To Infidelity and Back | Page 8

unhappy man. But he said he
was unhappy because he knew too much, and claimed that Christians
were so happy because they were ignorant and deluded. He claimed to
be a great lover of humanity, and although, according to his profession,
he had no God or conscience or judgment to require it of him, he spent
his time in spreading the knowledge and wisdom which made people
unhappy by destroying that which he admitted gave people great joy
and peace and happiness. Suppose a man should come to town who is

as lean as a skeleton and is slowly dying because he is not getting
enough nourishment out of the food he eats, and should begin to lecture
well-nourished and healthy people for eating the food they are eating.
Would we not put him down as a fool? Well, if he would add the claim
that we are well fed because we are ignorant and deluded, while he is
suffering and dying because he knows too much on the food question,
he would be on a par with many of our infidelic friends.
It is said that Beecher and Ingersoll were both present at a banquet in
New York City. Ingersoll brought a railing accusation against
Christianity. Everybody expected Beecher to reply, but he held his
peace until later in the evening, when it became his turn to speak. When
Beecher arose he said: "When I came to this hall to-night I saw an old,
crippled woman wending her way across the crowded street on crutches.
When she had reached about midway, a burly ruffian came along and
knocked the crutches out from under her, and she fell splash into the
mud." Turning to Ingersoll, he said, "What do you think of that,
Colonel?" "The villain!" replied Ingersoll. Beecher, pointing to
Ingersoll, said: "Thou art the man! Suffering, heart- broken, dying
humanity is wending its way through this world of sorrow and turmoil
on the crutches of Christianity. You, sir, come along and knock them
out from under them, but offer nothing in their place." It was a crushing
blow to Ingersoll and his gospel of despair.
We do not understand how spirit and matter can be inter-related, and
we can not conceive that our willing it can move our arm; but this does
not deter us from moving, because we know through experience that
we can move. We do not understand the philosophy of digestion, and
we cannot conceive how bread and butter can have any relation to
thought and life; but we know by experience that they do, and we go on
eating and living. We cannot conceive how the same grass produces
lamb, pork and beef; but we keep on raising stock just the same,
because we are guided by facts learned by experience and observation
rather than by conceivability. We do reach our mouth, the minute-hand
does overtake the hour-hand, objects do move in space, etc.,
rationalism and inconceivability to the contrary notwithstanding.

Man is a religious being, and we know by experience that religion
gives him joy and brings him good. If we had no revealed religion,
science and duty would compel us to develop a religious system out of
our religious experiences. This is what has actually been done by the
different peoples of the earth who know not the revelation of God in the
Bible. The secret of the hold that even a false religion has upon people
is the fact that it does them good and gives them happiness by
exercising the pious emotions of their being, even though it may bring
them harm in other ways. Even a religion based on human experience is
better than none; for it is better to feed the religious nature on husks
than to starve it out altogether. To this agree the words of Paul when he
says that God "made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all
the face of the earth... that they should seek the Lord, if haply they
might feel after him, and find him." But while man, unaided by direct
revelation, can grope in the dark and feel after God, and can invent
systems of religion based on experience that are better than none, any
man that accepts facts and testimony will soon discover that God has
not thus left us in the dark oil religious matters, but has "appointed a
day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he has ordained, whereof he has given assurance unto all men, in
that he has raised him from the dead."
It is said that a lawyer and a noted preacher, who was a lecturer,
happened to meet at a hotel breakfast-table. The lawyer suspected that
his companion was a preacher, and, as