The Republican journal., 1899-02-09


If that is tiff it is only question OF
brains-I accept the challenge, and we
will see whether the preD0nderance OF
brains is on the nfidel or Christian side.
OF intidels, there were the great Vol
taire and Hume and Tom Paine, OF some
generations past Our own times have
produced three eminent scientists, scepu-
cal but not altogether intidel Chas Brad
laugh, and one other, Colonel Robert
Ingersoll, all the product OF Christian
homes; three if not four of them the sons
of Christian ministers.
If there are other very great iniidels in
our day land L wish you to distinctly note
that say there are), they are SO very few
you will have to think little to recall
name. Looking back to other generations
we see here and there one great thinker on
the nfidel side.
1t would take the day and night to call
the great names in the Christian list, not
pietsts, but thinkers and doors of the most
rugged kind. Many Of them were pro
foundry Christian, many others lnconsls-
tent and even grossly unchristian In their
lives, but all giving intellectual assent to
the truths of the religion of Christ.
That is exactly the point Piety, moral
ity, have nothing to do with the question
question of intellectual assent only. Does
the intellect of the world approve and en-
dorse the Christian religion?
EMINENT CHRISTIANS.
On the Christian side, | name the great
Sir Isaac Newton, the father of modern
philosophy and the inductive system Locke,
Agassiz, Hersche, Hitchcock, Dawson,
Dana; Columbus, possessing new world
in the name of the cross, Cromwell, crush
ing despotism and establishing the
liberties of Britons for all time, his armies
marching to victory while shouting
Christian psalms; Wellington, conquer
ing the great Napoleon, and Napoleon,
contessing that Christ was the greater
Conqueror; ouI sturdy foretathers landing
from the Maytlower in the name oflberty
and religion, TO found an empire OF free
dom; Washington, throwing off the yoke
OF tyranny that a great republic might
find birth on this Westeren hemisphere,
John Adams, Patrick Henry, the lover of
freedom nearly all the signers Of the De-
clalation OF Independence and trainers of
the constitutions Franklin, statesman,
SC enlist, philosopher, patriots Clay,
" cbster, the immortal Lincoln, Seward,
Giant, the modern genius Of war; Sher-
man, Meade, Thomas, the great Lee, the
Christian gentleman as well as warrior;
Stoncwal Jackson, on the eve of the bat
Tie spending The night behind his tent in
prayers Peabody, the phianthrUpist;
Morse, invtuing the electric telegraph;
cyrus Field, surmouatlng forty wears of
dltticu les ID lay the Atlantic cable, until
IN the realization ri Ills faith, the hemls
pheres clasl hands; Garfield. Blame, Thur
man: almost ali the great names OF Ameri-
can history. Livingstone, the missionary
explorer; Stanley, Ibis great successor, be-
ginning bis mighty task almost a G0ubter,
returning to declare lhat the only hope Of
Africa is the Christian missionary. In
/ literature, Shakespeare GutidelS claim
him but they cannot maintain the claim)
Milton, Scout, Bunyan, Macau!aY, Emer-
son, Carlyle, Lowell, Victor Hugo, Long
fellow, Whittier, Tennysou. Among living
men, in Jurisprudence near4y all rhe great
jurists of the world in medicine, the
great physicians; in craftsmanship, nearly
every great name in every civilized nation
on the globe; in our own country, the
President, the ex presidents, and every
name considered Presidential possibility,
in Germany, living but as yesterday, Bis
marck. the Iron Chancellor, profoundly
religious in Great Britain, Salisbury and
! his ministry. most OF LDG great Liberal
| leaders; and last, not now living but of
our times, and who being dead yet speak
eth, the grand old man without peer on
the earth-the great Gladstone; great in
theology, great in scholarship, great in
patriotism, great in love of freedom and
the human race, great in manhood.
Colonel Ingersol is himself a product
of the Christian religion: the son of a
Christian minister and of a Christian
mother, brought up surrounded by the in
tuences OF Christian home and by the
influences of Christian community.
The liberty which he possesses and
abuses he owes to the Christian religion,
that has been the mightiest champion for
human freedom and progress on the earth
t1,a+ - INK '''i'
inherited from his Christian parents, and
that he learned in his Christian home, and
which developed under the influences OF a
Christian community in which he lived,
though he opposed its Christian senti-
ment.
We have now come to the final question:
Is Christianity or intidelity the better
exemplar of love and human brother
hood?
1ntidelity condemns faith and extols
works. 1t laughs at believing, but loudly