The Worcester spy. [volume] (Worcester, Mass.) 1898-1904, 1899-07-31
BRADY ANSWERED.
Rev. GeorgeW. Kent's
Sermon on In
gersoll.
NIGHTMARE OF ORTHODOXY.
The Great Aguostic AS An
Apostle Of
MiStrust.
NIGHTMARE OF ORTHODOXY.

At the South Unitarian church, yes
| terday morning, Rev. George w. Kent
preached a sermon on Orthodox or in
/! fidel; Is it as bad as they say?"
In it he contrasted an address deliv-
cred by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll with
one delivered by Rev. James Boyd
Brady, at Grace church, on the death
of the great agnostic
Mr.. Kent spoke as follows:
! Less than two months ago, l was one
| of an audience of two thousand people
! listening to a carefully written address
/ by Col. Robert Ingersoll.
Less than week ago 1 heard an ad-
| dress by DR.. James Boyd Brady, on the
death of Col Ingersoll, it, too, being
| evidently written.
These two addresses, which stamp
ed themselves indelibly upon my mind,
when taken together, present a terrible
indictment of the order under which
our universe exists, and of the fate to
which our human race is doomed. To-
gether, they force upon our vision the
view of life and death, of our universe
| and its overruling power which ortho-
| doxy and infidelity between them hold.
! The question for all honest, earnest
men to ponder is, rs it as bad as they
| say?"
Let me bring to your attention first
! the blacker and more frightful of these
two indictments of the supreme power,
that of DR.. Brady. This, too, was the
one that arrogated knowledge to itself.
| 1t knew that the atrocities it ascribed
| to God were facts 1t had Gods word
| in proof of them. AS DIR. Brady pic
tured this universe, as he portrayed its
omnipotent God, we were shown a law
and providence under which there COM
menced upon Robert Ingersoll. within
two minutes of his death, such hideous
and malignant revenge as no being fit
to be called human, much less divine,
no being with spark of mercy or JUS
| t1ce, could infiict and look upon, for an
| hour. God was to infiict and to look
upon these tortures of his creature
through the countless and intolerable
ages of eternity. The divinity which
shapes our ends, according to the Ian
guage of DR.. Brady, is such one that
| it dooms a man whose life has been
pure, whose deeds have been generous,
whose heart, as the doctor says, has
| been true, but whose convictions have
not been orthodox, to the jeering COM
| pansionship Of devils, and the torments
of hell forever.
That divinity so distorts the souls of
those it saves, that it's heaven becomes
hell of selfishness and cruelty, it's
saints exulting, as DR.. Brady undis-
guisedly exulted, in the spectacle of I'M
believers writing in endless and unsuf-
| ferable pain, it's happiness not abated
in the least by the fact that sin and
suffering forever lift their tortured cry
from the depths below.
Now this is not just DR.. Brady; this
| is orthodoxy. / will not attempt to
]
lent statement of his orthodoxy.
heard it and 1 can't defend it. But
that we live in such a fiend's universe
as he described, that there awaits In 1t
the clutch of undying and remorseless
cruelty for every one of us who disbe-
lieves the word of orthodoxy that I'M
less man arrays himself in a speci-
ned belief, it will shrivel to a scorched
and worthless rag every noblest gar
ment of sincerity of purity, of unset
1shness, of faithfulness, of merciful
| tenderness which good and true man
strives to make the vesture of his soul
that such is the unnatural tyranny
which rules over and makes wreck of
human destiny, is not the teaching of
a mere Brady; it is the teaching of or
! thodox Christianity.
! That this Methodist minister could
thus authoritatively picture Gods eter-
nal torture chamber and its victim, that
| ne could paint its details with such ar
| rogance of certainty, having a Bible
text to steady every stroke and
strengthen every lurid color that he
USED, was not presumptuous outrage
OF MS own; it is orthodoxy that sets
tne Bible up to destroy the modesty
Oh human Ignorance, and to deny the
instincts of human justice and compass
sion. You have read the many pro
| tests, published the past week.
making 1t personal offense
! OF DR. Brady's to have said the things
ne did. Against the manner Of his saw
ing them, | cannot pronounce one of
| tnese protests too emphatic. My pro-
i test is that there is not an orthodox
minister in Worcester but who shou1d
nave said the same things, though II
| mad been with tears instead of ieers
For these horrible and hopeless things
make up orthodoxys doctrine of whst
Is is ana OF what is going to be, eternally,
! lhey stand out clear and unmistak he
IN every orthodox creed. They ought
! 10 De the preaching of every minister
VINO seeks the prestige and the hack
ing of being orthodox
! Ana do we not know laymen. also
4 prominent in our orthodox chlIrcbas
| prominent in DR.. Bradys church who
are high officials in the Young Mems
ShIistlan Association, and that assoc
cation bars out Universalists for fhe
very, very neresy OF holding happier and
more hopetul view of Gods eternal
dealings with his children. These nen ,,
should have been outspoken for tbe do
TOT orthodoxy, however thew rnipbt
plush in secret for his manners
LII. BRADY only re-echoed what has
peen orthodox in Christendom. ever
SINCE those mad and brutal councils of
.ne early church silenced the spirit
when was in Jesus, and forced their
pafparous dogmatism upon men as tba
Christ religion. More than sixteen bnn-
dred years ago the fierce Tertulllan.
/ VINO was SO strenuous for dogma that
| ne cried: Il believe because IL is inn
possible, expressed himself as follows.
how shall | admire how laugh how.
rejoice, how exult, when I behold so
many kings. groaning In the lowest
ABYSS OF darkness, so many magistrates
lquelying IN fiercer flames than they
ever kindled against Christians a.
many sage philosophers blushing in
| raging nre so many poets shudderIne
before the tribunal of the disbelieved
| Christ Then shall we hear the aged
| lans more tuneful under their own si1f
| ferings; then shall we see the plavers
far more sprightly amid the flames:
the charioteer all red-hot in his burn
ing car; and the wrestlers hurled. not
upon the accustomed list, but on a
| plain Of fire.
| Humane and reasonable orthodox
people can no longer bear to think of
such an infinite enormity as part Of
Gods economy, they are ashamed and
| shocked to hear it preached, but they
leave unchallenged and supreme the
orthodoxy, the whole philosophy of 4
cursed and ruined world, of a doomed
and sentenced race, of usurping and
successful devil of an endless and re-
morseless hell, which lies the source
and spring Of just such diabolical con-