The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1881-11-19

|ticle would appear forthwith, rs II did. Mr.
BlackNindlng the Rerieo apparently controlled
by lngersoll to SUIT himself aud that he (Black
must dance to his convenience, n-r!cred ha
he was not bound 10 20 any further.
Mr.. Black, however, cannot l'rcgo III,
Temptation, in his short letter % the Press, I,
make few incislve comments on ingcrSolri
fifty page "lbel." Pushing aside 49, sn0Ily
irrelevant Ingersol'- imagined powerful blow
at the Almighty" in his dit'rlre against the
Jewish institutions, he pays especial attention
to what he calls lngrr-oll's 'tauhranade ol
polygamy." Says Judge Back:
| BY the unai0,d influence ct the Church
alone this vice has been cxIlrpalci completely
and perfectly. In Christian Countries The uui
versal rule is that one man snal! Ia the hui,
band of one wife and no more; and II is Meth
or the rule nor the practice anywhere else on
the face of the globe. NV, a person who has
| Ordlnary sense must see that the moral merit
of Christs Gospel in this Respect is directly
prOpOrtoned to the magnitude of the evil from
which it has relieved human society But
Mr.. Ingersoll tries To blackcn the character OF
the Christian religion by railing at the bad
practice which 1t has opposed and destroyed
If he bad flung out at homogeneous marriage,
which Christianity upholds, his act, though
unjust, might have had an apparent ohjectnot
altogether preposterous. Indeed, monogamy
Is as open to mere Vulgar vituperation as poly.
gamy. When unClean mind exerts itself to
imagine what may take place it is rs easy to
talk about brutality and the animal ocgrada.
ton OF woman in one case rs another. To the
hao Iv oil fhinro ra hpoetlI IN nniDt of Y
the great body of unbelevers have denounced
the Christian institution Of marriage with es
pecial bitterness To tie one man and one wo.
nan together by a bond which nothing but
death can dissolve il, in their opinion, not
only unjust and immoral, but base apd bru
tai tyranny which imposes degrading re-
stralnt upon the natural rights OF men and wo
men to love and cohabit with whom they
please. This is a prime and prominent par,
Of the atheistic theory, everywhere advocated
by Its regular organs and its greatest disciples
In France, where their societies are compact
and powerful, they define their creed subs,an.
TALLY thus: I. There Is no God. 2. Religion
Is Q lie. g. Property is theft. 4. Love must
be free. 5. Marriage is slavery. g. Children
belong to the State and not to anybody in par.
ticular.
This is 1.-THE gospel of dirt" don't say tina,
or at least he practices, the Christian doctrine
on the subjects OF marriage, paternity ana
property, not because he is bound by the Dr..
vine commandment. but because he feels like
il. Others, rejecting as he does the golden
metwand of the law" have an equal right to
take their own feelings as the measure of
righteousness. So one set of atheists curses
marriage and another blackguards polygamy,
and they are both right If there be no God
above all aud over all.
do not intend this as q substitute for the
answer which would have made ii the pre-.
siding genius of the RerieU had been prop
tious. My principal object is to show that his
"circular abuse" amounts to absolutely moth
ing. A regular reply would prove that in
every line of his last article he has either fasi
he'd history or applied to it an erroneous in
Judge Black "plcks up" IngersOll hand.
somely on an.ther. point. In his reply he
that Judge B. misrepresents him as
there is no God. He claims not
to deny the existence of supreme belng-a
supreme intellIgence-but maintains that he
is not the God of the Jews or Christians On
this Judge Is. remarks
If he does not deny the existence of God
bis occupation Is gone. The object, therefore,
of his highest ambition ever since he took the
stump against Christianity has been and is TO
annihilste the evidence which shows that the
world has a Maker and Moral Governor.
This being his great central point on which
all other points must turn, he has, of course,
laid himself out to do his very best for 1t. Let
rs see what he has achieved.
thought was giving true and accurate
account of his theory when l said that he re-
garded the universe as natural; that lit came
into being of its own Accord" that ut made
It's own laws at the start ana afterward i'm
improved itself considerably by spontaneous
evolution" But he denies that this is true
exposition Of his views, and he exercises his
conceded right to define them again more
sharply than he did before Now he says that
he universe did not come into being at all 1t
llpays ,oas, nor did ii make its own laws, for
i has no ldbS.
If the material universe existed, just as 1t Is
now, from all unbegun eternity, there is, to be
sure, not much chance for creator to have
lone any work; if its harmony IS preserved
and the uniformity OF its action maintained
without any rule or regulation prescribed by a
superior power, then there is and has been no
need of q law siver; God is, therefore, so use
ess being that he must lie theoretically blot
led out Of existence.
The Bessemer Steel Robbery.
The last article of David A. Wells on free