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651 lines
34 KiB
Plaintext
10 page printout.
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Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
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**** ****
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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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Part 3 -- FIELD - INGERSOLL debate.
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A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
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by Dr. Henry M. Field
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1887
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My Dear Colonel Ingersoll:
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I have read your Reply to my Open Letter half a dozen times,
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and each time with new appreciation of your skill as an advocate.
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It is written with great ingenuity, and furnishes probably as
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complete an argument as you are able to give for the faith (or want
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of faith) that is in you. Doubtless you think it unanswerable, and
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so it will seem to those who are predisposed to your way of
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thinking. To quote a homely saying of Mr. Lincoln, in which there
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is as much of wisdom as of wit, "For those who like that sort of
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thing, no doubt that is the sort of thing they do like." You may
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answer that we, who cling to the faith of our fathers, are equally
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prejudiced, and that it is for that reason that we are not more
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impressed by the force of your pleading. I do not deny a strong
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leaning that way, and yet our real interest is the same -- to get
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at the truth; and, therefore, I have tried to give due weight to
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whatever of argument there is in the midst of so much eloquence;
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but must confess that, in spite of all, I remain in the same
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obdurate frame of mind as before. With all the candor that I can
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bring to bear upon the question, I find on reviewing my Open Letter
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scarcely a sentence to change and nothing to withdraw; and am quite
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willing to leave it as my Declaration of Faith -- to stand side by
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side with your Reply, for intelligent and candid men to judge
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between us. I need only to add a few words in taking leave of the
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subject.
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You seem a little disturbed that "some of my brethren should
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look upon you as "a monster" because of your unbelief. I certainly
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do not approve of such language, although they would tell me that
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it is the only word which is a fit response to your ferocious
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attacks upon what they hold most sacred. You are a born gladiator,
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and when you descend into the arena, you strike heavy blows, which
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provoke blows in return. In this very Reply you manifest a
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particular animosity against Presbyterians. Is it because you were
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brought up in that Church, of which your father, whom you regard
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with filial respect and affection, was an honored minister? You
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even speak of "the Presbyterian God! "as if we assumed to
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appropriate the Supreme Being, claiming to be the special objects
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of His favor. Is there any ground for this imputation of
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narrowness? On the contrary, when we bow our knees before our
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Maker, it is as the God and Father of all mankind and the
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expression you permit yourself to use, can only be regarded as
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grossly offensive. Was it necessary to offer this rudeness to the
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religious denomination in which you were born?
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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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A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
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by Dr. Henry M. Field
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And this may explain, what you do not seem fully to
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understand, why it is that you are sometimes treated to sharp
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epithets by the religious press and public. You think yourself
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persecuted for your opinions. But others hold the same opinions
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without offence. Nor is it because you express your opinions.
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Nobody would deny you the same freedom which is accorded to Huxley
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or Herbert Spencer. It is not because you exercise your liberty of
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judgment or of speech, but because of the way in which you attack
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others, holding up their faith to all manner of ridicule, and
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speaking of those who profess it as if they must be either knaves
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or fools. It is not in human nature not to resent such imputations
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on that which, however incredible to you, is very precious to them.
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Hence it is that they think you a rough antagonist; and when you
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shock them by such expressions as I have quoted, you must expect
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some pretty strong language in return. I do not join them in this,
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because I know you, and appreciate that other side of you which is
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manly and kindly and chivalrous. But while I recognize these better
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qualities, I must add in all frankness that I am compelled to look
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upon you as a man so embittered against religion that you cannot
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think of it except as associated with cant, bigotry, and hypocrisy.
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In such a state of mind it is hardly possible for you to judge
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fairly of the arguments for its truth.
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I believe with you, that reason was given us to be exercised,
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and that when man seeks after truth, his mind should be, as you say
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Darwin's was, "as free from prejudice as the mariner's compass."
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But if he is warped by passion so that he cannot see things truly,
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then is he responsible. It is the moral element which alone makes
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the responsibility. Nor do I believe that any man will be judged in
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this world or the next for what does not involve a moral wrong.
