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"Yours in Christ, , John Joseph Lynch."

The tables are now turning. The Church, to-day, instead of burning unbelievers, and strangling science by immuring in dungeons its votaries, is herself being strangled by science . Her cruel theology and irrational dogmas are prostrate, writhing in their death throes, at the feet of the Hercules of modern science and criticism.

"It may comfort some to know that there are amongst us many whom the gladiators of the pulpit would call Atheists and Materialists, whose lives, nevertheless, as tested by any accessible standard of morality, would contrast more than favorably with the lives of those who seek to stamp them with this offensive brand. When I say 'offensive' I refer simply to the intention of those who use such terms, and not because Atheism or Materialism, when compared with many of the notions ventilated in the columns of religious newspapers, has any particular offensiveness to me. If I wished to find men who are scrupulous in their adherence to engagements, whose words are their bond, and to whom moral shiftiness of any kind is subjectively unknown; if I wanted a loving father, a faithful husband, an honorable neighbor, and a just citizen, I would seek him among the band of Atheists to which I refer. I have known some of the most pronounced amongst them, not only in life, but in death--seen them approaching with open eyes the inexorable goal, with no dread of a 'hangman's whip,' with no hope of a heavenly crown, and still as mindful of their duties, and as faithful in the discharge of them, as if their eternal future depended on their latest deeds."

"The prosecutions of the Christians by the Pagans, it is now universally conceded by Christian historians, have been greatly exaggerated; Christians have killed, in one day, for their faith nearly half as many heretics as all the Christians put to death by the Pagans during the whole period of the Pagan Empire."

The Archbishop's Church is, therefore, no improvement in respect of liberty or toleration, on the Paganism he reviles.

What progress the world has made in liberty and civilization, has been made, not with the assistance of the Christian Church, but in spite of its determined opposition and deadly hostility. Dr. Draper, author of the "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science," and other works, tells us that:

"Latin Christianity is responsible for the condition and progress of Europe from the fourth to the sixteenth century," and subsequently avers, "Whoever will, in in a spirit of impartiality, examine what had been done by Catholicism for the intellectual and material advancement of Europe, during her long reign, and what has been done by science in its brief period of action, can, I am persuaded, come to no other conclusion than this, that, in instituting a comparison, he has established a contrast." Lecky, in his "History of Morals," vol. 2, p. 18, tells us:--"For more than three centuries the decadence of theological influence has been one of the most invariable signs and measures of our progress. In medicine, physical science, commercial interests, politics, and even ethics, the reformer has been confronted with theological affirmations that have barred his way, which were all defended as of vital importance, and were all compelled to yield before the secularizing influence of civilization."

This relentless enemy--the Church--of all science, all progress in knowledge among the people, ruthlessly exterminated the best minds within its grasp for centuries. Darwin, in his "Descent of Man," vol. 1, p. 171-2, says:--

"During the same period the Holy Inquisition selected with extreme care the freest and boldest men in order to burn and imprison them. In Spain alone some of the best men, those who doubted and questioned--and without doubting and questioning there can be no progress--were eliminated during three centuries at the rate of a thousand a year."

Talk to us of barbarism and paganism! A church which, from the time, nearly fifteen centuries ago, when she burnt the Alexandrian Libraries and Museum--the intellectual legacies of centuries--to the present time, has never yet called off her sleuth-hounds with which she has always hunted down the sacred principles of liberty of thought and freedom of conscience! A Church which from "the beginning of that unhappy contest," as Mosheim tells us, "between faith and reason, religion and philosophy, piety and genius, which increased in succeeding ages, and is prolonged even to our times with a violence which renders it extremely difficult to be brought to a conclusion," to this day, would hold the world in barbarous ignorance if its paralyzed hand could but avail against the resistless march of knowledge and truth! Draper, in speaking of the condition of the people under Catholicity in the 14th century, thus pictures the civilizing and elevating influences of that Holy Religion:--

For centuries, and centuries, in the Western Empire, subsequent to the invasion of the barbarians, when the Church this Toronto prelate owes allegiance to, had absolute control, such was the dense ignorance that scarcely a layman could be found who could sign his own name. There was very little learning, and what little there was the clergy carefully and jealously confined to themselves; and as Hallam, the historian, tells us:--

"A cloud of ignorance overspread the whole face of the church, hardly broken by a few glimmering lights, who owe almost the whole of their distinction to the surrounding darkness." The same historian tells us:--"France reached her lowest point at the beginning of the eighth century, but England was, at that time, more respectable, and did not fall into complete degradation until the middle of the ninth. There could be nothing more deplorable than the state of Italy during the succeeding century. In almost every council the ignorance of the clergy forms a subject for reproach. It is asserted by one held in 992 that scarcely a single person was to be found in Rome itself, who knew the first elements of letters. Not one priest of a thousand in Spain, about the age of Charlemagne, could address a common letter of salutation to one another."

Lecky, in his "History of Morals," vol. 2, p. 222, tells us that:

"Mediaeval Catholicity discouraged and suppressed, in every way, secular studies," and further, that, "Not till the education of Europe passed from the monasteries to the universities; not until Mahomedan science and classical freethought and industrial independence broke the sceptre of the Church, did the intellectual revival of Europe commence."

