Gone Back from Infidelity to Christianity – Marie Garrison, 6/2/1901

Republished from the free-thought publication the Blue Grass Blade

I have withdrawn from the Secular Union, finding them at enmity with the Ethical Culturists and finding them utterly
unwise; as, for example, the L. U. O. There is a vast number of Infidels or Freethinkers who are afraid of nothing
but dishonor and vulgarity. They withdraw from the Secular Union and refuse to support the papers. The style of
literature that has been poured in on me since joining the Secular Union teaches me that there is too vast a mass
of wild, unorganized humanity. For the first time in my long life I am persuaded that the world would be a thousand
times worse off without the Jewish and the Christian churches. I realize, more than ever, how shrewd were the old
Jews who put together the books of the Bible. They saw so deeply into human nature. I once thought the Bible the
source of persecution, but the plain truth is Freethinkers are perfectly willing to make laws whereby Spiritualists may
be imprisoned, and I have heard wishes expressed for putting them to death, and I know Freethinkers persecuted
for no other crime than refinement of speech. I hope the church, as it now is, will continue. That is the word with the
bark on it. P.S. — A year ago I wrote a letter of warning to the University (L. U. O.), but they were too swell-headed.
They did, however, pay attention to my protest against a vulgarly headed poem, and promised not to repeat the
offense. COMMENT In all of my thirty-six years as an Infidel, most of which has been spent in propagandism, this
is the first case I have seen in which anyone claims to have been identified with organized Infidelity and then to
have gone back to Christianity. Marshall O. Waggoner, of Cleveland, Ohio, made a great display of burning his
“Infidel library” and going back to Christianity, but he seems to have been a weak-minded man who treated his
wife so badly that she got a divorce. Quite recently the papers exploited the case of one M. A. Miller, of Binghamton,
N. Y., of whom they said he had been an Infidel and that, seeing he was going to die, he went back to Christianity
and asked that Ingersoll’s books should be burned upon his (Miller’s) grave.

A report from the Binghamton Republican shows this all to be untrue. It is as follows: “Rev. Samuel Dunham, who
had promised Mr. Miller he would set fire to the books, delivered the prayer. At the last moment one of the intimate
friends of the family suddenly seized the books and carried them to a carriage and was driven rapidly off.” A
representative of the Republican called at the home of the family of Mr. Miller, and one of the members of the
family said: “The report in the evening papers to the effect that the works of Ingersoll would be burned at the
burial services is incorrect. The article conveyed the idea that Mr. Miller was an Infidel and an Atheist, which
is not true. For many years he had been a member of the West Presbyterian Church, and he was a thorough
student of the writings upon the subject of Christianity.” The handwriting, spelling, and other indications in the
letter to me are those of an educated woman, but, with no means of knowing, it seems to me a case where
a party’s mind is probably impaired by old age. Of course the Secular Union has no enmity to Ethical Culture
any more than it would have to vaccination, or tariff, or single tax. It is not a matter that is considered by that
organization, and I do not remember ever to have heard it discussed in any Infidel paper. As far as I know
anything about the Ethical Culturists, I am most heartily in sympathy with them. I have said many times that
if Infidelity does not make us more moral than Christianity does, we are fools for trying to make Infidels. It
seems especially unjust to select the Liberal University of Oregon as a specimen of unwisdom, immorality,
and impurity. I have read The Torch of Reason, its organ, ever since it started, and if Diana herself had
edited it, I do not see how it could have been any freer from vulgarity. Who are the “vast number of Infidels
or Freethinkers” who are withdrawing from the Secular Union on account of “dishonor and vulgarity”? This
is the first instance I have heard of.

I do not see how one’s joining the Secular Union makes one liable to have any kind of literature poured in upon
him or her. There is no publication made of it, so far as I know, and I cannot imagine how this could be unless
the secretary gives such names to his special protégé, The New York Truth Seeker. I do not remember ever
to have heard of this lady before. There is nothing necessarily criminal or demoralizing in a “vast mass of
unorganized humanity,” and the very duty of an Infidel is to organize masses of people into bodies for the
purpose of doing good. That is what we are here for. To desert the work of organizing these masses into
moralists, defenders of liberty, and elevators of our race looks like our old sister never had any more than
a merely theoretical interest in Infidelity. As Infidels we claim to be better people than Christians, and we
are continually demonstrating this by showing that none but Christians are in our penitentiaries, or are
executed as criminals, or commit suicide. It is a strange position for anyone to want “Jewish and other
churches,” when all of the “other churches” say truly that all Jews are Infidels, and are bound to believe
that all Jews will go to hell. If the “other churches” are right, the Jews are certainly wrong; and if the Jews
are right, the “other churches” are certainly wrong. No intelligent Infidel has ever doubted that the “old
Jews” were shrewd when they put together the books of the Bible, or that they saw deeply into human
nature. The men, not only the old Jews but the old Christians, who put together the books of their respective
Bibles—the Old and New Testaments—were as shrewd a set of scoundrels as ever lived, and knew enough
of human nature to be able to live in great ease, elegance, and luxury without working, by imposing upon
the ignorance and superstition of the great masses.

This old sister has probably never understood the Infidel argument at all. Infidelity is not a thing that can be
taken up or cast off, like a garment, at one’s will. It is a matter of conviction, the results of which are involuntary
and irresistible, and I am but one of thousands of Infidels who have been such for many years, knowing that
they were losers by it in all respects except those of honor, intellectual liberty, and good conscience. Certainly
history is full, clean up to date, of wars that have been waged under the influence of the Bible, as we have
recently seen in the Christian effort to convert China by murder and robbery, and no page of history gives any
account of Freethinkers being cruel to each other or to anybody else. I have received more unkindness from
Infidels than any Infidel who ever lived, and yet, with only two exceptions, the unkindness done to me is only
such as is the general rule rather than the exception among Christians in their dealings with each other. The
two exceptions are these: An Infidel woman of Cincinnati wrote me when I was in the penitentiary that she
was glad of it, because I had spoken disparagingly of Ingersoll, he being alive at the time she wrote. Eugene
Macdonald, editor of The New York Truth Seeker, an Infidel paper, told Mr. C. Buchignani of Lexington, three
years ago, that he would sue me if I had any money. On what grounds I do not know. While there are only
these two instances known to me of any actual spirit of persecution of one Infidel against another, there are
millions of Christians now in the United States who would rob and murder Infidels in this country just as they
are doing, or have recently done, to the Chinese. And while these two Infidels, one man and one woman,
have shown me the true spirit of Christian persecution, there have been thousands of Infidel women and
men who have shown almost as much sympathy for me as if I had been their brother.

I think this old sister must be badly wrong. I do not believe she can give me the name of a single avowed Infidel
in the world who will say to this paper or to any other Infidel paper that he would have laws to imprison Spiritualists,
or put them to death. Spiritualists, while in my judgment they are not rationalists and believe some very absurd
things, are nearly all Infidels, and have been among the speakers in every Infidel Congress that I have ever
attended. I printed the addresses of Spiritualists made to our last Congress in full in The Blade. No man
who might advocate any kind of punishment of Spiritualism, or the putting of them under any kind of embargo
or disadvantage because of their opinions, even to the extent of boycotting them in business, could gain
any recognition among Infidels. I have said more against Spiritualists than any Infidel writer in America,
and I would take up my gun to secure to them, if necessary, the same rights that I ask for myself. I never
met a Spiritualist who was not a friend to me, and some of their most prominent workers have distinguished
themselves as my friends. Anybody who will “hope the church as it now is may continue” certainly ought
not to be among Infidels, and I, for one, am glad to surrender such a one to the church.