The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-09-09
InfdeIity.

let pass by, but hurl back upon the Hcoct
organ with all the ability we possess. You
gentleman or gentlemen Of the Sentinel are
the teachers of the darkest, blankest, drea.
ricst, most faithless infdclity now abroad in
the world. You know nothing now and
never have known anything about christi
anity. In your columns you profane the Holy
name of the founder of our religion daily and
utterly pervert all the precious truths He re-
vealed and taught to an erfing world.
This mad dog cry of higots and narrow
minded sectarians we have heard before.
We are not afraid of it. 1t will not turn us
one moment from our purpose. If it comes
up in the shape of controversy we shall not :
shirk it, and are prepared to meet it and all b
kindred charges the moment they are ut
tered. Hst,
By infdelity we presume you mean disbe-
lief in the truths of christianity. 1t is Aris-
totle, we believe, who says that in all dis
cusslons the first matter to he settled is an
agreement upon definitions. We declare
now and ever shall declare so long as the
North Carolina Standard floats that we be-
lieve in the Truths of christianity. But
what are the Truths Of christianity That
is the question we want the Sentinel to ans
wer What we believe them to be, it ought
to have known long since If it has the least
modicum of brains to understand anything,
or the least honest impulse 20 prevent it
from perverting what it knows to be our
profoundest belief. .,.... 80
In the world in which we live and move
and have our being there are but three pos
sible sources of truth. First, the material
universe without US; second, the human
soul within us; third, the Revealed Word
of God. The whole scope of controversy is
| embraced within these three sources, and
whether these sources are really one in cs
sence, or are two, or three, are the questions
that have exercised and developed the human
| mind from it's origin. With The truths of
| the material universe and the human soul
| we have not now to do. 1t is the truths
of christianity the Sentinel charges us with
infdclity to. We deny the charge. All the
truths taught by Christ, and the religion
organized around His name we believe. But
what vast number call the truths of Christ
and for centuries have called the truths of
! Christ, we entirely repudiate. The kind of
christianity that prevailed in the South be-
| -. h., 81,
tinel We abhor and detest with our whole
soul. Give us German or any other kind of
infidelity in preference. 1t is sham and
lie; it is organized hypocrisy it is bias
phemous, ruinous, and destructive of all
that is purifying, ennobling and inspiring.
| 1t sold the human soul as ehattle and thing;
it blurred and tried to efface the image of
God in four millions of human beings; it
shut out knowledge of the material world,
the human soul and of Christ it sent Bibles
and red flannel petticoats to the heart of
Africa and passed laws to prohibit the negro
from learning to read and write at home
it lashed the body and set ON blood hounds
to tear it to pieces, and blasphemously Of
fered up prayers for the soul. With money,
obtained from the sale of human flesh, it
built Churches and dedicated them to tho
worship Of God. 1t starved thousands of
noble men in Andersonvillc and Libby; it
shot down loyalty to the Sermon on the
Mount, and the Declaration of Independence
/ -, a.; e<,G ILL
the South; it hung abolitionists with all the
hellish spirit of Philip the Second, or Charles
the Fifth. In the name of Christianity it
committed every damnable crime the human
will is capable of perpetrating. In the name
of Christianity it would have made the
South the most abhorred despotism on the
face of the earth, and bound in chains never
to be broken, the fair and heavenly form of
Liberty herself Out upon such Christianity
Christ would have lashed it from one end of
the world to the other. Infdels! Great
God rather than embrace what our !Sentincls
call Christianity, wcwoud fold to our hearts
Pantheism, Fetichisn,, Hindooism, the re-
|
tentot. Editors of the Sentinel, one raw OF
Christian light, or heat, or one impulse of
genuine christian love never entered YOUR
narrow, prejudiccd, bieoted and hypocriti
cal heart. You know nothing oflove With
you it is a mountainous iceberg chilling and
freezing all who approach it, and not the
glorious sun flooding with light inspiring
with life and warming with heat the hum.
blest creature who crawls or walks upon the
face of the earth. We are tired and sick and
disguised with cant, especially organized
cant. The most genuine Christians in the
world to-day are called infidcls by cant
Garrison it calls an infidcl, Philipsit calls an
infidel, John Brown it callsaninfitle, Abrsllam
Lincoln 1T calls an INTEL, John Bright it calls
an infidel, Mill it calls an infdel, Gladstone
it calls an infidel, Bismarck it calls an inf
del, Garribaldi it calls an infdel, Mazzini it
calls an inidel the Tyngs, the Beechers, the
Chapins, the Greeleys, all the progressive
and live Christian clergymen and statesmen
in our land, it calls infdels Not one bold
advocate OF the personal, practical applica-
ton ofthc truths of Christianity to the daily
affairs of life, has ever risen without having
first to battle down this fientlHof infidclity
under the guise of organized Christian cant.
Luther battled against it, Cromwell battled
against it, the Puritans fled from it, but their
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