O F
ECTUKE
OF
COL R. G. INGERSOLL
INCLUDING His LETTERS ON THE CHINESE GOD. Is SUICIDE
A SIN? THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE.
ETC., ETC., ETC.
fQtCSf
CHICAGO:
RHODES & MCCLURE PUBLISHING Co.
1898.
Entered according to act of Congress, in the year 1897 by the
RHODES & MCCLURE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, Washington, D. C.
All Rights Reserved.
GIFT
Thomas Paine 429
Liberty of Man, Woman and Child 483
Orthodoxy 523
Blasphemy 577
Some Reasons Why 590
Intellectual Development 606
Human Rights 655
Talmagian Theology (Second Lecture) 667
Talmagian Theology (Third Lecture) 679
Religious Intolerance 68 $
Hereafter 69 1
Review of His Reviewers 716
How the Gods Grow 730
The Religion of our Day. 744
Heretics And Heresies 753
The Bible 785
Voltaire 795
Myth and Miracle 827
Ingersoll's Letter, on The Chinese God 839
Ingersoll's Letter, Is Suicide a Sin 840
Ingersoll's Letter, The Right To One's Life 860
M808912
THOMAS PAINE.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
THOMAS PAINE.
DELIVERED IN CENTRAL MUSIC HALL, CHICAGO,
JANUARY 29, l88o.
(From fhe Chicago Times, Verbatim Report.)
.LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It so happened that the
first speech the very first public speech I ever made
I took occasion to defend the memory of Thomas
Paine.
I did it because I had read a little something of the
history of my country. I did it because I felt indebted
to him for the liberty I then enjoyed and whatever re-
ligion may be true, ingratitude is the blackest of crimes.
And whether there is any God or not, in every star that
shines, gratitude is a virtue.
The man who will tell the truth about the dead is a
good man, and for one, about this man, I intend to tell
just as near the truth as I can.
Most history consists in giving the details of things
that never happened most biography is usually the lie
(429)
43 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
coming from the mouth of flattery, or the slander com-
ing from the lips of malice, and whoever attacks the re-
ligion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked. Who-
ever attacks a superstition will find that superstition de-
fended by all the meanness of ingenuity. Whoever
attacks a superstition will find that there is still one
weapon left in the arsenal of Jehovah slander.
I was reading, yesterday, a poem called the "Light
of Asia," and I read in that how a Boodh seeing a tigress
perishing of thirst, with her mouth upon the dry stone
of a stream, with her two cubs sucking at her dry and
empty dugs, this Boodh took pity upon this wild and
famishing beast, and, throwing from himself the yellow
robe of his order, and stepping naked before this tigress,
said : (t Here is meat for you and your cubs." In one
moment the crooked daggers of her claws ran riot in his
flesh, and in another he was devoured. Such, during
nearly all the history of this world, has been the history
of every man who has stood in front of superstition.
Thomas Paine, as has been so eloquently said by the
gentleman who introduced me, was a friend of man, and
whoever is a friend of man is also a friend of God if
there is one. But God has had many friends who were
the enemies of their fellow-men. There is but one test
by which to measure any man who has lived. Did he
leave this world better than he found it ? Did he leave
in this world more liberty ? Did he leave in this world
more goodness, more humanity, than when he was born?
That is the test. And whatever may have been the
faults of Thomas Paine, no American who appreciates
liberty, no American who believes in true democracy
and pure republicanism, should ever breathe one word
ON THOMAS PAINE. 43!
against his name. Every American, with the divine
mantle of charity, should cover all his faults, and with a
never-tiring tongue should recount his virtues.
He was a common man. He did not belong to the
aristocracy. Upon the head of his father God had never
poured the divine petroleum of authority. He had not
the misfortune to belong to the upper classes. He had
the fortune to be born among the poor and to feel against
his great heart the throb of the toiling and suffering
masses. Neither was it his misfortune to have been
educated at Oxford. What little sense he had was not
squeezed out at Westminster. He got his education
from books. He got his education from contact with
fellow-men, and he thought ; and a man is worth just
what nature impresses upon him. A man standing by
the sea, or in a forest, or looking at a flower, or hearing
a poem, or looking in the eyes of the woman he loves,
receives all that he is capable of receiving and if he is
a great man the impression is great, and he uses it for
the purpose of benefiting his fellow-man.
Thomas Paine was not rich , he was poor, and his
father before him was poor, and he was raised a sail-
maker, a very lowly profession, and yet that man be-
came one of the main-stays of liberty in this world. At
one time he was an excise man, like Burns. Burns was
once speak it softly a gauger and yet he wrote
poems that will wet the cheek of humanity with tears
as long as the world travels in its orb around the sun.
Poverty was his brother, necessity his master. He
had more brains than books ; more courage than po-
liteness ; more strength than polish. He had no ven-
eration for old mistakes, no admiration for ancient
43 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
lies. He loved the truth for truth's sake and for man's
sake. He saw oppression on every hand, injustice
everywhere, hypocricy at the altar, venality on the
bench, tyranny on the throne, and with a splendid
courage he espoused the cause of the weak against the
strong, of the enslaved many against the titled few.
In England he was nothing. He belonged to the
lower classes that is, the useful people. England de-
pended for her prosperity upon her mechanics and her
thinkers, her sailors and her workers, and they are the
only men in Europe who are not gentlemen. The only
obstacles in the way of progress in Europe were the
nobility and the priests, and they are the only gen-
tlemen.
This, and his native genius, constituted his entire
capital, and he needed no more. He found the col-
onies clamoring for justice ; whining about their griev-
ances ; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, im-
ploring that mixture of idiocy and insanity, George III.,
by the grace of God, for a restoration of their ancient
privileges. They were not endeavoring to become free
men, but were trying to soften the heart of their master.
They were perfectly willing to make brick if Pharaoh
would furnish the straw. The colonists wished for,
hoped for, and prayed for reconciliation. They did not
dream of independence.
Paine gave to the world his ' ' Common Sense. " It
was the first argument for separation ; the first assault
upon the British form of government ; the first blow for
a republic, and it aroused our fathers like a trumpet's
blast. He was the first to perceive the destiny of the
new world. No other pamphlet ever accomplished such
ON THOMAS PAINE. 433
wonderful results. It was filled with arguments, reasons,
persuasions, and unanswerable logic. It opened a new
world. It filled the present with hope and the future
with honor. Everywhere the people responded, and in
a few months the Continental Congress declared the
colonies free and independent states. A new nation was
born.
It is simple justice to say that Paine did more to cause
the Declaration of Independence than, any other man.
Neither should it be forgotten that his attacks upon
Great Britain were also attacks upon monarchy, and
while he convinced the people that the colonies ought to
separate from the mother country, he also proved to
them that a free government is the best that can be in-
stituted among men.
In my judgment Thomas Paine was the best political
writer that ever lived. " What he wrote was pure na-
ture, and his soul and his pen ever went together."
