The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-10-29
MIR INGERSOLL AND THE NORTH
AMERICAN REVIEW.

ronto, Canada, had seized consignment of
Tom Pane's cage of Reason and Vol
taires Pocket Theology" both iniidel
works, This act, it was said, had been de-
nounced by all the provincial press of Can
ada, except the Toronto Mail, elassed as
the organ of Colonel Patton, the collector
who made the seizure. 1t seems that the
affair has caused great excitement through
out the Dominion, especially in Toronto,
where number of citizens contributed
money to the amount of 81 900 and donated
it to the bookseller to whom the books
were consigned to test the matter in the
courts. So gre1t is the excitement caused
by the seizure that the ministers in the va
rious churches felt themselves called upon
to preach sermons defending the action of
the collector and the secretary of"the Sec
ular society" an infidel organization,
we presume, under instructions,
wrote to Colonel Robert Ingersoll
asking his assistance, asking him to come
to Toronto and deliver his lecture on Tom
Paine, and characterizing the action of the
collector in Selling the books in question
as "thc tyranny of the government Can
ada being province of Great Britain, with
local government of its own, but on the
same model of that of Great Britain, we are
not prepared to say whether the laws there
justify this seizure or not. If such thing
was done in this country, we would unhesi-
tatngly denounce it as tyranny and oppres-
sion. Such action only brings these books
into undue prominence and notoriety; it
assumes the form of an invasion upon the
rights, privileges and liberties of that class
of our citizens who may believe their teach
ngs and who may desire to read them and
to inculcate their principles. Whenever
this is the case, the intidel, the deist-the
man or woman who doubts the Bible and
its lessons, who denies the Divinity of
cries out persecution and thereby he
strengthens his cause and builds up
friends for himself and for his cause. The
Philadelphia INQUIRER and several other
papers have severely indeed in some instan-
ces bitterly, criticised the North American
Review for publishing Col. lngersoll's inf
del articles in his controversy with Judge
Jere Black. We must take issue with the
Inquirer and the other papers that have
sided with it in their attacks on the North
American Review. In this free land ofours
every man has constitutional and legal
right to worship God according to the die
tates of his conscience. He may be Bap-
fist, Presbyterian, a Methodist, Luther
an, Catholic, Jew, u Mohammedan, Il
bunker Shaker, Quaker, an Adventist
be anything his Judgment and his con-
science may approve, or he may be an inf
del, q disbeIicver in the Bible and in God,
and he may preach his faith whenever and
wherever he pleases so lie does
not infringe upon the rights and
prerogatives of others in so doing.
This being true, who then can
question Mr.. lngersoll's right toscoiI at the
Bible and its teachings, to deny the Diyini-
ty of Christ to preach that there is 10 God?
II he has us an individual and as a citizen
of this country legal right to do this thing,
why animadvert upon the North American
Review, public periodical published in
the interest of no one class of people, but
for all the world who may choose to read,
for publishing Colonel lngcrsoll's utter
ances? lfthe Bible and the Christian re-
ligion if the word of God and the revela-
tons from His Son cannot survive or stand
up under the onslaught of Colonel fnger-
soil, or y.othcr man or set of men, then
the Bible and the Christian religion would
seem to be failures, are but as deadsca fruit
to the lips of the weary and the seeker after
light and happiness Since the time that
Christ lived, in all countries, in all ages
and in all times, there have been men who
scoiltd at the Bible and at the religion of
Christ. Great minds have ridiculcd
the one and blasphcmed the 9TH
err, and the Tom Paines, the Jean
Jacques Rousseaus, the Noltaircs have
poured forth the thunders of their logic
the lghtninss of their sarcasm and their
satire against the Bible and against the re-
ligion of Christi To-day the Bible is read
in almost everytonguc known to the earth,
and every land and cline, on every green
island in the sen the temples and the al
tars of God have been reared, and the beau
ties and glories of the religion that Christ
taught isinstilled into the minds and hearts
of the people, "From Greenland's icy
mountains to India's coral strand is this
the case, and all the lectures, all the es-
says that Colonel Ingersoll can deliver or
publish cannot and will not affect either the
Bible or religion one jot or title more
than did Rousseau, Voltaire or Paine.
He but relterates the anathcmas of those
who, in former ages, have assailed the
church and its teachings, and while it is
true that he clothes these old thoughts, old
arguments, In the grandest and prottiest OF
words, using sublime imagery, u
wealth of rhetoric, even to
promsion, yet what does it avail?
While all reflective citi2cnsmust admit tina,
the tranquility of society depends So much
on the stability ofits religious convictions
that no one can he justified in wantonly
disturbing and rudely undermining them,
yet the history of Europe demonstrates
that governmental interference with ones
religious convictions or his PRONUNCIATION oi