The Sentinel. [volume] (Trenton, N.J.) 1880-1882, 1881-07-23
THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION


in justice to our readers and ourselves
we feel compelled to reprint it.
Such is the title given a double
article in the North american Recie,c
for August, that has excited more
interest and discussion than any
magazine article during the last ten
years
The first paper is written by Col
Robert G. Ingerson. In it he arraigns
Christianity and the Bible as teach
ing polygamy, slavery, wars of ex-
termination, persecution for opinions
sake, hatred and superstition and
demands that those passages be
stricken out of the New Testament
which teach that belief is necessary
to salvation that Christ was offered
as an atonement for the sins of the
world !; that the punishment of the
human soul will be eternal that
heaven is the reward of faith, and
that Christ worked miracles upon
earth.
This is followed by a reply from
the pen of Judge jeremiah S. Black,
of Pennsylvania, in which he holds
that the Bible does not teach polyga-
my, but discourages it; that slavery,
under the Jews, was a benefcent
boon; that necessity compelled the
Jews to exterminate the savages that
surrounded them that it was the
highest political economy to punish
those whose belief was antagonistic to
the religion of the state that neither
Christianity nor the Bible teaches
hatred or superstition that the New
Testament does not teach that heaven
is the reward of faith alone that the
evidence of the working of miracles is
incontestable that the doctrine OF
the atonement is unexplainable be-
cause incomprehensible to the finite
mind, and that the dogma of eternal
punishment is not an essential part OF
Christianity.
Christianity and the Bible have
not suffered by Col. Ingersoll's labored
assault The teachings of childhood,
the history and the traditions OF
nearly sixty centuries, that Unborn
religion which makes the very savage
worship the invisible God, are against
him. Nature and reason speak
against him for man recognizes his
Maker in the running brook, the
bursting bud, the green fields and the
towering mountain he hears His
voice in the signing wind, in the break
of the oceans wave and in the roar
of the tempest he sees Him in the
suns and the planets that crowd the
vast armament of heaven; he feels
His presence in that inner conscious
ness of the soul that tells him that
the God-given gift of reason, that
the thinking soul, shall not die with
the perishable body. Even science is
against him, for the ever-acknowl-
edged first cause is a recognition Of
the Almighty creator.
But while Christianity and the
Bible have suffered no harm by the
attack of Col. Ingersoll, they as
suredly have received little benefit
from the manner or the matter Of
their defence by Judge Black.
In refutation of Col. Ingersoll's
charge, that the Bible teaches slavery,
which, Gin all civilized countries, is
not only admitted, but passionately
asserted to be q hideous crime,
Judge Black says that civilized
countries have admitted no such
thing ;" that the idea was first started
by disreputable political faction in
America, nearly forty years ago; that
although they were politically sue.
cessful, by what means and with what
effect upon the morals of the country
I need not say )" and that his faith
and his reason assure him that the
institution of slavery is "a benef.
cent boon" Such a defence of the
iniquitous institution of slavery al
this period in the history of the
century is worse by far than any
attack upon Christianity than Col
Ingerson can make
Speaking of the allegation that the