_From the Portsmouth "Times"_
Our old friend, Marilla M. Ricker, of Dover, lifelong advocate of
"woman's rights," zealous champion of "freethought," admirer of Bob
Ingersoll, worshiper of Tom Paine, and collaborator of Elbert Hubbard,
who fears neither God, man nor the Devil, because she does not believe
particularly in any of them, is engaged in a labor of folly, in that
she is fighting the doctrine of the immortality of the human soul.
In the prosecution of her warfare she has gone into print and issued
a pamphlet in which she takes issue, primarily, with one Elder E. A.
Kenyon upon his proposition of a universal consciousness that "if a man
die he shall live again," and even goes so far as to assert that the
majority of mankind believe in annihilation. Moreover, she pronounces
the doctrine of personal immortality "a most selfish and harmful one,"
"pernicious in its results," and operating for the enslavement of
mankind, filling the world with gloom and making of man a crawling
coward.
We invite no controversy with Marilla, and will have none. We concede
her right to believe anything, or nothing, to say what she thinks,
write what she pleases, get it printed where she may, and circulate
it as she can; but our advice to the dear sister is to "let up" on
this contention, wherein she is out-Ingersolling Ingersoll. He did not
believe in immortality, but he did not deny it. He claimed that he did
not know, and that no man could know it to be a fact; but he never
sought to blot out hope. And the truth is that but for this hope of
immortal existence, entertained by the vast majority of the race, in
all lands and ages, life would not be worth living, and men and women
everywhere would lie down and perish in despair. It is this hope, or
faith, or consciousness--however we may express it--of life beyond
the grave, or the immortality of the soul, that inspires mankind to
all that is noble and heroic in the great struggle for progress and
development here. Without it there would be no incentive effort beyond
that which impels the brute. Without it, in fact, man would be mere
brute, and nothing else.
That the horrid doctrines of Calvinism were dinned into Mrs. Ricker's
ears in childhood, and the fear of eternal torment held up before her,
instead of the infinite love of a God of Mercy and Justice, may have
impelled her to repudiate all idea of God or Justice, or life to
come; but she ought to be intelligent enough to sift the error from
the truth and cling to the latter. If not, she should at least be
willing to allow others to do so. She may repudiate the old Calvinism,
or even Christianity itself. She may become a Mohammedan, a Buddhist,
an Agnostic or an out-and-out "heathen" if she will. She may accept
annihilation as the universal fate of humanity; but she should be
willing to allow mankind in general its indulgence in that one "Great
Hope," which has illumined with immortal splendor the darkest passages
of human life, and sustains the soul of man and woman in the severest
trials and conflicts of earth.