Let us be good-natured. Let us have respect for the rights of each other.
The course pursued by the Telegram is worthy of all praise. It has not only been just to both sides, but it has been—as is its custom—true to the public.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
INGERSOLL AGAIN ANSWERS HIS CRITICS. IV.
To the Editor of the Evening Telegram :
SOME of the gentlemen who have given their ideas through the columns of the Telegram have wandered from the questions under discussion. It may be well enough to state what is really in dispute.
I was called to account for having stated that Christianity did not bring "tidings of great joy," but a message of eternal grief—that it filled the future with fear and flame—made God the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, in which most of the children of men were to be imprisoned forever, and that, not satisfied with that, it had deprived God of the pardoning power.
These statements were called "mountainous lies" by the Rev. Dr. Buckley, and because the Telegram had published the "Christmas Sermon" containing these statements, he insisted that such a paper should not be allowed in the families of Christians or of Jews—in other words, that the Telegram should be punished, and that good people should refuse to allow that sheet to come into their homes.
It will probably be admitted by all fair-minded people that if the orthodox creeds be true, then Christianity was and is the bearer of a message of eternal grief, and a large majority of the human race are to become eternal convicts, and God has deprived himself of the pardoning power. According to those creeds, no word of mercy to any of the lost can ever fall from the lips of the Infinite.
The Universalists deny that such was or is the real message of Christianity. They insist that all are finally to be saved. If that doctrine be true, then I admit that Christianity came with "tidings of great joy."