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Hence your appalling statement, "The God you worship will,
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according to your creed, torture (!) through all the endless years
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the man who entertains an honest doubt," does not produce the
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effect intended, simply because I do not affirm nor believe any
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such thing. I believe that, in the future world, every man will be
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judged according to the deeds done in the body, and that the
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judgment, whatever it may be, will be transparently just. God is
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more merciful than man. He desireth not the death of the wicked.
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Christ forgave, where men would condemn, and whatever be the fate
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of any human soul, it can never be said that the Supreme Ruler was
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wanting either in justice or mercy. This I emphasize because you
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dwell so much upon the subject of future retribution, giving it an
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attention so constant as to be almost exclusive. Whatever else you
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touch upon, you soon come back to this as the black thunder-cloud
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that darkens all the horizon, casting its mighty shadows over the
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life that now is and that which is to come. Your denunciations of
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this "inhuman" belief are so reiterated that one would be left to
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infer that there is nothing else in Religion; that it is all wrath
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and terror, But this is putting a part for the whole. Religion is
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a vast system, of which this is but a single feature: it is but one
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doctrine of many; and indeed some whom no one will deny to be
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devout Christians, do not hold it at all, or only in a modified
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form, while with all their hearts they accept and profess the
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Religion that Christ came to bring into the world.
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Archdeacon Farrar, of Westminster Abbey, the most eloquent
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preacher in the Church of England, has written a book entitled
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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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A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
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by Dr. Henry M. Field
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"Eternal Hope," in which he argues from reason and the Bible, that
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this life is not "the be-all and end-all" of human probation; but
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that in the world to come there will be another opportunity, when
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countless millions, made wiser by unhappy experience, will turn
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again to the paths of life; and that so in the end the whole human
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race, with the exception of perhaps a few who remain irreclaimable,
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will be recovered and made happy forever. Others look upon "eternal
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death" as merely the extinction of being, while immortality is the
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reward of pre-eminent virtue, interpreting in that sense the words,
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"The wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life
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through Jesus Christ our Lord." The latter view might recommend
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itself to you as the application of "the survival of the fittest"
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to another world, the worthless, the incurably bad, of the human
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race being allowed to drop out of existence (an end which can have
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no terrors for you, since you look upon it as the common lot of all
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men,) while the good are continued in being forever. The acceptance
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of either of these theories would relieve your mind of that "horror
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of great darkness" which seems to come over it whenever you look
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forward to retribution beyond the grave.
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But while conceding all liberty to others I cannot so easily
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relieve myself of this stern and rugged truth. To me moral evil in
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the universe is a tremendous reality, and I do not see how to limit
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it within the bounds of time. Retribution is to me a necessary part
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of the Divine law. A law without a penalty for its violations is no
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law. But I rest the argument for it, not on the Bible, but on
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principles which you yourself acknowledge. You say, "There are no
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punishments, no rewards: there are consequences." Very well, take
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the "consequences," and see where they lead you. When a man by his
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vices has reduced his body to a wreck and his mind to idiocy, you
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say this is the "consequence" of his vicious life. Is it a great
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stretch of language to say that it is his "punishment," and none
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the less punishment because self-inflicted?
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To the poor sufferer raving in a madhouse, it matters little
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what it is called, so long as he is experiencing the agonies of
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hell. And here your theory of "consequences." if followed up, will
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lead you very far. For if man lives after death, and keeps his
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personal identity, do not the "consequences" of his past life
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follow him into the future? And if his existence is immortal, are
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not the consequences immortal also? And what is this but endless
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retribution?
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But you tell me that the moral effect of retribution is
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destroyed by the easy way in which a man escapes the penalty. He
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has but to repent, and he is restored to the same condition before
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the law as if he had not sinned. Not so do I understand it. "I
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believe in the forgiveness of sins," but forgiveness does not
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reverse the course of nature; it does not prevent the operation of
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natural law. A drunkard may repent as he is nearing his end, but
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that does not undo the wrong that he has done, nor avert the
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consequences. In spite of his tears, he dies in an agony of shame
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and remorse. The inexorable law must be fulfilled.
