The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-05-26
ovBRsrEppINe THE BOUNDARIES

has gained considerable reputation in THIS
Stateas an eloquent orator, and his Methodist
congregation in Galveston have heretofore
had reason to be proud Of him during his
three years charge. We have "many
time and oft" listened to the enhancing
words as his silvery voice fashioned bright
thoughts into graphic pictures of the besuli-
full and good, and we had hoped for bril-
liant future to the young Albanian, but
his recent lecture on "Ingersollism " has
sadly weakened if not destroyed within us
the budding hope. When Mr.. Briggs takes
ground that the free thought of this age
ought not only TO be shackled and emascu-
lated into seryility ably law" and that tlose
VINO see proper to harbor and give express
sion to such thought sought to be met with
the halter and scafiold," he exhib-
its lamentable want of judgment
an absence of mental latitude, an Liberal
ity of soul that are at war, not only with his
own chan es, but with the enlightenment and
humanitarianism of the present time. Could
his suggestion be carried out, could his wish
and hope be realized, the clock of cyiza-
ton and progress would be set back Il CEN
fury at least, the circle of intellectual day
light would BIO narrowed to neede-eye
dimensions, and yet smaller pedestal would
be assigned to the moral and Christian'ike
emotions and conduct sThe bare proposition
of MIR. Briggs is retrogade movement
toward the wilderness and. quagmire of
persition and bigotry that is not at all
complimentary to tho products aSd effects of
the religion which Mr.. Briggs avows, not at
all complimentary to the congregations that
have delighted in tho past to sound his
praises, but yet of whom it might
be unfair to say, as did Charles H.. in expa-
nation of the preachers success that ''his
nonsense suited their nonsense" The people
of this day of mental development are not
so amiable or moonshny theo-sophical as to
permit the belief that they have not pro-
gressed beyond the era when persons were
carried to the chatter aud scafod" for belief
in or practice of what was known as witch
craft, when "women.were hung for amounting |
themselves with rooster-egg oil and BOOSTERS
were killed because they laid such eggs,
when "sows were tried and convicted in the
public square for converting themselves into
devils, and their piggies acquitted because of
their extreme youth" There lisa very close
parallel between the grotesque order ofmnd |
that would galvanize into vitality the dead |
creed of an hundred.years ago, that is almost
crazed by the fantastic and undignitied tricks |
Of medium and the superstition that
saw devil in the tail of nearly every rooster |
and witch in the snout OF nearly every hog.
federation is the rule Of the hour, and the |
spirit Of Independence is the sentinel that |
mounts guard on the citadel of civilization.
Uniformity of opinion, political, social or
religious, is unattainable; the crystalzstion |
of belief into a oneness is as impossible as
the optionalty Of love, MS the resurrection
and acceptance of the obsolete and efete |
creeds of the past. He who forgets these
fundamental truths and dogmatizes, as Mr. |
Briggs seems to have.dons in the shooting of |
his poisoned arrows, wrongs his day and gen.
Grafton and wrongs those whom he stands |
out as being the representative Of "You
cannot change mans thoughts about
things" says IN eminent writer, ''as you can
change the books in his library. The mind
is not a box, which can have opinions insert
cd and distracted at pleasure, To promote
this intellectual activity, to encourage him
to think and to put him in the way Of think
ing rightly, is plain duty but to try to in
sert ready made opinions into his mind by
dint of authority is to contradict the frs,
principles of free inquiry" Whist is to
be the religion Of the future,
whether it is to vary materially |
from that of the present, or whether it is to
be similar in kind as that now professed by
Christianity from some misleading associa-
tons and not clearly ineligible relations,
it is impossible for even the wsest of us to
say. Of one thing, however, we may be AS
sured, and that is that progressive, healthy |
development is only to be attained by the
widest allowance of free and uutrammelled |
thought and free and uniutertered- ex-
preston. The moment that we threaten the
human mind with the suppression of these
conditions, the moment that we seek to ami |
hilate danger by merely abusing it or by
scorning it, the moment a representative fac
tor in the discussion assumes the role of Jove |
and says: 81, why damn such farce"
Just that moment We may look for revolt
aud an instruction that ere the fermentation
shall have ceased, new order of things viii
assert itself in the interest Of truth land fair
ness and freedom.