St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1896-01-19
THE CHRISTIANIZING OF COL. IN
GERSOLL.

The good people of Kalamazoo have
been somewhat excited for the last
week over the fact that Col. Bob Inger-
soil has found in the Peoples church
of that town an institution of which
he approves. They say he has been
impressed by it to the point of en-
thusiasm. He declares it is the grand
est thing in the state, if not in the
United States, and that if there were
such church near his home he would
join it if they would let him.
The Peoples church of Kalamazoo is
undogmatic and institutional That is
to say, 1t has cut loose from the iron
bound creeds Of older ecclesiastical
denominations and has added to it's
faith as many works as it can man.
age. Now, if Col Ingersoll had kept
his eyes open to the religious drift of
his own generation, he would have
known long ago how strong was the
tendency to more freedom of thought
and more Strenuousness of action. It
is true we do not always find the two
L
denominational churches which have
not yet strength enough to undertake
much active, practical work, and there
are many dogmatic churches that rec
ognize the value Of institutional at
tachments. Nevertheless Kalamazoo
is far from being the only town pos
sessing one or many Peoples churches
whose platform is simplicity, freedom
and good works, and in the course of
his travels Col. Ingersoll must have
came across them before; but appar-
emily his eyes were holden, and he
failed to see.
There are people who say that his
blindness touching things religious has
been intentional; that he did not want
to be enlightened about what religion
means to this genera ton, because he
found it financially very profitable to
abuse those conceptions which the
world has outgrown. At the time the
Christian Endeavorers interested them
selves in him last fall, somebody sug-
gested that if they succeeded in con-
verting him it would be equivalent to
taking away his means of livelihood
by force. We do not think so meanly
of the gentleman as this. 1t is true
he has made merchandise of Moses to
his profit and thriftily coined his irrev-
erence into cold hard Cellars, but his
abilities are quite sufficient to make
a good living in the legal profession
As for his obstinate inability to rec
ognize that the world has moved from
its old positions, and that for years he
mas been storming an empty fort, it
seems unaccountable. but is probably
the result of having been blinded with
rage in youth at some un-Christ-Iike
Christian. An attack of righteous
Indignation of this sort in early life is
likely to embitter the mind and warp
the judgment about the whole subject
of religion for some time, but the strong
and logical ultimately outgrow such
unjust prepossessions
1t begins to look as if the colonel
might be coming out all right. He
will have to make haste in his re-
ligious education, however, for the rest
OF the thinking world is a long way
ahead of him. What he wants to do
next is to get some adequate notion of
the Higher Criticism, and subscribe
for a live journal like "The Outlook"
which will put him on the track of
what other intelligent DeopIe really
believe and are trying to do. There is
excellent material in the colonel The
notion of Outstanding him is an ad-
mirable one. Let the good work go on.