Ceremony, pageantry, and all the paraphernalia of power
had no effect upon him. He examined into the why
and wherefore of things. He was perfectly radical in
his mode of thought. Nothing short of the bed-rock
satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to
be right knew no bounds. During all the dark scenes
of the revolution never for a moment did he despair.
Year after year his brave words were ringing through
the land, and by the bivouac fires the .weary soldiers
read the inspiring words of " Common Sence," filled
with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated
themselves anew to the cause of freedom.
Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit
of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to
434 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
keep that spirit alive. He was with the army. He
shared its defeats, its dangers, and its glory. When the
situation became desperate, when gloom settled upon
all, he gave them the ' ' Crisis. " It was a cloud by day
and a pillar of fire by night, leading the way to freedom,
honor, and glory. He shouted to them " These are the
times that try men's souls." The summer soldier and
the sunshine patriot, will, in this crisis, shrink from the
service of his country ; but he that stands it now de-
serves the love and thanks of man and woman.
To those who wished to put the war off to some future
day, with a lofty and touching spirit of self-sacrifice, he
said : ''Every generous parent should say : , If there
must be war, let it be in my day, that my child may
have peace.' ' To the cry that Americans were rebels,
he replied : ' ' He that rebels against reason is a real
rebel ; but he that in defense of reason rebels against
tyranny, has a better title to ' Defender of the Faith '
than George III."
Some said it was to the interest of the colonies to be
free. Paine answered this by saying : ' 'To know
whether it be the interest of the continent to be inde-
pendent, we need ask only this simple, easy question :
' Is it the interest of man to be a boy all his life ? ' '
He found many who would listen to nothing, and to
them he said : <4 That to argue with a man who has re-
nounced his reason is like giving medicine to the dead."
This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every ortho-
dox church.
There is a world of political wisdom in this : 4 ' En-
gland lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning
ON THOMAS PAINE. 435
from wrong principles;" and there is real discrimination
in saying: "The Greeks and Romans were strongly
possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles,
for at the time they were determined not to be slaves
themselves, they employed their power to enslave the
rest of mankind."
In his letter to the British people, in which he tried
to convince them that war was not to their interest,
occurs the following passage brimful of common sense :
' ' War never can be the interest of a trading nation any
more than quarreling can be profitable to a man in bus-
iness. But to make war with those who trade with us
is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop
door. "
The writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, com-
pact, logical statements that carry conviction to the
dullest and most prejudicial. He had the happiest pos-
sible way of putting the case, in asking questions in such
a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his
premises so clearly that the deduction could not be
avoided.
Day and night he labored for America. Month after
month, year after year, he gave himself to the great
cause, until there was " a government of the people and
for the people," and until the banner of the stars floated
over a continent redeemed and consecrated to the hap-
piness of mankind .
At the close of the Revolution no one stood higher in
America than Thomas Paine. The best, the wisest,
the most patriotic were his friends and admirers ; and
had he been thinking only of his own good he might
43^ iNGERSOLlJs LECTURES.
have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of
his life in comfort and in ease. He could have been
what the world is pleased to call ' respectable." He
could have died surrounded by clergymen, warriors, and
statesmen, and at his death there would have been an
imposing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies,
salvos of artillery, a Nation in mourning, and, above all,
a splendid monument covered with lies. He choose
rather to benefit mankind. At that time the seeds sown
by the great infidels were beginning to bear fruit in
France . The eighteenth century was crowning its gray
hairs with the wreath of progress.
On every hand science was bearing testimony against
the church. Voltaire had filled Europe with light ;
D'Holbach was giving to the elite of Paris the prin-
ciples contained in his " System of Nature." The
encyclopaedists had attacked superstition with informa-
tion for the masses. The foundation of things began
to be 'examined. A few had the courage to keep their
shoes on and let the bush burn. Miracles began to
get scarce. Everywhere the people began to inquire.
America had set an example to the world. The word
liberty was in the mouths of men, and they began to
wipe the dust from their superstitious knees. The
dawn of a new day had appeared.
Thomas Paine went to France . Into the new move-
ment he threw all his energies. His fame had gone
before him, and he was welcomed as a friend of the
human race and as a champion of free government.
He had never relinquished his intention of pointing
out to his countrymen the defects, absurdities, and
abuse of the English government. For this purpose
ON THOMAS PAINE. 437
he composed and published his greatest political work,
4 'The Rights of Man." This work should be read by
every man and woman. It is concise, accurate, rational,
convincing, and unanswerable. It shows great thought,
an intimate knowledge of the various forms of govern-
ment, deep insight into the very springs of human action,
and a courage that compels respect and admiration.
The most difficult political problems are solved in a
few sentences. The venerable arguments in favor of
wrong are refuted with a question answered with a
word. For forcible illustration, apt comparison, ac-
curacy and clearness of statement, and absolute thor-
oughness, it has never been excelled .
The fears of the administration were aroused, and
Paine was prosecuted for libel, -and found guilty ; and
yet there is not a sentiment in the entire work that
will not challenge the admiration of every civilized man.
It is a magazine of political wisdom, an arsenal of
ideas, and an honor not only to Thomas Paine, but to
nature itself. It conld have been written only by the
man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism,
the goodness to say : ' ' The world is my country, and
to do good my religion. "
There is in all the utterances of the world no grander,
no sublimer sentiment. There is no creed that can
be compared with it for a moment. It should be
wrought in gold, adorned with jewels, and impressed
upon every human heart : ' ' The world is my country,
and to do good my religion."
In 1792, Paine was elected by the department of
Calais as their representative in the National Assembly.
So great was his popularity in France, that he was
INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
selected about the same time by the people of no less
than four departments.
Upon taking his place in^ the assembly, he was ap-
pointed as one of a committee to draft a constitution
for France. Had the French people taken the advice
of Thomas Paine, there would have been no "reign of
terror." The streets of Paris would not have been
rilled with blood in that reign of terror. There were
killed in the City of Paris not less, I think, than seven-
teen thousand people and on one night, in the mas-
sacre of St. Bartholomew, there were killed, by assas-
sination, over sixty thousand souls men, women, and
children. The revolution would have been the grandest
success of the world. The truth is that Paine was too
conservative to suit the leaders of the French revolution.
They, to a great extent, were carried away by hatred
and a desire to destroy. They had suffered so long,
they had borne so much, that it was impossible for them
to be moderate in the hour of victory.
Besides all this, the French people had been so robbed
by the government, so degraded by the church, that they
were not fit material with which to construct a republic.
Many of the leaders longed to establish a beneficent and
just government, but the people asked for revenge.
Paine was filled with a real love for mankind. His phil-
anthropy was boundless. He wished to destroy monar-
chy not the monarch. He voted for the destruction
of tyranny, and against the death of the tyrant. He
wished to establish a government on a new basis one
that would forget the past ; one that would give privileges
to none, and protection to all.
