Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1881-08-11
Helena, Montana, Thursday, August II, 1881.

those who reject the Gospel only the very
few whoare endowed with exceptional powers
of penetration and perspicacity, are liable to
the awful visitation of everlasting perdtion
This is placing a tax on menticulture that
should close every seminary of learning in
Christendom.
How could the sufferings of Christ who
was himself innocent, satisfy the demands OF
justice against the guilty, and wherefore
asks Mr.. Ingersoll. AS good Christians we
all know how and why nevertheless we are
eager to hear logical and invincible reason
from our champion, that we ourselves, being
! less astute, may belabor with it the first in
fdel we meet who echoes that threadbare
question. Alas! we are again disappointed
our advocate fails us just where we the most
need his aid. Here is what he says and all
steal question, which it is not necessary for
me to discuss here. AS matter of fact,
Christ died that sinners might be reconciled
to God, and in that sense he died for them
that is, to furnish them with the means of
averting divine justice which their crimes
had provoked
Knowing as we do that Judge Black is not
ill-informed as to history, we can recocile his
manifest mistatements only by assuming
that his defence of Christianity was in
tended by him to appeal to the understand
ing and prejudice of only the grossly ignor-
ant mass, and that he sought to impose upon
that ignorance We are confident he would
not contenn the knowledge of friend Or
equal by assuring him that the prosecutions
of the unbelievers have at all times been the
result of political movements purely. Mr.
Ingersoll charges that Christians have been
guilty of wanton and wicked persecution"
If it is pertinent at all in this discussion to
reply to this charge (and we cannot see that
it can i'll any way effect the subject matter)
surely we are entitled to better answer
than our champion has selected. Here is
what he says "All the wtongs of this ma
ture which history records have been the
work of politicians, aided often by priests
and ministers who were willing to deny their
Lord, and desert to the enemy for their tenn
poral interest" Would it not have been better
to attribute the atrocities Of the middle ages
and indeed of modern times, to ignorance?
VIII any informed man venture 70 assert
that Philip II. or Margaret of Parma, or
Mary of England, or James l., or the present
Gar, was not thoroughly conscientious in his
Or her devotion to Christ while committing
the enormities which have backened their
memories for all time? Might not Judge
Black have urged with more force and truth,
as he had urged but little while before to
relieve Jehovah of the charge of directing
determination and death against the enemies
of Israel and Judea, namely, eXpediency,
that the very life of q nation is imperilled
by the retention of the infidel within its
realm. An insufficient reason, to be sure, for
wholesale butchery Of those whose only
crime consisted in not possessing sufficiently
exalted analytical powers of intellect to en-
able. them to justly interpret ''the plan for
the rescue of sinners from the legal opera
tion of divine justice, yet preferable certain
ly to gross peryersion of history whereby
we may scarcely hope to impose on an ordi-
nary school girl.
We always tremble when our dear faith is
attacked through the miracles Mr.. Inger-
soil so assails us, and Mr. Black sees fit to
answer him, but how? After what we have
already listened to we cannot hope that he
has done so logically, and we are not de-
ceived. Accounts Of miracles are always
false says Mr.. Ingersoll, to which Mr.. Black
replies: They miracles become deniable
only when it is shown that the great miracle
of making the world was never performed"
Let us pause for moment. AS .iurist
Judge Black must be conscious that his sen
tence as it is now framed is reckless evasion
of the rules of evidence and logic. A mir
acle is 4 phenomenon directly in conflict
with our experience; hence, he who asserts
it accepts the onus probaRdi and must affirm
atively show its existence before he be al
lowed to base a syrthesis thereupOn. With +
out presuming to interfere with the learned
gentleman's diction, we are still emboldened /
to suggest that if the aphorism were changed
to read: They tmiracles) become believ-
able only when the creation of the world is
shown to be miracle it would conform to
the requirements OF discussion, and afford
for consideration, while at present
it precludes debate, by affirming the very
thing that is denied, to-wit, miracles.
We are pleased that Mr.. Black assures the
enemies of our church that virtue, justice,
Intellectual liberty, refinement, beneyolence,
md true wisdom are the fruits solely of our
,eligion; for there are those even in the
small and deyout community in which we
i've who are presumptuous enough to affirm
hat we might still possess all Of those bless
ngs by the pure aid of intellectual advance
nent, independent of the valued aid of
Ihrist's teaching; and even to a higher de-
,ree had not Christianity seen fit to repress
or many centuries all intellectual growth,
md to crush every attempt at enquiry which
might lead mankind out of the dark and
blood-stained depths of superstition and fam
aticism, into the broad light Of truth and al