harmonized with our environment. I take the same companions and come here to the bench of the Channings. And if Julius Muller, with his stern application of scientific methods to ethical truth, looks over my shoulder into Channing's eyes, the latter go down; and so would Emerson's under similar circumstances; but so would not Tennyson's, so would not Mrs. Browning's, for they have risen to a height where Julius Muller and they agree. New England needs to lose a little of her philosophical pride; for, if you open histories of philosophy, you will find that nearly all we have ever done is compressed into six or ten pages. We think we have mastered the secret of the soul's peace with its environment. So far as Cambridge and Concord and Boston stand on Plymouth Rock, they have mastered the secret and stand on a philosophical, tremorless reef; but no further. 19. It is self-evident that man can be harmonized with his environment only by the harmonization of the soul with the three things from which it cannot flee-its own nature, God, and its record. 20. The past is irreversible. 21. IIarmonization of the soul with an inerasable record of sin in the relations of the soul to God as a person can be obtained only by some arrangement harmonizing itself with the great natural operations of conscience, which govern the relations of person to person, and which demand, at least, the seven remedies already named. 22. It has just been proved that man can himself, under the laws of conscience, provide no screen for an irreversible record of sin in his relations to God as a person. 23. He must, nevertheless, face that record for ever, and God will face it. 24. The scientific necessity of similarity of feeling with God, or the new birth, results from the necessity of mau's harmonization with his own nature and with God. 25. The scientific necessity of the atonement results from the necessity of the harmonization of the soul with its eternal environment by its record of sin in its relation to God as a person. 26. The atonement, of which reason can thus show the scientific necessity, is proclaimed by revelation, and by it only, to be an historic reality. 27. To those who do not accept this historical reality, the only possible outcome of a stern application of the principles of science to the discussion of man's relation to his environment, is despair. 28. That despair is the outcome of rationalistic thought when it rejects Christianity is confessed by the whole school of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, who teach pessimism, or the doctrine that this is the worst of all possible worlds. 29. Alone among all religions known to man, Christianity, without coming into conflict with self-evident truths, meets the supreme demand of human nature in the relations of man as a person to God as a person, and harmonizes the soul with its entire environment in itself, in God, and in a record of sin. 30. Alone among all religions known to man, Christianity, including the doctrines of the atonement and of the necessity of similarity of feeling with God, has the marks of a perfect and absolute religion, in that it, and it only, provides for man's holiness and pardon in a universe where it is self-evident that the soul cannot be at peace until it is delivered from both the love of sin and the guilt of sin. Tennyson, Mrs. Browning, Julius Muller, I call to this platform, and, in companionship with these princes in the knowledge of the soul, I dare face Cambridge, and Concord, and haughty Boston, and recite here, as I have recited on the shores of both seas, my personal creed, in which I live and in which I expect to die. On the glassy sea of green, Omnipresence none can flee; Evermore with God must I O if now before Thy face Since from Thee in heart estranged, Were in Heaven, Thou, God, dost know, God! O God! Thy likeness give, I must face Thy Great White Throne. THE DESPAIR OF ATHEISM; OR, THE MISCHIEFS OF A FRAGMENTARY CULTURE. THE PRELUDE.-IS AMERICAN INFIDELITY LIBERALISM OR A COOL recital of facts authenticated by official documents is all that is needed now to run a red, ziz-zag thunder-bolt through American infidelity. 1. On May 31st, 1878, a committee of Congress, in reply to a "petition of R. G. Ingersoll and others," for the repeal of certain of the national postal laws, used this language: "In the opinion of your committee, the post-office was not established to carry instruments of vice, or obscene writings, indecent pictures, or lewd books." 2. The indisputable historical authority of this document, preserving as a fly in amber the name of the foremost infidel lecturer in the United States, shows that he and others asked for "free mails;" and what was meant by this request in the opinion of a congressional committee, and why that request was not granted by Congress. 3. The same fathomlessly infamous demand which this congressional document holds up to public execration, was made by a majority of the infidel liberal leagues at a meeting in Syracuse in October, 1878. 4 A minority of the leagues seceded from that convention because of the infamy of this demand, and have since denounced with vigour the majority as representatives of libertinism rather than of liberalism. 5. Notwithstanding this secession and denunciation, the majority of the infidel liberal leagues, in a convention at Cincinnati in September, 1879, renewed their demand of 1878, concerning the repeal of certain national postal laws. 6. A convicted cancer planter, now in Albany Penitentiary for the violation of these laws, was made the hero of this Convention, and the object of a resolution of defence and sympathy, offered by R. G. Ingersoll, and declaring that he had committed 66 no offence whatever against any law of this country." 7. On account of the refusal of the President of the United States to pardon out of the penitentiary this convicted poisoner of youth, R. G. Ingersoll has left the Republican party, and the Cincinnati Convention of infidel liberal leagues has resolved to cast its political influence only in favour of candidates of its own principles as to the secularization of the Government. 8. The secretary of the Cincinnati Infidel Convention, and of the National Infidel party, has been shown, by legal documents quoted in a Boston infidel paper, to be a convicted bigamist. The felon in the Albany Penitentiary has been proved by the same paper, and by the Religio-Philosophical Journal of Chicago, to be guilty of enormous social crimes, and the cancer planter has himself confessed the authorship of infamous letters, which have been published to establish his guilt. *See the Index for October 30th, 1879. 9. In spite of these scathing exposures of the character of its chief hero and of its secretary, the party represented by the majority of infidel leagues continues to uphold both these men, and to emphasize its demand for the repeal of established and measurelessly important postal laws of the nation. 10. The minority is the unimpeachable witness against the majority of American infidels. 