Birmingham age-herald., 1895-04-14
II E TORN INTO SHREDS. The lngersolI Idea in a Mas
 ter's Hands PROVES A PUNY THING.
The InfdePs Batteries Turned Upon the Cit
 aiel of His Logic.
THE LOVE OF OUR GREAT FATHER
Passes All Comprehension-Simplc Yet Beautiful Arc Thsse Evidences of Christianity Innumerable
 Host of Martyrs.
Letter in Dallas, Tex, News.

Letter in Dallas Tex, News.
 Weatherford Tex, April 4.-I see in your last Sundays issue an indictment against religion as now taught preferred by Robert G. Ingersoll. In which he charges that the religion of our day is immoral" If such be the fact then those who propagate it are likewise immoral. and being teacher in an humble sphere and loving my religion and my reputa- tion, both of which this man has as- sailed without any provocation on my part, I desire with your permission, to vindicate myself through the same me- dium in which I find myself attacked. l think I shall be able to show that his charge is untrue and also that he is vul- nerable to the accusation which he makes against others.
 right because right action pays" Of course he means In this life, because, as ne says, he knows nothing about any other. The natural inference from this Is that If right actions in this life don't pay, then the reason for performing them does not exist, therefore 1t is not necessary that they should be performed. How is that for good morals? My teach ing Is that men should act right whether 1t pays in this world or not Men are often misunderstood and mis- Judged in this life and the reward they get OftentimeS for doing good Is to be charged with a desire for praise, or that their good acts are hypocritical
 Jesus Christ is an example of this fact. From Ingersolls standpoint he should not have done right because 1t did not pay so far as this world Is concerned, for he was subjected to all sorts of pun- fshment and finally to death itself, and yet he did harm to no man, but good to all.
 MT. Ingersoll says: "I know no form of orthodox religion that contains any phylosophy, and I never knew phil osopher occupying pulpit" answer if the above is a sample of philosophy no orthodox religion will ever contain it and therefore no philosopher, according to his conception of the term, will ever occupy Christian pulpit Think of the arrogance the bombastic self-suffi- ciency, the inflated pomposity of this apotheosis of egotism dismissing with the wait of his jeweled finger the com bined and accumulated wisdom of the Christian pulpit for nearly 2000 years!
 He says further: T confess l don't know whether a God exists or not" That means that there may be a God, and, so far as he knows, it may be the God of the Bible, for if he has no way of knowing whether there is a God or not he cannot certainly say that the God of the Bible is not the true God. If many people cannot be kept In the bounds of moral rectitude, even by the fear of Jals, penitentiaries, the gallows and the belief in hell fire in the next life for those who have offended their Creator in this life without true repent ance, does any sensible man believe that the morals of those people will be i'm proved by telling them that there Is no hell; that may be there is no God, and as it is a question of doubt, and all crim- inals must have the benefit of the doubt. therefore whether there is God or not. 1t being n doubtful question, they have nothing to fear from that source.
 This is as much as to say, if you can succeed in violating the laws of your country without detection; if you murder your father in the dark hour of midnight to hasten the distribution of his worldly possessions; If you kill the honest hus- band of an unfaithful wife and go with her to parts unknown, and this Is not a difficult matter as many have done so, you have nothing but the laws of men to fear. You incur no responsibility to your Creator or to the Creator of your father and the womanS husband because 1t Is doubtful if you and they have creator, and if that is doubtful then of course it Is doubtful if there is law against it. and as doubtful law does not bind, you have nothing to fear In the next life.
 Every man of sense can see that the philosophy of MT. Ingersoll, if it can be dlgnified with that name, leads to these conclusions And yet this man has the brazen audacity in the meridian blaze of the nineteenth century to say that the Christian religion is immoral and that Its teachers in teaching it inculcate i'm morality and by consequence are immoral men,
 He says again, speaking of Rev. Sam Jones. that he (Jones) seems to think it is immoral to believe in absolute liberty of thought. This implies that Mir Inger- soll being the pink and embodiment of morality. believes that a man should think just as he pleases. thought is an act of the soul and is the parent O. the act of the body. No man can commit murder as defined by men without the cooperation of the body and the soul. The malice aforethought is the act of the soul, which no human tribunal can reach, unless accompanied into tangible effect. Now if the effect is wrong, how much more so the cause which is the organizer and prime mover in the commission of the crime of the body? If the effect is wrong of course the cause must be, and as a bad act is the child of bad thought, neither should be free in the sense that they should go unpunished.
 We Confederates once had thought. and it was free thought on a slave question. We thought we could get out of the union, but among those who de- nied us the practical realization of this free thought was one Robert G. Inger- soil, who put on his war paint and went a-coloneling and he said our free thought was treason and was deserving of death He wanted us killed, but from the best information we have of his war record he didn't kill any of us. Like the war horse. ''he snuffed the battle from afar off" and he knew he had no material in