The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1897-12-29
FAIR PLAY.

We can lay no claim to orthodoxy;
done to any one.
Bob Ingersol delivered a Thanksgiv-
Ing sermon the other day in which he
said
For the blessings we enjoy" said the
orator in the beginning, "for the happiness
that is ours, we ought to be grateful. Our
hearts should blossom with thankfulness.
Whom what should we thank? Should We
thank the church? What good has the
church done? Has it taught man to cultl-
vate the earth? To build homes? To weave
cloth? To cure or prevent disease? TO
build ships? To navigate the seas? To
conquer pain or to lengthen life?
Did Christ or any OF his apostles add to
the sum of useful knowledge? Did they
say one word IN favor of any science, Of
any art? Did they explain any Of the phe-
nomcna of nature? Any of the facts that
affect the life of man? Did they say any
thing in favor of investigation-of study-of
thought? Did they teach the gospel of self
reliance, of industry of honest effort?
The saints didn't assist their fellow men.
Their fellow men assisted them. They did
not labor for others. They were beggars,
parasites, vermin. They were insane They
took no thought for the morrow. They
mutiated their bodies, SCARED their flesh,
and destroyed their minds for the sake of
happiness in another world During the
journey of life they kept their eyes on the
grave. Their means made all the music
they wished to hear.
What has the church done? For CEN
turtles it kept the earth hat. For centuries
1t made all the hosts of heaven travel
around the world. For centuries 1t
chung to sacred knowledge and fought
facts with the ferocity of fend For CEN
turtles it hated the useful. 1t was the dead
w of medicine Disease
duced only by devils and could be cured
only by priests, decaying bones and holy
water Doctors were the rivals of priests.
They diverted the revenues.
1.-THE church made the wife slave-the
property of the husband-and it placed the
husband much above the wife as Christ
was above the husband. 1t taught that a
nun is purer, nobler than a mother 1t
induced millions of pure and conscientious
girls to renounce the joys of life to take the
veil woven of night and death, to wear the
habiliments of the dead, and made them
believe they were brides of Christ. For my
part, | would as soon be a widow as the
bride of man who had been dead for
eighteen hundred years.
shall We thank nature? Does nature
care fer us more than for leaves or grass
or flies? Does nature know that we exist?
We do not know. But do know that
nature is going to murder us all.
why should we thank nature? If we
rain, FOR health and happiness whom shall
we curse for famine and pestilence for
earthquake and cyclone for disease and
death: If We cannot thank nature-if we
cannot kneel to a guess. or PROSTATE our
selves before a perhaps-whom shall We
thank?"
Bob is brilliant man, but the
aperture Of his mind is very narrow.
He soe5 one side OF a question and Ia
blind to the other side.
He ought to remember that It was tho
Christian church that preserved civiliza
ton to Europe. But for Bob it would moi
possess today the alphabet or the art
OF reading and writing It was the
church and the church alone that car
ried the civilization Of the Roman em-
plre across the dreadful abyss of Lar
barism and ignorance called the dark
ages, which succeeded the overthrow
OF that mighty power.
We all know that there was a time
when il the man who stood upon the
Scaffold to be hung, called for a bible
ana read the meek verse;" it was the
N"@s VI eAiO e1oCAOi lClSo W LuTu MN loose
to be tried by the ecclesiastical author
tiles. Why? Because the ability to
read was conclusive proof that he was n
clergyman-since no one but priest
possessed that ability If, therefore.
there had been no church there would
have been no clergymen, and if
there had been no clergymen it is evil
dent that reading and writing, and with
1t civility and culture and all civilization
would have persisted.
And where then would Bob be to-
day? He could not commit his thoughts
to writing, and therefore he could not
lecture, for he reads his lectures. And
where would he find newspapers to print
his diatribes? There would be none.
And as the alphabet would have utterly
disappeared long before the time of
Columbus, that distinguished navigator
could not have collected, from various
books, the facts that convinced him
there was another world beyond the