And, I would ask Archbishop Lynch, what was the condition of the Byzantine Empire during the thousand years or upwards of its existence?--An empire under the sway of his Church, from its foundation by the first Christian emperor, Constantine--that exemplary Christian murderer who, because the Pagan priests refused him absolution for his enormities, hastened to the bosom of the Christian Church, whose priests he found more pliable, having little compunction or hesitancy about granting absolution to the new proselyte. What is the record of history touching this Empire under the aegis of Catholic Christianity? The historian Lecky thus graphically sets forth its condition:--

The same historian, whose accuracy Archbishop Lynch will scarcely attempt to impeach, thus judicially and impartially sums up the influences of Catholic Christianity both in the Eastern and Western Empires during many centuries when it had the fullest sway:--

"When we remember that in the Byzantine Empire the renovating power of theology was tried in a new capital, free from Pagan traditions, and for more than one thousand years unsubdued by barbarians, and that in the west, the Church, for at least seven hundred years after the shocks of the invasion had subsided, exercised a control more absolute than any other moral or intellectual agency has ever attained, it will appear, I think, that the experiment was very sufficiently tried. It is easy to make a catalogue of the glaring vices of antiquity, and to contrast them with the pure morality of Christian writings; but, if we desire to form a just estimate of the realized improvement, we must compare the classical and ecclesiastical civilizations as wholes, and must observe in each case not only the vices that were repressed but also the degree and variety of positive excellence attained."

As examples of the holy canons which were actually fulminated and promulgated by that Ecumenical Council in the latter part of this 19th century, here are a few:--

These are the modest assumptions of the Church of Rome in this age; and a prelate of that Church breathes the same noxious vapors forth into the intellectual atmosphere of the City of Toronto! It remains to be seen whether in Toronto there are such slaves or fools as will submit to this worse than Egyptian bondage. Will intelligent Catholics put their necks in a yoke so galling? None but slaves or barbarians would do it. The Archbishop would thus fain make barbarians of his own people, and then he would have the pagans at home without hunting among Freethinkers for them. In his lecture in Napanee, in April last, Col. Ingersoll gave it as his opinion that any man--no matter what Church he belonged to, or what country he lived in--who claimed rights for himself which he denied to others, is a barbarian! Now, according to this definition, who are the barbarians? The Freethinkers, or the Archbishop himself and those he ignominiously holds in mental bondage?

REPLY TO "BYSTANDER."

The Rev. gentleman then referred deprecatingly to the inadequate-college training of theological students in "apologetics," as they were not allowed to read the works of sceptics for themselves, but had to take their tutors' version of the sceptics' arguments. This "putting up a little argument and then knocking it down," he said was neither "the fair nor the true way." He recommended putting "the very sceptical works into the hands of the students, and he would even say to go and hear Ingersoll if he came."

"If this conception" "flows from no reality, from what does it flow? It is a phenomenon of which, as of other phenomena, there must be some explanation; and we have not yet chanced to see in the writings of any Agnostic an explanation which seemed at all satisfactory."

"Which of the two is the First Principle? Force cannot have been produced by matter, for without force, matter cannot move, change, or generate at all. Matter cannot have been produced by force, because force is nothing but the impulsion of matter. Apparently there must have been something before both, which produced them and determined their relations; and it must be something beyond the range of sense."

There is an ultimate ground, however, upon which the Theist and Materialist may meet in common, and, so far as I can see, the only ultimate position they can occupy in perfect corelation. The universe exists; man as a part of the universe--a mode of existence--is here; in this we agree. Man, then, being himself the highest intelligence he knows of, continually seeks an explanation of the universe and of himself as a part of it. This is the common ground upon which we all stand--Rationalist, Theist, Agnostic, Atheist--barbarous and civilized--the weakest and the mightiest intellect.

REPLY TO "A RATIONALIST"

We have another reply to Ingersoll in a pamphlet of twenty pages, issued in Toronto, with the following modest title:--"A Refutation of Col. R. G. Ingersoll's Lectures, by 'A Rationalist.'" This proemial announcement is certainly calculated to excite high expectations; but it is only necessary to look into the rational "refutation" to see that the names the writer has given himself and pamphlet are both misnomers. How such an irrational jumble of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, obsolete philosophy, and moribund metaphysics could by any possibility pass for rationalism, even in the eyes of its author, is one of those profound mysteries which "no fellah can understand." Is it not a little singular that all these "replies" and "refutations" from the orthodox side come from theological nondescripts--from men who are but half orthodox , and not one reply from a thoroughly orthodox champion? A correlative fact, not without much significance, is that, though no argument comes from the orthodox side, the denunciations all come from that source. On the other hand in proportion as the opposing champion is unorthodox, in that ratio is he tolerant, courteous, and in favor of free speech and equal rights. "A Rationalist's" essay is pervaded by the kindliest spirit personally towards his opponent, and this, in a measure, redeems its literary and logical defects.

Intelligence presupposes a greater intelligence,

God has intelligence,

Therefore, there must be an intelligence greater than God.

