Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1881-08-04


can be done or commanded by that Soy
ereign Being whose will alone is the ulti-
mate standard of all justice. -''' ''
But Mr. Ingersoll is still dissatisfied.
He raises objections as false, fieeting and
baseleSs as clouds, and insists that they
are as stable as the mountains, whose
everlasting foundations are laid by the
hand Of the Almighty. 1 will compress
his propositions into plain words print
ed in quotations, and, taking a look at
his misty creations, let them roll away
and vanish into air one after another.
Christianity offers eternal salvation
as the reward Of belief alone" This is a
Misrepresentation simple and naked.
No such doctrine is propoundsd in the
Scriptures, or in the creed of any Chris
tian Church. On the, contrary, it is dis
tinctly taught that faith avails nothing
without repentance, reformation and
newness of life. bgG 2nfIgi9rlHhsm
81. THE mere failure to believe tits pun
ished in hell" l have never, known
any Christian man or woman to assert
this. 1t is universally agreed that chill
dren too young to understand it do not
need to believe it. And this exemption
extends to adults who have never seen
the evidence, or, from weakness of In
tellect, are incapable of weighingit. Lu-
natics and idiots are not in the least dam
ger. and, for aught,I know, this catego-
ry may, by stretch of Gods mercy, in
clude minds constitutionally sound, but
with faculties so perverted by education,
habit, or passion that they are incapable
of reasoning. / sincerely hope that, upon
this or some other principle, Mr.. Inger-
soil may escape the hell he talks about
40 mIlch s9fIulahl bHE Siif- -la 1888
"The mystery of the second birth is
incomprehensible." Christ established
a new kingdom IN the world, but not OF
it. Subjects were admitted to the priv
ileges and protection of it's government
by process equivalent to- naturaliza-
ton. ,,,.., sfssagsc ain astFd fi4ffi
"The doctrine of the atOnement is alb
surd, unjust and immoral The plan of
salvation, or any plan for the rescue of
sinners from the legal operation of Di-
vine Justice, could have been framed
only in the councils of the Omniscisnt
Necessarily its heights and depths are
not EASILY fathomed by finite intelli-
Igence.0 Here is a rash, superficial man,
without training or habits of reflection,
who, upon mere glance, declares that
it ''must be abandoned because it seems
to him absurd, unjust and immoral"
sHe does not comprehend how justice
and mercy can be blended together in
the place of redemption, and. therefore
it cannot be true" A thing is not ne
cessarily false because he does not un-
derstand it; he can not annihilate a
principle or a-fact by ignoring it. The
union of mans soul with his body
is not only an unknowable but an unim-
aginable mystery. Is it therefore false
that connection does exist between
matter and spirit? t# sal a..iH-i
3o"What,' he again asks, "would We
think of man who allowed another to
die for a crime which he himself had
committed ?" l answer that man who
by any contrivance causes his own of
tense to be visited upon the head of an
innocent person is unspeakably. de-
praved. But are Christians guilty of
this baseness because they accept the
blessings of an institution which their
great Benefactor died to establish? 10y
atty to the King who has erected most
beneficent government for US at the cost
of His life-fidelity to the Master who
bought us with His blood-is not the
fraudulent substitution of an innocent
person in place of a criminal. t.
"The doctrine of non-resistance, for
giveness of injuries, reconciliation with
enemies, as taught in the New Testa-
ment, is the child of weakness, degrading
and unjust" This is the whole sub
stance of a long, rambling diatribe, as
incoherent as Sick mans dream. Chris
tianity does not forbid the necessary de-
Tense of civil society or the proper vim
dicatiOn of personal rights. But. to
cherish animosity, to thirst for mere re-
venge, to hoard up wrongs, real or fan
cied, and lie in wait for the chance of
paying them-baek; to be impatient, un-
forgiving, malicious and cruel to all who
have crossed us-these diabolical pro-
pensities are checked aud curbed by tho
authority and spirit of the Christian re-
ligion and the application of it has con-
yerted men from low ,savages into re-
fined and civilized beings.
i"The punishment of sinners in eternal
hell is excessive" n The future ofHthe
soul is subject on which, we have very
dark views. In our present state, the
mind takes in no idea except what is
conveyed. to it through the bodily senses.
All our conceptions of the spiritual
world are derived from some analogy to,
material things, and this analogy must
necessarily be very remote, because the
nature of the subjects compared is so
diverse that close similarity can not
be even supposed. ~ sod --.5 .sdJ !
But says he, christians have been
guilty of wanton and wicked persecu-
tion." 1t is true that some persons, pro-
Tossing Christianity, have violated the
fundamental principles of their faith by
iniicting violent injuries and bloody
wrongs upon their .fellow-men. But the
perpetrators of these outrages were in
fact not Christians; they were either
hypocrites from the beginning or else
base apostates-:in6dels. or something
worse -hireling wolves, whose gospel
was their maw Not one of them ever
pretended to find warrant for his con-
duct in any preeept of Christ or any doc
trine of his Church. All the wrongs Of
this nature which history records have
been the work of politicians, aided often
by priests and ministers who were will
ing to deny their Lord and desert to the
enemy for the sake of their temporal
interests.
aThe Gospel Of Christ does not satisfy
the hunger of the heart.P That depends
upon what kind of heart it is. If it
hungers after righteousness, twill sure
ly be filled. 1t is probable, also, that if
it hungers for the filthy food of goddess
philosophy, it will get what its appetite
demands. That was an expressive phrase
which Carlyle used when he called mod
ern infidelity "the gospel of dirt"
christianity is pernicious in its moral
effect, darkens the mind, narrows the
soul, arrests the progress of. human So
ciety, and hinders civilization" ylral
Mr.. Ingersoll, as q Jealous apostle of
the GOSPEL of dirt" must be expected
to throw a good deal of mud. When /