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And so in the future world. Even though a man be forgiven, he
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does not wholly escape the evil of his past life. A retribution
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follows him even within the heavenly gates; for if he does not
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|
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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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A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
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by Dr. Henry M. Field
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suffer, still that bad life has so shriveled up his moral nature as
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to diminish his power of enjoyment. There are degrees of happiness,
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as one star differeth from another star in glory; and he who begins
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wrong, will find that it is not as well to sin and repent of it as
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not to sin at all. He enters the other world in a state of
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spiritual infancy, and will have to begin at the bottom and climb
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slowly upward.
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We might go a step farther, and say that perhaps heaven itself
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has not only its lights but its shadows, in the reflections that
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must come even there. We read of "the book of God's remembrance,"
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but is there not another book of remembrance in the mind itself --
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a book which any man may well fear to open and to look thereon?
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When that book is opened, and we read its awful pages, shall we not
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all think "what might have been?" And will those thoughts be wholly
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free from sadness? The drunken brute who breaks the heart that
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loved him may weep bitterly, and his poor wife may forgive him with
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her dying lips; but he cannot forgive himself, and never can he
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recall without grief that bowed head and that broken heart. This
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preserves the element of retribution, while it does not shut the
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door to forgiveness and mercy.
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But we need not travel over again the round of Christian
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doctrines. My faith is very simple; it revolves around two words;
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GOD and CHRIST. These are the two centers, or, as an astronomer
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might say, the double-star, or double-sun, of the great orbit of
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religious truth.
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As to the first of these, you say "There can be no evidence to
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my mind of the existence of such a being, and my mind is so that it
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is incapable of even thinking of an infinite personality;" and you
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gravely put to me this question: "Do you really believe that this
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world is governed by an infinitely wise and good God? Have you
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convinced even yourself of this?" Here are two questions -- one as
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to the existence of God, and the other as to His benevolence. I
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will answer both in language as plain as it is possible for me to
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use.
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First, Do I believe in the existence of God? I answer that it
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is impossible for me not to believe it. I could not disbelieve it
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if I would. You insist that belief or unbelief is not a matter of
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choice or of the will, but of evidence. You say "the brain thinks
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as the heart beats, as the eyes see." Then let us stand aside with
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all our prepossessions, and open our eyes to what we can see.
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When Robinson Crusoe in his desert island came down one day to
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the seashore, and saw in the sand the print of a human foot, could
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he help the instantaneous conviction that a man had been there? You
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might have tried to persuade him that it was all chance, -- that
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the sand had been washed up by the waves or blown by the winds, and
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taken this form, or that some marine insect had traced a figure
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like a human foot, -- you would not have moved him a particle. The
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imprint was there, and the conclusion was irresistible: he did not
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believe -- he knew that some human being, whether friend or foe,
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civilized or savage, had set his foot upon that desolate shore. So
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when I discover in the world (as I think I do) mysterious
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footprints that are certainly not human, it is not a question
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||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
4
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A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
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by Dr. Henry M. Field
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whether I shall believe or not: I cannot help believing that some
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Power greater than man has set foot upon the earth.
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It is a fashion among atheistic philosophers to make light of
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the argument from design; but "my mind is so that it is incapable"
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of resisting the conclusion to which it leads me. And (since
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personal questions are in order) I beg to ask if it is possible for
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you to take in your hands a watch, and believe that there was no
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"design" in its construction; that it was not made to keep time,
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but only "happened" so; that it is the product of some freak of
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nature, which brought together its parts and set it going. Do you
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not know with as much positiveness as can belong to any conviction
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of your mind, that it was not the work of accident, but of design;
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and that if there was a design, there was a designer? And if the
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watch was made to keep time, was not the eye made to see and the
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ear to hear? Skeptics may fight against this argument as much as
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they please, and try to evade the inevitable conclusion, and yet it
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remains forever entwined in the living frame of man as well as
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imbedded in the solid foundations of the globe. Wherefore I repeat,
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it is not a question with me whether I will believe or not -- I
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cannot help believing; and I am not only surprised, but amazed,
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that you or any thoughtful man can come to any other conclusion. In
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wonder and astonishment I ask, "Do you really believe" that in all
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the wide universe there is no Higher Intelligence than that of the
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poor human creatures that creep on this earthly ball? For myself,
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it is with the profoundest conviction as well as the deepest
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reverence that I repeat the first sentence of my faith: "I believe
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in God the Father Almighty."
