I worship the God of my choice, or none at all, if I like, not by tolerance but by right-a right inherent, inalienable; and, though not conferred, yet guaranteed us by our noble national and state constitutions. I know full well if theology could issue its mandates unrebuked by law that the scenes of past ages would be re-enacted. We rejoice in our deliverance from the bondage of superstition and its inquisitorial torments; but in the exercise of our liberty we enjoy only our rights, grudgingly accorded—but all our own.

If, as alleged, Mr. Ingersoll has advanced nothing new and his arguments are borrowed from Paine, Bolingbroke and others, why has such a bevy of writers, priests and preachers, essayed replies to his writings and lectures?

Please do not tell us what Celsus, Porphyry and Julian have said-names very unfamiliar to the popular ear-but redeem your pledge, granting “nothing, and taking nothing for granted." Having thus promised, in the next paragraph you speak of the "proofs of Christianity to be found in the writings of the great Christian philosophers and theologians," and you affirm that they never have been successfully answered. Perhaps not; but it seems that you have taken something for granted at the outset, and have substituted assertion for proof. You indeed say, "it is not Christianity that is on trial but Mr. Ingersoll's article," but forget not that that article necessarily involves the authenticity and credibility of the Old and New Testament Scriptures, and the intelligent investigator will desire to read, not a bald assertion that Mr. Ingersoll has been or can be refuted, but the refutation itself. But, in truth, are there no new issues raised in the present which were unknown to the past? Were those ancient men, Anaximander, Epicurus, Lucretius, or the more modern writers, such as Hobbes, Bolingbroke and Paine, acquainted with the discoveries of modern science, such as the great antiquity of pre

historic man, his progress from a barbarous state to higher and still higher grades of civilization; or the negation, even by Christian geologists,, of a universal deluge? Astronomy, geology, philology, paleontology and comparative anatomy have recently opened up rich treasuries of scientific fact which have a direct bearing upon the plenary inspiration of Scripture, and which Christian apologists cannot afford to ignore.

Yet the easiest way to gain a logical victory, in the eyes of the unthinking many, is to insist that an opponent is wanting in originality and has been answered successfully, away back in the world's history, by men of unpronounceable names, and of whom only the scholarly few have either read or heard. This cheap method of disputation is not suited to the requirements of the present age. But after centuries of repetition. of effete dogmas, supported by arguments corroded by antique rust, does it become theologians to cavil about a want of originality in those who controvert their teachings?

Notwithstanding your promise to "analyze with careful scrutiny every statement he adduces, every inference her draws," you have failed to give even a fair synopsis of the arguments you attempt to confute.

But why indulge in wanton abuse? Why employ epithets vile? Foul words give no weight to statement; no point to argument.

If, indeed, you have, as you claim, exterminated your adversary; if you have "smirched his character" beyond rehabilitation, let pity constrain you, Reverend Sir, from further exercise of the severity of your wrath. Rather let your anger be stirred against the "glib little whiffets of his shallow school," while he, dejected and dismayed, sulks in his tent.

CHAPTER II.

REPLY TO CHAPTER I.

Priestly Metaphysics, according to which God, Time, Space and Matter must be Annihilated!-Freedom of the Will-Unsolved Problems.

IN the first chapter of the "Notes" we are treated to a metaphysical disquisition.

Ingersoll." The universe, according to my idea, is, always was and forever will be. . . It is the one eternal beingthe only thing that ever did, does, or can exist."

Lambert.—" When you say 'according to my idea' you leave the inference that this theory of an eternal universe never occurred to the mind of man until your brain acquired its full development."

How trenchant this logic! how irresistible its conclusion! The words," according to my idea," are here said to imply primitive conception. Because I say " I have an idea," I leave the inference that no one ever conceived the same idea before.

Let us try the good priest's logic on himself. According to his idea the Catholic Church is infallible, the priest can forgive sins,* and so of every doctrine of his church. Therefore his brain first conceived these dogmas. True our Reverend

* I had never supposed that forgiveness of sins by the priest was a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church, until I heard Father Lambert distinctly state the fact in a lecture delivered by him in Oil City, Pa. Before that time I had often occasion to defend his church against this charge, alleging that the priest claimed simply the power to declare, ex officio, forgiveness of sins already pardoned by Almighty God.

Father may claim that his faith is more than an "idea," but this only shows the superior modesty of Mr. Ingersoll. Pardon me, this is wasting powder on too small game. No reference to the Father, but to the sophistical averment he inadvertently let slip.

The remark made by Mr. Ingersoll was merely prefatory, and given to indicate his position to his adversary, and is followed in the next paragraph by the modest confession, "of course, upon a question like this, nothing can be absolutely known."

But let us come down to "hard-pan" and examine the Father's metaphysics. He says, "You [Ingersoll] affirm the eternity of matter. On this I reason thus:

That which is eternal is infinite. It must be infinite because, if eternal, it can have nothing to limit it.

But that which is infinite must be infinite, in every way [italics ours]. If limited in any way, it would not be infinite.

"Now, matter is limited. It is composed of parts, and composition is limitation. It is subject to change, and change involves limitation. Change supposes succession, and there can be no succession without a beginning, and therefore limitation. Thus far we are borne out by reason, experience, and common sense."

Waiving the question of the power of "experience" to bear us out in our ideas of the eternal, the infinite, and the illimitable, is it true that that which is infinite must be infinite in "every way?" Every way is indefinite, but let us suppose it means in every attribute.

The human soul at death, Scripture being the judge, starts on an eternal pilgrimage. It never dies. Its life is eternal life. "And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal."-Matt. xxv. 46.

Yet who believes that the human soul is, in any of its attributes, equal to that Spirit which religious conception portrays as omnipotent, perfect in holiness, in justice, mercy and truth, whose days are from everlasting to everlasting? Yet as.to infinity of duration future, the lives of angels and men are co-extensive with the life of Deity. So the Scriptures teach us. Space, which has been aptly defined as that which has its centre everywhere and its circumference nowhere, is infinite expansion but nothing more. It is therefore limited by unity of attribute. So of time: it is infinite duration. only.

A line infinite in length, extending through space, may be imagined, or symbolized, as readily as we may symbolize space or eternal duration regarded as the sum total of infinite diurnal successions. Yet the supposed line would have infinite length without appreciable breadth or thickness. Therefore though infinite in one respect yet finite in others.

The same fallacy is perpetrated in the sequitur to the above: "Matter is limited and therefore finite, and if finite in anything, finite in everything; and if finite in everything, therefore finite in time, and therefore not eternal."

46

Does the good priest not see, his premises being admitted, that with one breath he has blown away the whole fabric of theology with its hope of heaven and fear of hell? How dear to the Christian believer is his hope of the resurrection of the body! But we are told: Matter is limited and therefore finite, and if finite in anything, finite in everything; and if finite in everything, therefore finite in time, and therefore not eternal." The matter composing our bodies, according to the "Notes," is finite in that it had a beginning, is a composite, and is subject to change. Therefore finite in everything it cannot be eternal, but must fade away like the shadows which flit before us and are no more. So also of the