1388 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



403 



0a^ pejiE?. 



Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 

 God— Matt. 5:8. 



T N our hist talk I promised to consider the 

 m letter from friend Lighty ; before I got 

 ^l around to it, however, 1 found the fol- 

 ■^ lowing letter on my table, written by 

 our stenographer and proof-reader. It 

 is in a little different line from what I had 

 proposed to talk in ; but inasmuch as it 

 gives some very important facts that are 

 new^ to me, [ have thought best to give it : 



Mr. L. W. Lighty— Dea? Sir and Friend:— 



Tn last Gleanikgs there appears a letter from 

 you, in reply to which please permit me to ask you 

 a few questions, for T fear I do not understand you. 

 You say, "Our jails are filled with Christians." On 

 which side of the jail walls were ihey first known to 

 be Christians? How many of them can produce a 

 record from a church, proving them to have been 

 always known as active and influential in religious 

 work? How many of them taught in Sunday- 

 school? How many years? Would not every one 

 of the 300,000 prisoners in the U. S. have said amen 

 to your defense of Ingersollism just before the com- 

 mission of the crime? Is there no difference be- 

 tween a man who professes Christ, in order to gain 

 confidence, and a man who piits o?i Christ as the 

 highest type of humanity? What teaching of Christ 

 is contrary to the law of our land? If a law be 

 passed in Pennsylvania, plainly contrary to Christi- 

 anity, would it not be declared unconstitutional? 

 Is not the gospel of Christ the common law of Penn- 

 sylvania? Do not hypocrites always espouse the 

 hesl cause? Did you ever know of a man to pretend 

 to believe in Ingersoll, in order to deceive people? 

 Did not Christ himself make a distinction between 

 the sheep and goats? 



Infidels always speak of IngersoU's family as be- 

 ing an "honor," etc. Why not take a fresh case? 

 I know infidels here, and they are very nice folks. 

 They like infidelity, but yet conform to the ordinary 

 requirements of civilized life, and so the mere mat- 

 ter of creed is not thought of. 



Washington says there can be no permanent gov- 

 ernment without morality, and he says he has no 

 confidence in that morality which is not based on 

 religion. Not one of our presidents was on your 

 side of this question. True, some were not what I 

 call orthodox; but Washington, Adams, Lincoln, 

 Grant, Arthur, and Garfield were, and Hayes and 

 Cleveland are, I think, governed by Christ's gospel. 

 The names of great men who have blessed the 

 world and the church would fill volumes, as you 

 well know. Men may claim that they owe nothing 

 to the sun in point of health; but as long as they 

 can not get away from it, I must regard their claim 

 as mere rant. Men who have aways lived amid 

 Christian surroundings may make sport of the 

 blood of their would-be Redeemer, but they owe to 

 him the blessings of civilization for all that. 



Outside of Christendom, a hospital was never 

 erected, nor an asylum tor the insane, deaf, dumb, 

 idiotic, etc. Turkey knows nothing of them, except 

 as borrowed. By the way, what is the general con- 

 dition of woman in non-Christian countries? 



Friend Lighty, did you ever know of a religious 

 paper to be on file in a saloon? Doesn't the Police 

 Gazette, and papers of that kind (all opposed to 



Christianity) always lie (in two senses) in plain sight 

 in these ante-rooms of death? What was the effect 

 of the gospel on the "Wickedest Man in New York" 

 and his class in 1868? The gospel went through 

 those dance-houses like fire; the buildings were 

 torn down, and fine iron blocks were erected in 

 their stead. I heard some of those sermons from 

 W. H. Boole; I saw those dreadful women bow to 

 Christ; I saw the old buildings come down, and 

 I saw the new ones go up — and all in .spite of 

 the opposers of the gospel. Offset this, if you can, 

 by showing me where a perfect Christian society 

 has been infinitely improved by the introduction of 

 IngersoU's blasphemous sophistry and deceptive 

 arguments. 



"Who but Christians swing on the gallows?" 

 Much obliged for calling our attention to the fact 

 that crime and infidelity cause a man to call on an 

 insulted Savior when he can no longer live in sin. 

 Yes, a hemp rope has a wonderful effect in causing 

 men to do what they have long neglected to do. I 

 know that untold numbers of Christians have suf- 

 fered death at the hands of the pope and other ty- 

 ranls; but I have never heard that any of them, 

 when burning, renounced Christ and called on the 

 Ingersollism of their day for help. 



On whom will you call, brother Lighty, when you 

 feel your feet slipping over the brink? " If the 

 righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the sinner 

 and the ungodly appear?" Your friend. 



Gleanings Office, May, 1888. W. P. RdoT. 



Friend Lighty was moved to write as he 

 did, I believe, because I said 1 hoped the 

 man Mrs. Chaddock told us of, who was so 

 unkind to his wife, was not a professing 

 Christian. At the time, I did not think of 

 casting any reflections on anybody, nor any 

 class of people. The reason why 1 hoped he 

 was not a professing Christian was, because 

 I should be sorry to know that anybody, be- 

 having as he did, should dishonor Christ 

 Jesus by professing to be his follower. Then 

 follows the assertion, that our prisons and 

 penitentiaries are filled with Christians. 

 Friend Lighty, did you not forget that I 

 have for years been visiting the inmates of 

 our county jail? and I presume the men 1 

 meet there will average very fairly with the 

 inmates of our jails and prisons, the United 

 States over. It is true, I have met some in 

 jail who called themselves Christians ; but 

 not one, I am sure, who was a member of 

 any church in regular standing at the time 

 of his arrest. One brother said he was a 

 member of the church of England. Some 

 questioning, however, revealed the fact that 

 he had never united with any church. He 

 was baptized when an infant, and never 

 had any conviction nor conversion. When 

 the character of Christ was presented to 

 him fairly and plainly, he rejected the teach- 

 ings of Jesus at once. Another man who 

 was in jail for selling intoxicating liquors 

 was called by his comrades a "■ new con- 

 vert." He had been a new convert only 

 two years before ; but, contrary to his 

 wife's wishes, and the wishes of his friends 

 and of his church, he rented a hotel with a 

 bar in it. When I suggested to him that he 

 must have abandoned his Savior before he 

 took to selling liquors, he frankly admitted 

 that such was the case. And so it has been 



