AN INFIDEL CONVENTION.

Southland Times, Issue 1237, 15 April 1870, Page 3

AN INFIDEL CONVENTION.

From the pulpits and the religious journals of all denominations in the United States (says a New York corres- j pondent) there frequently comes a lamentation and a solemn warning concerning the alarming spread of infidelity in [ the land ; and as \t is but natural to suppose that these watchmen on the walls of Zion know of what they affirm, . your correspondent had been inclined to believe that they had good ground for their assertions concerning this evil. But it would'appearfrom what happened in Philadelphia on Monday, the Bth rast., that they must have been dealing to some • extent in exaggeration, and that although the attendance at the Protestant churches of the country may be falling off, and the influence of the clergy upon the public mind may be decreasing.it is not true that the people have lapsed into infidelity, or have given up their Bibles for " Paine's Age of Reason." A call ! for a " National Convention of Atheists, Infidels, and Secularists," to meet in Philadelphia on the 7th of this month, was recently issued and published in the two organs of the " Liberal cause"— the "Investigator," of Boston, and the " Liberal," of Chicago, On the day appointed the "Convention" met, but it was composed of only seventeen persons, including one woman. There has been, it appears, a central committee of the infidel party for many years stationed in Philadelphia, and the secretary of this committee made a most doleful report of the state of affairs. It Was necessary, said they, considering " the feeble condition of the Liberal cause," to make a desperate effort "to prevent "Its entire cessation from public demonstration." For instance, the amount of money received " from the sale of pamphlets " published by the committee during the year had been only five dollars. They had made an effort to induce Mr Charles Bradlaugh to visit the "United States, in the hope that speeches from his eloquent lips might reawaken public interest in " the cause ;" but the effort had failed " owing to the pressing nature of his engagements in England." A "cause" that thinks Mr Bradlaugh can aid it must be in a pretty sad way. The committee had managed to get up a few public meetings, " the financial loss of which has been 66 dols." and this, and this alone, enabled the secretary to say that " the committee had not been entirely useless." The whole tone of the subsequent proceedings was equally desponding. Mr Mendum, of Boston, who was one of the chief speakers, said that there was " a frightful increase of superstition 1 ' among the people, " the clerical power is on the increase," "lofty churches and temples" were building everywhere, and he did not know "that it would not be better to resolve ourselves back to the mother church. 1 ' He knew a gentleman, " who is a Eadical, as Atheistic as I am," who was actually building at his own expense "a church at a cost of 60,000 dollars," and who " would laugh at you if you were to ask him for fifty dollars for our cause." The final decision of the Convention [was that a desperate effort should be made to revive "the cause " by raising 1000 dollars to defray the expenses for a year of " a Liberal lecturer, to be constantly and actively engaged," but the sum was hot raised when the Convention adjourned, so that it is doubtful whether even this last expiring effort will succeed.