In the assembly, where all were demanding the execu-
ON THOMAS PAINE. 439
tion of the king, where to differ with the majority was
to be suspected, and where to be suspected was almost
certain death Thomas Paine had the courage,
the goodness, and the justice to vote against
death. To vote against the execution of the king
was a vote against his own life. This was the
sublimity of devotion to principle. For this he was
arrested, imprisoned, and doomed to death. There is
not a theologian who has ever maligned Thomas Paine
that has the courage to do this thing. When Louis
Capet was on trial for his life before the French conven-
tion, Thomas Paine had the courage to speak and vote
against the sentence of death. In his speech I find the
following splendid sentiments :
My contempt and hatred for monarchical governments
are sufficiently well known, and my compassion for the
unfortunate, friends or enemies, is equally profound.
I have voted to put Louis Capet upon trial, because
it was necessary to prove to the world the perfidy, the m
corruption, and the horror of the monarchical system.
To follow the trade of a king destroys all morality,
just as the trade of a jailer deadens all sensibility.
Make a man a king to-day and to-morrow he will be a
brigand.
Had Louis Capet been a farmer, he might have been
held in esteem by his neighbors, and his wickedness re-
sults from his position rather than from his nature.
Let the French nation purge its territory of kings
without soiling itself with their impure blood.
Let the United States be the asylum of Louis Capet,
where, in spite of the overshadowing miseries and crimes
.of a 'royal life, he will learn by the continual contempla-
44 INGERSOLI/S LECTURES.
tion of the general prosperity that the true system of
government is not that of kings, but of the people.
I am an enemy of kings, but I can not forget that they
belong to the human race.
It is always delightful to pursue that course where
policy and humanity are united.
As France has been the first of all the nations of
Europe to destroy royalty, let it- be the first to abolish
the penalty of death.
As a true republican, I consider kings as more the ob-
jects of contempt than of vengeance."
Search the records of the world and you will find but
few sublimer acts than that of Thomas Paine voting
against the king's death. He, the hater of despotism,
the abhorrer of monarchy, the champion of the rights of
man, the republican, accepting death to save the life
of a deposed tyrant of a throneless king ! This was
the last grand act of his political life the sublime con-
clusion of his political career.
All his life he had been the disinterested friend of
man. He had labored not for money, not for fame,
but for the general good. He had aspired to no office.
He had no recognition of his services, but had ever
been content to labor as a common soldier in the army
of progress, confining his efforts to no country, looking
upon the world as his field of action. Filled with a
genuine love for the right, he found himself imprisoned
by the very people he had striven to save.
Had his enemies succeeded in bringing him to the block,
he would have escaped the calumnies and the hatred of
the Christian world. And let me tell you how near
they came getting him to the block. He was in prison,
ON THOMAS PAINE. 44!
there was a door to his cell it had two doors, a door
that opened in and an iron door that opened out. It
was a dark passage, and whenever they concluded to
cut a man's head off the next day, an agent went along
and made a chalk mark upon the door where the poor
prisoner was bound. Mr. Barlow, the American minister,
.happened to be with him and the outer door was shut,
that is, open against the wail, and the inner door was shut,
and when the man came along whose business it was to
mark the door for death, he marked this door where
Thomas Paine was, but he marked the door that was
against the wall, so when it was shut the mark was in-
side, and the messenger of death passed by on the next
day. If that had happened in favor of some Methodist
preacher, they would have clearly seen, not simply the
hand of God, but both hands. In this country, at least,
he would have ranked with the proudest names. On
the anniversary of the Declaration, his name would have
been apon the lips of all orators, and his memory in the
hearts of all the people.
Thomas Paine had not finished his career. He had
spent his life thus far in destroying the power of kings,
and now turned his attention to the priests. He knew
that every abuse had been embalmed in scripture that
every outrage was in partnership with some holy text.
He knew that the throne skulked behind the altar, and
both behind a pretended revelation of God. By this
time he had found that it was of little use to free the
body and leave the mind in chains. He had explored
the foundations of despotism, and had found them in-
finitely rotten . He had dug under the throne, and it
occurred to him that he would take a look behind the
442 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
altar. The result af this investigation was given to the
world in the ''Age of Reason." From the moment of
its publication he became infamous. He was calumni-
ated beyond measure. To -slander him was to secure
the thanks of the church.' All his services were instantly
forgotten, disparaged, or denied. He was shunned as
though he had been a pestilence . Most of his old friends
forsook him. He was regarded as a moral plague, and
at the bare mention of his name the bloody hands of
the church were raised in horror. He was denounced
as the most despiceable of men.
Not content with following him to his grave, they pur-
sued him after death with redoubled fury, and recounted
with infinite gusto and satisfaction the supposed horrors
of his death-bed : gloried in the fact that he was forlorn
and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they
supposed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely
death.
It is wonderful that all his services are thus forgotten.
It is amazing that one kind word did not fall from some
pulpit ; that some one did not accord to him, at least-
honesty. Strange that in the general denunciation some
one did not remember his labor for liberty, his devotion
to principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men.
He had, by brave and splendid effort, associated his
name with the cause of progress. He had made it im-
possible to write the history of political freedom with
his name left out . He was one of the creators of light ;
one of the heralds of the dawn. He hated tyranny in
the name of kings, and in the name of God, with every
drop of his noble blood. He believed in liberty and
justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equality.
ON THOMAS PAINE. 443
Under these divine banners he fought the battle of his
life. In both worlds he offered his blood for the good of
man. In the wilderness of America, in the French
assembly, in the sombre cell waiting for death, he was
the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race ;
the same undaunted champion of universal freedom.
And for this he has been hated ; for this the church has
violated even his grave.
This is enough to make one believe that nothing is
more natural than for men to devour their benefactors.
The people in all ages have crucified and glorified.
Whoever lifts his voice against abuses, whoever arraigns
the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the
king to show his commission, or question the authority
of the priest, will be denounced as the enemy of man
and God. In all ages reason has been regarded as the
enemy of religion. Nothing has been considered so
pleasing to the Deity as a total denial of the authority
of your own mind. Self-reliance has been thought
deadly sin ; and the idea of living and dying without
the aid and consolation of superstition has always horri-
fied the church. By some unaccountable infatuation,
belief has been and still is considered of immense im-
portance. All religions have been based upon the idea
that God will forever reward the true believer, and
eternally damn the man who doubts or denies. Belief
is regarded as the one essential thing. To practice
justice, to love mercy, is not euough ; you must believe
in some incomprehensible creed. You must say :
"Once one is three, and three times one is one."
The man who practiced every virtue, but failed to
believe, was execrated . Nothing so outrages the feel-
444 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
ings of the church as a moral unbeliever, nothing so
horrible as a charitable atheist.
When Paine was born the world was religious, the
pulpit was the real throne, and the churches were mak-
ing every effort to crush out of the brain the idea that
it had the right to think. He again made up his mind
to sacrifice himself. He commenced with the assertion.
"That any system of religion that had anything in it
that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true sys-
tem." What a beautiful, what a tender sentiment ! No
wonder the church began to hate him. He believed in
one God, and no more. After his life he hoped for hap-
piness. He believed that true religion consisted in do-
ing justice, loving mercy ; in endeavoring to make our
fellow- creatures happy, and in offering to God the fruit
of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the scriptures.
This was his crime.