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And not the Almighty only, but the Wise and the Good. Again I
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ask, How can I help believing what I see every day of my life?
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Every morning, as the sun rises in the East, sending light and life
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over the world, I behold a glorious image of the beneficent
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Creator. The exquisite beauty of the dawn, the dewy freshness of
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the air, the fleecy clouds floating in the sky -- all speak of Him.
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And when the sun goes down, sending shafts of light through the
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dense masses that would hide his setting, and casting a glory over
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the earth and sky, this wondrous illumination is to me but the
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reflection of Him who "spreadeth out the heavens like a curtain;
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who maketh the clouds His chariot; who walketh upon the wings of
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the wind."
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How much more do we find the evidences of goodness in man
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himself: in the power of thought; of acquiring knowledge; of
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penetrating the mysteries of nature and climbing among the stars.
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Can a being endowed with such transcendent gifts doubt the goodness
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of his Creator?
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Yes, I believe with all my heart and soul in One who is not
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only Infinitely Great, but Infinitely Good; who loves all the
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creatures He has made; bending over them as the bow in the cloud
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spans the arch of heaven, stretching from horizon to horizon;
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looking down upon them with a tenderness compared to which all
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human love is faint and cold. "Like as a father pitieth his
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children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear Him; for He knoweth
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our frame, He remembereth that we are dust."
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||
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|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
5
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A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
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by Dr. Henry M. Field
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On the question of immortality you are equally "at sea." You
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know nothing and believe nothing; or, rather, you know only that
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you do not know, and believe that you do not believe. You confess
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indeed to a faint hope, and admit a bare possibility, that there
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may be another life, though you are in an uncertainty about it that
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is altogether bewildering and desperate. But your mind is so
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poetical that you give a certain attractiveness even to the
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prospect of annihilation. You strew the sepulchre with such flowers
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as these:
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||
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"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that the idea
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of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human
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heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear beating against
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the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book,
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||
nor of any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human
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affection. and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists
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and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of
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death.
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"I have said a thousand times, and I say again, that we do not
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know, we cannot say, whether death is a wall or a door; the
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beginning or end of a day; the spreading or pinions to soar, or the
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folding forever of wings; the rise or the set of a sun, or an
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endless life that brings rapture and love to every one."
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||
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Beautiful words! but inexpressibly sad! It is a silver lining
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to the cloud, and yet the cloud is there, dark and impenetrable.
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||
But perhaps we ought not to expect anything clearer and brighter
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||
from one who recognizes no light but that of Nature. That light is
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||
very dim. If it were all we had, we should be just where Cicero
|
||
was, and say with him, and with you, that a future life was "to be
|
||
hoped for rather than believed." But does not that very uncertainty
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||
show the need of a something above Nature, which is furnished in
|
||
Him who "was crucified, dead and buried, and the third day rose
|
||
again from the dead?" It is the Conqueror of Death who calls to the
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fainthearted: "I am the Resurrection and the Life." Since He has
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||
gone before us, lighting up the dark passage of the grave, we need
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||
not fear to follow, resting on the word of our Leader: "Because I
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||
live, ye shall live also."
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||
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||
This faith in another life is a precious inheritance, which
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||
cannot be torn from the agonized bosom without a wrench that tears
|
||
every heartstring; and it was to this I referred as the last refuge
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of a poor, suffering, despairing soul, when I asked: "Does it never
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||
occur to you that there is something very cruel in this treatment
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||
of the belief of your fellow-creatures, on whose hope of another
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life hangs all that relieves the darkness of their present
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existence?" The imputation of cruelty you repel with some warmth,
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saying (with a slight variation of my language): "When I deny the
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existence of perdition, you reply that there is something very
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cruel in this treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures." Of
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||
course, this change of words, putting perdition in the place of
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immortal life and hope, was a mere inadvertence. But it was enough
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to change the whole character of what I wrote. As I described "the
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treatment of the belief of my fellow-creatures," I did think it
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||
"very cruel," and I think so still.
