Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-04-30

Among the phenomena presented to-day
to the eye Of tn, thoughtful observer the at
titude of the icDnoclast Ingersoll is deserving
OF notice and reflection. To blame him is
easy, as many Of the preachers are very care
full to prove. To account for him, and Tor
the welcome that everywhere crowds accord
him, is not easy, and his confutors let that
side Of the subject alone. He is a blasphemer
without being a blackguard; mocker at
religion without being immoral in his life;
despiser Of the teachings of christianity, yet
without virulence toward its generators and
advocates. Nor is he an ignorsmus throw
ing mud, nor an unbalanced visionary, in
capable of exercising judgment. The vulgar,
immoral, ignorant, unbalanced or prohigate
creature usually pictured by the preachers
as the ideal "infidel," is not Ingersoll; there
fore Ingersoll is-to large portion OF the
religious world that never entertained an
honest doubt or read an uDorthodox book
sort Of unnatural being. He has a depraved
heart, but is pure in conduct. His views, his
ideas, his principles, all twisted, distorted,
false and awry yet he walks his way through
life as correctly as the average Of men, and
much more soberly and virtuously than a
large portion of them do. To the usual,
stereotyped believer there is no possibility
of chasing the man. He is intellectually a
contradiction, and morally an enigma. Put
ting aside unreasoning belief on one hand,
and stupid unbelief in all that does not come
within material apprehension on the other,
we find Mr.. Ingersoll TO be man of quick
natural insight; he has keen perception Of
incoDgruity, and is therefore subtle de-
tector of shams. With the instinct to detect
is combined the impulse to expose and de-
nonnce. Unfortunately this instinct and
this impulse are not accompanied by acute
power of logical discrimination; the judg-
ment is therefore liable TO err, and prejudice
has power to blind, SO that associated facts
are regarded as identical, and the indigna-
tion against sham is not safe from attacking
the reality the sham fraudulently initiates.
Had "Hamlet" been incapable of distinguish
ing his fathers spirit fronf 4 common Cock
Lane ghost, he never could have been that fas-
cinating embodiment of genius Shakespeare
has 80 wildly portrayed. Jesus detected the
ol Tic ndIlhStSJ DdAc
the glazing cunning of the Sadducees, and
pierced to the marrow the groveling slavish-
ness Of the Jewish legalist to the bare
letter, and his quick appreciation dis
covered and exposed selfish motive
under The guise Of reverential ODE
dience. But the grand characteristic of
Christ was that he did not only expose and
battle error, merely negative proceeding,
but he taught truth as a congeries of athrma-
tive principles. Mr.. Ingersoll also has a keen
ear for the ring of false coin, but he has not
the power of analysis that eliminates the
false ingredient which constitutes the fraud.
Like a man who having been bit by snake
hates all snakes, having detected counterfeit
religion he declares that no religion is true.
A defect in the power of indiyidualizing de-
tails eventuates in defective, because pre-
mature generalization. From heredity and
early environment having natural and ac-
quired disgust for vice, and every form of
falsehood, or what is made 10 appear like
falsehood, or is by mental association derived
from observed but not Disseminated facts
connected with fraud and sham, he came
cordially TO hate and vehemently denounce
religion. Unlike Jesus he is mere iconoclast,
n destroyer, a distributor of negations.
He casts down, but to him who demands OF
the universe whence? why? and whittier?
he is dumb, for he constructs nothing. Born
into a world where the absolute is untaughi
BY either shining star or somber earth, hav-
ing no resources beyond their revelations, he
wanders on in gloom through life where
suffering is sure, comfort uncertain and joy
heeting. He treads path of whose issue he
is ignorant; he knows only that injustice
rules over human life, for oppression and
wrong, when prudently inflicted, are con-
tinually rewarded, while uDyielding devotion
to principle rarely wins life's prizes or escapes
Its rebuffs, and in death the wrong is not
made right, for the injured and the injurer
share the same annihilstion. Life, there
fore, as nature reveals it, is a scene OF certain
sorrow, checkered with transient Joys, while
death makes permanent the injustice life has
endured or inflicted. Such is the sum OF
mere negative teaching, philosophy that
brands nature as cruel and unjust, and yet
she is the only instructor Of him for whom
Jesus is not sufficiently good nor God sui
ficiently righteous.