The Newberry herald and news. (Newberry, S.C.) 1884-1903, 1890-02-20
How to Treat Ingersoil.

The following question having been
submitted to college professor, he
replies as follows in the Albany Jour-
nal:
Dear Professor: Are not Ingersolps
arguments unanswerable? What are
you going to do abont it?
SEVERAL STUDENTS.
So you are out half dollar apiece,
are you? No, no; cannot answer him.
Boys, | recall the incident in nv eager
and impetuous youth of wasting a
pound and half of bird shot on
small owl. | followed him from tree to
tree, and shot away q hatful of feath-
ers, and when he died of fatigue found
that his body was about as large as a
robins and | put it to no earthly use.
He was deceptive target. If I under
stand the gentleman from Peoria, he
wishes to liberate youth from the
incubus and thraldom Of superstition.
That devastating influence of the coun-
try clergyman's on $500 per annum and
donation is what worries Robert, and
he proposes to cure it and eradicate it
for the trifiing pittance of $3.50 per lee
ture. For fifty cents he proposes to
liberate your mind from that influence
which filtered into it from the tremb-
ling lips of your mother, and free from
the charm Of superstition loaned upon
your soul by the rough but loving hand
of your father. Of course be 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, semina-
ries, 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 |
institutions are, founded by his peculiar
teaching, and be says in an absent
minded manner, Fifty cents at the
door,"
Boys, you see sometimes a 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 break
ing 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
dels. Boys, you are mistaken. An inf
del,is an abnormal growth, and Nature
feels funny once and a while and
creates a freak, e. G., the living skeleton,
the fat woman, the two-headed girl. |
So there is about one. lnidel to mill
lion sane men. The most of these fel-
lows are amateur infdels. They talk
1ngersoll in fair weather, and pray
themselves hoarse every time it thun- |
ders. A well-deyeloped case of cholera
morbus will knock their infdelity out |
of them and leave them in cold sweat |
like china dog in an ice-house. II
know them. The most of them are
like the boy who runs away from home
and comes back to stay with father
nights.
Then, again, boys, take look around
you when you invest another fifty cents
in liberty, and compare the crowd with |
the kind of people you find in almost |
any church. Is it the odor ofsanctity |
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 your heart you hope your mother is, |
or hear the humble Nazarene ridiculed,
who, you think, and always will think,
gave home to your weary old father |
when he left the earth.
Yes, boys, his arguments are unans- |
werable, and I think the season will |
come along, and the churches will con-
tinue to bloom, and all nature will
most exasperatingly and calmly per-
form her functions if Robert is not an
swered. You know when the first
steamer crossed the Atlantic a great |
philosopher was delivering most con-
elusive argument to prove that by no
possibility could a steam vessel cross
the ocean, and that provoking steamer
came snorting and sizzling and splurg-
ing right into the harbor. Boys, so
will Gods foolish children 60 right on |
Praying and preaching and dying and
going to heaven in spite of argu-
ment.