| Show with all due deference to col in gerroll la opinion we fall fail to perceive the logic contained in the foregoing it if indeed there be any the allegation that god to la not a perfect being that is ie that he to ia not complete and never will be until constructed upon the re be markese or Ingers ollian plan ma may pass among admirers of irreverence and ribaldry but not surely among even the more moderate freethinkers it to is a sentiment that shocks the christian chriatian and must produce something like aversion in the minds of those who respect but are indifferent the next sentence about what is proved regarding the soul and what is not to is purely gratuitous only the conclusion or perhaps wa we would better say the assertion of the material late an assertion ion in which they are disputed by thousands of men I 1 equal al to themselves on all points OU of scholastic acquirements acquire ments and personal cultivation and infinitely superior to them in spiritual knowledge knowl dge and respect for sacred things which of the two classes is the more likely to know regarding what renan advances so bras uly nd ingersoll en borses so flippant lythe Atme thousands ands or the two proceeding further we will take the liberty of asking col ingersoll how he is 10 9 know knor hat his fellow sc offers heart asked for immortality when the evidence Is all the other way ronan benan was an infidel and like most men of that clin class was more or logo jess at times but surely he be never did anything quite so self si stultifying as asking for trtat which he told the world bould not exist was not an entity in the grand economy of creation besides the record shows that the frenchmans French mans heart was under very good control by his brain and was not permitted to ask for what the mind could not or would not conceive of thus dissipating another of the americana american Is attempts to compromise the case with the christian sentiment of the age and we suspect with his own conscience too if the truth could be known regarding his actual feel ings inge the statement that ronan renan wanted his bis dream and was willing that others should have theirs approaches the grotesque it would have been a per firmance for mance unworthy of an illiterate booby let alone a man of letters to have conceived the idea of depriving any people of their dreams dreama so the willingness in that regard attributed to him goes for nothing it if the colonel seeks to shelter himself from the peculiarity to be charitable of such a declaration by saying that of course he speaks figuratively that the dream spoken of is the hope the impulse yea the knowledge of the heart that the soul lives and immortality prevails he is in a worse position than ever for obvious reasons and then how or by what means could either renan benan or ingersoll deprive any one of even that dream if they felt disposed to do so to be willing for others to have it is a waste of words utterly unworthy a man of even the colonels tabt vocabulary such is the wish and will of all great souls very likely but the colonel only knows what is the wish and will of his own soul and at latest advices advises he was not entirely sure that he had such a thing if be has hai found out that important fact we are glad of it for his big sake aake so glad that we cheerfully overlook the yielding to a custom which obtains among some lose leas gifted people of determining the rule and scope of others by themselves |
