The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1915-07-22

span and survives the wrecks of time;'
that is to say, the heart hungers for the
solace and the bedrock assurance of re-
ligion.
IF we wish to call up some modern
illustrations of the incapacity of ed
ucation for bringing the human soul to
Its best, let US think, for instance, of
that brilliant skeptic, Tom Payne,
whose personal magnetism strongly i'm
pressed his daughter, who, however,
troubled with misgiVings, finally went
to her father and with anxiety in face
and voice andh said, Father, which
of the two shall believe, you or my
mother?' And the father is alleged to
have replied: Daughter, follow the lead
of your mother' And the mother, we
are told. did accept to her husband
skeptical ideas, but did believe in God.
Again, perhaps there has not been
more noted American, from the stand
point of law and political activity and
from the standpoint of power on the
public platform, than Colonel Robert
q. lngersoll, the famous agnostic, a
man highly educated, a man who could
hold spellbound according to pleasure
the greatest of audiences; a man who
charmed court and jury and public
alike; man whose name was on the
lips of many thousands during his life
time. | have heard it alleged, though |
can not vouch for the truth of the
statement, that once in a burst of conf
dence he declared to an intimate friend:
1 have made more money out of my
foolishness with reference to sthe ques-
ton of God, than could possibly have
made IN any other way in life and
again we are informed that when he
stood beside the grave of his brother,
the floods of sympathy and grief almost
overwhelming him. he cried out in an
agony that yainly sought for comfort:
oh, God! If there be a Godn For
tunately for his consistency as an
apostle of agnosticism he caught him
self just in time by saying, IF there
be God.'
do you, my friends, imagine that
Robert G. Ingersoll in his last moments
could satisfy his brilliantly trained
mind with the pitiful pelt, earned by
his agnostic lectures? All, my friends,
ask that question of the irresponsible
winds! Do not put it to intelligent
men. Do you, l demand, fancy that
that keen man could step from this
life into the vast unknown, entirely
satisfied with his brilliant education, or
do you not rather suppose that down
deep in the recesses of his heart he
longed for the comforts of religion to
supplement the training of his mind
and furnish for him, as it were, the
shadow of great rock in a weary
land?'
In these men and in thousands upon
thousands of powerful men of all
times, men who sought complete salts
faction in education and rejected the
claims of religion, there are to be
found strong traces of unwarranted
self-compla1ency and cynicism, and of
stoicism despair.
III. AGAIN, RELIGION WITH
OUT EDUCATION IS VERY LIKELY
TO END IN BIGOTRY, SUPERSTI-
TON, AND PERSECUTION:
Let me appeal, if GU will, to some
of the most striking events in history,
that my proposition may not need any
further argument than merely to call at
tentlon to these events. Will you please
think of the conditions during the Mid
die Ages and later, reaching down, in
deed, to comparatively recent times,
conditions under which the church
strenuously insisted that the individual
had no right to think for himself but
must subject himself to authority? In
other words, the church said: We do
not want you to be educated, for that
may threaten our control of you, and
that would spell disaster and defeat
for the religious system
Think Of the bitter opposition of
the English Puritans to the Church of
England, and remember how, in order
to worship God in accordance with the
dictates of their conscience, they brav-
ed the dangers of turbulent Atlantic
and settled on the shores of new
country, where they were exposed to
all sorts of privations and dangers,
which they cheerfully faced that they
might be ablenOt simplytob Christians,
but might also decide h05O they would
be Christians; that is to say, for the
privilege of putting intelligence or ed
ucation into their religion. And yet,
strangely enough, they themselves
presently turned intolerant and shame
fully prosecuted those who differed
from them; as, for instance, Roger Will
liams, who was exiled from Massachu-
sets and compelled to take refuge with
the Indians. These same Puritans il
Illustrated the bigotry and persecution
of lamentably narrow religion, by at
lacking the Quakers, cutting off their
ears, driving them from their colony,