The Republican journal., 1899-02-09


city of my home is the demonstration. On
the one hand, a demonstration OF power
and muniiicence and helpfulness for the
race Jon the other, a demonstration OF impo-
tence, Of failure, of utter uselessness. The
great Master has prescribed the test,
''By their fruits We shall know them.
BY that test the Christian religion will
stand agans- the world.
Man must .bink, says Colonel IngerSOll.
\ Is, and when he thinks, it occurs to him
THAI when man Of Colonel Ingersoll IS
maStertul powers has been preaching tor
thirty Years to crowded multitudes and
yet you cannot find one gambler whom he
has led 10 forsake his netdTiouS trade one
thief that he has made an honest man,
one poor besotted drunkard that he has
clothed with reason and the dignity of en-
nobled manhood, there must be something
radically wrong in his philosophy.
Once, standing on the platform OF
Chickering Hall, in New York, | flung
out this challenge to infdelity. Let it
bring one poor wreck of humanity rescu-
ed. lifted from degradation to noble life
by the teachings of all the intidels in New
York, and for every one so brought |
would produce a hundred men lifted from
the lowest depths to honest manhood by
the work of a single humble missionary
of Christ.
stood with the list in my hand and in
vited the newspaper of the city, there
represented by a number of reporters, to
investigate the genuineness of the
Christians hundred and intidel's Que, if
the challenge was accepted
lntidelity never accepted the challenge.
Iutidelitv pirates about humanity, but
,JnAc roth;pfr e, humanity tc ta1
and vitalizing force, it is utterly and hope
lessly imbecie.
Imagine hanging here map of the
globe. Now mark on the map with black
ened brush the nations which are the
lowest in intelligence, the most degraded,
and in every respect behind the age.
Look, they are the nations where Chris
tianity has found the least success in the
presentation of its belief.
Now come, artist, and paint the colOrs
Of the sunlight on the nations of the earth
that are foremost, that are the most ad-
vanced in morality, in science, intelligence
and art, in commerce, in freedom, in the
prosperity and happiness of the citizen,
in everything which goes to the making
of great and noble people. See! you
have marked out on the map the nations
which are the Christian nations, and the
lighter shade is where the nations are the
most Christian, where the Bible has
freest course and is the most believed.
If the agnostic has something for me to
believe, and infd city has something to
take the place of the Bible and Christian
belief, something better, something more
helpful 20 the human race, let it produce
the fruits before | am called upon to re-
nounce that which my own heart and the
tod s Nf Al,ah hos
of every generation for nineteen centuries
tell me is enobling and blessed in its in
t1uence, that which has in every age and
in every cline regenerated and exalted and
g]oriticd mankind
Let it bring it's sons from afar and its
daughters from the ends of the earth en-
nobled and sanctified under its power,
Until then l stand by the old faith, which,
though old, is not yet obsolete, and has
not lost its old-time power to bless the
sons of,men.