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INGERSOLL IN CANADA

A REPLY TO WENDLING, ARCHBISHOP LYNCH, BYSTANDER; AND OTHERS.

"Here's freedom to him that would read, Here's freedom to him that would write; Thert's nane ever feared that the truth should be heard, But they whom the truth would indite."--Burns.

"Hew to the line, let the chips fall where they may."

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.

TO THE CLERGY AND COLLEGE STUDENTS OF ONTARIO.

Gentlemen,--Through the generous and voluntary liberality of a highly esteemed and estimable Freethought friend, and at his suggestion, I have been enabled to get out this Second Edition of my pamphlet, of upwards of 4,000 copies, chiefly for gratuitous distribution among yourselves. The gentleman referred to conceived the project of supplying every Minister in the Province with a copy, and it was further decided to also supply the College Students.

Mr. Pedley then goes on to point out the effects of ignorance, on the part of the minister, of the arguments and writings of Freethinkers. He says: "If he be pastor in a reading community, he will know less than his congregation about matters which it is his special business to understand. He will stand towards the Bible, as an ignorant Priest stands towards the Pope, accepting an infallibility that he has never proved. He will appear before the intelligent world as a spiritual coward, a craven-hearted man, who dare not face the enemy who is slowly mastering his domains. He will become a by-word and a reproach to the generation which he is confessedly unable to lead, and which sweeps by with disdainful tread, leaving him far in the rear."

These are brave words and frank admissions, which should be well pondered by every clergyman, minister and priest, and every theological student, for should they fail to acquaint themselves with the doctrines and arguments of their opponents, they will speedily find themselves, as Mr. Pedley warns them, preaching to people who know more than they about matters which it is their special business to know.

Yours earnestly for Truth,

A. P. Selby, Nov. 22nd, 1880.

INTRODUCTORY

Col. Robt. G. Ingersoll, the American Freethinker and eloquent iconoclast, visited Canada in April last and lectured on theological subjects in various places, including Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Belleville and Napanee, thereby agitating the theological caldron as it has never been agitated before in this country.

And "when Mars was gone the dogs of war were let loose!" Since Ingersoll's departure there has been a profuse shower of "Replies" and "Refutations" from the press, and a tempest of denunciation and misrepresentation from the pulpit. Indeed, before the departure of the redoubtable idol-smasher, the vituperation and slander commenced, under the aegis of "A warning against the Fallacies of Ingersoll." The pious Evangelists of the Y. M. C. A., of Toronto, issued this propagandist gospel-manifesto containing slanderous statements against Mr. Ingersoll. This, with much more zeal than courtesy, they thrust upon all entering the Royal Opera House on the first evening of the lectures. The lecturer, in opening, branded the base slander of this Christian document that he had signed a petition to allow obscene matter to pass through the mails, as a wilful and malicious falsehood. As this calumny is yet reiterated from press and pulpit, implicating all Freethinkers as being in favor of obscenity, the Resolution on this subject which Col. Ingersoll submitted to the Cincinnati Convention of Freethinkers in September, 1879, will not be out of place here. It was as follows, and passed unanimously:--

Resolved,--That we are utterly opposed to the dissemination through the mails, or by any other means, of all obscene literature, whether inspired or uninspired, holding in measureless contempt its authors, publishers, and disseminators; that we call upon the Christian world to expunge from the so-called sacred Bible every passage that cannot be read without covering the cheek of modesty with the blush of shame.

ALLEN PRINGLE.

Selby, Ont., June 25, 1880.

REPLY TO WENDLING

Mr. Wendling says he "champions no creed, no sect," and he assures us he "places humanity above all creeds." Now, Christianity is undoubtedly a creed; albeit, some modern theologians, seeing that the dogmas on which it rests are fast crumbling away, have discovered that Christianity is simply a "life." As to "placing humanity above all creeds," this move is decidedly rationalistic and utilitarian. It is clearly a positive doctrine of the Atheistic philosophy; and it looks more than suspicious that this shrewd lawyer has been "stealing our thunder," for he will find no such doctrine in the Bible, and it certainly has no place in Christian ethics or philosophy. The Bible represents man as below everything else rather than above--"a mere worm of the dust" It represents him as utterly depraved, "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," and without any good in him. Christianity, instead of holding humanity above all creeds, has, without compunction, immolated man by scores of thousands on the bloody altar of creed and dogma. To maintain its creeds intact, Christianity has reddened the surface of the earth with human blood. Therefore, whatever Mr. Wendling may think about the elevation of man above creeds, Christianity does not hold humanity above its creeds.

