The Birmingham age-herald., 1916-03-09
Springfield, H., to the memory of the great agnnStic. Rahert IngerSQll.

Springfield, H., to the memory of the great agnostic, Robert Ingersoll. A little over POO years ago, if man did not believe in burning witches at the stake he was regarded as an agnos- tic. to be held in contempt by all good Christians. When the first doctors tried to teach that insanity was a disease, and in many cases could be cured, they were regarded as infidels, and punished as such, and the church continued to chain
 insane people to stakes and burn asa fetida under their noses to chase the devil out. As has been proved, the church was wrong in all these things, what assurance is there that they are not still wrong about many things?
 Why hate the agnostic? The only class of people who have never been known, in all history, to torture people who did not agree with them. What harm has any agnostic ever done Father Coyle? It seems to be all right for anyone. no matter to what church he belongs, to hit at the poor agnostic, who never harmed anyone, never burned one witch at the stake and who does not hope that all who do not agree with him will wind up in he'll Judging from the remarks of Father Coyle and MT. Durant each of them would be greatly pleased if he got to heaven and could look down and point the finger of scorn at his brother, writh- ing in the bottomless pit, and say, T told you so.' It is different with us poor agnostics, for we sincerely hope that both of these gentlemen will have eter- nal happiness and forget their worldly hate of each other Each might remem- Der: Judge not, that ye be not judged" Each, of all the various churches, teaches that you can enter heaven only by be- lieving certain things; yet, according that saith unto me, Lord. Lord, shall enter the Kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven Now, all we have to de- eide is this: What is the will of my Father which is in heaven? As no two of numberless Christian churches agree what is our duty in regard to belief, but all agree regarding our duty to our neighbor. the agnostic simply accepts that part on which all of them are agreed and throws out that on which they do not agree, as being unimportant and en- ti1ely unreliable. The very fact that none of them agree shows that there can be no absolute proof. Yet, because the agnostic refuses to fuss with any of them, and look upon them with con tempt, they all take shots at him when ever they feel like it. and there happens to be period of peace among them selves.
 would humbly suggest that, as MT. Durant and Father Coyle are both striv-
 
 better, they forget their unimportant diff ferences and join hands at Jumping on the poor agnostics, because we are not going to get mad and try to burn them at the stake, or even wish them evil. The present condition of almost all the civ ilized world would lead us to believe that 2000 years of so-called Christianity has done very little toward improving us, and, as no sane man can doubt that if the teachings of Christ, as set forth in the Bible, were followed out, the world would be a much better place, he must conclude that the methods of making Christians out of us are at fault, and this cannot be said of the Baptist church, nor the Catholic church, nor of any one church in particular, but of all of them I am perfectly willing to wager that less than 20 per cent of the people of Greater Birmingham were in any church last Sunday, and that 90 per cent of them pro- fess to be Christians
 Having spent several years in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Colombia, Panama and Ecuador, cannot agree with what Father Coyle says about schools. To my way of thinking all of these countries were and still are ill pretty sad state of civiliza- tion. All schools are Catholic schools in Ecuador and in most of the other coun- tries mentioned and certainly cannot admit that the children are better, m1r- ally or physically. than are those who have attended the public schools of this country.
 In regard to what Father Coyle says about marriage of Protestants. having read the Ne Temere Decree, if Father Coyle is right in his statement in this