll speaks of
|
||
interpolations made by the fathers of the Church. All he knows and
|
||
all he has ever heard on that subject is that some of the
|
||
unnumerable transcripts contained errors which were discovered and
|
||
corrected. That simply proves the present integrity of the
|
||
documents.
|
||
|
||
Second. I call these statements depositions, because they are
|
||
entitled to that kind of credence which we give to declarations
|
||
made under oath -- but in a much higher degree, for they are more
|
||
than sworn to. They were made in the immediate prospect of death.
|
||
Perhaps this would not affect the conscience of an atheist, --
|
||
neither would an oath, -- but these people manifestly believed in
|
||
a judgment after death, before a God of truth, whose displeasure
|
||
they feared above all things.
|
||
|
||
Third. The witnesses could not have been mistaken. The nature
|
||
of the facts precluded the possibility of any delusion about them.
|
||
For every averment they had "the sensible and true avouch of their
|
||
own eyes" and ears. Besides, they were plain-thinking, sober,
|
||
unimaginative men, who, unlike Mr. Ingersoll, always, under all
|
||
circumstances, and especially in the presence of eternity,
|
||
recognized the difference between mountains and clouds. It is
|
||
inconceivable how any fact could be proven by evidence more
|
||
conclusive than the statement of such persons, publicly given and
|
||
steadfastly persisted in through every kind of persecution,
|
||
imprisonment and torture to the last agonies of a lingering death.
|
||
|
||
Fourth. Apart from these terrible tests, the more ordinary
|
||
claims to credibility are not wanting. They were men of
|
||
unimpeachable character. The most virulent enemies of the cause
|
||
they spoke and died for have never suggested a reason for doubting
|
||
their personal honesty. But there is affirmative proof that they
|
||
and their fellow-disciples were held by those who knew them in the
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
highest estimation for truthfulness. Wherever they made their
|
||
report it was not only believed, but believed with a faith so
|
||
implicit that thousands were ready at once to seal it with their
|
||
blood.
|
||
|
||
Fifth. The tone and temper of their narrative impress us with
|
||
a sentiment of profound respect. It is an artless, unimpassioned,
|
||
simple story. No argument, no rhetoric, no epithets, no praises of
|
||
friends, no denunciation of enemies, no attempts at concealment.
|
||
How strongly these qualities commend the testimony of a witness to
|
||
the confidence of judge and jury is well known to all who have any
|
||
experience in such matters.
|
||
|
||
Sixth. The statements made by the evangelists are alike upon
|
||
every important point, but are different in form and expression,
|
||
some of them including details which the others omit. These
|
||
variations make it perfectly certain that there could have been no
|
||
previous concert between the witnesses, and that each spoke
|
||
independently of the others, according to his own conscience and
|
||
from his own knowledge. In considering the testimony of several
|
||
witnesses to the same transaction, their substantial agreement upon
|
||
the main facts, with circumstantial differences in the detail, is
|
||
always regarded as the great characteristic of truth and honesty.
|
||
There is no rule of evidence more universally adopted than this --
|
||
none better sustained by general experience, or more immovably
|
||
fixed in the good sense of mankind. Mr. Ingersoll, himself, admits
|
||
the rule and concede. its soundness. The logical consequence of
|
||
that admission is that we are bound to take this evidence as
|
||
incontestably true. But mark the infatuated perversity with which
|
||
he seeks to evade it. He says that when we claim that the witnesses
|
||
were inspired, the rule does not apply, because the witnesses then
|
||
speak what is known to him who inspired them, and all must speak
|
||
exactly the same, even to the minutest detail. Mr. Ingersoll's
|
||
notion of an inspired witness is that he is no witness at all, but
|
||
an irresponsible medium who unconsciously and involuntarily raps
|
||
out or writes down whatever he is prompted to say. But this is a
|
||
false assumption, not countenanced or even suggested by anything
|
||
contained in the Scriptures. The apostles and evangelists are
|
||
expressly declared to be witnesses, in the proper sense of the
|
||
word, called and sent to testify the truth according to their
|
||
knowledge. If they had all told the same story in the same way,
|
||
without variation, and accounted for its uniformity by declaring
|
||
that they were inspired, and had spoken without knowing whether
|
||
their words were true or false, where would have been their claim
|
||
to credibility? But they testified what they knew; and here comes
|
||
an infidel critic impugning their testimony because the impress of
|
||
truth is stamped upon its face.
