The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1889-12-11
= HOW TO TEEAT JNGERSOLL.
rhc Nnyio Meet the So-Cal!ed Arguments
OF he i:Old CnhriicYrr

OF the Bold unbriiey.r.
The following question having been
submitted 10 :. college professor, he
lepIlrs aS follows in the Albany Jour
nal:
Dear Professor: Are not Ingersoll's
arguments uuanswerable What are
you going 10 do about it?
SEVERAL STUDENTS.
So you are out hall dollar apiece,
are you? No, no; | cannot answer
hin. Boys, recall the incidentin my
eas - and impetuous youth of wasting
q pound ard half of bird shot on a
small owl. I followed him from tree
10 tree, and shot away hatful of
feathers, and when he died of fatigue
l found that his Body was about as
large as q robins aad I !ut it to no
earthly use. He was :, deceptive tar
get. If l understand the gentleman
from Peoria, he wishes to liberate
youth from the incubus and thraldom
Of superstition. That devastaiir z in
fluence Of the country clergyman's on
$500 per annum and donation is what
worries Robert, and he proposes to
cure it and eradicate it for the trihing
pittance of $3.50 per lecture. For fifty
cents he proposes to liberate your mind
from that influence which filtered into
it from the trembling lips of your
mother, and free it from the chain of
superstition loaded upon your soul by
the rough but loving hand Of your
father. Of course he worries about
you more than those old fogies did
for fifty cents.
You look around you in the city
here and you discover several millions
of dollars invested in hospitals, semi
Earies, asylums, forced on the suffering
community by the same mythical,
miraculous and superstitious incubus
of religion. You ask the gentleman
from Peoria where his little public in
stitutions are, founded by his peculiar
teaching, and he says in an absent
minded manner, Fifty cents at the
door,"
Boys, you see sometimes poor
mans funeral procession, with a
democrat wagon, and little coffin in
it so small you can carry it under your
| arm. a poor couple walk behind it
| with breaking hearts. Their baby is
in the little coffin. 1t was their all.
Their hearts are broken. Oh. if we
| only had Bob there to tell them about
liberty and myths and miracles-for
fifty cents how it would cheer them
up.
| But you say there are so many inf
deIs. Boys, you are mistaken. An in
fdel IS an abnormal growth, and Ma
ture feels funny once in awhile and
creates freak, Z. X, the living skele-
tor, the fat woman, the two-headed
girl. So there is about one infdel to
q million sane men. The most of these
fellows are amateur inidels. They
talk Ingersoll in fair weather, and
pray themselves hoarse every time it
thunGers. A well-develope; case o1
cholera. .morbus will knock their inf
deity out of them and leave them in q
cold sweat like china dog IN an ico-
house. l know them. The most o1
them are like the boy who runs away
from home and comes back to stay
with father nights.
Then, again, boys, take q look
around you when you invest another
fifty cents in liberty, and compare the
crowd with the kind of people you
lind in almost a.y church. Is it the
odor OF sauctity you smell? Hardly
boys, hardly. But you can eat peanuts
there and choke on the shells while
you applaud the funny jokes about the
heaven where you know in youl
heart you hope mother is, or hear the
humble Nazarene ridiculed, who, yor
think, and always will think, gave 9
home to your weary old father when
he left E1e eesrth.
Yes, boys, LIS arguments are un
answerable, and [ think the seasons
will come along, and the churches vii
continue to bloom, and all nature vii.
most exasperatingly and calmly per
form her functions if Robert is uo1
answered. You know when the frs
steamer crossed the Atlantic great
philosopher was delivering a most
conclusive argument to proof that by
no possibility could a steam vesse
cross the ocean, and that provoking
steamer came snorting and sizzling
and splurging right into the harbor
Boys, so will Gods foolish children e
right on praying and preaching anG
dying and going to heaven in spite O.
argument.
BIG MONEY IN AN ACRE