Part 1 (2/2)
”It is not enough that h that they should be able to expound in logical fashi+on the church doctrines of the Trinity, the Atoneh that they should understand the architecture of a ht in their place, but the o down to the root question, and enquire whether the history, the systey, and the homilectics are based on a really Divine Revelation, or only on a series of beautiful legends which foolish, but reverent, hands have wreathed about the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a wonderful, religious genius that long ago illumined the land of Palestine” Further, Mr Pedley says: ”We find ation would inevitably lead to a loosened hold on Christianity So e intellect, and e morality, find that the more keenly they study Christianity, the less able they are to accept it, and preach it, then ated to the dusty luious systenum”
--Atlantic Monthly, Nov, 1879
Mr Pedley then goes on to point out the effects of ignorance, on the part of the s of Freethinkers He says: ”If he be pastor in a reading coation about matters which it is his special business to understand He will stand towards the Bible, as an ignorant Priest stands towards the Pope, accepting an infallibility that he has never proved He will appear before the intelligent world as a spiritual coward, a craven-heartedhis doeneration which he is confessedly unable to lead, and which sweeps by with disdainful tread, leaving him far in the rear”
These are brave words and frank adyical student, for should they fail to acquaint theuments of their opponents, they will speedily find the to people who know more than they about matters which it is their special business to know
Yours earnestly for Truth,
A P Selby, Nov 22nd, 1880
INTRODUCTORY
Col Robt G Ingersoll, the American Freethinker and eloquent iconoclast, visited Canada in April last and lectured on theological subjects in various places, including Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Belleville and Napanee, thereby agitating the theological caldron as it has never been agitated before in this country
And ”when Mars was gone the dogs of ere let loose!” Since Ingersoll's departure there has been a profuse shower of ”Replies”
and ”Refutations” from the press, and a tempest of denunciation and misrepresentation from the pulpit Indeed, before the departure of the redoubtable idol-sis of ”A warning against the Fallacies of Ingersoll” The pious Evangelists of the Y M C A, of Toronto, (abetted doubtless by the clergy) issued this propagandist gospel-ersoll This, withthe Royal Opera House on the first evening of the lectures The lecturer, in opening, branded the base slander of this Christian docuned a petition to allow obscene h the mails, as a wilful and malicious falsehood As this calu all Freethinkers as being in favor of obscenity, the Resolution on this subject which Col Ingersoll submitted to the Cincinnati Convention of Freethinkers in September, 1879, will not be out of place here It was as follows, and passed unanimously:--
Resolved,--That we are utterly opposed to the disseh the mails, or by any other means, of all obscene literature, whether inspired or uninspired, holding in measureless contempt its authors, publishers, and dissee froe that cannot be read without covering the cheek of modesty with the blush of shame
The cowardly conduct of the Toronto press, with one or two exceptions, in reference to Ingersoll's lectures, was as astonishi+ng to liberal-minded men as it was deplorable to all, especially in the ”Queen City of the West,” which is, or ought to be, the centre of intellectual activity and progress in Canada This exhibition of narrow-otry on the part of the Toronto press excited (rather unexpectedly to thereat surprise and severe animadversion from many quarters The daily _Globe_ and _Mail_ have, of course, a very wide circulation, and being the leading newspapers in the country, their numerous patrons look to them for _all_ the news on _all_ public questions and events I their papers and looking for reports of Col Ingersoll's lectures in Toronto, to find not a word there! Not a syllable by these puritanical publishers is vouchsafed to their expectant patrons, who pay their ious whims and prejudices of publishers and editors--but for _all_ the news But they would scarcely repeat this mistake--or rather imposition on their readers They have since unmistakably learned that in this act of pusillanimous servility to the priesthood, they took a false auge correctly the intellectual and moral status of a majority of their patrons
The honorable exceptions to this servility of the Toronto press, were the _Evening Telegram, Weekly Graphic_, and _National_
In Belleville, also, there was, I believe, one commendable exception to the narrowness of the press in reference to Ingersoll's lectures
This was the _Free Press_, which has on former occasions proved itself broader than most of its contemporaries
The Montreal _Canadian Spectator_ is another notable exception to this vassalage of the Canadian press; for, though edited by a clergyman, it has proved itself in favor of freedom of speech and liberty of conscience, and boldly denounces the narrow prejudice and bigotry which would gag Ingersoll to-day if it could, and would have burned hi the ”Replies,” and ”Refutations” which have issued froersoll's departure, is that by Hon Geo R
Wendling This honorable gentleersoll from place to place with his ”reply from a secular stand point;” albeit in Toronto he _preceded_ his opponent, and replied (?) before the people of that city to a lecture of Ingersoll's which they had never heard But, as with the Dutch judge, so with our Christian friends, _one side_ of the case was enough to hear in order to be able to give a verdict, and Mr Wendling was duly applauded for his ”satisfactory answer” to the absent heretic!
Subsequently, however, Mr Ingersoll put in an appearance in the Queen City, and gave his lecture on ”The Gods,” to which his honorable opponent had replied in advance This eloquent and argureeted with such obvious favor and vociferous applause that the ”Willard Tract Depository and Bible House” of that city dee to counteract the ”poisonous” influence that had gone forth They accordingly hastened forthwith to issue Wendling's ”Reply to Robert Ingersoll” This Christian politico-religious _brochure_ was heralded by some half dozen Toronto Professors and Doctors of Divinity, and one Vice-Chancellor, to wit: Messrs McLaren, Rainsford, Potts, Castle, Powis, Antliff and Blake These gentlemen, in a neat little preface, certify their approval of and ad's ”Reply to the infidelity advocated by Col Ingersoll,” and add the hope that ”it may be circulated by thousands”
To this no Freethinker has, of course, any objection, so long as he enjoys an equal right to circulate his docuht I propose to avail myself, and briefly review the salient points (if there are any) of soersoll's Canadian critics Not that I feel called upon to defend Col Ingersoll Should defence be necessary, he is amply able to defend hiat straws, have, in their alarm for the safety of their creed, desperately clutched a _layman_, and issued with their unqualified endorsation, this ”lay” reply of Mr Wendling, who comes before the public, he tells us, ”as a citizen, as a business man, as a lawyer, and as a politician,” and withal as a ”ht that for another layh no lawyer or politician) to exaal sophistry and politico-religious hash would be a ht direction in the interests of truth
Our Christian friends, in issuing their pamphlet, have very judiciously ”i of admonitory Scripture texts, which adorn the insides of the covers, etc By these texts we are reiven by inspiration of God,” and that ”if any s, God shall add unto hiues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the Book of Life,” etc, etc But these, our Christian opponents, are not quite consistent Verily, the Christian Church is not willing to take its own medicine--the medicine it mixes for ”infidels”
_We_ are warned that if we criticise that book, or take away from the words of it, or ridicule its absurdities, ill surely incur the wrath and ”plagues” of an angry God; yet these Christians the They have already elies infant damnation, and eternal torture; while a ”Bible Revision Conitaries of different branches of the Christian Church, are now actually engaged in ”taking away from the words of this book!” Consistency! thou art a jewel!! Greg, Strauss, Colenso, Renan, Ingersoll, Underwood, and a thousand others, are consigned to Hades for their destructive criticism of the Christians' Bible; while those learned Christian Doctors of Divinity of the ”Revision Committee” can tamper with the ”Word of God”
and alter it to suit the enlightenes without incurring the ”plagues” we are told shall be visited upon any man who adds to or takes from it