The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1899-01-16
DR.. N0URSE ON AGNoSTICISM.
THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE IN
ENJOYABLE DISCUSSED.

ing as Well rs InstrUctive-Dr.
NOurse's Lecture Rich in Personal
Anecdotes as Wen as Logic and
Brimful of HumOr.
The Young Mems Christian Association
gymnasium was filled to overlooking yes
! terday afternoon at the lecture of Rev.
Robert Nourse, D. D., upon "Why I Am
Not An Infdel." There was a very large
number of ladies present who have DR..
Nourse to thank for very enjoyable adj
| dress. 1t is a rule of the Young Mems
| Christian Association that the Sunday af-
| ternoon meetings are for men only, but
DR.. Nourse made the delivery of his lee
ture conditional upon the unrestricted ad-
mission of both sexes.
DR.. Nourse has been heard in Savannah
before and those who gathered at the
| gymnasium had reason to expect not only
entertainment, but intellectual and moral
instructions and benefit as well The least
that can be said of DR.. Nourses lecture Is
that no one was disappointed. For over
an hour he held the close attention of his
large audience, which was instructed and
amused by turns Dr. Nourse possesses
such a vein of excellent wit that a subject
which might have proved somewhat duh
and heavy in other hands was made at
tractive throughout by frequent humorous
touches.
DR.. Nourse in beginning gave an inter-
| esting account of how he might have been
an infdel. He was native of the same
town in England as Thomas Paine, and
| Paine's nephew was his friend and com
panion. He attended the same school
which Paine had attended sat at the desk
which Paine had occupied used the same
locker and passed through the same
course of instruction. On his desk he
found Paine's name engraved and under
1t engraved his own, which, he remarked,
was an Illustration of how nature always
provided an antidote for every poison.
Paine's nephew imbibed the principles of
his uncle and as a result the speaker said,
he fell In cellar when drunk and broke
his neck. His uncle and all his relatives,
DIR. Nourse said with the exception of his
father and mother were infdels, and the
subject of infidelity was continually under
| discussion in his home. He was appren-
| ticed to an engine maker and Of the twen-
ty men in the shop with him nineteen
were infidels and the other man a Catho-
lie. Yet at 13 years of age he be-
came a Christian. The men in the shop
troubled him greatly with their questions,
but his mothers advice to him was not
to answer them but to pray. He lived to
see every one of those men converted
member of the church.
"a child, an idiot and an atheist can
ask more fool questions than any living
man can answer" said DR.. Nourse, refer
ring to this experience.
DR.. Nourse said that he was further dis
posed to be an infidel by reason of the
fact that he was Of an investigating turn.
He was never satisfied to take anything
for granted He wanted to investigate
everything for himself. He had a special
passion, he said, for everything written
by the lnfdels or the scientists in opposl-
ton 20 religion. He had read everything
of this kind that he could get hold of,
and even now travels with atheistic liter
allure as part of his baggage. Once on
visiting the home town of Robert 1ngersoll
and having business with the latters law
partner he was shown IngerSolPS library.
He examined a number of the books and
found that he had read every one of them,
although Ingersoll had left many with the
leaves uncut. He had breathed the at
mosphere of infdelity from infancy, he
said, and yet he was not an infidel In
stead he is an ordained Congregational
minister, and has made it his special bus
mess to fight infidelity at every oppor-
tunity.
DIR. Nourse said that agnosticism is now
the popular form of infidelty. 1t is the
creed of ignorance, the creed which is
proud to declare its own ignorance and its
own conceit declares that no one else can
be any wiser. He took the position that
consciousness was the supreme scientific
test and said that he was NOT an intidel
because it was unscientific to be one. The
scientists, he declared are as bgoted and
narrow as they accuse the preachers of
being. They presume that they have all
the knowledge AS a matter of fact what
the scientists knew ten years ago is ig-
norance today and what they know now
will be considered ignorance ten years
hence.
THE agnostic," said Dr. Nourse, as a
fellow who says he doesn't know anything
and who gets mad with you if you take
him at his word. I never saw one who
did not believe that he knew it all. Ag-
Mysticism is the philosophy of the I'M
movable and Herbert Spencer is its great
est apostle He begins his greatest work
with two propositions, and concludes il
with two aXioms which are the same as
his two propositions. His first proposition
is that the unknowable exists. If il is
unknowable how do you know that il
exists? InlS philosophy is 1900 years old.
1t did not originate with Herbert Spencer.
A philosophy TO be complete should ac-
count for everything. This being the
case, how does agnostcism account for
the idea of God. Spencer says there ara
races and tribes which have no thought
of God and no work for God in their Ian
guage. The conclusion is that man in
his prmeval state had no idea OF God If
not, where did we get the idea. Did the
agnostics give it to us? VIII they as
sumo the responsibility for all the good
and evil that has resulted to the world
in consequence Of this idea?"
Dr. Nourse's answer to this was that
there could be no idea of God, had there
been no God to create the idea 1.-The three
endowments of man." he said, ARE knowI-
edge, reason and faith. We reason from
the things we know in order to believe
something else. Infidelity is the only rea-
soning in the world that reasons from
something and finds nothing. BY means
of knowledge we reason to something be-
lieveable, and having attained 10 some
thing believeable we reason to something
higher" -Four hundred years ago there