It will thus be seen that Mr. Wendling's doctrinal attitude towards the Bible and Christianity is extremely problematical, and a Materialist scarcely knows where to place him, or how to deal with his mongrel positions. Being, as he tells us, "a business man," "a lawyer," "a politician," and "a man of the world," this versatile gentleman has evidently imbibed largely of the utilitarian and humanitarian spirit of the age, while at the same time retaining his Christian predilections; and hence the hybrid homily with which we have to deal, and which he calls a "Reply to Robert Ingersoll from a Secular Standpoint." That a layman, however, should give so uncertain a sound as to his orthodox whereabouts, and, in attempting to defend his positions and answer Freethinkers, should bring forth such a doctrinal nondescript, is not indeed to be much wondered at, seeing that the clergy themselves, being mercilessly driven from pillar to post by modern science and research, occupy the most inconsistent and incongruous, not to say ridiculous, positions, in doctrine and dogma, in ecclesiastical formulary and Biblical exegesis.

However, though of dubious doctrine and doubtful orthodoxy, some of Mr. Wendling's positions, or rather assumptions and assertions, are clear enough, and not to be misunderstood; and in a few of the more important of these I propose to follow him.

Breaux, who was hanged in New Orleans, "ascended the gallows smiling and said he had made his peace with God and all men." Bolen, who was executed at Macon, Mississippi, said on the gallows: "My mouth will soon be closed in this world. I rested in the arms of Jesus last night. I am satisfied. I feel guilty of nothing. God is well pleased with my soul." Macon, who was executed at the same place, said, "I feel ready to die, because God has pardoned my sins. I risked my soul on the murder, but God has forgiven me. There is not a cloud in the way." Brown, who was also executed at Macon, with the other two, the same day, said, "I have made peace with God, and will surely go to heaven, I will cross the river with a rope around my neck that will lead my wicked soul on to glory. Blessed be God! I am going home!" Stone, who was hanged at Washington, and Tatio at Windsor, Vermont, the same day as the four above, both had made their peace with God, and were on their way "to meet the Lord Jesus Christ."

A belief in God did not it seems avail to keep these men, nor thousands of others, from crime; nor does it, in my opinion, to any great extent, operate as a deterrent of crime. People with favorable organizations and good surroundings will not be apt to commit murder whether they believe or disbelieve in a God; while persons born with, bad organizations--bad heads and impure blood--will very likely, under favorable circumstances, continue to follow their predominant impulses, whether they believe in one God or twenty, and, if Christians in belief, they will ultimately rely on that "fountain of blood open for sin and all uncleanness." Unscrupulous men who have strong natural tendencies to crime, and believe in the Christian plan of salvation, will, in bad surroundings, scarcely fail to indulge their propensities and finally avail themselves of the "bankrupt scheme"--take a bath in that impure fountain and be "washed" clean like the gentry instanced above.

"For instance, A and B are two consummate villains, and have been so for years, but in a quarrel A murders B--of course B goes to an eternal hell--but, through the labors of Mr. Hammond and others of the so-called orthodox churches who visit him in his cell before his execution--he repents. They lay this Spiritual Bankrupt Act before him. He sees it is the only alternative to keep out of hell; so he takes the benefit of it, is hanged, and goes to heaven. Thus, the murderer gets to heaven by the lucky chance of being the murderer instead of the murdered. If his victim had been fortunate enough to-strike the fatal blow, he could have changed places with him; and so the endless destiny of each would have been reversed by the chance blow of a street fight! Is it, I ask, on such grounds God distributes rewards and punishments? What must be the moral influence of such a doctrine?

"Again: A lives a life of crime for sixty years, and on the very next month or day, repents by taking the benefit of this Spiritual Bankrupt Act, dies and goes to heaven. B lives a life of virtue and goodness for sixty years, and the very next day or month makes a false step, or commits a crime, and is consigned to an endless hell to suffer intense misery without relief and without end. And yet we are told by the advocates of this unscriptural doctrine that this is a just distribution of rewards and punishments under the government of God who 'is Love,' but above all, THE FATHER.

"Look at the case of one Ward, who, in one of our counties a while ago, murdered his wife--was sentenced to death, and attended by his 'Orthodox' spiritual advisers before execution. He also repented and took the benefit of this Spiritual Bankrupt Act. When he stood upon the gallows, he said, he 'had but two steps to take--one into eternity and the other into glory.' And his poor wife--what became of her? Gone, 'with all her imperfections' to suffer unmitigated misery as long as God himself shall endure, and this, too, according to the unscriptural doctrine of the same churches which teach 'no change after death.' Again we ask, what can be the moral influence of such teaching?

