Chapter 4

Christianity has nothing to fear in the great struggle that is being carried on for the truth’s sake. But it has lost much for want of investigation. Our free school and Sunday-school systems are making the rising generation better acquainted with both science and the Bible, and a thorough acquaintance with both is the one thing most needed in order to a better future in religion, as well as in every other human interest. The time is come when men will no longer be content to listen to grave errors and keep silence. Every truth is being put to the test of logic, as well as fact. It is natural to abhor a contradiction, and it is right. All truth is harmonious. I am glad that harmony is demanded in religious teaching; I often think of pulpit teaching away back thirty and forty years ago. It used to be very popular in some parts to tell people that they could do nothing to better their condition in a future state, and, at the same time, exhort them to do better.

I heard of three brothers, George, William and James. George and William were “Hard-shell Baptist” preachers; James made no profession. His wife was a member of George’s congregation. She was a great “scold.” One day James failed to do just as she wished him, and, as a matter of course, he received quite a lecture; finally the woman told him that it was a great pity that he could not be a good man, like his brother George or brother William, and fell to exhorting him to do better. He finally became impatient and said, “Yes! George and William were too lazy to work, and I called them to preach. They both stood it until the third call, and then put on their hats and went. You belong to George’s church, and I go there with you to hear him preach. He tells me that I can do nothing, and you tell me that I can do nothing; and, now, what in the h—l do you want me to do?” Such inconsistent teaching was always repugnant to common sense and natural reason. There are many persons yet teaching the old falsehood that man is passive in his conversion, notwithstanding the fact that men are imperatively commanded to convert—turn, that their sins may be blotted out. Men are yet found in some Protestant pulpits who spend a great deal of their time praying the Lord to convert sinners. It is often the case, in their own estimation, that the Lord gives no heed to their prayers; but this has happened so frequently that it does not seem to trouble them. It has been a very short time since I heard a minister advocating what he was pleased to call “miraculous conversion.” I thought, if you are right in that matter, why did the Heavenly Father command his love, commended in the Savior’s death, preached to every creature, and still refuse to convert every creature? What difference does it make to me whether the Lord passed me by before He made Adam, or passed me by on yesterday? And if He refuses to send His spirit and convert me until the last, and I die in my sins and am lost, who is to blame? What is the difference between His neglect to convert me and the old Calvinistic idea that Christ did not die for me? What is the difference between the spirit of God being partial to communities—going into one and converting a great many persons and passing others by—and God Himself being partial? And why does the Spirit not convert all the unwilling sinners in the community where it does convert sinners? These are questions that have been asked in a great many hearts before they yielded themselves up to skepticism and infidelity.

In the present stage of critical investigation it is well for all preachers to remember that there is but one question involving this whole matter of conversion and pardon, and that is the question coupled with the Judgment; it is not, How much did the Heavenly Father love me? He loved all men. It is not, How much did Jesus do for _me_? He tasted death for every man. It is not, How much has the Spirit done for me? It gave the gospel to all nations, as the power of God unto salvation to every man that believeth. The one, and only, question in the Judgment is, What have I done for myself? What are the deeds done in my body? the deeds which _I have done_.

Christianity is right thinking and doing; all that is to be attained in the religion of Christ is enjoyed in an upright life. Every theory that conflicts with this grand sentiment is smoked with the darkness of the dark ages. The Father of Spirits made us with the power of choice—gave us the liberty to choose—and we all may have, in the future, just such a state as we will. The Father loved all; the Son died for all; and the Spirit says to all, COME!

The great struggle that is now going on between Christianity and unbelief is accomplishing two good things: First, it is making it hard for professors of religion to hold their errors, or cover up hypocrisy; and second, it is making it hard for infidels and skeptics to hold on to their flimsy objections to the Christian religion. Let the struggle go on!

THE RECORDS RESPECTING THE DEATH OF THOMAS PAINE.

