The Vancouver independent. (Vancouver, W.T. [Wash.]) 1875-1910, 1882-02-23
DR.. Talmage on Ingersoll.

81 impanel you, my audience, as jury
to render true verdict in this case of
Christianity versus Infidelity," said DIR.
Talmage in the Brooklyn Tabernacle the
other morning. "Jury impanelled; call
your first witness. Robert G.. Ingersoll.
How shall we swear him? Not on the
Bible, for he believes that to be o pack
of lies. Not with uplifted hands, for
that implies the existence of God. We
will swear him by the rings of Saturn,
the spots on the sun, the caverns of the
moon, the milky way and the nebular
hypothesis. l know nothing of the
private character of Robert g. Ingersoll,
nor do want to know. Although in
lectures and interviews he las used my
name, I have no personal animosity to
him. speak of him in his capacity as q
public teacher. Why do I preach the
three or four sermons that I intend to
preach in answer to this champion
blasphemer of America? Not that
L fear Christianity will be over
borne by his SOOTHING harlequinade.
soil will impede Christianity? I will
flake on the track would impede the $3.50
Chicago express train. Perhaps not so
much as that. It is no more than q howell
in Switzerland impeding an Alpine
avalanche. The very Sabbath after
Ingersoll spoke in this region, extin-
gushing Christianity, we received into
this church 400 souls in public and
beautiful conservation of themselves to
Jesus Christ. There has been accom-
plished for Christianity the last ten
tears as much as was accomplished in
the previous fifty years.
81 preach these sermons for the bene-
fit of individuals. There are Young
men who, through the teaching of Inger-
soil, hay given up their first religion
and then their morals. Let Ingersoll's
teachings triamph and We should soon
fill all the penitentaries, gambling bells
and houses of shame on the continent.
In twenty years we should have hell of
life eclipsing in abomination the hell
Bob Ingersoll has so much laughed at.
''Ingersoll raises o laugh against the
Bible by saying that it teaches that the
world was made out of nothing, and that
he cannot imagine nothing made into
something. In nearly all his lectures he
gives this gigantic Misrepresentation.
offer $1,000 reward to any man who will
show me passage of the Bible that tells
me that the world was made out of
nothing. The first passage in Genesis
says it was made out of Gods omnipo-
tence There is as much difference be-
tween Ingersoll's statement of it and the
truth as there is between the stem of q
ship and the stern. The variation is as
wide as the distance from the top of
the mainmast down to thenacles.
He leaves out In the beginning.
You can roll ten millions or thousands
of years of time into that beginning.
You are not compelled to believe that
the world was made in six days of orr
time. The evening and morning of the
first day may not mean twenty-four
hours, but Gods day. Can you tell me
how a man can give his mind such Q
blasphemous twist as to strike out of
that first chapter of Genesis this verse,
which contains pillows of light starting
up from sapphire seas of glory? There
is as much difference between Ingersolps
statement and the truth as between moth
ing and omnipotence.
II take another step in the impeach-
ment of this witness, running side by
side with him up and down the whole
gamut of his ordinations. He swoops
upon the third or fourth verse, and
wants to know how it was that light
was created three or four days before the
sun shone. This shows Ingersoll's geo.
logical, chemical and astronomical ignor-
ance. If he had stopped the first school
boy he had met he might have learned
that there are other sources of light be-
sides the sun; that there is the light Of
electricity that Herschel and other as
tronomers have held that the sun does
not give light, but is only the candle
stick that holds the light. The boy
might have told him that there was q
time in the history Of the world whom
1900 miles of liquid granite famed with
light. The boy might have told him OF
the aurora borealis and the aurora ans
trails. The boy might have told him
that there are 10, 900 sources Of light be-
sides the light of the sun. If be had
been in school the teacher would have
said: Robert 60 down to the foot Of
the class-the place for your stupidity. +"
His is the most disgusting ignorance
ever exhibited on the lecture platform.
On account Of this willful misrepresen
ton. and of his geological. astronomical,
chemical ignorance, I impeach Robt. G..
Ingersoll as incompetent to give testi-
mony in this case between inhdelity and
Christianity. To-day nail on the front
of the temple Of skepticism this misrep-
resentafion by the Champion blasphemer
of America. Gentlemen OF the jury. /
- 4 A. IL