He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to
call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-
hand, either verbally or in writing. He asserted that
revelation is necessarily limited to the first communica-
tion, and that after that it is only an account of some-
thing which another person says was a revelation to him.
We have only his word for it, as it was never made to
us. This argument never had been, and probably never
will be answered. He denied the divine origin of Christ
and showed conclusively that the pretended prophecies
of the Old Testament had no reference to Him whatever.
And yet he believed that Christ was a virtuous and ami-
able man ; -that the morality He taught and practiced
was of the most benevolent and elevated character, and
that it had not been exceeded by any. Upon this point
ON THOMAS PAINE. 445
he entertained the same sentiments now held by the
Unitarians, and in fact by all the most enlightened
Christians.
In his time the church believed and taught that every
word in the Bible was absolutely true. Since his day it
has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its
astronomy, false in its chronology and geology, false in
its history, so far as the Old Testament is concerned,
false in almost everything. There are but few, if any,
scientific men, who apprehend that the Bible is literally
true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to settle
any scientific question by a text from the Bible ? The
old belief is'confmed to the ignorant and zealous. The
church itself will before long be driven to occupy the po-
sition of Thomas Paine. The best minds of the ortho-
dox world, to-day, are endeavoring to prove the exist-
ence of a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a
minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the
Bible whole, whale, Jonah and all ; you are simply re-
quired to believe in God and pay your pew-rent.
There is not now an enlightened minister in the world
who will seriously contend that Sampson's strength was
in his hair, or that the necromancers of Egypt could turn
water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents.
These follies have passed away, and the only reason
that the religious world can now have for disliking Paine,
is that they have been forced to adopt so many of his
opinions.
Paine thought the barbarites of the Old Testament in-
consistent with what he deemed the real character of
God. He believed the murder, massacre, and indis-
44$ INGEKSOLL'S LECTURES.
criminate slaughter had never been commanded by the
Deity. He regarded much of the Bible as childish, un-
important and foolish. The scientific world entertains
the same opinion. Paine attacked the Bible precisely
in the same spirit in which he had attacked the preten-
sions of the kings. He used the same weapons. All
the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His
reason knew no " Holy of Holies," except the abode of
truth. The sciences were then in their infancy. The
attention of the really learned had not been directed to
an impartial examination of our pretended revelation.
It was accepted by most as a matter of course.
The church was all-powerful, and no one alse, unless
thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice,,
thought for a moment of disputing the fundamental
doctrines of Christianity. The infamous doctrine that
salvation depends upon belief, upon a mere intellectual
conviction, was then believed and preached. To doubt
was to secure the damnation of your soul. This absurd
and devilish doctrine shocked the common sense of
Thomas Paine, and he denounced it with the fervor of
honest indignation. This doctrine, although infinitely
ridiculous, has been nearly universal, and has been as
hurtful as senseless. For the overthrow of this infamous
tenet, Paine exerted all his strength. He left few ar-
guments to be used by those who should come after him,
and he used none that have been refuted.
The combined wisdom and genius of all mankind can
not possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of
thought. Neither can they show why anyone should be
punished, either in this world or another, for acting
honestly in accordance with reason ; and yet a doctrine
ON THOMAS PAINE. 447
with every possible argument against it has been, and
still is, believed and defended by the entire orthodox
world. Can it be possible that we have been endowed
with reason simply that our souls may be caught in its
toils and snares, that we may be led by its false and
delusive glare out of the narrow path that leads to joy
into the broad way of everlasting death ? Is it possible
that we have been given reason simply that we may
through faith ignore its deductions and avoid its conclu-
sions ? Ought the sailor to throw away his compass and
depend entirely upon the fog ? If reason is not to be de-
pended upon in matters of religion, that is to say, in re-
spect to our duties to the Deity, why should it be relied
upon in matters respecting the rights of our fellows ?
Why should we throw away the law given to Moses by
God Himself, and have the audacity to make some of
our own ? How dare we drown the thunders of Sinai
by calling the ayes and naes in a petty legislature ? If
reason can determine what is merciful, what is just, the
duties of man to man, what more do we want either in
time or eternity ?
Down, forever down, with any religion that requires
upon its ignorant altar its sacrifice of the goddess Reason;
that compels her to abdicate forever the shining throne
of the sonl, strips from her form the imperial purple,
snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and makes
her the bond-woman of senseless faith.
If a man should tell you he had the most beautiful
painting in the world, and after taking you where it was
should insist upon having your eyes shut, you would
likely suspect either that he had no painting or
that it was some pitiful daub. Should he tell you thai
448 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
he was a most excellent performer on the violin,
and yet refused to play unless your ears were stopped,
you would think, to say the least of it, that he had an
odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. But
would this conduct be any more wonderful than that of
a religionist who asks that before examining his creed
you will have the kindness to throw away your reason ?
The first gentleman says : ' ' Keep your eyes shut ; my
picture will bear everything but being seen. Keep your
ears stopped ; my music objects to nothing but being
heard." The last says : " Away with your reason ; my
religion dreads nothing but being understood."
So far as I am concerned, I most cheerfully admit that
most Christians are honest and most ministers sincere.
We do not attack them ; we attack their creed. We
accord to them the same rights that we ask for ourselves.
We believe that their doctrines are hurtful, and I am go-
ing to do what I can against them. We believe that the
frightful text, " He that believes shall be saved, and he
that believeth not shall be damned," has covered the
earth with blood. You might as well say that all that
have red hair shall be damned. It has filled the heart
with arrogance, cruelty, and murder. It has caused the
religious wars ; bound hundreds of thousands to the
stake ; founded inquisitions ; filled dungeons ; invented
instruments of torture ; taught the mother to hate her
child ; imprisoned the mind ; filled the world with ig-
norance ; persecuted the lovers of wisdom ; built the
monasteries and convents ; made happiness a crime, in-
vestigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. It has
poisoned the springs of learning ; misdirected the ener-
gies of the world ; filled all countries with want ; housed
ON THOMAS PAINE. 449
the people in hovels ; fed them with famine ; and but
for the efforts of a few brave infidels, it would have taken
the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left
the heavens without a star.
The maligners of Paine say that he had no right to
attack this doctrine, because he was unacquainted with
the dead languages, and, for this reason, it was a piece
of pure impudence to investigate the scriptures.
Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know
that cruelty is not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent
with infinite goodness, and that eternal punishment can
be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend ? Is it
really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before you
can make up your mind as to the probability of dead
people getting out of their graves ? Must one be versed
in Latin before he is entitled to express his opinion as
to the genuiness of a pretended revelation from God ?
Common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic
is not confirmed to, nor has it been buried with, the
dead languages. Paine attacked the Bible as it is trans-
lated. If the translation is wrong, let its defenders cor-
rect it .
The Christianity of Paine's day is not the Christianity
of our time. There has been a great improvement since
then. It is better now because there is less of it. One
hundred and fifty years ago the foremost preachers of
our time that gentleman who preaches in this mag-
nificent hall would have perished at the stake. Lord,
Lord, how John Calvin would have liked to have roasted
this man, and the perfume of his burning flesh would
have filled heaven with joy. A Universalist would have
45 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
been torn to pieces in England, Scotland, and America.
Unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks,
pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their
ears would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and
their foreheads branded . Less than one hundred and
fifty years ago the following law was in force in Mary-
land :
" Be it enacted by the right honorable, the lord pro-
prietor, by and with the advice and consent of his
lordship's governor, and the upper and lower houses
of the assembly, and the authority of the same :
That if any person shall hereafter, within this pro-
vince, willingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing
or speaking, blaspheme or curse God, or deny our
Saviour, Jesus Christ, to be the son of God, or shall
deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy
Ghost, or the God-head of any of the three persons,
or the unity of the God-head, or shall utter any pro-
fane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or the persons
thereof and shall therefore be convicted by verdict,
shall, for the first offense, be bored through the tongue,
and fined 20, to be levied on his body. As for the sec-
ond offense, the offender shall be stigmatized by burning
in the forehead the letter B, and fined 40. And that
for the third offense, the offender shall suffer death with-
out the benefit of clergy.
The strange thing about this law is, that it has never
been repealed, and was in force in the District of Col-
umbia up to 1875. Laws like this were in force in most
of the colonies and in all countries where the church
had power.
In the Old Testament the death penalty was attached
ON THOMAS PAINE. 45 I
to hundreds of offenses. It has been the same in ali
Christian countries. To-day, in civilized governments,
the death penalty is attached only to murder and
treason ; and in some it has been entirely abolished.
What a commentary upon the divine systems of the
world !
In the days of Thomas Paine the church was ignor-
ant, bloody, and relentless. In Scotland the "kirk"
was at the summit of its power. It was a full sister of '
the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human
nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy,
and the despiser of liberty. It taught parents to mur-
der their children rather than to allow them to propagate
error. If the mother held opinions of which the in-
famous "kirk" disapproved, her children were taken
from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she
was not allowed to see them, or write them a word. It
would not allow shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from
drowning on Sunday.
Oh, you have no idea what a muss it kicks up in
heaven to have anybody swim on Sunday. It fills all
the wheeling worlds with sadness to see a boy in a boat,
and the attention of the recording secretary is called to
it. In a voice of thunder they say, " Upset him ! " It
sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by
rilling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change
mankind into a vast horde of pious, heartless fiends.
One of the most famous Scotch divines said : "The kirk
holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy."
And this same Scotch kirk denounced, beyond measure,
the man who had the moral grandeur to say, "The world
is my country, and to do good my religion . " And this
45 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
same kirk abhorred the man who said, " Any system of
religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a true
system . "
At that time nothing so delighted the church as the
beauties of endless torment, and listening to the weak
wailing of damned infants struggling in the slimy coils
and poison folds of the worm that never dies.
About the beginning of the nineteenth century a boy
by the name of Thomas Aikenhead was indicted and
tried at Edinburgh for having denied the inspiration of
the scriptures, and for having, on several occasions,
when "cold, wished himself in hell that he might get
warm. Notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and
begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged. His
body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold
and covered with stones, and though his mother came
with her face covered with tears, begging for the corpse,
she was denied and driven away in the name of charity.
That is religion, and in the velvet of their politeness
there lurks the claws of the tiger. Just give them the
power and see how quick I would leave this part of the
country. They know I am going to be burned forever ;
they know I am going to hell, but that don't satisfy
them. They want to give me a little foretaste here.
Prosecutions and executions like these were common
in every Christian country, and all of them based upon
the belief that an intellectnal conviction is a crime. No
wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the
"Age of Reason." England was rilled with Puritan
gloom and Episcopal ceremony. The ideas of crazy
fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts.
Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded
ON THOMAS PAINE. 453
finery of the gods had added to the story of Christ the
fables of mythology. He gave to the Protestant church
the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He
turned all the angels into soldiers made heaven a
battle-field, put Christ in uniform, and described God as
a militia-general. His works were considered by the Pro-
testants nearly as sacred as the Bible itself, and the
imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by
the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind
Milton.
Heaven and hell were realities the judgment-day
was expected books of accounts would be opened.
Every man would hear the charges against him read.
God was supposed to sit upon a golden throne, sur-
rounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands
and crowns on their heads.. The goats would be thrust
into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep,
on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever
and ever. So all the priests were willing to save the
sheep for half the wool.
The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequent-
ly extremely religious, so far as belief was concerned .
In Europe liberty was lying chained up in the inqui-
sition, her white bosom stained with blood. In the
new world the Puritans had been hanging and burning
in the name of God, and selling white Quaker children
into slavery in the name of Christ, who said, ' ' Suffer
little children to come unto Me."
Under such conditions progress was impossible. Some
one had to lead the way. The church is and always has
been, incapable of a forward movement. Religion al-
454 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
ways looks back. The -church has already reduced
Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to
exile.
Some one, not connected with the church, had to
attack the monster that was eating out the heart of the
world, Some one had to sacrifice himself for the good
of all. The people were in the most abject slavery ;
their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by
pageantry, and power.
Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The church
never doubts never inquires. To doubt is heresy to
inquire is to admit that you do not know the church
does neither.
More than a century ago Catholicism, wrapped in
robes red with the innocent blood of millions, holding in
her frantic clutch crowns and scepters, honors and gold,
the keys of heaven and hell, tramping beneath her feet
the liberties of nations, in the proud movement of almost
universal dominion, felt within her heartless breast the
deadly dagger of Voltaire. From that blow the church
can never recover. Livid with hatred she launched her
eternal anathema at the great destroyer, and ignorant
Protestants have echoed the curse of Rome.
In our country the church was all-powerful, and, al-
though divided into many sects, would instantly unite
to repel a common foe. Paine did for Protestantism
what Voltaire did for Catholicism. Paine struck the first
blow.
The "Age of Reason" did more to undermine the
power of the Protestant church than all other books
then known. It furnished an immense amount of food
for thought. It was written for the average mind, and
ON THOMAS PAINE. 455
is a straightforward, honest investigation of the Bible,
and of the Christian System.
Paine did not falter from the first page to the last.
He gives you his candid thought, and candid thoughts
are always valuable.
The " Age of Reason " has liberalized us all. It put
arguments in the mouths of the people ; it put the church
on the defensive, it enabled somebody in every village
to corner the parson ; it made the world wiser and the
church better ; it took power from the pulpit and divided
it among the pews.
Just in proportion that the human race has advanced,
the church has lost its power. There is no exception
to this rule. No nation ever materially advanced that
held strictly to the religion of its founders. No nation
ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church with-
out losing its power, its honor, and existence.
Every church pretends to have found the exact truth.
This is the end of progress. Why pursue that which
you have ? Why investigate when you know.
Every creed is a rock in running water ; humanity
sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe,
"Halt !" A creed is the ignorant past bullying the en-
lightened present.
The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be de-
monstrated. Science is too slow for them, and so they
invent creeds. They demand completeness. A sublime
segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them.
They demand the complete circle the entire structure.
