The Worthington advance. [volume] (Worthington, Minn.) 1874-1908, 1879-07-31
ROBT. G. INGERSOLL AND
CHRISTIANITY.

Ingersoll's Tribute to the Late Rer.
Alexander CLARK;
ITO the Editor of the Pioneer Pressl
| Col. Ingersoll's eulogy on the late
Rev. Alexander Clark, of Pittsburgh,
published in the Pioneer Press of the
9Th, is an unconscious tribute to Chris
tianity, and may be hailed as fresh
sign Of Bob's coming ''converison.
Mr.. Ingersoll says: "This earnest man
made me his friend by being mine."
1t seems that Mr.. Ingersoll did not
even meet him half way, but when the
clergyman's love overlook him accepted
of the situation. The difference be-
tween the divine and the atheist is, the
former does the ''courting" and the lat
ter waits to be courted; the one says,
''Son, give me thy heart" and the 9TH
er waits for friendship and love to
come. After all, is not this the radical
difference between Christian and pagan
philosophy? Mr.. Ingersoll, in his re-
marks year or two since ut the funer-
al of his father, outlined the same doc
trine when he said: ''This man was
kind and just, and believed in return
ing good for good" 1t is easy to see
the difference between the two policies.
| One is aggressive, going out like the
mountain stream, singing a perpetual
| song as it waters and refreshes the
thirsty valleys; the other is a lake with
out an outlet, waiting for the sunshine
to warm it, and for the winds to coddle
it before it will whisper sweet things
in return. One is positive, the other
negative; one is the principle of mo-
tons, the other is stationary. 1t is
easy to see which is the noblest, and
which will finally conquer in world
where seltishness itself is led on by the
| spirit of conquest.
| [ admit that the church contains-or
impertections that Col. Ingersoll at
tributes to it, but l hold it represents
and fosters, as no other institution or
| system does, a principle that humanity
| cannot dispense with. The principle or
doctrine may be summed up in these
two sentences: go We into the world
and preach the gospel to all creatures.
''Resist not evil, but overcome evil
with good"
Iregard Mr.. 1ngersoll a useful man in
the sphere of critic. The church needs
him, and Christianity will not be hurt
by his structures. But he teaches moth
ing in the line of morals that Jesus and
! his disciples have not taught better, and
he lacks in theory the principle Of love
and self-lenial in behalf OF those who
hate and revile their Savior. The great
| difference between COnfuciuS and Jesus
is, that the former was the counselor
and adviser, and the latter the aggress-
i've lover and refOrmer Of his race.
| Confucius was the ':sprinkler" that wa
tered China for time. lie was true to
his mission and to the divinity within
him. But the ''sprinkler' is gone, and
China has been drying up ever since:
to day she is a wlthered garden, and
her thirsty subjects are coming to ~
merica to drink. Jesus was the magnet
that drew moisture from the great
ocean, gathered it into clouds, and gave
to civilization the principle of perpetu-
al irrigation.
We can make good use of Mr.. niger
soil. We cannot dispense with such
men. Church members are always bet
| ter wllitewasllels than critics Of each
others faults, and Mr.. Ingersoll tells
! the plain truth and more too. But
when we accept his theories in the place
of those which Jesus gave US, we simp-
ly take the hope and dignity out Of life
and begin to reverse the engine Of civil
liZation. In closing, I would ask Mr..
lngersoll how he knows that the ''mys-
ferrous sea has never yet borne on any
wave the image Of a returning sail?"
This constant restatement in Mr.. In
/ nET 1r.fc ~ al
settled fact, when all time is full of ev.
idence to the contrary, is simply ego
tism and presumption, and shows that
difference between questions of fact and
ed that his experience in the matter
outweighs that of all the rest of the
world. a man can wrap around his
humanity a porcupine skin of briStllng
denialS, and be no less bigot than one
who retires behind breastwork of af.
formations and solemnly shuts his eyes
and tries to lombard the world, the
flesh and the devil with the "Thirty.
nine articles" after most of his guns
have been spiked and dismantled.
JAMES G. CLARK.
| The beauty about DR.. Clark's char.
acter was that lie was a mar as we'll as
Cllurchman, a combination of quail
ties quite rare, and his love for Inger.
soil simply showed how much stronger
the human is in our nature, if we will
only let it have play, than the artificial
nature which the church aims to build
up. DR.. Clark was himself a sweet-na
TIRED, loving, conscientious man and
so is Ingersoll. When the two became
acquainted they flowed together in
spirit as naturally as two drops of pure
water. All that theological error could
do to warp DR.. Clark, could not make
him any less a man, though it twists
and distorts and poisons the manhood
of thousands Of others. DR.. Clark, a
short time before his death, said of In.
ger5oll, through the Methodist Record.
err:
I'VE do like Ineersoll. lie is hearty,
courteous, frank, clean, good looking,
candid, temperate, industrious, and, as
far us the devil will let him, he minds
his own business, and that is about as
much as some Methodists get done.
lie is not a brute, nor a demon, nor a
monster"
| For this, the Chicago Advance, a
partizan church paper, attacked DR..
Clark savagely.
AS to Col. Ingersoll's remark, at his
brothers funeral, that the ''mysterious
sea has never yet borne on any wave
the image of a returning SAIL" he is
said to have changed his mind on that
subject considerably. A Chicago pa.
per says that lie has been for some time
investigating Spiritualism and that the
returning sails" led him to suppress
the further publication of his lecture OF,
the mistakes of Moses.''
When the great account is summed