The Evening dispatch. [volume] (Provo, City, Utah) 1891-1895, 1895-01-17
PROvoCITY,
IRELAND AND INGERsOL.

Robert Ingersol has paraded and
Yapored so long and in such an un-
questioned way that people have
come TO regard his free thinking
sophistries as unanswerable. Lovers
OF truth of all shades of opinions re
joice that at last one fitted for the task
has concluded to enter the lists with
the great advocate of doubt and unbe-
lief. When Archbishop Ireland the
other day took the redoubtable Bob by
the throat, in few brief sentences he
simply tore the false reasoning of the
man 10 shreds. Ireland's theme, was
not the grounds upon which christ
ianity is based, but what 1t has accom-
plished. What has it done for man,
for his home, for the vernmenta in
stituted under it? He says christianity
has given us the christian mothers of
the people. 1t has given US glorified
christian homes in placing over each
noble christian woman 'to warn, to
comfort and command," If there is
no future, there should be one to reward
the noble christian women who have
made of this bleak world almost per-
feet heaven. What pregnant nth is
here but family sketched. All truth,
all honor, all glory, all excellence, all
purity dwells in christian homes, pre-
sided over By the christian women.
The great archbishop slludes to the
progress, scientific progress, civilization
has made since the dawning of the
christian era and justly claims
that it is trace able to impulses given
by it to the higher, nobler and purer
instincts of man. How much of all
this comes from the refined, elegant,
active and enobling christian homes of
the sons of men will, perhaps, never
be known, but we doubt if to these
christian homes made possible by faitn
in the Savior and his teachings, is not
to be ascribed the lions share of The
credit, Archbishop Ireland says that
while Ingersol tears down our faith he
does not build up another in its place
and the mind of man is so constituted
that faith is absolutely necessary TO
his efficiency. Certainly no faith has
accomplished more than the christian
faith. 1t has given us our peerless lit
erature, our elevating and purifying
art. 1t has given us our advance in
the material world. We owe to it.,
electricity, steam and all the potent
agencies of modern progress. 1t has
given us our literature, our Wilber-
forces, our Millions, our Shakespear ares,
our Dickenses, our Popes, our Drydens,
our SCOTS, and our grandest thoughts
These cannot and could not be furn
ished by any other power or influence,
save only the christian faith. And
this is not real, this is false, this is only
the dream Of distempered imagina-
tion. Out upon the baseness of the
merest suggestion.
In this material and utilitarian
age such sledge hammer logic
as Ireland's has too long given
place to such illogical and mis-
leading arguments as those which
Ingersol has by his beautiful sophisms
made to do duty as arguments against
the christian faith. The utilitarians
of the age do not pay enough attention
to these things. 1t has come to be
considered as unmanly and childish to
devote space or time to them. Think
of what worth the christian laws have
been in preserving and protecting our
earthly possessions of value, and then
say if the working hands and brain
of the world should not educate itself
to a better understanding of the
blessed agency by which all are held
in place and preserved for the uses
and behoofs of our fellow mep.