"The truth is the burden of the most of the teaching of the day is, to 'die right;' 'make your peace with God in time,' and 'get religion before you die;' thus making religion to mainly consist in one general scramble to get into heaven and keep out of hell."

On this subject, Lord Bacon, himself a Christian, says:--

Mr. Wendling's next argument for the existence of a personal God is the assumed universality of the belief in God, "among every people in every quarter of the habitable globe," now and "from the very furthest reach of history." As the value of this argument turns simply on a question of fact, and as every educated or well-read man knows that the facts in this case are against Mr. Wendling, and that his assertion is historically incorrect, it is hardly worth while to spend much time over it. However, as some readers may not have looked into the authorities on the subject, I may, perhaps not unprofitably quote briefly from some of them, and simply refer the reader to others.

"After all that has been so plausibly written concerning the 'innate idea of God;' after all that has been said of its being common to all men, in all ages and nations, it does not appear that man has any more idea of God than any of the beasts of the field; he has no knowledge of God at all. Whatever change may afterward be wrought by his own reflection or education, he is by nature a mere Atheist."

Charles Darwin, the greatest naturalist in the world, and who is proverbially careful in his statements, has the following on this subject in his "Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 62-3:--

"There is ample evidence, derived not from hasty travellers, but from men who have long resided with savages, that numerous races have existed and still exist, who have no idea of one or more Gods, and who have no words in their languages to express such an idea."

Again, in vol. 2, p. 377, Darwin says:--

"The belief in God has often been advanced as not only the greatest, but the most complete, of all the distinctions between man and the lower animals. It is, however, impossible, as we have seen, to maintain that this belief is innate or instinctive in man. On the other hand, a belief in all-pervading spiritual agencies seems to be universal; and apparently follows from a considerable advance in the reasoning powers of man, and from a still greater advance in his faculties of imagination, curiosity and wonder. I am aware that the assumed instinctive belief in God has been used by many persons as an argument for His existence. But this is a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to believe in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, possessing only a little more power than man; for the belief in them is far more general than of a beneficent Deity. The idea of a universal and beneficent Creator of the universe does not seem to arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by long-continued culture."

Mr. Wendling's next argument to prove the existence of a personal God is the once celebrated but now obsolete "design" argument of Catwell and Paley; but he seems either not to know or he ignores the fact that this "design argument" has been so thoroughly refuted by the sternest logic and most indisputable natural facts that the more advanced theologians of the present day have wholly abandoned it. To reproduce these, or to give any elaborate refutation, it is unnecessary here. The whole matter may be disposed of briefly by one or two simple syllogisms which everybody can comprehend. The famous "design argument," then, may be formulated into simple syllogistic propositions thus:--

Whatever manifests design must have had a designer:

The world manifests design;

Therefore, the world must have had a designer.

Whatever manifests design must have had a designer:

God, in his alleged personality and attributes, manifests design;

Therefore, God must have had a designer.

It will thus be seen that Mr. Wendling's design argument from Catwell and Paley proves entirely too much for his own good, and hence it is that the astute theologians of the day have abandoned Paley and his design argument to their fate, where they have been duly relegated by the incisive logic of the modern materialist.

"The following proposition seems to me in a high degree probable--namely, that any animal whatever, endowed with well-marked social instincts, would inevitably acquire a moral sense or conscience, as soon as its intellectual powers had become as well developed, or nearly as well developed, as in man."

On this point John Stuart Mill also has the following in his "Utilitarianism," p. 45:--

"If, as is my own belief, the moral feelings are not innate, but acquired, they are not for that reason less natural."

The reader is also referred to "Psychological Inquiries," by Sir B. Brodie, for further evidence on this subject.

Having thus dealt with the arguments of Mr. Wendling in evidence of a personal God--a primary assumption upon which he predicates many other assumptions--there is little else in his "Reply to Robert Ingersoll" demanding attention. One or two, however, of his extraordinary assertions, it may not be amiss to look into a little; especially as Mr. Wendling, having waxed valiant over the supposed conclusiveness of his arguments, triumphantly throws down the glove to "infidelity" in this wise:--

"For whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate." "For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth." "Therefore hath he mercy on whom he will have mercy, and whom he will he hardeneth." "The wicked are estranged from the womb; they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." "Ye believe not because ye are not of my sheep." "Ye be reprobates." "Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." He hardened their hearts, "That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand." "Hath not the potter power over the clay." &c. "He that believeth not shall be damned."

REPLY TO LYNCH

A CRUSHING EDICT FROM ST. MICHAEL'S PALACE.

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