The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1880-08-15
A LAY SERMON .

about what Mr.. Ingersoll has to say against
the bible and against religion. That gentle
man not content with his disbelief in the
Divine origin Of the holy scriptures, and his
individual adherence of the precepts of
religion, must 60 about through the country
preaching his doctrines of infdelity. Con.
stantine never raised his banner in behalf of
the cross with more enthusiasm than seems
toinspire Mr.. Ingerioll in his crusade against
the established religion Of the civilized
world and the bible, the basis thereof We
do not intend this article as q criticism on
Mr.. Ingersoll or his teachings, specially.
There is no effect without its cause, and,
looking about us, we become painfully i'm
pressed with the fact that perhaps inAdelity,
a disbelief in any form of religion, is on the
increase. The rbald scenes in Paris, extend
ing from the Faubourg St. Antoine, with its
Sans Culottes, all over the city, during the
terrible days of the revolution, when God
was defed, His temples desecrated, and His
holy Word used to feed bon.Rres; when a
drunken scarlet woman was crowned with
chsplets, elevated TO throne and worshipped
as goddess of reason, the deity
Of France, aye, Of the universe,
are not more lamentable TO
contemplate than is the increasing in
fidelity in our land, inadelity in all its forms,
whether of deism, atheism, spiritualism, or
any Of the other isms. 1t behooves civilza,
ton and religion to look after the causes of
this dangerous state of things. Father
Curci, a learned jesuit expelled from tue
order because of his evangelical views,
asserts that the study of the bible is going
out of practice Descanting upon this sub.
ject he says: ain short 1t is evident that the
sovereign monument Of the devine pro-
vidential mercy towards men ought to be the
principal object of the study Of ecclesiastics,
and to be constantly, if not in its entirety, in
partial least, in the hands of the faithful, ac-
cording to the capacity of each individual,
and in obedience to the extremely provident
rules made for such purposes by the church.
Nevertheless, it is useless to dissimulate the
matter. Also in this respect what is, is in
direct opposition to what ought to be the
case. The ordinary practice is Numerically
opposed to that which ought to be our con-
duct. For the new testamentis the book of
all others the least studied and least read
among u.s. So much so that the bulk of the
laity--even of those who believe they have
been instructed, and profess religion is not
aware that such book exists in the world;
and the greater part of the clergy themselves
scarcely know more of it than what they are
compelled to read in the Brevisry and the
Missal." Aristotle proclaimed and
Machiavelli said it after him, that fallen or
falling institutions can only receive new life
from those same principles whence they had
their beginning and their subsequent increase,
and if this be true, and who can gainsay it,
the best If not the sole means of restoring the
lost christian conscience throughout society
must be by promoting the study of the bible.
We do not mean to intimate that religion is
In falling condition, but the fact cannot be
disguised thst inAdelity, agnostici.m, ct i'd
omne genus of the isms of the day, which
deny God, which SCOT at Christ and Him
crucified, are making fearful inroads upon
the cause Of religion, are erecting gods and
goddesses of reason all over the land, and some
Of them no better than the. Aspasian of the
Sans Culottes. In this land OF liberty of ours
every man is guaranteed the right to worship
God according to the dictates of his con.
science. 30 If the citizens conscience rears a
brazen calf or bows down before the iugger.
naut Of spiritualism, he Is protect / in the
free exercise of that right. We have nothing
to say against this. We do not believe in
Erammeling men and women in such matters.
But we do believe the world would be han.
pier, that civilization would be broader and
more exalted in its type, and that purity
would more greatly prevail, If the conscience
was better educated, if it was
in its state Of formation, thoroughly
impressed with the divine truths of that
Master who spake never as man spoke.
Those precepta learned at the mother. koee.
live forever in the heart, and bloom and Gil
All the soul with the delicious fragrance of
lender memories Of her when those precepts
are culled from the bible. When its teseb;nos
are 50 presented As to leave their trscinps on
mind and heart, infdslity can rever find a
In that mind or heart. The div;d.
ng line between reason and faith may rise
up like barrier, still It will not prove an
obstacle impossible. The study of tho
scriptures is one profitable alike to the young
and the old, and it lie its influence that can
check the wave of diabelief that III rootor. a.