That he bitterly regretted the writing and the publishing of the _Age of Reason_ we have incontestable proof. During his last illness he asked a pious young woman, Mary Roscoe, a Quakeress, who frequently visited him, if she had ever read any of his writings, and being told that she had read very little of them he inquired what she thought of them, adding, “From such a one as you I expect a true answer.” She told him, when very young she had read his _Age of Reason_, but the more she read of it the more dark and distressed she felt, and she threw it into the fire. “I wish all had done as you,” he replied, “for if the devil ever had an agency in any work, he has had it in writing that book.”—_Journal of Stephen Grellet, 1809._

Dr. Manley, who was with him during his last hours, in a letter to Cheetham, in 1809, writes: “He could not be left alone night or day. He not only required to have some person with him, but he must see that he or she was there, and if, as it would sometimes happen, he was left alone, he would scream and halloo until some person came to him. There was something remarkable in his conduct about this period, which comprises about two weeks immediately preceding his death. He would call out during his paroxysms of distress, without intermission, ‘O Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me! O Lord, help me!’ etc., repeating the same expressions without the least variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. It was this conduct which induced me to think that he abandoned his former opinions, and I was more inclined to that belief when I understood from his nurse, who is a very serious, and I believe pious woman, that he would occasionally inquire, when he saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading, and being answered, and at the same time asked whether she should read aloud, he assented, and would appear to give particular attention. The doctor asked him if he believed that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? After a pause of some minutes he replied, ‘I have no wish to believe on that subject.’ ‘For my own part,’ says the doctor, ‘I believe that had not Thomas Paine been such a distinguished infidel he would have left less equivocal evidences of a change of opinion.’ ”

The Roman Catholic Bishop, Fenwick, says: “A short time before Paine died I was sent for by him.” He was prompted to do this by a poor Catholic woman who went to see him in his sickness, and who told him if anybody could do him any good it was the Catholic priest. “I was accompanied by F. Kohlman, an intimate friend. We found him at a house in Greenwich, now Greenwich street, New York, where he lodged. A decent-looking, elderly woman came to the door, and inquired whether we were the Catholic priests; ‘for,’ said she, ‘Mr. Paine has been so much annoyed of late by other denominations calling upon him, that he has left express orders to admit no one but the clergymen of the Catholic church.’ Upon informing her who we were, she opened the door and showed us into the parlor. ‘Gentlemen,’ said the lady, ‘I really wish you may succeed with Mr. Paine, for he is laboring under great distress of mind every since he was told by his physicians that he can not possibly live, and must die shortly. He is truly to be pitied. His cries, when left alone, are heart-rending. “O Lord, help me!” he will exclaim during his paroxysms of distress: “God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me!” Repeating these expressions in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. Sometimes he will say, “O God, what have I done to suffer so much?” Then shortly after, “but there is no God,” then again, “yet if there should be, what would become of me hereafter?” Thus he will continue for some time, when, on a sudden, he will scream as if in terror and agony, and call for me by name. On one occasion I inquired what he wanted. “Stay with me,” he replied, “for God’s sake, for I can not bear to be left alone.” I told him I could not always be in the room. “Then,” said he, “_send even a child to stay with me, for it is a hell to be alone._” _I never saw_,’ she continued, ‘_a more unhappy, a more forsaken man. It seems he can not reconcile himself to die._’

“Such was the conversation of the woman, who was a Protestant, and who seemed very desirous that we should afford him some relief in a state bordering on complete despair. Having remained some time in the parlor, we at length heard a noise in the adjoining room. We proposed to enter, which was assented to by the woman, who opened the door for us. A more wretched being in appearance I never beheld. He was lying in a bed sufficiently decent in itself, but at present besmeared with filth; his look was that of a man greatly tortured in mind, his eyes haggard, his countenance forbidding, and his whole appearance that of one whose better days had been one continued scene of debauch. His only nourishment was milk punch, in which he indulged to the full extent of his weak state. He had partaken very recently of it, as the sides and corners of his mouth exhibited very unequivocal traces of it, as well as of blood which had also followed in the track and left its mark on the pillow. Upon their making known the object of their visit, Paine interrupted the speaker by saying, ‘That’s enough, sir, that’s enough. I see what you would be about. I wish to hear no more from you, sir; my mind is made up on that subject. I look upon the whole of the Christian scheme to be a tissue of lies, and Jesus Christ to be nothing more than a cunning knave and imposter. Away with you, and your God, too! Leave the room instantly! All that you have uttered are lies, filthy lies, and if I had a little more time I would prove it, as I did about your imposter, Jesus Christ.’ Among the last utterances that fell upon the ears of the attendants of this dying infidel, and which have been recorded in history, were the words, ‘My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?’ ”