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
|
||
|
||
A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
|
||
by Dr. Henry M. Field
|
||
|
||
While correcting this slight misquotation, I must remove from
|
||
your mind a misapprehension, which is so very absurd as to be
|
||
absolutely comical. In my Letter referring to your disbelief of
|
||
immortality, I had said: "With an air of modesty and diffidence
|
||
that would carry an audience by storm, you confess your ignorance
|
||
of what perhaps others are better acquainted with, when you say,
|
||
'This world is all that I know anything about, so far as I
|
||
recollect'" Of course "what perhaps others are better acquainted
|
||
with "was a part of what you said, or at least implied by your
|
||
manner (for you do not convey your meaning merely by words, but by
|
||
a tone of voice, by arched eyebrows, or a curled lip') and yet,
|
||
instead of taking the sentence in its plain and obvious sense, you
|
||
affect to understand it as an assumption on my part to have some
|
||
private and mysterious knowledge of another world (!), and gravely
|
||
ask me, "Did you by this intend to say that you know anything of
|
||
any other state of existence; that you have inhabited some other
|
||
planet; that you lived before you were born; and that you recollect
|
||
something of that other world or of that other state? "No, my dear
|
||
Colonel! I have been a good deal of a traveler, and have seen all
|
||
parts of this world, but I have never visited any other. In reading
|
||
your sober question, if I did not know you to he one of the
|
||
brightest wits of the day, I should be tempted to quote what Sidney
|
||
Smith says of a Scotchman, that "you cannot get a joke into his
|
||
head except by a surgical operation!"
|
||
|
||
But to return to what is serious: you make light of our faith
|
||
and our hopes, because you know not the infinite solace they bring
|
||
to the troubled human heart. You sneer at the idea that religion
|
||
can be a "consolation." Indeed! Is it not a consolation to have an
|
||
Almighty Friend? Was it a light matter for the poor slave mother,
|
||
who sat alone in her cabin, having been robbed of her children, to
|
||
sing in her wild, wailing accents:
|
||
|
||
"Nobody knows the sorrows I've seen:
|
||
Nobody knows but Jesus?"
|
||
|
||
Would you rob her of that Unseen Friend -- the only Friend she
|
||
had on earth or in heaven?
|
||
|
||
Bat I will do you the justice to say that your want of
|
||
religious faith comes in part from your very sensibility and
|
||
tenderness of heart. You cannot recognize an overruling Providence,
|
||
because your mind is so harassed by scenes that you witness. Why,
|
||
you ask, do men suffer so? You draw frightful pictures of the
|
||
misery which exists in the world, as a proof of the incapacity of
|
||
its Ruler and Governor, and do not hesitate to say that "any honest
|
||
man of average intelligence could do vastly better." If you could
|
||
have your way, you would make everybody happy; there should be no
|
||
more poverty, and no more sickness or pain.
|
||
|
||
This is a pleasant picture to look at, and yet you must excuse
|
||
me for saying that it is rather a child's picture than that of a
|
||
stalwart man. The world is not a playground in which men are to be
|
||
petted and indulged like children: spoiled children they would soon
|
||
become. It is an arena of conflict, in which we are to develop the
|
||
manhood that is in us. We all have to take the "rough-and-tumble"
|
||
of life, and are the better for it -- physically, intellectually,
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
|
||
by Dr. Henry M. Field
|
||
|
||
and morally. If there be any true manliness within us, we come out
|
||
of the struggle stronger and better; with larger minds and kinder
|
||
hearts; a broader wisdom and a gentler charity.
|
||
|
||
Perhaps we should not differ on this point if we could agree
|
||
as to the true end of life. But here I fear the difference is
|
||
irreconcilable. You think that end is happiness: I think it is
|
||
CHARACTER. I do not believe that the highest end of life upon earth
|
||
is to "have a good time;" to get from it the utmost amount of
|
||
enjoyment; but to be truly and greatly good; and that to that end
|
||
no discipline can he too severe which leads us "to suffer and be
|
||
strong." That discipline answers its end when it raises the spirit
|
||
to the highest pitch of courage and endurance. The splendor of
|
||
virtue never appears so bright as when set against a dark
|
||
background. It was in prisons and dungeons that the martyrs showed
|
||
the greatest degree of moral heroism, the power of "Man's
|
||
unconquerable mind."