|
||
|
||
Seventh. It does not appear that the statements of the
|
||
evangelists were ever denied by any person who pretended to know
|
||
the facts. Many there were in that age and afterward who resisted
|
||
the belief that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, and only
|
||
Saviour of man; but his wonderful works, the miraculous purity of
|
||
his life, the unapproachable loftiness of his doctrines, his trial
|
||
and condemnation by a judge who pronounced him innocent, his
|
||
patient suffering, his death on the cross, and resurrection from
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
the grave, -- of those not the faintest contradiction was
|
||
attempted, if we expect the false and feeble story which the elders
|
||
and chief priests bribed the guard at the tomb to put in
|
||
circulation.
|
||
|
||
Eight. What we call the fundamental truths of Christianity
|
||
consist of great public events which are sufficiently established
|
||
by history without special proof. The value of mere historical
|
||
evidence increases according to the importance of the facts in
|
||
question, their general notoriety, and the magnitude of their
|
||
visible consequences. Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at
|
||
Yorktown, and changed the destiny of Europe and America. Nobody
|
||
would think of calling a witness or even citing an official report
|
||
to prove it. Julius Caesar was assassinated. We do not need to
|
||
prove that fact like an ordinary murder. He was master of the
|
||
world, and his death was followed by a war with the conspirators,
|
||
the battle at Philippi, the quarrel of the victorious triumvirs,
|
||
Actium, and the permanent establishment of imperial government
|
||
under Augustus. The life and character, the death and resurrection,
|
||
of Jesus are just as visibly connected with events which even an
|
||
infidel must admit to be of equal importance. The Church rose and
|
||
armed herself in righteousness for conflict with the powers of
|
||
darkness; innumerable multitudes of the best and wisest rallied to
|
||
her standard and died in her cause; her enemies employed the coarse
|
||
and vulgar machinery of human government against her, and her
|
||
professors were brutally murdered in large numbers, her triumph was
|
||
complete; the gods of Greece and Rome crumbled on their altars; the
|
||
world was revolutionized and human society was transformed. The
|
||
course of these events, and a thousand others, which reach down to
|
||
the present hour, received its first propulsion from the
|
||
transcendent fact of Christ's crucifixion. Moreover, we find the
|
||
memorial monuments of the original truth planted all along the way.
|
||
The sacraments of baptism and the supper constantly point us back
|
||
to the author and finisher of our faith. The mere historical
|
||
evidence is for these reasons much stronger than what we have for
|
||
other occurrences which are regarded as undeniable. When to this is
|
||
added the cumulative evidence given directly and positively by eye
|
||
witnesses of irreproachable character, and wholly uncontradicted,
|
||
the proof becomes so strong that the disbelief we hear of seems
|
||
like a kind of insanity.
|
||
|
||
"It is the very error of the moon,
|
||
Which comes more near the earth than she was want,
|
||
And makes men mad!"
|
||
|
||
From the facts established by this evidence, it follows
|
||
irresistibly that the Gospel has come to us from God. That silences
|
||
all reasoning about the wisdom and justice of its doctrines, since
|
||
it is impossible even to imagine that wrong can be done or
|
||
commanded by that Sovereign Being whose will alone is the ultimate
|
||
standard of all justice.
|
||
|
||
But Mr. Ingersoll is still dissatisfied. He raises objections
|
||
as false, fleeting, and baseless as clouds, and insists that they
|
||
are as stable as the mountains, whose everlasting foundations are
|
||
laid by the hand of the Almighty. I will compress his propositions
|
||
into plain words printed in italics, and, taking a look at his
|
||
misty creations, let them roll away and vanish into air, one after
|
||
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
another. Christianity offers eternal salvation as the reward of
|
||
belief alone. This ia a misrepresentation simple and naked. No such
|
||
doctrine is propounded in the Scriptures, or in the creed of any
|
||
Christian church. On the contrary, it is distinctly taught that
|
||
faith avails nothing without repentance, reformation, and newness
|
||
of life.
