The Helena independent. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1875-1943, 1892-02-15
.EPISTLE TO The PAGAN.
A Helena Writer Who Does Not
Believe In lngersoll's
lnfallibility.
Reply to the Oolonel's Code OF
Morals Remarks Made
In New York.
In Rome, When ths People Were Allowed
to worship Christ, False Gods
Fell Into Dtsreputo.

In Rome, When the People Were Allowed
to Worship Christ, False Gods
Fell Into Disreputs.
Col. Robt. Ingersoll-Dsar sir-As you
claim TO be the expounder of the
dogma of morality without rali-
gion,'' and, as in doing 30, you re-
the m%oorings of Christianity; moreover. as
l 10 not believe in your infallibility, ! take
the pom to show you whore you are NH
taken. do 10 IN tho hope. not Of chang
ing your mind. for that depends on your
will, but l do it principally to clear up the
minds Of others obscursd by your sophis-
tries and false assertions in the telegraph
report of your savings Of Feb. II.
H%eterodoxy 10 not the halfway station be-
tween superstition and reason, but il gu
psrstition opposed to reason guided by true
religion. A hereto 10 one who gives up ono
of Gods teachings. He leaves the sun Of
Justice to enter the darkness Of error. In
the invisible world OF, the mind every man
is honest if he has not the dishonesty to
shut the light out OF his mind. "Ths Diff
ference between HONEST belief, - shared by
honest religious thinkers and hsretios, 10 u
difference of intelligence not only but also
a difference of information.
Az for women you do not answer the
question whether they are becoming freed
from the bonds of s%ectarianism; but what
you do say about them an being s1termists
seems TO indicate that you would rather
keep them within proper bounds. II
That - ant vo,,r ~ aouinn than vnnr unrSs
would convey the idea that giving up reli-
gion they also beeoms loose. The
moro liberty there is, the more morality"
is as true as ''ths more license there is the
moro immorality." Since you claim free
dom from God to DO liberty, I call that
license, and. l say, the moro Of that the
more immortality. Good actions, Mr.. Inger-
soil, are not only rewarded by good results
generally. but tho intelligent man knows
moreover that to encourage them the social,
political and religious world Rivea its
rewards.
guided by intelligence concerning rewards
is the perquisite of $1,000 year for infdel
lectures, or your lawyers fees in Il BCtte
case OF 100000. Whilst you are having a
good time OF it in this world you imagine
every ono to stand in your own boots. but
bulb ~ NOt ~. LILO pObStlontAdl0 VA4OopA0Ao
of hospitals, the cries of the orphans, the
despair Of the lost girl, tho exposure in the
wilds of new countries, the night vigils at
the bedside of tho dying. the fire and
smoke and agony of the battlefield. the
dreary. ha,d work from early morn till
midnight, repeated year in and year out. is
!. certainly not to the Christian woman a re-
ward. but a work. According to you it
should have its reward. you say, in this
world, but you arc tho first man in the land
to have a fling Of insult at the Sisters Of
Charity, and call them superstitious. 1.-The
vicious are ignorant" in your case this is
true, but there are vicious people who are very
learned and intelligent, and, therefore, ]
deny your assertion, the more 80 as there
are many ignorant people who are very
virtuous. Real morality is the child Of re-
ligion guiding the intellect and purifying
the heart.
You are right in saying that you cannot
SEQ religion strengthened by the indulgence
in free thought. For the very name of
religion means binding, that man who is
moral restraint, and by an act of his free
will is united again to God. A religions
, had liberty in Rome" Yes, all except tho
Catholic, and if you go to Rome you will
see there in the cntacombs the hiding
places of the first Catholics. and in tho
amphithoater you will see thu spot where
hundreds of thousands were martyred.
Freedom of true religion is the spreading
OF that religion and the destruction of false
religion. In Rome after people were al
lowed to worship Christ all false gods fell
into disrepnte. and the civilized world bo-
came Christian. 1t will be 80 in America.
There is ono God whom the Catholics
alone worship according to His will. Pro-
testants and other religions may Worship
Him according to the light they have, and
Catholics applaud when they see their
fellow men worship God as well as they
kl ow how, and pray that they may come
to the full knowledge of divine religion and
be united in one fold under the ono shop
herd. What a united Christianity would do
obstruct the intellectual host, | do not
know, as there IS no Intellectual host out
side of Christianity. The 'something else of
religion" thnt you eliminate as q parasite,
is just the main trunk of morality-the
worship of God. Putting Buddhn on tho
same level with Christ the Lord, and the
people who lived before Christ on the
Christ, proves you to be ignorant both Of
the history of the past and the realities of
the present.
The Catholic church. which is true Chris
~tianity. never prosecuted, but was ever
prosecuted. When she had full power she
would never interfere with the free will of
man, though she would use ull legitimate
means to keep him straight. As the father
of a family rules his home, as the ruler of
a nation commands his subjects, 80 the
church was the guide of nations. And as
the free takers and free thinkers of the
past were the communists and anarchists Of
their times, they were dealt with in the
same way as were the anarchists of Chicago
u few years ago.
What regards the manner in which you
speak of Christ and His teaohing, / an
swer: You are neither truthful nor decent,
but blasphsmous in the extreme.
Christianity and morality is one and the
same thing, and, therefore, whom q diatiuc-
ton is required they will say Christian
morality. If you wish to sec what pagan
morality was in Italy before Christ, 60 and
look at Poppeii. If you wiah to know the
morality of tho Hindoos, consider their
diminutive form and the figures on their
foreheads.
grant that false Christianity has taught
the doctrine of general deprnvity, but |
doubt whether any has taught that "if God
acted according to his senso of justice all
wonld be doomed to eternal pain.'' But
true Christianity or Catholicity never
taught such nonsense. Mr.. Ingersoll, you
confound freedom and FREQ thought. You
can have, YOU have Il right to freedom. But
you cannot have free thought, for you can
not think that two and ono nro four. Your
thought as anything else must be restrained
by limits which hinder it's FREQ action
chat ,yNr1l t,prt tLa tk,r - ~, 90 -. -.