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vol. title: Miscellaneous Scraps from January 1st 1878 vol. period: 1875-1878 pages in vol.: 153 |
Bob Ingersoll's Notions of a Future State
A Post reporter dropped in on Col. Bob Ingersoll, with the request that he would shed a little light on the great question of life and death. The Colonel, though quite busy, consented to be interrupted, and wheeling his chair round said: “Fire away with your questions.”
“According to your views, what disposition is made of man after death?”
“Upon that subject I know nothing. It is no more wonderful that man should live again than that he now lives: upon that question I know of no evidence. The doctrine of immortality rests upon human affection. We love, therefore we wish to live.”
“Then you would not undertake to say what becomes of man after death?”
“If I told or pretended to know what becomes of man after death, I would be as dogmatic as are theologians upon this question. The difference between them and me is, I am honest. I admit that I do not know.
“No one can control his own opinion nor his own belief. My belief was forced upon me by my surroundings. I am the product of all circumstances that have in any way touched me. I believe in this world. I have no confidence in any religion promising joys in another world at the expense of liberty and happiness in this. At the same time I wish to give to others all the rights I claim for myself.”
“What punishment, then, is inflicted upon man for crimes and wrongs committed in this life?”
“There is no such thing as an intellectual crime. No man can commit a mental crime. To become a crime it must go beyond thought.”
“What punishment is there for physical crime?”
“Such punishment as is necessary to protect society and for the reformation of the criminal.”
“If there is only punishment in this world, will not some escape punishment?”
“I admit that all do not seem to be punished as they deserve. I also admit that all do not seem to be rewarded as they deserve; and there is in this world, apparently, as great a failure in the matter of reward as in the matter of punishment. If there is another life, a man will be happier there for having acted according to his highest ideal in this. But I do not discern in nature any effort to do justice.”
The Excitement in London
London, Dec. 2.—The great gun of theology, Canon Farrar, attracted an immense crowd, composed of all nations, principally Americans, who make themselves known by their shouting, shrill voices, at Westminster Abbey last Sunday. That vexed and varied subject of eternal punishment was the Canon’s theme. He pledged his great reputation as a theological scholar and divine that his assertion could not be contradicted that the words “hell,” “damnation,” and “forever,” as we commonly understand them, do not appear in the New Testament! Going through a tornado of rhetorical indignation, in fact, a whirlwind of roaring rodomontade, this reputed great theologian flatly denounced all other doctrines than his, and fiercely consigned them to “unquenchable fire” like the chaff, or false ones, spoken of in St. Matthew, 3d chapter, and 12th verse; and growing more eloquent, he “scandalized those little ones,” not large enough to grasp his views of the subject of eternal punishment. What is the consequence? All London is up—orthodox, prayerful London! The Canon is the disciple of the Broad Church party, and he is calling to this course of lectures of his an immense and eager group of listeners as well as free-thinkers.
Hydrophobia and Rabies
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