Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 31, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 April 1877 — Ingersoll On Ghosts. [ARTICLE]

Ingersoll On Ghosts.

Rcb«t Ingertolßi wllgiou. .r irreligious utterance■ havs excited pad will eootinq* to excite » great /deal of attention, aawell they may. fie shoots in a marvelontly bewitching li'ght the absurdities of the radons religious beliefs, and gives.bis auditors alternate doses pf history and humor, the former iuSt enough exaggerated to be novel and the Utter just broad enough to be palatable. He adds to this boldness, dash, and eloquence, which will make his leoture very popular, and wo may expect to seo weak imitators springing up on every hand. He is likely to be in great demand fcy free religious societies and like organisations, and it is sate to say that he will entertain them most thoroughly. A liule examination, however, will show it ia not the matter, but the manner, ot Mr. Ingersoll which is original. Like others who have preceded him, he kicks away the faulty, and perhaps unsafe and decaying, platform on whioh poor hu inanity is huddled, and precipitates us into a fathomless abyss beneath. It Is pretty easy to work at this basinets. No edifice was ever reared that an accomplished architect could not demonstrate it to be unsuitable for a purpose. No palace was ever constructed tbatoould not be dismantled. The work of experts and the labor of the most renowned artisans oan be destroyed by a body of louts who could not fashion onp qf its humblest pilasters. 4. fool could lire the Kphofian dome. Nevertheless, it is hardly wise to destroy even the shabbiest shelter until something more substantial ia reared to take its plkee. Mr. Ingersoll bas a religion of reason; but, alas, what does this mean? Reason ia comparative, and, measured by the altitude of perfect intelligence, the sagacity of the wisest ana the dullest among us is so alike diminutive and pitifully base that it is a meanness to jcontit the difference. The world has struggled hard heretofore oyer the questions that distraot the *‘Rev. Bob.’’ Reasonera have proclaimed the discovery of a’ ylctorious analysis. We have ijad “endless vortices of froth logic, where words and things have been 'whirled and sw allowed.” We have

had theorizing about Man, the 34i 'i4 of Man, Fhilosopby of Gov* crpment, Progress of the Species, fid infiniUttn. Incoherences aliave been detected, laughed at,despised; and yet nQf.hiug is more certain than this-, “that all theories, be they never so earnest and painfully elaborated, are, and by the very conditions of them must be, incomplete, questionable, aud even false. It is useless to attempt to swaliow the universe. A man may be thankful if, by planting down here and there a fixed pillar ;n the chaos, he can prevent it frqm swallowing film.” Mr. Inger&oll does nqt attempt to peiietrate the mists of superstition, and beyond the false discover and discribe the true. He rests after the first is accomplished, pthers have gone farther. It was away back in 1703 that a new Religion was proclaimed to France. Strange aight that! Formulas and creeds were strangled. Kidipuloos things they were, which reason could not tolerate. lustead there came, we are told, the “Demoiselle Candeille, of the opera; a woman fair to look upon when well gauged; she, borne nu a palanquin shouldered high, with red woolen night-cap, a?mre auntie, garlanded with oak, holding in her hand the Pike of Jnptter— Peuple —sailed into ihe Rational. Convention, heralded by women iu white, gin with the tricolor.” This was the new* divinity, the Goddess of Reason, worthy alone of reverence. She is given the fraternal ki>m by the grave members of the convention, and then her yule i? consecrated on the high alter of Jyotre Dame. Then comes the priests, forsaking their ancient faith far lire uew belief or unbelief. Firstcdtpe's the humble curate and lava down his stipend. Then follows ‘‘Goose’* Go be I, constituted pishoo of Paris, who has been “preaching a lie,” but who declares that hereafter he will IteliglW bat Liberty.” t Bui the hears go on, and these meu yispoyer that their religion of reason is uniati-fsotofy. Its reign lias been marked by horror, persecutions, bloodshed, eclipsing even j.he terfibl'd cruelties that Mr. Inger»oll enumerates in the history of the church of God, jfinally there comes a decree, Inure ajbqrd and impious, if possi>le, thatubeone which preceded it, n new gospel. Gath,lK.;sm has been U rbt put; reasonworship nas been gullotmed, and jtow the coesentiou decrees' tfip fliistHice ot‘ a Supreme Being mid the liui}io£laUty of ihe Soul. Atheism, , *}>|re«erited by a pasteboard figure steepM th turpoutine, is fired, amid ihe tKjkderipg plaudits of the pop. mid Uie Religion ni Kea.

the round of the oirelo is made, aud France uornea back to tfie religions point from whence she departed a year or two before. And, after all, what better system or belief have w« obtained than tne old faith, which, with all its faults, its absurdities, and even abominations, still brings peace and tranquility to many and a flattering hope to all? Even Mr. Ingersoll hiraseft, after a vain and wearisome effort to fathom the unfathomable, after digging away at the sophistries of Christianity, and battering the walls of the church, may find at last that he is only half a magician, evoking specters that he has no power to quell, and ao settle at last, if not into the devout believer, at least Into the charitable, tolerant, and hopeful philesof»her, who, knowing nothing, beieves in the possibility of everything.—■ Chicago Inter-Ocean.