Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-11-26
Inffdefify az. the Old Faith.

To the Editor of the Globe:
The editor of the Pioneer Press, or some
one who writes editorials for him, in an is
sue of that journal, dated Monday, Nov.
Goth, comes down pretty heavily on Col.
Ingersoll and on his lecture recently deliv-
cred in st. Paul. 1t seems that Col. Inger-
soil, as usual, acclaimed against Christian
ity at large, treating that religion, as all
Others, as most absurd and unworthy of
adoption in rational being. The only
system of salvation he advocates, says the
Pioneer Press, is that of the body-good
fellowship, good cooking, good clothes,
the training of the intellect and absolute
freedom of thought. The editor of the
Pioneer Press, or the one that writes edi-
tOrials for him, does not like Col. Inger-
soils doctrine; not so much because he
ridicules the Calvanists and the Catholics,
in whose belief there are many errors, and
who believe, as he says in the mentioned
editorial, in obsolete dogmas, which
have been long and openly rejected by the
more enlightened followers of modern
Christianity, but on account of his declaim-
ing against liberal and progressive Chris
tianity. In the first place, I am afraid the
Press is mistaken in its opinion that the
large audience of st. Paulites that greeted
Col. Ingersoll on the evening of his lee
ture, went thither for mere amusement and
curiosity. 1t is not, I am sure, the fashion
among good ana intelligent Christians,
believing in the danger of temptation
against which Christ and his apostles so
earnestly warned them, to repair with their
families at the expense of one Or more
dollars, which might be otherwise well
disbursed, to public hall in order to
listen for amusement's sake, to one of the
greatest and lowest blasphemers against
Christ and his church. This is not, indeed,
an eficacious means of arresting, but
rather of encouraging blasphemy. It
seems more according to reason to
suppose that the majority went there,
having been previously led into
grievious doubts about the doctrines of
Christianity by such quasi Christian min
listers as live in costly houses, believe in
good cooking and good clothes, and free
thought, and liberal training, just as we'll
as Mr.. Ingersoll does; openly teaching, in
the name of Christ, that their is no hell or
hades, as it is modernly called; and that
original sin is barbarism, and that Christ
is not God, as has been publicly upheld
by colonial Christian bishop, still hold
ing his office and drawing from the Eng
ish government bountiful salary. It is
not as the Pioneer Press would, in vain
make US believe, the orthodox, but rather
the liberal and inconsistent Christian, that
to some extent, lends support to Col. |
lngersolFs Glow merry making of the
Christian religion; it is the easy rejection,
adoption and readoption of the old
Christian dogmas just as suits our con-
veniency or fancy which makes him, per-
haps, somewhat logically conclude that we
might as we'll do away with it altogether
and adopt with him the pagan sensualist's |
motto: LET US eat, let us drink, let US
crown our heads with roses, for tomorrow
we die" 1t is a noted fact that if such |
men as Ingersou ever become converts be- |
fore they die, as has happened more than |
once, VIZ: Beranger, Dumas and many |
others, they want no iberalized nor adul- |
terated Christianity, but they all die in the |
''old faith" Mallock, in his work SIS Life |
Worth Living" after having shown the
shallowness of infdel theories advanced by |
such men as Tyndall, Paine and others,
the objection made against |
being SO miserably slaugh-
tered and divided into so many different |
and inconsistent tenets, boldly asserts that
to find Christianity as it is, as it was and
IS it always must be,we must go and find
in Rome, where it is preserved and sent
forth into the world uncorrupted and un-
changed. (See Mallock's work..
To be both short and candid in the mat
ter, must say that, although bitterly de-
plore the rapid and baneful growth of in
fidelity and materialism among all classes,
still wonder at its comparatively slow
progress, knowing full well how unmerci-
fully Christianity is slaughtered, and how
it's most fundamental dogmas, on which
the moral law is founded and the belief in
which is the only safeguard against both
moral and social transgression, are either
openly denied or called into doubt, thus
making of Christianity nothing better than
4 religious opinion to be interpreted at OPP
lion, depriving it of its divinely revealed
and that by men who claim to be
the guides and leaders of Christ's people,
st. Paul, Nov. 81. LOUIS CoRHEIIs, G. p !