Here, certainly, is ample scope for exegetical ingenuity. The passages quoted, besides scores of others, many of them too indecent for these pages, would seem to require the touch of "Rationalist's" spiritual interpretation wand. When the literal meaning is "rubbed off," the occult, spiritual meaning will appear.

As a sample of "Rationalist's" metaphysical philosophy I give the following:--

"See thro' this air, this ocean, and this earth, All matter quick and bursting into birth."

"Rationalist" worries himself into inextricable confusion over causes and effects, first causes, first causes and last effects, etc., etc. Because Ingersoll has said "a first cause is just as impossible as a last effect," Rationalist well nigh swamps himself in a most ludicrous "muss-of-a muddle-of-a-jerry-cum-tumble" of bad diction and worse logic to prove that by such reasoning as Ingersoll's we come to "chaos" and to "nothing," We reason everything out of existence, he says, and just now we will have left "no nature, no God, no man, no matter" "no force," no "nothing"-- "literally nothing." Shades of Bacon! let us take breath; for this would certainly be a very bad state of things, from which "good Lord deliver us!" It would be nearly as bad as before the "creation," when nothing existed throughout the infinite realms of space save Jehovah himself.

It is a great relief to a Freethinker to find a man among the clergy like Mr. Bray, in point of religious liberality. It is like coming upon an oasis in the waste desert of orthodox bigotry and intolerance.

"In a free country all kinds of freedom must be allowed, and Mr. Ingersoll had just as much right to come here and say his say in his own manner, and according to his own discretion, as Mr. Hammond has to come and preach and teach in his way. If men are free to agree with us, they are also free to differ with us; to differ a little, to differ much, to differ altogether. If the Mayor had found a law by which he could prohibit Ingersoll from lecturing against our religious beliefs, I would have started an agitation at once for the repeal of that absurd and antiquated law. If hearing arguments against our faith is likely to unsettle us, then we had better be unsettled. We are badly off with all our religious literature and preaching, if we cannot endure any kind of criticism, and witticism, and argument."

These are brave words, and every fair-minded man in this Dominion will agree with Mr. Bray in his liberal and courageous utterances. They are timely words to go forth in that city where the war of sects has waxed so hot and virulent of late. Montreal needs more men like Bray in her churches, to mollify the bigotry, and stamp out the bitter feuds, and fierce antagonism of Christian against Christian.

As this pamphlet has already reached a much greater length than originally intended, I have but little space to devote to Mr. Bray's Reply to Ingersoll. One or two points, however, must be noticed.

Mr. Bray falls into the same error as "Bystander" in accusing

To the Editor of the Canadian Spectator:

Sir,--In your issue of the 10th instant, in a discourse in reply to Col. Ingersoll, I find the following:--

"The lecturer, who seemed to imagine that he understood everything else, was compelled to acknowledge that he did not understand why there should be so much hunger and pain and misery. Why, the world over, life should live upon life. When he has cast Jehovah out of the Universe, he is pained and puzzled to account for the presence of wrong and sorrow. With God he cannot account for it; without God he cannot account for it. If Col. Ingersoll, or any other of that school, can give me an intelligent theory of life, and satisfactory solution of the problem of the presence of evil and pain without God, I am prepared to consider it."

Respectfully,

ALLEN PRINGLE.

Napanee, Ont., April 23, 1880.

THE OATH QUESTION

"I solemnly promise and declare that the evidence given by me to the Court, shall be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

We want a similar Act in Canada, and then Counsel will not be able as now to badger witnesses about "infidel belief," and turn the court into an inquisition; nor will a bigoted judge have it in his discretion to order Atheists down from the witness-box as not fit to give evidence. At almost every sitting of our courts it is demonstrated beyond a doubt. that believers in the Bible, who take the oath on that Book, do not all tell the truth under oath. Every judge and lawyer in the land knows this, and all know it who have much to do in courts of law. The simple word or affirmation of an honest man, whether Christian or Infidel, is better than a thousand oaths of many believers in the Bible, who are without hesitation taken into the witness-box. Moreover, the Atheist in making the above affirmation under the Act referred to, is subject to the same penalties for perjury as the Christian is in taking, the usual oath. There is, therefore, no good reason why we should! not have a similar Act here, and it behooves us to begin to move towards its consummation. Freethinkers are getting numerous in Canada, and they are, to say the least, as exemplary citizens, socially and morally, as their Christian neighbors? Why then should they be longer denied equal rights with their Christian neighbors?

In conclusion, I beg to again urge upon my fellow Freethinkers throughout Canada the necessity of taking such action as will secure for us our legal rights in the Courts of this country. I trust that the petitions to Parliament for an Evidence Amendment Act, which we design ere long to put in circulation, may be numerously signed and diligently circulated by the liberal friends in the various places to which they will be sent.

Selby, Lennox Co., Ont., July, 1880

"It can do truth no service to blink the fact, known to all who have the most ordinary Acquaintance with literary history, that a large portion, of the noblest and most valuable moral teaching has been the work, not only of men who did not know, but of men who knew and rejected, the Christian faith."--J. S. Mill.

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