|
||
|
||
The mere failure to believe it is punished in hell. I have
|
||
never known any Christian man or woman to assert this. It is
|
||
universally agreed that children too young to understand it do not
|
||
need to believe it. And this exemption extends to adults who have
|
||
never seen the evidence, or, from weakness of intellect, are
|
||
incapable of weighing it. Lunatics and idiots are not in the least
|
||
danger, and for aught I know, this category may, by a stretch of
|
||
God's mercy, include minds constitutionally sound, but with
|
||
faculties so perverted by education, habit, or passion that they
|
||
are incapable of reasoning. I sincerely hope that, upon this or
|
||
some other principle, Mr. Ingersoll may escape the hell he talks
|
||
about so much. But there is no direct promise to save him in spite
|
||
of himself. The plan of redemption contains no express covenant to
|
||
pardon one who rejects it with scorn and hatred. Our hope for him
|
||
rests upon the infinite compassion of that gracious Being who
|
||
prayed on the cross for the insulting enemies who nailed him there.
|
||
|
||
The mystery of the second birth is incomprehensible. Christ
|
||
established a new kingdom in the world, but not of it. Subjects
|
||
were admitted to the privileges and protection of its government by
|
||
a process equivalent to naturalization. To be born again, or
|
||
regenerated is to be naturalized. The words all mean the same
|
||
thing, Does Mr. Ingersoll want to disgrace his own intellect by
|
||
pretending that he cannot see this simple analogy?
|
||
|
||
The doctrine of the atonement is absurd, and immoral. The plan
|
||
of salvation, or any plan for the rescue of sinners from the legal
|
||
operation of divine justice, could have been framed only in the
|
||
councils of the Omniscient. Necessarily its heights and depths are
|
||
not easily fathomed by finite intelligence. But the greatest,
|
||
ablest, wisest, and most virtuous men that ever lived have given it
|
||
their profoundest consideration, and found it to be not only
|
||
authorized by revelation, but theoretically conformed to their best
|
||
and highest conceptions of infinite goodness. Nevertheless, here is
|
||
a rash and superficial man, without training or habits of
|
||
reflection, who, upon a mere glance, declares that it "must be
|
||
abandoned," because it seems to him "absurd, unjust, and immoral."
|
||
I would not abridge his freedom of thought or speech, and the
|
||
argumentum ad verecundiam would be lost upon him. Otherwise I might
|
||
suggest that, when he finds all authority, human and divine,
|
||
against him, he had better speak in a tone less arrogant.
|
||
|
||
He does not comprehend how justice and mercy can be blended
|
||
together in the plan of redemption and it cannot be true. A thing
|
||
is not necessarily false because he does not understand it: he
|
||
cannot annihilate a principle or a fact by ignoring it. There are
|
||
many truths in heaven and earth which no man can see through; for
|
||
instance, the union of man's soul with his body, is not only an
|
||
unknowable but an unimaginable mystery. Is it therefore false that
|
||
a connection does exist between matter and spirit?
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
How, he asks, can the sufferings of an innocent person satisfy
|
||
justice for the sins of the guilty? This raises a metaphysical
|
||
question, which it is not necessary or possible for me to discuss
|
||
here. As matter of fact, Christ died that sinners might be
|
||
reconciled to God, and in that sense he died for them; that is, to
|
||
furnish them with the means of averting divine justice, which their
|
||
crimes had provoked.
|
||
|
||
What, he again asks, would we think of a man who allowed
|
||
another to die for a crime which he had committed? I answer that a
|
||
man who, by any contrivance, causes his own offence to be visited
|
||
upon the head of an innocent person is unspeakably depraved. But
|
||
are Christians guilty of this baseness because they accept the
|
||
blessings of an institution which their great benefactor died to
|
||
establish? Loyalty to the King who has erected a most beneficent
|
||
government for us at the cost of his life -- fidelity to the Master
|
||
who bought us with his blood -- is not the fraudulent substitution
|
||
of an innocent person in place of a criminal.
