Question. What is your opinion of foreign missions? ¶
Answer. In the first place, there seems to be a pretty good opening in this country for missionary work. We have a good many Indians who are not Methodists. I have never known one to be converted. A good many have been killed by Christians, but their souls have not been saved. Maybe the Methodists had better turn their attention to the heathen of our own country. Then we have a good many Mormons who rely on the truth of the Old Testament and follow the example of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It seems to me that the Methodists better convert the Mormons before attacking the tribes of Central Africa. There is plenty of work to be done right here. A few good bishops might be employed for a time in converting Dr. Briggs and Professor Swing, to say nothing of other heretical Presbyterians. ¶
There is no need of going to China to convert the Chinese. There are thousands of them here. In China our missionaries will tell the followers of Confucius about the love and forgiveness of Christians, and when the Chinese come here they are robbed, assaulted, and often murdered. Would it not be a good thing for the Methodists to civilize our own Christians to such a degree that they would not murder a man simply because he belongs to another race and worships other gods? ¶
So, too, I think it would be a good thing for the Methodists to go South and persuade their brethren in that country to treat the colored people with kindness. A few efforts might be made to convert the “White-caps” in Ohio, Indiana and some other States. ¶
My advice to the Methodists is to do what little good they can right here and now. It seems cruel to preach to the heathen a gospel that is dying out even here, and fill their poor minds with the absurd dogmas and cruel creeds that intelligent men have outgrown and thrown away. ¶
Honest commerce will do a thousand times more good than all the missionaries on earth. I do not believe that an intelligent Chinaman or an intelligent Hindoo has ever been or ever will be converted into a Methodist. If Methodism is good we need it here, and if it is not good, do not fool the heathen with it. ¶
—The Press, Cleveland, Ohio, November 12, 1891. ¶
MY BELIEF AND UNBELIEF.* ¶
[* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was in Toledo for a few hours yesterday afternoon on railroad business. Whatever Mr. Ingersoll says is always read with interest, for besides the independence of his averments, his ideas are worded in a way that in itself is attractive. ¶
While in the court room talking with some of the officials and others, he was saying that in this world there is rather an unequal distribution of comforts, rewards, and punishments. For himself, he had fared pretty well. He stated that during the thirty years he has been married there have been fifteen to twenty of his relatives under the same roof, but never had there been in his family a death or a night’s loss of sleep on account of sickness. ¶
“The Lord has been pretty good to you,” suggested Marshall Wade. ¶
“Well, I’ve been pretty good to him,” he answered.] ¶
Question. I have heard people in discussing yourself and your views, express the belief that way down in the depths of your mind you are not altogether a “disbeliever.” Are they in any sense correct? ¶
Answer. I am an unbeliever, and I am a believer. I do not believe in the miraculous, the supernatural, or the impossible. I do not believe in the “Mosaic” account of the creation, or in the flood, or the Tower of Babel, or that General Joshua turned back the sun or stopped the earth. I do not believe in the Jonah story, or that God and the Devil troubled poor Job. Neither do I believe in the Mt. Sinai business, and I have my doubts about the broiled quails furnished in the wilderness. Neither do I believe that man is wholly depraved. I have not the least faith in the Eden, snake and apple story. Neither do I believe that God is an eternal jailer; that he is going to be the warden of an everlasting penitentiary in which the most of men are to be eternally tormented. I do not believe that any man can be justly punished or rewarded on account of his belief. ¶
But I do believe in the nobility of human nature. I believe in love and home, and kindness and humanity. I believe in good fellowship and cheerfulness, in making wife and children happy. I believe in good nature, in giving to others all the rights that you claim for yourself. I believe in free thought, in reason, observation and experience. I believe in self-reliance and in expressing your honest thought. I have hope for the whole human race. What will happen to one, will, I hope, happen to all, and that, I hope, will be good. Above all, I believe in Liberty. ¶
—The Blade, Toledo, Ohio, January 9, 1892. ¶