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Show uo OGDEN WOMAN IN DEFENSE OF INGERSOLL Mr. Editor Tn reply o your editorial edi-torial article of February 17, In which Rev. Mr McXiece of Salt Lake is offended of-fended because Mr. Goshen eulogized Ingersoll and makes the remark, how a minister could remain In the pulpit pul-pit and even win popularity was B wonderful change In the religious world. I place Ingersoll with the great, the generous, the self-denying of the earth; he was an honest man. How do we account for the difference differ-ence between the Christian and other oth-er modern civilisations? Our civilization civil-ization is not Christian It did nol come from the skies; it is not the result re-sult of "Inspiration"; It is the child i of invention, of discovery, of applied knowledge, that is to say. of science W hen man becomes great and grand enough to admit that all bave equal rights; when thought is un trammeled ; when worship shall consist In doin?, useful things; when religion means the discharge of obligations to our fellow men, then, and not until then, will the world be civilized It seems io me (nt every man ought to have tbe right to give his honest opinion opin-ion Whoevor has the impudence to use his own reason, whoever is bravo enough to express his honest thought Is a blasphemer in the eyes of tho religionist. Whoever investigates a religion as he would any department or science is called a blasphemer. There was a time when to acknowledge acknowl-edge the divinity of Christ was blasphemy blas-phemy in Jerusalem; to laugh at the pretensions of Mohammed in Constantinople Constan-tinople Is blasphemy; to say In St. Petersburg that Mohammed was i prophet of Cod is also blasphemy. II depends not only on what yon say, but where you are when you say it. The Jews regarded Christ as a blasphemer. blas-phemer. The Athenians had the same opinion of Socrates; the Catholics j have always looked upon tbe Prot- estants ns blasphemers. Ingersoll S3V8: "Whv hnvo I , hrnln' Anrl it, I have no right to think, who has Liberty is born of intelligence. The man who does not do his own thinking think-ing Is a slave and does not do his duty to his fellow man. T stand under un-der the blue sky and the stars, under the infinite flag of nature, the peer I of every human being. Our ancestor? In the ages that are gone reallj believed be-lieved that by force you could convince con-vince a man. You cannot change tho conclusion of the brain by force You can make a man say that be has changed his mind, but be remains of the same opinion still" I tH 'ou we are advancing. The pulpit does I nol ull of the thinking; the pews do I It. nearly nil of It. The world is ad- J vancing. Let me quote a few llnel of what Ingersoll said about Abraham I Lincoln, and you may call him an ln- 1 fidel or a priest: "Abraham Lincoln '.n my Judgment the greatest man ever president of the United Slates and upon Who S monument Lheae words could truth-folly truth-folly be written; 'Here lies the only man in the hlrfory of the world whdi laving been clothed with almost ah solute, power, neer abused it except on the side of mere) When the pulpit of this country deliberately de-liberately and wilfully changed the fross of Christ Into the v. nipping posa think of it! I hate with eery drop of my blood every form of tyran- ny. I hats every form of Shiven I hate dictation I want something likel liberty,-the right to do anything that1 does not Interfere with the happiness happi-ness of another, physically Libertj of thought Includes tho righl to think right, because that Is tho means b - 0 which we arrive at truth; for If we kntv the truth before, we needn't ihink Those men who mistake their Ignorance for facts never do think. MRS. L. E. BEFSCHELL. nn |