In music they want a melody with a recurring accent
at measured periods. In religion they -insist upon im-
mediate answers to the questions of creation and destiny.
456 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
The alpha and omega of all things must be in the alpha-
bet of their superstition. A religion that can not an-
swer every question, and guess every conundrum, is in
their estimation, worse than worthless. They desire a
kind of theological dictionary a religious ready reck-
oner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and
turns. They mistake impudence for authority, solemn-
ity for wisdom, and pathos for inspiration. The begin-
ning and the end are what they demand. The grand
flight of the eagle is nothing to them. They want the
nest in which he was hatched, and especially the dry
limb upon which he roosts. Anything that can be
learned is hardly worth knowing. The present is con-
sidered of no value in itself. Happiness must not be
expected this side of the clouds, and can only be attained
by self-denial and faith ; not self-denial for the good of
others, but for the salvation of your own sweet self.
Paine denied the authority of Bibles and creeds ; this
was his crime, and for this the world shut the door in
his face and emptied its slops upon him from the win-
dows.
I challenge the world to show that Thomas Paine ever
wrote one line, one word in favor of tyranny in favor
of immorality ; one line, one word against what he be-
lieved to be for the highest and best interest of Tiankind;
one line, one word against justice, charity, or liberty,
and yet he has been pursued as though he had
been a fiend from hell. His memory had been
execrated as though he had murdered some
Uriah for his wife ; driven some Hagar into the
desert to starve with his child upon her bosom ; defiled
his own daughters ; ripped open with the sword the
ON THOMAS PAINE. 457
sweet bodies of loving and innocent women ; advised
one brother to assassinate another ; kept a harem with
seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines, or
had persecuted Christians even unto strange cities.
The church has pursued Paine to deter others. The
church used painting, music, and architecture simply to
degrade mankind. But there are men that nothing can
awe. There have been at all times brave spirits that
dared even the gods. Some proud head has always'been
above the waves. Old Diogenes, with his mantle upon
him, stiff and trembling with age, caught a small animal
bred upon people, went into the Pantheon, the temple
of the gods, and took the animal upon his thumb nail,
and, pressing it with the other, "he sacrificed Diogenes
to all the gods. " Just as good as anything ! In every
age some Diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. True
genius never cowers, and there is always some Samson
feeling for the pillars of authority.
Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants, tem-
ples frescoed and grained and carved, and gilded with
gold, altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe,
censer and chalice, chasuble, paten and alb, organs, and
anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest,
maniple, anice and stole, crosses and crosiers, tiaras,
and crowns, mitres and missals and masses, rosaries,
relics and robes, martyrs and saints, and windows stained
as with the blood of Christ, never, never for one moment
awed the brave, proud spirit of the infidel. He knew
that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with
liberty, that priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at
the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. The music
of the organ was not loud enough to drown the clank of
458 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
fetters. He could not forget that the taper had lighted
the fagot. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of
the sword, and so where others worshiped, he wept and
scorned. He knew that across the open Bible lay the
sword of war, and so where others worshiped he looked
with scorn and wept. And so it has been through all
the ages gone.
The doubter, the investigator, the infidel, have been
the saviors of liberty. The truth is beginning to be re-
alized, and the truly intellectual are honoring the brave
thinker of the past. But the church is as unforgiving as
ever, and still wanders why any infidel should be wicked
enough to attempt to destroy her power. I will tell the
church why I hate it.
You have imprisoned the htfrhan mind ; you have been
the enemy of liberty ; you have burned us at the stake,
roasted us before slow fires, torn our flesh with irons ;
you have covered us with chains, treated us as outcasts ;
you have filled the world with fear ; you have taken our
wives and children from our arms ; you have confiscated
our property ; you have denied us the right to testify in
courts of justice ; you have branded us with infamy ;
you have torn out our tongues ; you have refused us
burial. In the name of your religion you have robbed
us of every right ; and after having inflicted upon us
every evil that can be inflicted in this world, you have
fallen upon your knees, and with clasped hands implored
your God to finish the holy work in hell.
Can you wonder that we hate your doctrines ; that
we despise your creeds ; that we feel proud to know
that we are beyond your power ; that we are free in
spite of you ; that we can express our honest thought.
ON THOMAS PAINE. 459
tnd that the whole world is gradually rising into the Hessed light? Can
you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that K fidelity has ever
been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience,
and for the happiness of all ? Oan you wonder tdat we are proud to
know that we have always been disciples of reason and soldiers of free-
dom ; that we have denounced tyranny and superstition, and have kept
our hands unstained with human blood?
I de>:y that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so
considered it becomes destructive of happiness. The real end of life is
happiness. It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible
coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleed-
ing, quivering hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds pal-
aces for God (who dwells not in temples made with hands), and allows
His children to die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning^
heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with fir|
and despair. Virtue is a subordination of the passion of the intellect.
It is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not
consist in believing, but in doing. This is the sublime truth that the
infidels in all ages have uttered. They have handed the torch from one
to the other through all the years that have fled. Upon the altar of
reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of
faith they fed the divine flame. Infidelity is liberty; all superstition is
slavery. In every creed man is the slave of God, woman is the slave of
man, and the sweet children are the slaves of all. We do not want
creeds; we wan i some knowledge. We want happiness. And yet we
are told by the church that we have accomplished no hing; that we are
aimply destroyers; that we tear down without building again.
Is it nothing to free the mind ? Is it nothing to civilize mankind ? Is
it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science ? Is
it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect ? Is it nothing to grope
your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the
dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained
to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the song of a
bird, the murmur of a stream, to see the dull eyes open and grow slowly
bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused hands, and
hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice ? Is it nothing to
conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day to let them
ee again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlast-
ing music of the waves ? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from
their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks?
Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and writ*
460 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word liberty? Is
it a small thing to quench the thirst of hell with the holy tears of piety,
break all the chains, put out the fires of civil war, stay the sword of the
fanatic, and tear the bloody hands of the church from the white throat
of progress ? Is it a small thing to make men truly free, to destroy the
dogmas of ignorance, prejudice, and power, the poisoned fables of
superstition, and drive from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of
fear?
It does seem as though the most zealous Christians must at times en-
tertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For eighteen
hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a thou-
sand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the civilized
world, and what has been the result ? Are the Christian nations patterns
of charity and forbearance ? On th/; contrary, their principal business
is to destroy each other. More than five millions of Christians are
trained and educated and drilled to murder their fellow-Christians.
Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war
against other Christians, or defending itself from Christian assault. The
world is covered with forts to protect Christians from Christians, and
wery sea is covered with iron monsters ready to. blow Christian brains
uto eternal froth. Millions upon millions are annually expended in the
effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. In-
dustry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to
iefray the expenses of Christian murder. There must be some other
"ay to reform this world. We have tried creed and dogma and fable,
and they have failed and they have failed in all the nations dead.
Nothing but education scientific education can benefit mankind,
We must find out the laws of nature and conform to them. We need
free bodies and free minds, free labor and free thought, chainless hands
and fetterless brains. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will
give us truth. We need men with moral courage to speak and write
their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very
death. We need have no fear of being too radical. The future will
verify all grand and brave predictions. Paine was splendidly in advance
of his time, but he was orthodox compared to the infidels of to day.
