The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1886-07-04


mud the cross. and there was held a
one OF the sacred symbols tree within
The branches OF which twined the ser
pint" III Mr.. lngerso had taken the
rouble 20 turn to the latest researches
OF NJ lie Plongeoa and Others in Cen
trail America, he would have learned
that unbiased investigation is induced
to zee in this emblem only a reyeroer-
alton of the Ophie worships OF Egypt
As for the Greek legend OF The noOo
being an indeDendent mythus, Anolio-
dOrns and Lucian. who are the author
Z tiles for the Deucallon story. got II
from Semetic sources. II doesn't ap'
pear hat Bob know even this much.
Presently he came 10 his bete NOR.
Christ was a myth.
Under ordinary circumstances this
assertion would be staggerer IN view
of the fact that several hundred million
people have come to regard Christ as al
leas, historic parsonage with pedl-
gree preserved by two warning sects for
l, SO0years. Renan, Strauss, Baner and
all the rest of them have had I'll they
can do TO account for The historic fact.
The gentleman from Peoria doesn't
account for it. He wipes il out. This
method has the merit of convenience
and despatch.
1
probably by some ignorant fishermen
who were regarded as the scum Of the
earth. He isaid Matthew got his story
OF the Virgin from India. Fancy that
poor fellow doing such thing. Prob
ably there Is no miracle recorded so
wonderful as this that Bob has invented
about the manufacture of Christ by
miserable sect. in the face of persecu-
ton. ignominy and death.
The evolution of Christ mythus. as
described by Mr.. lngersoll, exceeds in
modest cocksureness anything except
Mother Goose. His method of shaking
up the antbropomorphitic Greek my
thology with the Hebraic histori al re
cords and the ARABIA an Nights I'm the
dice box OF his imagination is one OF
the most brilliant ieats OF the intellect
ual gambling 1 ever saw.
The gentleman who had previously
abolished God because he had found
that God was not what Bob Ingersoll
wanted him 70 be now quietly elimin-
ated the historic Christ, because hs had
not done what Bob Ingersoll would
have done under the same circum-
stances. The method is more applica
bic 10 the Chinese in the mining dis
tricts than il is to his ORIG facts in the
intellectual domain.
But the measurement Of the large
factors in religion and history in a
Peorian pint cup. it must be frankly |
acknowledged, excited the young bloods |
in the audience to screams of laughter. |
IF Won were going to raise somebody |
from the dead, he said, looking straight 4
az fat young dude in the front row. |
you'd raise some one whom somebody /
knows. Wouldn't your"
You bet i " uld," replied the fat /
dude
IF you wanted to start a religion by |
raising the dead you wouldn't raise un /
known men in Arkansaw? When 4
Herod seized John the Baptist and put
him in prison, and when Jesus heard
OF him. did he save himH The Bible
says he srraightway DEPARTED out of
that country. The men TO be raised
from the dead ought 10 be men that
every body knows. 4
III Christ wanted 70 perform a first
class miracle, why didn't he save John
the Baptist7 1t won't do"
These coDundrums were not fresh,
but they tickled. OF course, like the
minstTel's question, there was but one
answer. The reason why Christ didn't
save John eiBaptist is that CHRIST is a
myth. IL he wasn't myth he would
have saved him.
AS the lecture approached God it be-
came humorous. Bob's cayeat is the
application OF the hilarious TO The inf
mite. In the treatment of skylarks and
daisies he is reverent and pathetic. In
the discussion of eternity or the deity
he Is as sportive as Caliban, as flippant
as Merry Andrew and as inaccurately
yoluble as a drummer.
be Is the only Sunday Eight perform
er OF our generation who can stand up
and declare that man is an orphan at
his birth and an outcast in his DESTINY
70 peals OF laughter. He is wrought TO
a jocund delight as he pictures the hu
man race waiting dnmbly through the
night OF age for the dawn, and he ises
TO the ecstasy of a practical joke as he
tells them there will be no sunrise.
IrreTerent IN his treatment of re-
hgiou, he Is always inaccurate in his
treatment of science, and sentimental
IN his estimate of morals. He uses
facts as a man gathers stones. III they
are good weapons he keeps them; IL
not he ouries them out Of sight. He
declared again that music. poetry and
painting had been fought step BY step !
oyireligon. The greatest poems, such as | I
Dsnte's Inferno, Millions Paradise Lost {
and Goethes Faust; spring out of IL as q
DO those Sculptured fanes that lift their 5
beauty and their reverence imprisha- !
Jly into the heaven of hope. These :
are my apostles he cred. gCoperni- !
,us. keppler, Calico" with the impli- 5
sation that they had been opposed TO o
religion, whereas Copernieus was edu- e
csted by bishop. was Cannonio of Frau 4
snberg. dedicated his best work 10 Pope p
Paul III. and dying, WIS honored and i
ounedE by the church. uKeppler. was /
Ehat incur day would be called a ptous &
nan. and Calico was devout Catholic. .
De assaiied the past in the same bush n
Thacking vay. AL the, literature of y
Ipeeee would not make one play of Is
Butts a fact, neyerthe- n
ess, that the literature of Greece did | u
make &c number OF them.as OF b
Then be shot his scientific thunder il
oft Science has torn down the myth / %
nd the mi-acle and ali the superraf r
i, and it makes this greatest OF an as- q
ertions: the uniformity Of nature Re
he same to-day. tomorrow and for p
yermore. What science doesn't know
bout the forevernone, Bob can suppIy fs'
Sut e did not undertake to expIsin n "
That manner the uniformity OF eTter- n
al nature lifted, comforted OF bIeSSe6 a,
be muluformity Of Tree agents. ~