|
||
|
||
The doctrine of non-resistance, forgiveness of injuries, recon
|
||
ciliation with enemies, as taught in the New Testament, is the
|
||
child of weakness, degrading and unjust. This is the whole
|
||
substance of a long, rambling diatribe, as incoherent as a sick
|
||
man's dream. Christianity does not forbid the necessary defense of
|
||
civil society, or the proper vindication of personal rights. But to
|
||
cherish animosity, to thirst for mere revenge, to hoard up wrongs,
|
||
real or fancied, and lie in wait for the chance of paying them
|
||
back; to be impatient, unforgiving, malicious, and cruel to all who
|
||
have crossed us -- these diabolical propensities are checked and
|
||
curbed by the authority and spirit of the Christian religion, and
|
||
the application of it has converted men from low savages into
|
||
refined and civilized beings.
|
||
|
||
The punishment of sinners in eternal hell is excessive. The
|
||
future of the soul is a subject on which we have very dark views.
|
||
In our present state, the mind takes no idea except what is
|
||
conveyed to it through the bodily senses. All our conceptions of
|
||
the spiritual world are derived from some analogy to material
|
||
things, and this analogy must necessarily be very remote, because
|
||
the nature of the subjects compared is so diverse that a close
|
||
similarity cannot be even supposed. No revelation has lifted the
|
||
veil between time and eternity; but in shadowy figures we are
|
||
warned that a very marked distinction will be made between the good
|
||
and the bad in the next world. Speculative opinions concerning the
|
||
punishment of the wicked, its nature and duration, vary with the
|
||
temper and the imaginations of men. Doubtless we are many of us in
|
||
error; but how can Mr. Ingersoll enlighten us? Acknowledging no
|
||
standard of right and wrong in this world, he can have no theory of
|
||
rewards and punishments in the next, The deeds done in the body,
|
||
whether good or evil, are all morally alike in his eyes, and if
|
||
there be in heaven a congregation of the just, he sees no reason
|
||
why the worst rogue should not be a member of it. It is supposed,
|
||
however, that man has a soul as well as a body, and that both are
|
||
subject to certain laws, which cannot be violated without incurring
|
||
the proper penalty -- or consequence, if he likes that word better.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
If Christ was God, he knew that his followers would persecute
|
||
and murder men for their opinions; yet he did not forbid it. There
|
||
is but one way to deal with this accusation, and that is to
|
||
contradict it flatly. Nothing can be conceived more striking than
|
||
the prohibition, not only of persecution, but of all the passions
|
||
which lead or incite to it. No follower of Christ indulges in
|
||
malice even to his enemy without violating the plainest rule of his
|
||
faith. He cannot love God and hate his brother: if he says he can,
|
||
St. John pronounces him a liar. The broadest benevolence, universal
|
||
philanthropy, inexhaustible charity, are inculcated in every line
|
||
of the New Testament. It is plain that Mr. Ingersoll never read a
|
||
chapter of it; otherwise he would not have ventured upon this
|
||
palpable falsification of its doctrines. Who told him that the
|
||
devilish spirit of persecution was authorized, or encouraged, or
|
||
not forbidden, by the Gospel? The person, whoever it was, who
|
||
imposed upon his trusting ignorance should be given up to the just
|
||
reprobation of his fellow-citizens.
|
||
|
||
Christians in modern times carry on wars of destruction and
|
||
slander against one another. The discussions of theological
|
||
subjects by men who believe in the fundamental doctrines of Christ
|
||
are singularly free from harshness and abuse. Of course I cannot
|
||
speak with absolute certainty, but I believe most confidently that
|
||
there is not in all the religious polemics of this century as much
|
||
slanderous invective as can be found in any ten lines of Mr.
|
||
Ingersoll's writings. Of course I do not include political
|
||
preachers among my models of charity and forbearance. They are a
|
||
mendacious set, but Christianity is no more responsible for their
|
||
misconduct than it is for the treachery of Judas Iscariot or the
|
||
wrongs done to Paul by Alexander the coppersmith.
|
||
|
||
But, says he, Christians have been guilty of wanton and wicked
|
||
persecution. It is true that some persons, professing Christianity,
|
||
have violated the fundamental principles of their faith by
|
||
inflicting violent injuries and bloody wrongs upon their fellowmen.