Science, the great iconoclast, has been very busy since 1809, and by
the highway of progress are the broken images of the past. On every
hand the people advance. The vicar of God has been pushed from the
throne of the CaBsars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal city falls once
more the shadow of the eagle. All has been accomplished by the heroic
few. The men of science have explored heaven and earth, and with in-
ON THOMAS PAINE. 461
finite patience have furnished the facts. The brave thinkers have aided
them. The gloomy caverns of superstition have been transformed into
temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the angels of to-
day.
Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it
explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods
their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark freighted with thought
and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. Science took a tear
from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a
giant that turns with tireless arm the countless wheels of toil.
Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes, one of the men to
whom we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the great
republic. He lived a long, laborious, and useful life. The world is
better for his having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred and
reproach for his portion. He ate the bitter bread of neglect and sorrow.
His friends were untrue to him because he was true to himself and true
to them. He lost the respect of what is called society, but kept his
own. His life is what the world calls failure, and what history calls
success.
If to love your fellow-men more than self is goodness, Thomas Paine
was good. If to be in advance of your time, to be a pioneer in the
direction of right, is greatness, Thomas Paine was great. If to avow
your principles and discharge your duty in the presence of death is
heroic, Thomas Paine was a hero.
At the age of 73, death touched his tired heart. He died in the land
his genius defended, under the flag he gave to the skies. Slander can
not touch him now; hatred can not reach him more. He sleeps in the
sanctuary of the tomb, beneath the quiet of the stars. A few more years,
a few more brave men, a few more rays of light, and mankind will ven-
erate the memory of him who said:
Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a
true system. The world is my country, and to do good my religion.
The next question is: Did Thomas Paine recant? Mr. Paine had
prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his
last moments. He believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of
death. When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two
clergymen, Messrs. Milledollar and Cunningham, called to annoy the
dying man. Mr. Cunningham had the politeness to say: "You have
now a full view of death ; you can not live long ; whoever does not believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, will assuredly be damned." Mr. Paine replied :
" Let me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with you. Good
462
ON THOMAS PAINE. 463
morning." On another occasion a Methodist minister obtruded himself.
Mr. Willet Hicks was present. The minister declared to Mr. Paine thai
"unless he repented of his unbelief he would be damned." Paine,
although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly requested
the clergyman to leave the room. On another occasion, two brothers by
the name of Pigott sought to convert him. He was displeased, and re-
quested their departure. Afterward, Thomas Nixon and Capt. Daniel
Pelton visited him for the express purpose of ascertaining whether he
had, in any manner, changed his religious opinions. They were assured
by the dying man that he still held the principles he had expressed in
his writings.
Afterward, these gentlemen, hearing that William Gobbet was about
to write a life of Paine, sent him the following note: I must tell you
now that it is of great importance to find out whether Paine recanted-
If he recanted, then the Bible is true you can rest assured that a spring
of water gushed out of a dead dry bone. If Paine recanted, there is not
the slightest doubt about that donkey making that speech to Mr. Baalam
not the slightest and if Paine did not recant, then the whole thing is
a mistake. I want to show that Thomas Paine died as he has lived, a
friend of man and without superstition, and if you will stay here I will
doit.
NEW YORK, April 24, 1818. SIR: Having been informed that you
have a design to write a history of the life and writings of Thomas Paine,
if you have been furn shed with materials in respect to his religious
opinions, or rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his
de th, rill you have heard of his recanting is false. Being aware that
such reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who infested his
house at the time it was expected he would die, we, the subscribers, in-
timate acquaintances <>t Thomas Paine since the year 1776, went to his
house. He was sitting up in a chair, and apparently in full vigor and
use of all his mental faculties We interrogated him upon his religious
opinions, and if he had changed his mind, or repented of anything he
had said or wrote on that subject. He answered, l 'Not at all," and
appeared rather offended at our supposition that any change should take
place in his mind. We took down in writing the questions put to him
and his answers thereto, before a number of persons then in his room,
among whom were his doctor, Mrs. Bonneville, etc. This paper is mis-
laid and can not be found at present, but the above is the substance,
which can be attested by many living witnesses. THOMAS NIXON,
DANIEL PELTON.
Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paiue one or two days before his death.
To Mr. Jarvis he expressed his belief in his written opinions upon the
subject of religion. B. F. Haskin, an attorney of the City of New York,
also visited him, and inquired as to his religious opinions. Paine was
then upon the threshold of death, but he did not tremble, he was not a
464 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
coward. He expressed his firm and unshaken belief in the religion,
ideas he had given to the world.
Dr. Manly was with him when he spoke hi3 last words. Dr. Manly
asked the dying man, and Dr. Manly was a Christian, if he did not wish
to believe that Jesus was the Son of God, and the dying philosopher
answered : " I have no wish to believe on that subject." Amasa Woods,
worth sat up with Thomas Paine the night before his death. In 1839
Gilbert Vale, hearing that Woodsworth was living in or near Boston,
visited him for the purpose of getting his statement, and the statement
was published in The Beacon of June 5, 1839, and here it is:
We have just returned from Boston. Oue object ' * our visit to that
city was to see Mr. Amasa Woodsworth, an engineer, now retired in a
handsome cottage and garden at East Cambridge, Boston. This gentle
man owned the house occupied by Paine at his death, while he lived
next door. As an act of kindness, Mr. Woodsworth visited Mr. Paine
every day for six weeks before his death. lie frequently sat up with him
and did so on the last two nights of his life. He was always there with
Dr. Manly, the physician, and assisted in removing Mr. Paine while his
bed was prepared. He was present when Dr. Manly asked Mr. Paine if
he wished to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He says that
lying on his back he used some action and with much emphasis replied;
"I have no wish to believe on that subject." He lived some time after
this, but was not known to speak, for he died tranquilly. He accounts
for the insinuating style of Dr. Manly's letter by stating that that gentle-
man, just after its publication, joined a church. He informs us that he
has openly proved the doctor for the falsity contained in the spirit of
that letter, boldly declaring before Dr. Manly, who is still liviner, that
nothing which he saw justified the insinuations. Mr. Woodsworth
assures us that he neither heard nor saw anything to justify the belief of
any mental change in the opinions of Mr. Paine previous to his death;
but that being very ill and in pain, chiefly arising from the skin being
removed in some parts by long lying, he was generally too uneasy to
enjoy conversation on abstract subjects. This, then, is the best evidence
that can be procured on this subject, and we publish it while the contra
vening parties are yet alive, and with the authority of Mr. Woodswoi th
GILBERT VALE.
A few weeks ago I received the following letter, which confirms the
statement of Mr. Vale:
NEAR STOCKTON, Cal., GREENWOOD COTTAGE, July 9, 1877. COL.
