The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1881-04-22
THE ArHxtsrIc TIDE
SWEEPING OVER THE CONTINENT.

TIE threatened Destruction Of the Simple
Faith Of the Fathers by the Vain Deceit.
Of Modern Phitosophers-An AaacA
Christians Must Meet.
The dread sign of the times, as see it, i.
growing skepticism in che leading circles Of
thought aud action throughout the country
"a swelling tide Of atheism aud uubeliei
that has already swept over many of the out.
posts of religion. FEs 'gss.. .Fss t
am not alarmed By tho fact that Henry
Ward Beecher SHOOK hands with Ingersoi
on q public stand, spd has since swung be-
yond the limit of, orthodoxy, any more th an
Lam ressured By the fact that Stephen H,
Tying has, by iudorsing the miracles n,
Loprdre, swung back into the strong hold
suf supotst TkAle ara mere. .psrs. mi
: expressions that may hear much or little
They may be classed with the complaint oi
DR.. Talnage that he found religion dead in
circuit of 5000 Mills of travel last wear
which complaint is balanced by the asser-
tion OF DR.. Hall that the growth Of reli.
gious schtihnent, @as sa 6ser5so decisive as at
present. -
have noted in the FIRST place, that the
iatter-day writers-novelists, scientists, and
essayists-are arraying themselves in great
force either openly on the side Of skepticism,
or are treating religious sentiment with a
readiness of touch and lack of reverance
that is hardly less dangerous. need not
run over the lists of scientists, beginning
with Tyndall, Huxley and Stephens, that
have raised negation-nor recount the mum
Der Of novelists who follow tho lead of
sweet George Eliot, the sad aud gentle wo-
man, who allied sentiment to positivism so
subtly, and who died with the promise on
her lips that her life would 'be gathered
like scroll in the tomb, unread forever
who said that she wanted no future that
broke the ties Of the past" and has gone
TO meet the God whose existence she denied.
We oil know that within the past twenty
years there has been an alarming increase
of atheism among the leading writer's in all
branches. But it is the growth of skep-
ticism among the people thAt has astonished
me.
am not misled by the superb eloque
of Ingcrsoll nor the noisy blasphemy OF his
imitators. was with five journalists, and
found that every one Of them were skep-
tics, two OF them in the most emphatic sense.
In sleeping car with eight passengers, av.
erage people take it, I found that three
were confirmed atheists, three were doubt
ful about it, and two were old fashioned
Christians. A young friend IF mine,
Journalist and lecturer, asked me few
months ago what l thought of his prepar-
ing lecture that would out.do Ingersoll-
his excuse being that he found Ingersoll SO
popular. [ asked Henry Watterson once
what effect Ingersols lectures had on the
Louisville public. "No more than a thea.
trical representation" was the quick reply.
Watterson was wrong. have never seen
n man who came away from an Ingersoll lec-
ture as stout sf faith and as strong in heart
as he was whea hs went there.
do not know that this spirit Of irreligion
and uabelief has made such inroad on the
churches. 1t is as yet simply eating away
the material upon which the churches must
recruit aud perpetsate themselves. There
is large body Of men aud women-the
brlk probably of our population that is
between the church aud its eDemies-not
members Of the church or open professors
or religion, they have yet had reverence of
religious beliefs, have respected the rule Of
conscience, and believed in the existence Of
one Supreme Being. These men and wo.
men s.ave been useful to the cause of reli-
gion in that they held all tho ,utposts about
the camp Of the church militant, and pro.
teeted il with enwrapping conservatism and
sympathy. Il is this class of people that
are now yiolding TO the assaults Of the in
fidel. Having none Of tho inspiration of
religsou, and possessing neither the cnthu-
siasm Of converts nor the faith of veterans,
they are easily bewildered and overcome.
It's careless and unthinking multitude
on which the atheists are working, and the
very inertia Of a mob will carry thousands
If the drift of the mass once sets to the
ocean. And the man or woman who rides
on the ebbing tide goes never to return
Religious beliefs once shattered are hardly
mended. The church may reclaim its sin
ners, but its skcptics, never.
II is not surprising that this period Of
critical Investigation into all creeds aud be.
liefs has come. II is logical epoch, come
10 its appointed time. It is one Of the pen
nlties OF progress. ROSA, -, ss,.st
We have stripped, all the earth Of mys.
terry, and brought all its phenomena under
the square and compass--so that we might
have expected science to doubt the mystery
of life itself, and to plant its theodalito for
measuremement Of the eternal, and pitch
its cruciblc Cor an analysis of the soul II
was natural that the Greek should be led Ia
the worship Of his physical gods, for the
earth itself was mystery that he could not
divine--a vastness aud vagucness that ht
could not comprehend. But We have faith
omed its uttermost secret---fe its most Sc
cret pulse -girdled it with steel essei
itand trapped it to our liking. What wa,
mystery is now emonstration--what wa,
vague is now apparent. Science has dis