On the other hand, what is called infidelity says to the dying: What happens to you will happen to all. If there be another world of joy, it is for all. If there is another life, every human being will have the eternal opportunity of doing right—the eternal opportunity to live, to reform, to enjoy. There is no monster in the sky. There is no Moloch who delights in the agony of his children. These frightful things are savage dreams.
Infidelity puts out the fires of hell with the tears of pity.
Infidelity puts the seven-hued arch of Hope over every grave.
Let us then, gentlemen, come back to the real questions under discussion. Let us not wander away.
Robert G. Ingersoll.
Jan'y 9, 1891.
INGERSOLL CONTINUES THE BATTLE. V.
NO one objects to the morality of Christianity.
The industrious people of the world—those who have anything—are, as a rule, opposed to larceny; a very large majority of people object to being murdered, and so we have laws against larceny and murder. A large majority of people believe in what they call, or what they understand to be, justice—at least as between others. There is no very great difference of opinion among civilized people as to what is or is not moral.
It cannot truthfully be said that the man who attacks Buddhism attacks all morality. He does not attack goodness, justice, mercy, or anything that tends in his judgment to the welfare of mankind; but he attacks Buddhism. So one attacking what is called Christianity does not attack kindness, charity, or any virtue. He attacks something that has been added to the virtues. He does not attack the flower, but what he believes to be the parasite.