|
||
|
||
But I know well that these illustrations do not cover the
|
||
whole case. There is another picture to be added to those of heroic
|
||
struggle and martyrdom -- that of silent suffering, which makes of
|
||
life one long agony, and which often comes upon the good, so that
|
||
it seems as if the best suffered the most. And yet when you sit by
|
||
a sick bed, and look into a face whiter than the pillow on which it
|
||
rests, do you not sometimes mark how that very suffering refines
|
||
the nature that bears it so meekly? This is the Christian theory:
|
||
that suffering, patiently borne, is a means of the greatest
|
||
elevation of character, and, in the end, of the highest enjoyment.
|
||
Looking at it in this light, we can understand how it should be
|
||
that "the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be
|
||
compared [or even to be named] with the glory which shall be
|
||
revealed." When the heavenly morning breaks, brighter than any dawn
|
||
that blushes "o'er the world," there will be "a restitution of all
|
||
things:" the poor will be made rich, and the most suffering the
|
||
most serenely happy; as in the vision of the Apocalypse, when it is
|
||
asked "What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence
|
||
came they?" the answer is, "These are they which came our of great
|
||
tribulation."
|
||
|
||
In this conclusion, which is not adopted lightly, but after
|
||
innumerable struggles with doubt, after the experience and the
|
||
reflection of years, I feel "a great peace." It is the glow of
|
||
sunset that gilds the approach of evening. For (we must confess it)
|
||
it is towards that you and I are advancing. The sun has passed the
|
||
meridian, and hastens to his going down. Whatever of good this life
|
||
has for us (and I am far from being one of those who look upon it
|
||
as a vale of tears) will soon be behind us. I see the shadows
|
||
creeping on; yet I welcome the twilight that will soon darken into
|
||
night, for I know that it will be a night all glorious with stars.
|
||
As I look upward, the feeling of awe is blended with a strange,
|
||
overpowering sense of the Infinite Goodness, which surrounds me
|
||
like an atmosphere:
|
||
|
||
"And so beside the Silent Sea,
|
||
I wait the muffled oar;
|
||
|
||
No harm from Him can come to me
|
||
On ocean or on shore.
|
||
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
|
||
by Dr. Henry M. Field
|
||
|
||
I know not where His Islands lift:
|
||
Their fronded palms in air;
|
||
|
||
I only know I cannot drift
|
||
Beyond His love and care."
|
||
|
||
Would that you could share with me this confidence and this
|
||
hope! But you seem to be receding farther from any kind of faith.
|
||
In one of your closing paragraphs, you give what is to you "the
|
||
conclusion of the whole matter." After repudiating religion with
|
||
scorn, you ask, "Is there not room for a better, for a higher
|
||
philosophy?" and thus indicate the true answer to be given, to
|
||
which no words can do justice but your own:
|
||
|
||
"After all, is it not possible that we may find that
|
||
everything has been necessarily produced; that all religions and
|
||
superstitions, all mistakes and all crimes, were simply
|
||
necessities? Is it not possible that out of this perception may
|
||
come not only love and pity for others, but absolute justification
|
||
for the individual? May we not find that every soul has, like
|
||
Mazeppa, been lashed to the wild horse of passion, or like
|
||
Prometheus to the rocks of fate?"
|
||
|
||
If this be the end of all philosophy, it is equally the end of
|
||
"all things." Not only does it make an end of us and of our hopes
|
||
of futurity, but of all that makes the present life worth living --
|
||
of all freedom, and hence of all virtue. There are no more any
|
||
moral distinctions in the world -- no good and no evil, no right
|
||
and no wrong; nothing but grim necessity. With such a creed, I
|
||
wonder how you can ever stand at the bar, and argue for the
|
||
conviction of a criminal. Why should he be convicted and punished
|
||
for what he could not help? Indeed he is not a criminal, since
|
||
there is no such thing as crime. He is not to blame. Was he not
|
||
"lashed to the wild horse of passion," carried away by a power
|
||
beyond his control? What cruelty to thrust him behind iron bars!
