The Arkansaw traveler., 1884-11-29

it can he creaasa is osa forced oa so tAa idea of . creation that is nos h ik. nor is ie even part of l.; is is an ahsurdiey, peculiarly an Ingezsollism. and is . corner-saOne in his logic. Hewould have you believe that . man must beget his s..Ae- n order tha. he might have a father to beget him. That a woman must give birth to her mother 90 as to have mother to give birth to her, and if she could not give birth to her mother before she was born, so that her mother might give birth to her, therefore she ~as eternal, and was not born at all. If the universe could mt make 6 Creator to create 1t before it was created, therefore it was not created, but is eternal If this is gosd logic, then why is not everything about us not eternals The woman born has the same ground to pre-existent eternity tha, the universe has because she could not give birth to the one of whom she vas born before she vas born in order that she might be born. All women who are not their mothers mother, by the logic of Mir. lngersoll, arc eternal women. All men who are not their fathers father, and all designs who are not the authors of their designers, arc eternal designs. 1t is by such folly that Mir. lngersoll proposes to whirl men around the circle of human ignorance. Not many will take such whirls. They can be taken only by the abandonment of all intellectual candov. MT. IngerSoll follows with another question, after asserting by question, the eternity of the universe. He says "Aad do you not thus avoid at leas, one ab- surdity by saying that the universe has ex- is;ed from eternity, instead of saying that it was created by creator who existed from esernityr' The easiest way to avoid the absurdity that pulls us into the circle of human ignorance, is to let it go. We have no use in the world for the absurd ity that the thing made must make its maker before he can create 1t. Such an absurdity has no place among men. ex. cept in the emergencies of the logic of a lost cause, when the cause is no, worth the logic, as poor as 1t is. If the cond,- tions of the universe are suth that it could not be until, it made q creator to create it, then there can be no universe of such fashion. A creator is as inde- pendent Of his creation as q cause is of its effect. A designer as independent of his design as a cause is Of its effect That every effect must have had cause, is fundamental principle in reasoning.
 But it is not, therefore, necessary that every cause must have an effect. or the causes in the universe, we have affirmed all that need be affirmed of them when we say they must have the power to pro- duce the effect. The planter does not plant seed after the effect from i, as a cause is harvested by him. He has faith enough in it as a cause. able to produce a harvest, before he plants it. The next sentence is Because if your creator ex- isted from eternity and created the uni verse, there was a time when he com menced, and back of that, according to Shelley, is an eternity of idleness' If God created the universe certainly there was a time when He commenced. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth" Mir. Ingersoll reports the eternity of idleness back of creation upon the authority of Shelley. lfHe wanted to be idle whose business was 1t ? The inquiry into that idleness and the use of it as a cause for the rejection of a creator, must rest upon claim upon Him for activity that ansedated creation. Does Mir. lngersoll or Mir. Shelley assert that God owed them work before the commencement of creation and spent an eternity of idleness and did not pay what He owed them, or either of them? Who had the right to His service that made His idleness a cause for saying that He did not create the universe
 The whole trouble with Him as al- leged by MT. ingerson is that He did not do anything before He began to do anything. Well who ever did do any. thing before they began to do anything ' and who svsf did anything without be- ginning to do isi Eternity is ordinarily supposed to be a period embracing all other periods. Mir. lngersoll reports Mir. Shelley as having explored an eternity before oar ete,nity, in which he found God idle. This is a queer 6eid of re- search for an agnostie. He searches an eternity before our eternity, and fns,aA C.r,d ia criminal iflN.@~s. oeyha ara