|
||
But the perpetrators of these outrages were in fact not Christians:
|
||
they were either hypocrites from the beginning or else base
|
||
apostates -- infidels or something worse -- hireling wolves, whose
|
||
gospel was their maw. Not one of them ever pretended to find a
|
||
warrant for his conduct in any precept of Christ or any doctrine of
|
||
his Church. All the wrongs of this nature which history records
|
||
have been the work of politicians, aided often by priests and
|
||
ministers who were willing to deny their Lord and desert to the
|
||
enemy, for the sake of their temporal interests. Take the cases
|
||
most commonly cited and see if this be not a true account of them.
|
||
The auto da fe of Spain and Portugal, the burnings at Smithfield,
|
||
and the whipping of women in Massachusetts, were the outcome of a
|
||
cruel, false, and anti-christian policy. Coligny and his adherents
|
||
were killed by an order of Charles IX., at the instance of the
|
||
Guises, who headed a hostile faction, and merely for reasons of
|
||
state. Louis XIV. revoked the edict of Nantes, and banished the
|
||
Waldenses under pain of confiscation and death; but this was done
|
||
on the declared ground that the victims were not safe subjects. The
|
||
brutal atrocities of Cromwell and the outrages of the Orange lodges
|
||
against the Irish Catholics were not persecutions by religious
|
||
people, but movements as purely political as those of the
|
||
Know-Nothings, Plug-Uglys, and Blood-Tubs of this country. If the
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
Gospel should be blamed for these acts in opposition to its
|
||
principles, why not also charge it with the cruelties of Nero, or
|
||
the present persecution of the Jesuits by the infidel republic of
|
||
France?
|
||
|
||
Christianity is opposed to freedom of thought. The kingdom of
|
||
Christ is based upon certain principles, to which it requires the
|
||
assent of every one who would enter therein. If you are unwilling
|
||
to own his authority and conform your moral conduct to his laws,
|
||
you cannot expect that he will admit you to the privileges of his
|
||
government. But naturalization is not forced upon you if you prefer
|
||
to be an alien. The Gospel makes the strongest and tenderest appeal
|
||
to the heart, reason, and conscience of man -- entreats him to take
|
||
thought for his own highest interest, and by all its moral
|
||
influence provokes him to good works; but he is not constrained by
|
||
any kind of duress to leave the service or relinquish the wages of
|
||
sin. Is there anything that savors of tyranny in this? A man of
|
||
ordinary judgment will say, no. But Mr. Ingersoll thinks it as
|
||
oppressive as the refusal of Jehovah to reward the worship of
|
||
demons.
|
||
|
||
The gospel of Christ does not satisfy the hunger of the heart.
|
||
That depends upon what kind of a heart it is. If it hungers after
|
||
righteousness, it will surely be filled. It is probable, also, that
|
||
if it hungers for the filthy food of a godless philosophy it will
|
||
get what its appetite demands. That was an expressive phrase which
|
||
Carlyle used when he called modern infidelity "the gospel of dirt."
|
||
Those who are greedy to swallow it will doubtless be supplied
|
||
satisfactorily.
|
||
|
||
Accounts of miracles are always false. Are miracles
|
||
impossible? No one will say so who opens his eyes to the miracles
|
||
of creation with which we are surrounded on every hand. You cannot
|
||
even show that they are a priori improbable. God would be likely to
|
||
reveal his will to the rational creatures who were required to obey
|
||
it; he would authenticate in some way the right of prophets and
|
||
apostles to speak in his name; supernatural power was the broad
|
||
seal which he affixed to their commission. From this it follows
|
||
that the improbability of a miracle is no greater than the original
|
||
improbability of a revelation, and that is not improbable at all.
|
||
Therefore, if the miracles of the New Testament are proved by
|
||
sufficient evidence, we believe them as we believe any other
|
||
established fact. They become deniable only when it is shown that
|
||
the great miracle of making the world was never performed.
|
||
Accordingly Mr. Ingersoll abolishes creation first, and thus clears
|
||
the way to his dogmatic conclusion that all miracles are "the
|
||
children of mendacity."
