The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1898-03-18
The Corner Stone of One the
Foundation of the Other.
LECTURE ON SKEPTIClSM
DR.. Johns Interesting Talk to a Large
Audience Last Evening in the M.
e. Church-EloQuent and
Logical Replies.

1Ou, Ut blQ MIKE man Is al
eloquent and logical reply to the ques-
tons which Robert Ingersoll and other
agnostics have been putting to the
Christian world. 1t was dignified in
tone, mastery in style and convincing
in delivery. From the introduction to
the magnificent peroration the speaker
had the undivided attention of his
auditors. His absolute fairness in the
treatment of the subject was apparent.
and it was not part of his tactics TO
abuse non-believers in the Christian
faith because of honest doubt
Rev. Mr.. custer. pastor of the church.
introduced DR.. John, who spoke, in
substance. as follows:
Il am not here on a personal cru
SADIE. If any of you have come expect
ing to hear Mr. Ingersoll denounced as
a blasphemer, or a bad man, you will
be disappointed. / am on higher mis-
sion. He has put some difficult but
fair questions to the defenders of the
Christian faith, and it is not a sufficient
answer to call him a blasphemer. To
call him bad mad is not logic; it is
cowardice. Let him be a good man,
that will not serve as crutch for his
logic if he be lame.
Mr.. 1ngersoll claims that the Chris
tan religion and its reputed author
were both man-made, and are there
fore. no better than the men who made
them. He objects to the alleged author
on the ground that, like the men who
made him, he has the faults of the
human kind. He objects to the Chris
tan system on the general ground that
it is unscientific, unnatural, supersti-
tious and unadapted to the task which
it undertakes.
''All the charges made by Mr.. Inger-
soil against the Gcd of the Bible can be
made equally against the course of ma
ture, FOR nature permits man and beast
to writhe in untold torture from fire
and pestilence, famine and flood; she
leaves the innocent to suffer with the
guilty and helps the strong in opposi-
tion to the weak, and by the law of the
survival of the fittest, even makes the
weak the slaves of the strong. But
nature is fact in spite of these stern
realities and so may the God of both
nature and revelation equally be a fact
in spite of the stern realities of human
history. Nevertheless the only value of
this rejonder is that it requires the
agnostic as well as the Christian to face
the difficulties of reconciliation. This
does not relieve the difficulty: it only
makes the agnostic share it. 1t puts
both agnostic and Christian under obi
cation to search for the solution of the
perplexing problem Nature is, in spite
of all inexplicable mysteries. and the
God of both nature and the Bible may
be in spite of all irresolvable difficult
ties.
Mr. Ingersoll finds his chief obiec-
ton against the moral character of God
because of his proposed dealings with
men in the world to come. He hates hell
ne says, and so do /. But neither of us
can hate it out of existence. / hate
murder and treachery and tyranny but
they are here in spite of my hate. He'll
&c oil Il 4
wait for the hereafter to encounter its
flames. The majority of mankind are
already in its fires There is no hell
here or hereafter, other than that whose
flames are kindled by the laws of SOW
ing and reaping.
Mr. Ingersoll says he will not believe
in God who made hell possible, and
he prefers to go there to dwell rather
than to live with Him in heaven. Does
he refuse to believe in nature that made
a Chicago fire possible? Does he pre-
fer to burn in the flames of that fire
rather than to dwell in the heaven of
his happy home under the smiles of
nature?
Mr.. Ingersoll takes pleasure in re-
ferring to the inaccuracies of Moses.
Moses wrote the history of the success
sive stages of creation; he wrote moth
ing that conflicts with the science of
the closing of the nineteenth century,
provided we compare what we under
stand of his account with the certain
ties of science. Moses is not incorrect
up to date; he has corrected science.
but science has not corrected him. And
we may expect the apparent conflicts to
disappear as others have done in the
light of past discovery
Away back in the beginning before
the sun, moon and stars appeared. God
hid himself in every atom and began in
its initial stages the amending work of
development. BY infinitely slow pro-
cesses the work of condensation went
on, but all the time God saw in the dis
tant future the beginnings of a race of
beings that were eventually to approx
innate his own perfection. Then. after
untold ages of waiting. by the fiat of
the Almighty man appeared and took
his place on earth-man, of whom God
had been thinking and for whom He
had been planning through cycles of
inconceivable duration.
And If God has thus taken pains to
bring us here he will not withdraw his
hand from us at this late day. Nay
rather, at this early day. for there is
more before us than there is behind us.
The spiritual energies of the soul have
barely commenced their being in the
present stage of destiny. If in 40 days
of imperfect spiritual vision of God. the
natural face of Moses shone like the
sun, what shall be the glory of our
spiritual faces after we have gazed for
endless ages on the unveiled throne of
God?
GO on up the heights of the future
and you reach another stage in the
destiny of the soul. But stop not there:
go still on through other eternities TO
yet diZzier heights that steepen as they
rise until you have passed through
other innumerable eternities in the
advancing destiny Of the soul, and hav-
ing put all these eternities in one. start
on afresh with this infinite combination
as the new unit of measurement. and
you will find before you still more dizzy
slopes that lead up to the summitless
heights of destiny.
IF man made God the destiny Of the
soul is in the clods, but if God made
man the soul win find its destiny in the
bosom of the Infinite"