The above dictionary is in my possession. It was published in 1817 by
James Eastburn & Company at the literary rooms, corner of Broadway and
Pine streets, New York, and by Cummings and Hilliard, No. 1 Cornhill,
Boston. The author credits the above article to the above-named
magazine, so we may rely upon it as the freethinker's own presentation
of his theory in its early history. It will be of great interest to all
our readers, as it will enable them to see, at once, the origin of
so-called free-thought. It had its origin with Calvinistic errors upon
the subject of the Trinity, a vicarious atonement, and kindred ideas
concerning human redemption. It will be of interest also to mark the
improvements (?) of free-thinkers, who are always boasting of being in
the advance guard in warring with error and ignorance.
They had neither singing nor prayers when they started out, and in these
regards they have not apostatized from their first faith, for they are
up to this time a praiseless and prayerless people, never praying unless
it is when they have the cramp or some other disease. Their wants seem
to be few and easily supplied. Health and hominy are the staples of
spiritual food with them at the present. The time was when, as a
society, they wished to wear some of the main elements of the Christian
religion, such as belief in the existence of God; the existence of the
church of God, and belief in the resurrection of Christ, and through him
the resurrection of all men; but they have long ere this thrown aside
all these. In the beginning of their history they were noted, as our
author says, for their disposition to promptly "controvert the current
doctrines of the Christian world," and "show their dissent from all
sects and parties, and their aversion to the clergy, and to Christian
ministers of all denominations." This trait of character they still
retain, regardless of the advance of Christians from Calvinistic errors.
This looks like they were determined on hating the profession of
Christianity, regardless of its character. _Such_ is their chronic
disease.
They talk no more of worshiping the eternal God, nor of obeying the
commands of Jesus. But it is just to say of their most noted leaders
that they confess that the _Christ life_ was, and is, the most exalted
and praiseworthy life of all the ages. And, while this life remains to
challenge the world to imitation, we Christians shall rejoice, believing
in Christ and realizing that our foundation stands sure and secure. In
their origin they built a fine church house, but now they go to China
and borrow "Josh house," as an odius epithet for church house,
forgetting that their China brethren are simply clinging to their own
old philosophy of nature and her lessons, without the religion of the
Bible; and, also, forgetting that they, themselves, allow that all that
is, is right, being, from natural selection, simply the survival of the
fittest. Eight years more and a century will have passed since free
thought started out in Parliament Court Chapel, and from present
indications we are inclined to think that all men will be under the
necessity of conceding that Christianity is the _fittest_, for it
stoutly refuses to die.
In their beginning they repudiated the idea of the inspiration of the
Bible; to this they have held without change. Further than this, they
acknowledged that the Bible was an authentic history, but now they
calumniate the idea, and blaspheme the Bible and its God. In these
respects they have grown backwards; and they no longer claim to "worship
one God, eternal, just and good," nor to "obey the commands of Jesus,"
"rejecting sacraments, forms, ordinances, parade and show, along with
song and prayer." Perhaps they cast up their accounts, and found that
there could, in the very nature of things, be no worship outside of all
these elements of worship, and then determined to be more honest at
least, and endeavor in the future to people the earth with a
non-worshipping, Godless, Christless, praiseless, prayerless, non-hoping
set of inhabitants, who would give all up in death for the sake of free
thought.
WHAT A MAN MAY BE AND BE A CHRISTIAN IN THE ESTIMATION OF COL.
INGERSOLL.
We find the following in the Colonel's speech, which was delivered at
Rockford, Ill., on Tuesday, October 5, 1880. We publish it in order to
show the utter fallacy of the infidel's claim that Christianity is
necessarily in conflict with education; that Christians are necessarily
bigots, narrow-minded men, dangerous to the liberty of man, woman and
child. Read it, ye fault-finding skeptics and infidels, and save your
claims against the Christian religion if you can. Correllate it with
the hollow utterances of Colonel Ingersoll, which are so often repeated
by him in other addresses directed wholly against Christianity, if you
can. Here it is:
"I have known him (Garfield) for years. I know him as well as I
know any other man, and I tell you he has more brains, more
education, wider and more splendid views than any other man who has
been nominated for the Presidency by any party since I was born.
Some people say to me: 'How can you vote for Garfield when he is a
Christian and was a preacher?' I tell them: 'I have two reasons:
One is, I am not a bigot, and the other is, General Garfield is not
a bigot. He does not agree with me; I do not agree with him on
thousands of things; _but on the great luminous principle that
every man must give to every other man every right that he claims
for himself we do absolutely agree._' [Italics mine.--ED.] I would
despise myself if I would vote against a man in politics simply
because we differed about what is known as religion. I will vote
for a liberal Catholic, a liberal Presbyterian, a liberal
Methodist, a liberal anything ten thousand times quicker than I
would vote for an illiberal free-thinker. I believe in the right. I
believe in doing to other people in these matters as I would like
them to do to me. _General Garfield is an honest man every way;
intellectual every way._ He is a poor man; he is rich in honor, in
integrity he is wealthy, and in brains he is a millionaire. * * *
He is a great, good, broad, kind, tender man, and he will do, if
elected President, what he believes to be right."