Reply to Dr. LYMAN ABBOTT.* REPLY IN your Open Letter to me, published in this Review, you attack what you supposed to be my position, and ask several questions to which you demand answers; but in the same letter, you state that you wish no controversy with Is it possible that you wrote the letter to prevent a controversy? Do you attack only those with whom you wish to live in peace, and do you ask questions, coupled with a request that they remain unanswered? In addition to this, you have taken pains to publish in your own paper, that it was no part of your design in the article in The North American Review, to point out errors in my statements, and that this design was distinctly disavowed in the opening paragraph of your article. You further say, that your simple object was to answer the question "What is Christianity?" May I be permitted to ask why you addressed the letter to me, and why do you now pretend that, although you did address a letter to me, I was not in your mind, and that you had no intention of pointing out any flaws in my doctrines or theories? Can you afford to occupy this position? You also stated in your own paper, The Christian Union, that the title of your article had been changed by the editor of The Review, without your knowledge, or consent; leaving it to be inferred that the title given to the article by you was perfectly consistent with your statement, “that it •This unfinished article was written as a reply to the Rev. Lyman Abbott's article entitled: "Flaws in Ingersollism, which was printed in the April number of the North American Review for 1890. (455) was no part of your design in the article in The North American Review, to point out errors in my Ingersoll's) statements;" and that your simple object was to answer the question" What is Christianity?" And yet, the title which you gave your own article was as follows: "To Robert G. Ingersoll: A Reply.” First. We are told that only twelve crimes were punished by death: idolatry, witchcraft, blasphemy, fraudulent prophesying, Sabbath-breaking, rebellion against parents, resistance to judicial officers, murder, homicide by negli gence, adultery, incestuous marriages, and kidnapping. We are then told that as late as the year 1500 there were 263 crimes capital in England. Does not the world know that all the crimes or ofenses punishable by death in England could be divided in the same way? For instance, treason. This covered a multitude of offenses, all punishable by death Larceny covered another multitude. Perjury-trespass, covered many others. There might still be made a smaller division, and one who had made up his mind to define the Criminal Code of England might have said that there was only one offense punishable by death-wrong-doing The facts with regard to the criminal code of England are, that up to the reign of George L there were 157 offenses punishable by death. Between the accession of George I. and termination of the reign of George III, there were added 56 new crimes to which capital punishment was attached. So that when George IV. became king, there were 223 offenses capital in England. John Bright, commenting upon this subject, says: "During all these years, so far as this question goes, our Government was becoming more cruel and more barbarous, and we do not find, and have not found, that in the great Church of England, with its fifteen or twenty thousand ministers, and with its more than score of Bishops in the House of Lords, there ever was a voice raised, or an organization formed, in favor of a more merciful code, or in condemnation of the enormous cruelties which our law was continually inflicting. Was not Voltaire justified in say ing that the English were the only people who murdered by law?" As a matter of fact, taking into consideration the situa tion of the people, the number of subjects covered by law, there were far more offenses capital in the days of Moses, than in the reign of George IV. Is it possible that a minister, a theologian of the Nineteenth Century, imagines that he has substantiated the divine origin of the Old Testament by endeavoring to show that the Government of God was not quite as bad as that of England? Mr. Abbott also informs us that the reason Moses killed so many was, that banishment from the camp during the wandering in the Wilderness was a punishment worse than death. If so, the poor wretches should at least have been given their choice. Few, in my judgment, would have chosen death, because the history shows that a large majority were continually clamoring to be led back to Egypt. It required all the cunning and power of God to keep the fugitives from returning in a body. Many were killed by Jehovah, simply because they wished to leave the camp-because they longed passionately for banishment, and thought with joy of the flesh-pots of Egypt, preferring the slavery of Pharaoh to the liberty of Jehovah. The memory of leeks and onions was enough to set their faces towards the Nile. Second, I am charged with saying that the Christian Missionaries say to the heathen: "You must examine your religion-and not only so, but you must reject it; and unless you do reject it, and in addition to such rejection, adopt ours, you will be eternally damned." Mr. Abbott denies the truth of this statement. |