It is too late. That day has faded in the West of the past. The doctor of theology has lost his power. Theological thunder has lost its lightning—it is nothing now but noise, pleasing those who make it and amusing those who hear.
The Telegram has nothing to fear. It is, in the highest sense, a newspaper—wide-awake, alive, always on time, good to its friends, fair with its enemies, and true to the public.
What have I to say to the Doctor's personal abuse?
Nothing. A man may call me a devil, or the devil, or he may say that I am incapable of telling the truth, or that I tell lies, and yet all this proves nothing. My arguments remain unanswered.
I cannot afford to call Dr. Buckley names, I have good mental manners. The cause I represent (in part) is too great, too sacred, to be stained by an ignorant or a malicious personality.
I know that men do as they must with the light they have, and so I say—More light!
III.
THE Rev. James M. King—who seems to have taken this occasion to become known—finds fault because "blasphemous utterances concerning Christmas" were published in the Telegram, and were allowed "to greet the eyes of innocent children and pure women."
How is it possible to blaspheme a day? One day is not, in and of itself, holier than another—that is to say, two equal spaces of time are substantially alike. We call a day "good" or "bad" according to what happens in the day. A day filled with happiness, with kind words, with noble deeds, is a good day. A day filled with misfortunes and anger and misery we call a bad day. But how is it possible to blaspheme a day?
A man may or may not believe that Christ was born on the 2 5th of December, and yet he may fill that day, so far as he is concerned, with good thoughts and words and deeds. Another may really believe that Christ was born on that day, and yet do his worst to make all his friends unhappy. But how can the rights of what are called "clean families" be violated by reading the honest opinions of others as to whether Christmas is kept in honor of the birth of Christ, or in honor of the triumph of the sun over the hosts of darkness? Are Christian families so weak intellectually that they cannot bear to hear the other side? Or is their case so weak that the slightest evidence overthrows it? Why do all these ministers insist that it is ill-bred to even raise a question as to the truth of the improbable, or as to the improbability of the impossible?