Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1881-05-15
Why DOUBrERS EXIST.
,erefore did'st thou doubt?-MArTHEw

Much comment has been made
throughout the country of late upon the
fact that while the ministers of the Cos
pei are preaching every Sunday to beg
carly congregations, that rank infidel and
revller of religion, Bob Ingersoll, can
draw an audience of from three to five
thousand to listen to and applaud his
diatribes upon the religion of Christ and
those who profess it. There must be
some reason for the fact Some attempt
to account for it on the ground that
while Ingersoll is rare event, the min
listers are an everyday occurrence, and
hence the novelty takes for night,
though the regular preachers have aver
age audiences throughout the year,
which will aggregate much more in point
of numbers than Ingersoll's auditors. This
may be, and probably is, true, yet the
fact that the churches are deserted when
Ingersoll speaks calls for abetter explain
alton 1 s@ g
The real secret of the case is that the
world is full of doubt. The orthodox re-
ligion does not afford explanation for
many mooted points of theology, and it
is natural for people, if they find no rea-
sonable explanation of what appears to
them to be simple propositions, to doubt
the truth of the whole system of the
Christian religion. They do not under
stand the doctrine of the atonement, and
have probably been unable to find any
reasonable calculation of it. They
go to the extreme of dis
belief, without stopping to in
quire as to how they shall reconcile
that unbelief with their judgment. Pro-
testing against one form of absolutism
they rush blindly to another form, and
from being deep in the mud they become
engulfed in the mire.
The preachers of the gospel are much
to blame in this matter. They have been
educated to believe certain religious theo-
ries, and they believe them as rule with
out questioning. They think that the
principles they have espoused-perhaps
only after long course of argument
should be accepted by the people without
questioning-that their spse DIGIT should
be accepted as final judgment. They
forget that others besides themselves may
be reasoning human beings, and ask the
why or wherefore of this or that particu-
lar point in the creed of the church If
blind acquiesence is refused they are
ready to denounce the doubter as hereti-
cal or perverse, fit fuel for the fire that is
ever burning for those who reject the
divine plan of salvation.
What are the people to do about this
matter of religion? Because their fathers
and their grandfathers belonged to given
church are they to be compelled to admit
that it is the only catholic church, and
that all others are perEerse and heretical?
Are they not to be permitted to judge for
themselves-to take the bible and inter-
pref Its precepts according to their own
ideas according to their own reason? In
these days, when the necessity for a
revision of the bible is admitted, and
when the foremost ecclesiastics in the
world acknowledge that the previously &C
cepted version of that work is full of er-
rors, both verbal and doctrinal, it ILL
becomes any preacher to force his inter
probation of disputed point of theology
upon his congregation, and to insist that
it be accepted as the true Interpretation
of the will of God.
None can properly lay claim to infal-
libility in this world on matters of which
they have no positive knowledge. The
theory of religion is at best mystery.
1t depends for its permanence upon the
credulity of the people, and no amount
of sophistry can remove it from that po-
sition. One has right to doubt where
there is no evidence He can believe if
he chooses, but he has no right to i'm
pugn others who do not accept his views
of a question that has ever been and al
ways will be an unfathomable mystery,
only to be explored by divinity itself.
Yet there are many points that tend
towards the support of the Christian
theory. which would be easily explain
able if the doctors of divinity would but
take the trouble. They should forego
their self-assumed position of arbiters of
the consciences of the public and en-
deavor to convince instead of command
ing. The day for absolute priestly die
tation has gone by. There are many men
in the pews who are as able to draw con-
illusions as is the man in the pulpit.
Only the ignorant can be Influenced by
the demands of the pulpit; the wisest
may be convinced by its argu-
ments. Infdel lecturers suggest
doubts; it is the business of the Christian
ministers to remove those doubts by ar
guments and citations of fact. 1t will
not answer to cite old traditions in sup
port of dogma. 1t must be supported
by better proof. Christianity has the adj
vantage Of its opponents in the inherent
belief in Immortality. Is it to be van
quished for want of arguments in sup
Bort of that inherent belief! If SO, the
religion of the present day has but poor
Doubts are natural and