Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-11-25
ULTRA FREE THOUGHT.
mr.. FrothIpgham,s Remarkable Ad-
missions.
Ne,u York Maa

The most remarkable admission as TO
the failure OF what is termed ''the ultra
free thought movement" to achieve any
desirable positive results, are those made
by Rev. o. B. rockingham to a reporter
Of one of our evening contemporaries
and published on Saturday. 1t is need
less to say that Mr.. rockingham is the
ablest, most scholarly and philosophical
Of all those on this side of the Atlantic
who have 'evoluted" into negation of
the Christian faith. That he has been
earnest and sincere, there can be no
doubt. He has an important though not
large following, who have been drawn
to him by his remarkable powers of clear
and terse expression of the last results
of philosophical unbelief.
Yet he now has the rare and noble
courage to admit that his work has been
a failure. and that he has drawn back in
horror from its tendencies. He says:
'One fact began to loom up before my
mental vision in disquieting way-that
the drift of free thought teaching was
unquestionably toward dead material
ism which have abhOrred as deeply as
any evangelical clergyman know. The
men who would become leaders in the
free-thOugbt movement do not stop
where stop; they feel no tradition
behind them, they have no special train
ing for the work of restoring" in
which light regard much of my work !;
| did not aim to create any new beliefs
or to tear down all existing ones,
but to restore, to bring to light aud
prominence the spiritual essence of
those faiths. Perhaps l am better fitted
for such work than many others be-
cause l have inherited q sense of the
limits of free thought beyond which ma
terialist dogma becomes more offensive
than dOgmatic Calvinism. But the men
whom saw coming upon the stage as
the apostles of the new dispensation of
free thought were destroyers, who tore
down with no thought of building up;
there seemed to be no limit to their de-
structIve mania, and no discrimination
in their work Their notion seemed to
be to make clean sweep of every eX.
isting creed; they apparently knew not
aud cared not whether anything in the
shape of belief should arise from the
ashes of the worlds creeds.
Equally remarkable are his further ad-
missions, when he says
Last summer when in Rome / was
much interested in observing the beha.
vior of the Roman clergy, not the men
high in power and stepped in diplomacy
and intrigue, but the wOrkingmen of the
cburch-the parish priests who went
about among the people as spiritual help
/ ers and almOners. l talked with many
of these men, and found them to be
ignorant, unambitious and superstitious;
,,,I r v~a a hphTVH fhnm
which must mvstify philosophers What
IS this power? / cannot undertake to
say. But it is there, and it may be that
those persons who deny the essential
| truths of revealed religion are all wrong
AT any rate. l, for one, do not care to go
on denying the existence of such a
| force.
To sum up the whole matter, the work
which have been doing appears to lead
| to nothing, and may have been grounded
npOn mistaken premises. Therefore 1t
is better TO stop. But | do not want 10
| give the impression that | recant any
thing. simply stop denying and wait
for more light.
Such declarations by such a man con-
| stitute an important event, as such
worthy of chronicle IS part of the news
of the day. The shallow, reckless and
| indecent assaults on the Christian faith
by such a brawler as Ingersoll mean
nothing. but the fact that he can always
get audiences to pay for hearing what
will loosen all the bonds of religious oh
igalions They are mere ripples on the
SEA of religious discussion. But the al
missions of a deep, unselfish, prOfouod
and learned Gree thinker" Ike Mr.
Rockingham are very important and
/ suggestiYe