Church and School.

Mr. Ingersoll says, "I wish to see an eternal divorce and separation between church and school."

I have no doubt of it. And yet, but for the work of the church, we would be a full century behind our present educational status. And remove the colleges that Christians have built and endowed from our own land, and there would be such a relapse in our educational work as a hundred years of secular effort would not make good. Though infidels have done nothing in the way of furnishing the opportunities for the higher education, yet it is the legitimate work of their orators to traduce Christians, and insinuate that all learned men are infidels, and that in the place of the old superstition, they would give us science!! Such are their claims. Never was there a people with such large pretentions, and yet such small assets when the balance sheets are stricken, as the infidels of the present time.

Our orator says of Christians, "They believe in three gods with one head."

From what nonsense that has been perpetrated in the name of Christianity this statement may have come, or if it were only thrown in as a funnygram, to fill up, and amuse, I can't say. At any rate the intelligence of his audience was sufficient to enable them to see the point, for they laughed; and, no doubt, the purpose of the speaker was accomplished.

The following display of logical acumen ought surely to astonish the world:

"Now, it was said that the Bible was inspired. Was it true? If true, it did not need to be inspired."

Neither the gentlemen himself, nor the committee who conducted the laughing service, seems to know the purpose of inspiration. It was not the purpose of inspiration to change the facts, but to make them known. Many truths lie hidden from sight, and, if known, must be revealed by one wiser than we. Thus, by the aid of inspiration, the prophets were enabled to look into the future, and tell of coming events, with all the accuracy with which the historian could afterwards record them.