St. Paul daily globe., 1896-04-15
"p0pE BOB" CHILLED
A RESPONSE TO HIS CHURCH MILL
TANT ADDRESS BY DIR.
JOHN.
MISTAKES OF INGERS0LL.
THE ARGUMENTS OF THE NOTED
AGNOSTIC ANSWERED. IN DE-
TAIL.
HE'LL IS HERE AND TO STAY.
No Amount of Hating, Says DR.. John,
Can Do Away With Its
Fires.
MISTAKES OF INGERS0LL


CHICAGO, April 14-Dr. John P. John, eX-
President Of De Pauw university, and we'll
known Methodist minister, replied this even
at the Militant church Sunday. DR.. John
said, in part:
II have not come to abuse Mr.. Ingersoll.
Abuse is not argument. He has proposed
some difficult questions to the defenders Of
the Christian faith. It is not sufficient an
swer to say that he is blasphemer. That is
to beg the question. Let him be good man;
that will not serve as crutch for his logic if
it be lame. Let him be bad man. that will
not make his logic limp If 1t be sound. Truth
is in sorry plight If 1t must rest on epithets.
1t is old enough to stand alone. The truth is
worth its face, though uttered by the devil,
and sophistry does not become logic in the
mouth of the saint.
Mr. IngersoH claims that the Christian re-
ligion and its reputed author are both man
made and therefore better than the man
who made them. He objects to the reputed
author Of the Bible on the ground that, like
the men who made him, he is ignorant, cruel,
savage, unjust, immoral, inconsistent, un-
faithful; and that he Is opposed to art, science
education, progress and liberty. He objects
to the Christian scheme on the broad ground
that 1t Is unscientifc; that is, having been
made by unscientifc men, the Christian
5CuSLie Is CoHIrdry 10 TACT, unnatural, ana not
adapted to the task 1t proposes. The Bible
must be Judged by the manner in which it
does what it processes to do, and not by a
foreign standard. 1t came to teach men of
duty and destiny-not to teach art, science or
literature. If the Bible is opposed because it
is not good text book on these subjects, Mr..
Ingersoll must be opposed to the public schools
because he did not make plea for them in his
eloquent Grafton at his brothers grave Judge
q funeral nv hat cofd
the dead, rather than by what it fails to say of
an educational system. Judge the Bible. by
what 1t says Of duty and destiny and not by
what it omits saying of the things it did not
come to teach.
Mr.. 1ngersoll raises his chief objection
against God because of His proposed dealing
with men in the next world He hates hell.
he says, and so do 1; but neither of us can
hate 1t out Of existence. He'll is already here
The majority Of mankind are already in its
hres. But the hell to come is not the one
described by Mr. Ingersoll and long ago re-
1ected by intelligent Christians. There is no
hell, here or hereafter other than that whose
fires are kindled by the law of sowing and
reaping. He'll has already come because sin
has come, and it will remain as long as sin
| endures. The fires of hell cannot 20 out till
sin disappears from the universe. Mr. In
gersoH exalts science, but science declares that
hell will be eternal If sin be eternal.
| 1t is urged that the Christian scheme Is
unscientifc because it rests on faith No less
| certainly does science rest on faith Science
raises the level of human knowledge by in
| ouction, and the very essence of induction is
| faith. Science writes the history of the uni
verse OF faith. 1t pursues its present processes
| by faith. 1t predicts the future by faith If
science can rest on faith without being un-
! scientific, the Christian scheme may safely
| rest on the same foundation.
But 1t is urged that the Christian scheme
is not adapted to It's work. The proof of a.
working hypothesis Is in the way of its works
| There is no demonstration like success
Wherever the Christian philosophy has had it's
way nations and individuals have been lifted
to high plane Of prosperity, and all this in
! spite OF the horrors and infamies practiced
| along the highway of history in the name of
| Christianity, but by men who never knew it's
| spirit During the present century, when
| Western civilization has reached it's climax.
the gospel has commended itself more GEN
orally to men of intelligence than ever before.
and during century in which, by the proph-
ecy OF its enemies, it was to have been sleen-
ing In its grave, 1t has more than doubled the
number OF its followers. Just how long il will
take for Christianity to disappear if it contin-
ues to double its forces every century. let us
| leave to the mathematics of agnosticism'