11. The organization of the minority, however, has in it many officers who are also officers in the organization of the majority. 12. The minority is very feeble in numbers. It is important to notice that it is made up of only eight auxiliary leagues, while the majority has one hundred and forty-nine. 13. It is evident, therefore, that American infidelity, as a mass, means not so much liberalism as libertinism. On this table I have a coil of knotted adders, that is, of infidel newspapers defending the poisoners of youth. Without naming any of these sheets, I propose to show you a few of the fangs of the vipers. Here I pull out of the tangled mass an adder born in Boston, and its writhing form is swollen by containing the resolutions of the Cincinnati Infidel Convention which I have been challenged to read aloud to this audience. Even when I look into a viper's fangs I shall not, I hope, be guilty of evasion. These resolutions are evasive, and so thoroughly so, that, face to face with the notorious public facts which I have just recited, I need only read them to show you how shrewd but fruitless the attempt of Ingersoll was, in preparing the resolutions, to cover up the stiletto with which it is purposed to stab the youth of the nation. The Queen of Spain was once approached by a messenger who offered her a letter in a perfumed handkerchief. The silken scarf was loosely folded about the missive, and the wretch held behind it a stiletto. As he took the letter out and presented it to the Queen, he drew also his dagger. Infidelity seeks, under universal suffrage in the United States, to use the sacredness of the mails as a stiletto sheath through which to stab the youth of the land. The purpose seems too fiendish to be real, but its existence is unfortunately proved by the result of scores of suits brought against infidel publishers for the abuse of the mails. "Free mails" is the latest infidel watchword. The officers charged with the execution of our present postal laws have astounding evidence before them that the infidel attack on the purity of the mails does not hesitate to employ the most subtle forms of deception. I solemnly believe, as these officers unqualifiedly assert, that it is the purpose of those who clamour for the abolition of our present laws against the transmission of infamous matter through the mails, to cheat the general public, if they can, by pretending to be against the distribution of infamous publications. What the Cincinnati Infidel Convention did, was to fold a silken handkerchief around the stiletto. I will show you the stiletto first, and afterwards the handkerchief. Here is the murderous blade: "Resolved, That we are in favour of such postal laws as will allow the free transportation through the mails of the United States of all books, pamphlets, and papers, irrespective of the religious, irreligious, political, and scientific views they may contain, so that the literature of science may be upon an equality with that of superstition." Notice that this resolution asks for something practical. It demands the repeal of certain laws now on the statute books. What those laws are, we are to learn by the past official record of this enterprize for the repeal of the laws which infidels, and only infidels, find pinching their souls. It is, by the way, a large, suggestive fact, that only infidels in this country complain of the laws against the corrupt use of the mails. Speaking roundly, nobody is troubled by the postal regulations of 1873, except infidels. Their organizations, and theirs only, are convulsed with the question, whether the poisoners of youth shall have aid from the postal service paid for by the whole people. I beg you to make a distinction between the minority and the majority of infidel liberal leagues, and also between the majority and the Free Religionists. Many of the latter act with the minority, and many with the majority. But the demand of the majority has been one identical thing from first to last. They want to get rid of “sections 1785, 3878, 3893, 5389 and 2491 of the Revised Statutes " (sce the petition in question quoted in full in the prelude to the 121st Boston Monday Lecture). This is what they asked for in Congress in 1878. Precisely this is what the Committee, of which Mr. Bickford was the chairman, told Congress that they could not be allowed to have, without opening the public mai's to the transmission of infamous publications. Probably, R. G. Ingersoll knew what he wanted, when he asked for the repeal of particular sections of the Revised Statutes. His petition specified the sections by their numbers. He is a lawyer. You may take cither horn of the dilemma, for you must hold either that he went before Congress with a serious petition, and did not know what he was asking for, and was, therefore, shallow, haphazard, and untrustworthy in places calling for the greatest discretion; or else that he really meant what he said. In law and equity he is to be held responsible for what he asked for, namely, the repeal of the laws which prevent the transmission of infamous matter through the mails. What the congressional petition of infidels asked for in May, the Syracuse Convention of liberal leagues asked for by its majority in October, 1878. Go behind the scenes. Look at the notorious, although obscure record of this execrable infidel enterprize. The Cincinnati resolutions of the infidel majority mean what the Syracuse resolutions of the same majority meant. The latter meant what the congressional infidel petition meant. What that meant Congress has officially told you. In every case you come back to these numerals specifying the sections of the postal laws which infidels wish to repeal, and to the opinion of Congress that these bars cannot be taken down without letting out upon us the beasts of paganism. The first resolution of the Cincinnati Infidel Convention is the stiletto. The second is the handkerchief wound around it. "Resolved, That we are utterly opposed to the dissemination, through the mails, or by any other means, of obscene literature, whether 'inspired,' or uninspired, and hold in measureless contempt its authors and disseminators." Notice that this resolution is an expression of opinion mercly. It does not call for anything practical. The first resolution docs. It asks for the free transportation of "irreligious " matter through the mails. That is one of the broadest demands that could be ventured, and requires something definite in legislation. Your first resolution, infidels of Cincinnati, has teeth in it. Your second is suspiciously toothless. You say that you are against the dissemination, but are you in favour of any laws to prevent the dissemination of poisonous literature through the mails? If you are, you do not say so. You fail to say so precisely where you would be naturally expected to say so. This set of resolutions was very adroitly drawn. It is the deliberate official utterance of the Cincinnati Infidel Convention, and I claim that the second resolution has an enormous and most |