|
||
Poor fellow! he deserves our pity. Let us hasten to relieve him
|
||
from a position which must be so painful, and make our humble
|
||
apology for having presumed to punish him for an act in which he
|
||
only obeyed an impulse which he could not resist. This will be
|
||
"absolute justification for the individual." But what will become
|
||
of society, you do not tell us.
|
||
|
||
Are you aware that in this last attainment of "a better, a
|
||
higher philosophy" (which is simply absolute fatalism), you have
|
||
swung round to the side of John Calvin, and gone far beyond him?
|
||
That you, who have exhausted all the resources of the English
|
||
language in denouncing his creed as the most horrible of human
|
||
beliefs -- brainless, soulless, heartless; who have held it up to
|
||
scorn and derision; now hold to the blackest Calvinism that was
|
||
ever taught by man? You cannot find words sufficient to express
|
||
your horror of the doctrine of Divine decrees; and yet here you
|
||
have decrees with a vengeance -- predestination and damnation, both
|
||
in one. Under such a creed, man is a thousand times worse off than
|
||
under ours: for he has absolutely no hope. You may say that at any
|
||
rate he cannot suffer forever. You do not know even that; but at
|
||
any rate he suffers as long as he exists. There is no God above to
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
A LAST WORD TO ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.
|
||
by Dr. Henry M. Field
|
||
|
||
show him pity, and grant him release; but as long as the ages roll,
|
||
he is "lashed to the rocks of fate," with the insatiate vulture
|
||
tearing at his heart!
|
||
|
||
In reading your glittering phrases, I seem to be losing hold
|
||
of everything, and to be sinking, sinking, till I touch the lowest
|
||
depths of an abyss; while from the blackness above me a sound like
|
||
a death-knoll tolls the midnight of the soul. If I believed this I
|
||
should cry, God help us all! Oh no -- for there would be no God,
|
||
and even this last consolation would be denied us: for why should
|
||
we offer a prayer which can neither be heard nor answered? As well
|
||
might we ask mercy from "the rocks of fate" to which we are chained
|
||
forever!
|
||
|
||
Recoiling from this Gospel of Despair, I turn to One in whose
|
||
face there is something at once human and divine -- an
|
||
indescribable majesty, united with more than human tenderness and
|
||
pity; One who was born among the poor, and had not where to lay His
|
||
head, and yet went about doing good; poor, yet making many rich;
|
||
who trod the world in deepest loneliness, and yet whose presence
|
||
lighted up every dwelling into which He came; who took up little
|
||
children in His arms, and blessed them; a giver of joy to others,
|
||
and yet a sufferer himself; who tasted every human sorrow, and yet
|
||
was always ready to minister to others' grief; weeping with them
|
||
that wept; coming to Bethany to comfort Mary and Martha concerning
|
||
their brother; rebuking the proud, but gentle and pitiful to the
|
||
most abject of human creatures; stopping amid the throng at the cry
|
||
of a blind beggar by the wayside; willing to be known as "the
|
||
friend of sinners," if He might recall them into the way of peace;
|
||
who did not scorn even the fallen woman who sank at His feet, but
|
||
by His gentle word, "Neither do I condemn thee; go and sin no
|
||
more," lifted her up, and set her in the path of a virtuous
|
||
womanhood; and who, when dying on the cross, prayed: "Father,
|
||
forgive them, for they know not what they do," In this Friend of
|
||
the friendless, Comforter of the comfortless, Forgiver of the
|
||
penitent, and Guide of the erring, I find a greatness that I had
|
||
not found in any of the philosophers or teachers of the world. No
|
||
voice in all the ages thrills me like that which whispers close to
|
||
my heart, "Come unto me and I will give you rest," to which I
|
||
answer:
|
||
|
||
THIS IS MY MASTER, AND I WILL FOLLOW HIM.
|
||
|
||
Henry M. Field.
|
||
**** ****
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom 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.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|