“Some thousand famous writers come up in this century to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosened, nor its golden bowl broken, though time chronicles his tens of centuries passed by.... You can trace the path of the Bible across the world, from the day of Pentecost to this day. As a river springs up in the heart of a sandy continent, having its father in the skies; as the stream rolls on, making in that arid waste a belt of verdure wherever it turns its way; creating palm groves and fertile plains, where the smoke of the cottage curls up at eventide, and marble cities send the gleam of their splendor far into die sky—such has been the course of the bible on earth.”—_Theodore Parker._

“I must die—abandoned of God and of men.”—_Voltaire._

THREE REASONS FOR REPUDIATING INFIDELITY.

Bishop Whipple says, “I once met a thoughtful scholar who told me that for years he had read every book which assailed the religion of Jesus Christ. He said he would have been an infidel if it had not been for three things:

“ ‘First, I am a man. I am going somewhere. I am to-night a day nearer the grave than last night. I have read all that they can tell me. There is not one solitary ray of light upon the darkness. They shall not take away the only guide and leave me stone blind.

“ ‘Secondly, I had a mother. I saw her go down into the dark valley where I am going, and she leaned upon an unseen arm as calmly as a child goes to sleep upon the breast of a mother. I know that was not a dream.

“ ‘Thirdly, I have three motherless daughters. They have no protector but myself. I would rather kill them than leave them in this sinful world if you could blot out from it all the teachings of the Gospel.’ ”

COL. INGERSOLL IS A PHILOSOPHER?

Col. Ingersoll tells us that “intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either PRAISE OR BLAMEWORTHY, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in Christendom.” Again, he says, “No man can control his belief.” Notwithstanding all this, his whole occupation consists in traveling over the country and blaming men, women and children for their belief. He is consistent? He is a Scientist, you know? He does nothing that is absurd? He is a philosopher, sitting on the bones of Moses and making grimaces at the faith of Moses, when neither Moses nor his friends could control their belief? He works hard for no purpose if men can’t control their belief, and does men injustice, IF HE BLAMES THEM FOR THEIR FAITH?

“No man can control his belief.” Then why labor to make your brother of humanity believe that he is but—

The pilgrim of a day? Spouse of the worm and brother of the clay, Frail as the leaf in autumn’s yellow bower, Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower?

A child without a sire; Whose mortal life and transitory fire Light to the grave his chance-created form, As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm.

And then—

To-night, and silence sinks forevermore!

If these—

The pompous teachings ye proclaim, Lights of the world and demi-gods of fame, The laurel wreaths that murderers rear, Blood-nursed and watered by the widow’s tears, Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread, As the daily night-shade round the skeptic’s head.

_Think of Ingersoll at his brother’s grave!_

LIFE OF ELDER E. GOODWIN.

This interesting volume will be ready for delivery in a few days, as it is now in the hands of the binder. It is a neat volume of 314 pages, on good paper, and substantially bound in cloth. Price, $1.50.

Some two months ago we issued a prospectus for this book, proposing to make a work of 300 pages, and putting the price at $1.25, and these papers have been in the hands of agents for some time, and quite a large number of persons have subscribed for the book at that price. Of course all who have subscribed to date shall have the book in good faith at $1.25, as understood, but we are compelled to raise the price to all new subscribers from this date to $1.50, on account of the advance in all book stock and the increased size of the book.

All our old agents, and all persons desiring an agency for this work, will please correspond with us at this place—Bedford, Lawrence County, Indiana.

April 2, 1879. J. M. MATHES.

Elder Mathes, also, keeps on hand a full supply of all the publications of the Christian church. Address all orders for any good book in the market to Elder James M. Mathes, Bedford, Lawrence County, Indiana. Send money by postal money order, bank draft, or registered letter.

J. M. MATHES.