|
||
|
||
Christianity is pernicious in its moral effect, darkens the
|
||
mind, narrows the soul, arrests the progress of human society, and
|
||
hinders civilization. Mr. Ingersoll, as a zealous apostle of "the
|
||
gospel of dirt," must be expected to throw a good deal of mud. But
|
||
this is too much: it injures himself instead of defiling the object
|
||
of his assault. When I answer that all we have of virtue, justice,
|
||
intellectual liberty, moral elevation, refinement, benevolence, and
|
||
true wisdom came to us from that source which he reviles as the
|
||
fountain of evil, I am not merely putting one assertion against the
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
other; for I have the advantage, which he has not, of speaking what
|
||
every tolerably well informed man knows to be true. Reflect what
|
||
kind of a world this was when the disciples of Christ undertook to
|
||
reform it, and compare it with the condition in which their
|
||
teachings have put it. In its mighty metropolis, the center of its
|
||
intellectual and political power, the best men were addicted to
|
||
vices so debasing that I could not even allude to them without
|
||
soiling the paper I write upon. All manner of unprincipled
|
||
wickedness was practiced in the private life of the whole
|
||
population without concealment or shame, and the magistrates were
|
||
thoroughly and universally corrupt. Benevolence in any shape was
|
||
altogether unknown. The helpless and the weak got neither justice
|
||
nor mercy. There was no relief for the poor, no succor for the
|
||
sick, no refuge for the unfortunate. In all pagandom there was not
|
||
a hospital, asylum, almshouse, or organized charity of any sort.
|
||
The indifference to human life was literally frightful. The order
|
||
of a successful leader to assassinate his opponents was always
|
||
obeyed by his followers with the utmost alacrity and pleasure. It
|
||
was a special amusement of the populace to witness the shows at
|
||
which men were compelled to kill one another, to be torn in pieces
|
||
by wild beasts, or otherwise "butchered, to make a Roman holiday."
|
||
In every province paganism enacted the same cold-blooded cruelties;
|
||
oppression and robbery ruled supreme; murder went rampaging and red
|
||
over all the earth. The Church came, and her light penetrated this
|
||
moral darkness like a new sun. She covered the globe with
|
||
institutions of mercy, and thousands upon thousands of her
|
||
disciples devoted themselves exclusively to works of charity at the
|
||
sacrifice of every earthly interest. Her earliest adherents were
|
||
killed without remorse -- beheaded, crucified, sawn asunder, thrown
|
||
to the beasts, or covered with pitch, piled up in great heaps, and
|
||
slowly burnt to death. But her faith was made perfect through
|
||
suffering, and the law of love rose in triumph from the ashes of
|
||
her martyrs. This religion has come down to us through the ages,
|
||
attended all the way by righteousness, justice, temperance, mercy,
|
||
transparent truthfulness, exulting hope, and white winged charity.
|
||
Never was its influence for good more plainly perceptible than now.
|
||
It has not converted, purified, and reformed all men, for its first
|
||
principle is the freedom of the human will, and there are those who
|
||
choose to reject it. But to the mass of mankind, directly and
|
||
indirectly, it has brought uncounted benefits and blessings.
|
||
Abolish it -- take away the restraints which it imposes on evil
|
||
passions -- silence the admonitions of its preachers -- let all
|
||
Christians cease their labors of charity -- blot out from history
|
||
the records of its heroic benevolence -- repeal the laws it has
|
||
enacted and the institutions it has built up -- let its moral
|
||
principles be abandoned and all its miracles of light be
|
||
extinguished -- what would we come to? I need not answer this
|
||
question: the experiment has been partially tried. The French
|
||
nation formally renounced Christianity, denied the existence of the
|
||
Supreme Being, and so satisfied the hunger of the infidel heart for
|
||
a time. What followed? Universal depravity, garments rolled in
|
||
blood, fantastic crimes unimagined before, which startled the earth
|
||
with their sublime atrocity. The American people have and ought to
|
||
have no special desire to follow that terrible example of guilt and
|
||
misery.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION - II
|
||
By Jeremiah S. Black.
|
||
|
||
It is impossible to discuss this subject within the limits of
|
||
a review. No doubt the effort to be short has made me obscure. If
|
||
Mr. Ingersoll thinks himself wronged, or his doctrines
|
||
misconstrued, let him not lay my fault at the door of the Church,
|
||
or cast his censure on the clergy.
|
||
|
||
"Adsum qui feci, in me convertite ferrum."
|
||
|
||
J. S. Black.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom Inc. is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
|
||
|
||
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
us, we need to give them back to America.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|