The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1894-12-17
DIR. DALTON ON THE BIBLE.
Rector of st. Stephen Vigorously
Lttacks Col. IngersOll.

Shallow, that he Believes IN free Love
and is the Champion of Obscene Litera-
ture-Thurlow Weeds Opinion OF
Ingersoll-Teachings of Ingerson and
Those of the Formost Men of England
and America-Even Agnostics Give their
Voice for Christianity.
DR.. Dalton repeated his discourse on
the Bible at the First Parish Church
last evening before large and attentive
audience.
DR.. Dalton selected two texts as si2ni-
ficant of what he had to say. The first
was g. AS mad man, who scattereth lire
brands, arrows and death, so is the man
that deceiveth his neighbor. and saith,
Am not I in sport?" proverbs, XVI,
10, 19,). and the second "Be ready
that askeGh you, a reason of the hope
that is in YOU" Qst Peter III, 15).
These two texts, the Doctor said, set
forth the substance of what he had to
say about Ingersoll's absurd and un-
qualified abuse of the Bible; and the
essential reasonableness of the Christians
faith and hope.
IngersolI, observe, did not question
merely this, or that, in the Bible; but
assailed it in all its parts, citing it as
Satan did, without regard to proper con-
nection or meaning. Everywhere, he
professed to find proofs of ignorance,
superstition, folly and falsehood, and
declared that it is the chief hindraLce to
the progress of mankind. The four Cos
pels and Jesus are the objects of his
special disdaln and defamation. Words
fail to express his contempt for both.
He says that the teachings of Christ
have sown the seeds of hatred and cruel
ty among men, dlscord in families,
strifes ID communities, and wars in all
the world; have also fired the faggot, pre-
pared the rack, filed the dungeons and
insane asylums.
Now is not this the very ecstasy OF
madness?
stop and think of it'
Look on the picture which Ingersol IL
thus paints, lurid with woes. and then
on this drawn by. another, and one VINO VINO
Bible,n says Faber, @lives in the ear like
music, sounding like church bells. Its
felicities seem things, rather than words.
1t is the anchor of the national con-
science, and part of the national mind.
It's beauty pleads availingly with the
scholar and man of letters, while the
memories of childhood are imbedded in
it. The griefs and trials of life are sum-
med up in its pages. 1t voices his best
moments. If there be in him aught OF
gentleness or goodness, of purity or
piety, it is associated with his Bible. In
a word, there is not Protestant with
one spark OF piety whose spiritual blog-
rsphy is not in his Bible"
Here are two pictures. Look on this,
and then on that. "Stop and think OF
it," and choose between them.
Mr.. Ingersoll opposes to the Bible his
reason his "only guide" but quite
sufficient to prove to him the Bible is a
bad book, a thoroughly bad book, from
the beginning to the end. The Old Testa-
ment he pronounces bad enough. put
says the New, is even worse. The God
of the Bible he declares worse than the
worst Hindoo God who wears neck lace
of skulls and bracelets of living snakes.
Whether there is any God is to him a
mere "guess," but the God OF the Bible
is as bad as the devil, and Christ is not
to be compared with the great men OF
history.
But enough of this. Ingersoll's lectures
and his books abound with such out
rageous blsspheWy. Now think OF a
Thousand men and women, half of them
perhaps calling themselves Christians,
sitting in silence while the lecturer
vomits forth these horrid calumnies on
Him by whose name they are called while
as often as the lecturer acclaimed few
hifalutin periods, which he had spouted
a thousand times before, the ball rang
with applause.
But it may be asked, if Ingersoll's
teaching is devilish. and the Christians
divine, can't peoples good sense be
trusted to separate the wheat from chaff?
will answer that in the words of Dr..
James Walker, a former President of
Harvard College: 1.-THE learned and
cody minister of village church may
preach a sermon on Sunday, which con-
clusiveIy proves the reasonableness of re-
vealed religion, making deep impress
sion on the peoples minds. But as they
gather on Monday morning in or about
the village store, wag, without educa-
tion or character, may quite efface the
impression of the PASTORS sermon by
few coarse and senseless gibes and sal
lies.n
DR.. Walker here describes Ingersoll to
the letter. His lectures and books evince
the grossest Ignorance, not only OF the
Bible, but of most other things well
known to intelligent people. There is
not the faintest sign of scholarship or
of critical faculty. Thus, he speaks
of Zeus and Jupiter as two gods, when
any school boy knows that they are one
and the same. He utterly misrepresents
the common Christian view of the rela-
ton of the Ola Testament to the New,
and its comparative authority with
Christians. His lecture was summed up
by ore of our cleverest men, as setting
up a man of straw to be valiantly
knocked down."
Now compare the qualifications and
fitness of Ingersoll as a moral guide,
with those of our great New England
divines, poets and other men of science
and letters, here and abroad. Let us join
the issue. and don't for moment forget
1T. ais the Bible bad book?" A por-
ton of our Portland people pay Mr.. In
gersoll and his agent thousand dollars
an hour to come here, and in our City
Hall, warn them off from the Bible as the
worst of books, curse to the world, the
direst foe OF the human race" Stop and
think of it.n
Then compare this denunciaton of the
Bible with the defense and eulogy of its
teachings which a thousand times have
been heard in this church from the saint
ed lips now silent in death. Under
which king, "Ingersoll or D.. Thomas
Hill ?n Did that great scholar and pure
soul let his light shine in this city for
naught, or only to have his words of
wisdom forgotten, while a charlatan
rants in yonder hall?
Or, compare Ingersoll with DR.. Pea
body, the friend of DR.. Hill. SO many
,ocfa Of III