Southern standard. (McMinnville, Tenn.) 1879-current, 1891-08-08
Sunday RaaiHs,
How to Treat Ingersoll.

What are you going to do about it?
SEVERAL STUDENTS.
So you are out half a dollar apiece,
are you? No, no; cannot answer
him. Boys, / recall the incident in
my eager and impetuous youth of
wasting a pound and a half of bird
shot on a small owl. / followed him
from tree to tree, and shot away as
much as hatful of feathers, and
when he died of fatigue, | found that
his body was about as large as rob-
in's, and / could put it to no earthly
use. He was deceptive target. II
/ understand the gentleman from
Peoria, he wishes to liberate youth
from thei incubus and thraldom of
superstition. That devastating influ>
ence of the country clergyman, on
$500 per annum and a donation, is
what worries Robert, and he pro-
poses to cure it and eradicate it for
the trifing pittance.tof $3.50 per
lecture. For the sum of so cents he
proposes to liberate your mind from
that influence which filtered into
it from the trembling lips of your
mother, and free you from the chains
of superstition loaded upon your soul
by the rough but loving hand of your
fathers .Of course, he worries about
you more than those old fogies did
for fifty cents.
You look around you in the city
here and;discover several millions of
dollars invested in hospitals, semina-
ries, asylums, forced on the suffering
community by this same mythical,
miraculous,Eand superstitious incu-
bus of religion. You ask the gentle
man from Peoria where his little pub
lie institutions are founded by his pc
.cular teachings, and he says, in an
absent minded manner, Fifty cents
at the door,"
Boys, you see sometimes poor
mans funeral procession with dem.
ocrat wagon, and little coffin in il
so small you can carry it under your
arm. A poor couple walk behind il
with breaking hearts. Their hearts
are broken. Oh, if we only had BOZ
there to tell them about liberty anC
myths and miracles-for fifty cents
how it would cheer them up.
But you say, "There are so many
infidels." Boys, you are mistaken
An infdel is an abnormal growth
Nature feels funny once in a while
, and creates a freak-the living skele
. ton, the fat woman, the two-headeC
girl. So there is about one infidel t
a million sane men.
! The most of these noisy fellows ar,
, amateur infidels. They talk Inger
; soil in fair weather and pray them
selves.hearse every time it thunders
A well developed case of choler'
. morbus will knock their infidelity GU
of them, and leave them in a cole
sweat like china dog in an ice
house. know them. The most o
them are like the boy who run
away from home and comes back t
to stay with father nights.
Then, again, boys, take lool
around you when you invest anothe
fifty cents in liberty, and compar
the crowd with the kind of peopl
you find in almost any church. Is i
the odor of sanctify you smell
Hardly, hardly. But you can ca
peanuts there, and choke on tn
shells, while you applaud the funn.
jokes about heaven where you know
in your hearts you hope your mothe
is, or hear the humble Nazarene rid
iculed, who you think, and Away
will think, gave a home to you
weary old father when he left tn
earth.
Yes, boys, his arguments are unar
swerable, and 1 think the season
will come along, and the churche
will continue to bloom, and all natur
will most eXasperatingly and calml
perform her functions, if Robert
not answered. You know, when tn
first steamer crossed the Atlantic,
great philosopher was delivering
most conclusive argument to prov
that by no possibility could a stear
vessel cross the ocean, and that prC
voking steamer came snorting an
Sizing and spurging right into I'll
harbOr. Boys, so will Gods FOOLS
children 60 right on praying an
preaching and dying and going
= heaven in spite Of argument.