INGERSOLL: In 1842 I talked with a gentleman in Boston. I have
forgotten his name; but he was then an engineer of the Charleston
n ivy yard. I am thus particular so that you can find his name on the
books. He told me that he nursed Thomas Paine in his last illness and
closed his eyes when dead. I asked him if he recanted and called upon
God to save him. He replied: k 'No; he died as he had taught. He
had a sore upon his side, and when we turned him it was very painful,
and he would cry out, ' O God!' or something like that." " But," said
the narrator, u that was nothing, for he believed in a God." I told him
Vhat I had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that Mr. Paine ht'd
OX THOMAS PAINE. 465
recanted in his last moment. The gentleman said that it was not true,
and he appeared to be an.intelligent, truthful 'man. With respect, I
remain, etc., PHILIP GRAVES, M. D.
The next witness is Willet Hicks, a Quaker preacher. He says that
during the last illness of Mr. Paine he visited him almost daily, and that
Paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the religious opinions that
he had given to his fellow-men. It was to this same Willet Hicks that
Paine applied for permission to be buried in the cemetery of the
Quakers. Permission was refused. This refusal settles the question of
recantation. If he had recanted, of course there would have been no
objection to his body being buried by the side of the best hypocrites in
the earth. If Paine recanted, why should he be denied " a little earth
for charity?" Had he recanted, it would have been regarded as a vast
and splendid triumph for the gospel. It would, with much noise and
pomp and ostentation, have been heralded about the world.
Here is another letter :
PEORIA, 111., Oct. 8, 1877. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL. Esteemed Friend:
My parents were Friends (Quakers). My father died when I was very
young. The elderly and middle-aged Friends visited at my mother's
house. We lived in the City of New York. Among the number I dis-
tinctly remember Elias Hicks, Willet Hicks, aud a Mr. Day, who
was a bookseller in Pearl St. There were many others whose names I
do not now remember. The subject of the recantation of Thomas
Paine of his views about the Bible in his last illness, or any other time,
was discussed by them in my presence at different times. I learned
from them that some of them had attended upon Thomas Paine in his
last sickness, and ministered to his wants up to the time of his death.
And upon the question of whether he did recant there was but one ex-
pression. They all said that he did not recant in any manner. I often
heard them say they wished he had recanted. In fact, according tot hem,
the nearer he approached death the more positive he appeared to be in
his convictions. These conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I was at
that time from ten to twelve years old, but these conversations impressed
themselves upon me because many thoughtless people then blamed the
society of Friends for their kindness to that " arch-infidel," Thomas
Paine. Truly yours, A. C. HANKENSON.
A few days ago I received the following:
ALBANY, N. Y., Sept. 27, 1877. DEAR SIR: it is over twenty years
ago that, professionally, I made the acquaintance of John Hogeboom,
a justice of the peace of the County Kensselaer, New York. He was
then over seventy years of age, and had the reputation of being a man
of candor and integrity. He was a great admirer of Paine. He told
me he was personally acquainted with him, and used to see him fre-
quently during the last years of his life in the City of New York, where
Hogeboom then resided. I asked him if there was any truth in the
charge that Paine was in the habit of getting drunk. He said that it
was utterly false; that he never heard of such a thing during the life-
time of Mr. Paine, and did not believe anyone else did. I asked him
466 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
about the recantation of his religious opinions on his deathbed, and the
revolting deathbed scenes that the world heard so much about. He said
there was no truth in them; that he had received his information from
persons who attended Paine in his last illness, and that he passed
peacefully, as we may say, in the sunshine of a great soul. Yours
W. J. HILTON.
The witnesses by whom I substantiate the fact that Thomas Paine
did not recant, and that he died holding the religious opinions he had
published are:
1. Thomas Nixon, Capt. Daniel Pelton, B. F. Haskin. These gentle-
men visited him during his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining
whether he had, in any respect, changed his views upon religion. He
told them that he had not.
2. James Cheetham. This man was the most malicious enemy Mr.
Paine had, and yet he admits that " Thomas Paine died placidly, and
almost without a struggle." Life of Thomas J^aine, by James Cheetham.
3. The ministers, Milledollar and Cunningham. These gentleman
told Mr. Paine that if he died without believing in the Lord Jesus
Christ, he would be damned, and Paine replied : " Let me have none oi
four popish stuff. Good morning." Sherwin's Life of Paine, page 220.
4. Mrs. Hedden. She told these same preachers, when they attempted
to obtrude themselves upon Mr. Paine again, that the attempt to convert
Mr. Paine was> useless ; " that if God did not change his mind, no human
power could."
5. Andrew A. Dean. This man lived upon Paine's farm, at New
Rochelle, and corresponded with him upon religious subjects. Paints
Theological Works, Page 308.
6. Mr. Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine lived. He gives an ac-
count of an old lady coming to Paine, and telling him that God
Almighty had sent her to lell him that unless he repented and believed
in the blessed Saviour he would be damned. Paine replied that God
would not send such a foolish old waman with such an impertinent
message. Clio Rickman's Life of Paine.
7. William Carver, with whom Paine boarded. Mr. Carver said again
and again that Paine did not recant. He knew him well, any had every
opportunity of knowing. Life of Paine, by Vale.
8. Dr. Manly, who attended him in his last sickness, and to whom
Paine spoke his last words. Dr. Manly asked him |if he did not wish
to believe in Jesus Christ, and he replied: " I have no wish to believe
on that subject."
9. Willet Hicks and Elias Hicks, who were with him frequently dur-
ing his last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant.
ON THOMAS PAINE. 467
According to their testimony Mr. Paine died as he lived a believer in
God and a friend to man. Willet Hicks was offered money to say
something false against Paine. He was even offered money to remain
silent, and allow others to slander the dead. Mr. Hicks, speaking of
Thomas Paine, said: "He was a good man. Thomas Paine was 'an
honest man."
10. Amasa Woods worth, who was with him every day for some six
weeks immediately preceding his death, and sat up with him the last two
nights of his life. This man declares that Paine did not recant, and
that he died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr. Woodsworth is conclu-
sive.
11. Thomas Paine himself. The will of Mr. Paine, written by him-
self, commences as follows: "The last will and testament of me, the
subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my Creator, God, and
in no other being, for I know of no other, nor believe in any other," and
closes with these words: " I have lived an honest and useful life to man-
kind. My time has been spent in doing good, and I die in perfect com.
posure and resignation to the will of my Creator, God."
12. If Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pu rsue him ? If he recanted
he died in your belief. For what reason, then, do you denounce his death
as cowardly? If upon his death-bed he renounced the opinions he had
published, the business of defaming him should be done by infidels,
not by Christians. I ask Christians if it is honest to throw away the
testimony of his friends, the evidence of fair and honorable men, and
take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies? When
Thomas Paine was dying he was infested by fanatics, by the snaky
spies of bigotry. In the shadows of death were the unclean birds of
prey waiting to tear, with beak and claw, the corpse of him who wrote
the "Rights of Man," and there lurking and crouching in the darkness,
were the jakals and hyenas of superstition, ready to violate his grave.
These birds of prey these unclean beasts are the witnesses produced
and relied upon to malign the memory of Thomas Paine. One by one
the instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of
the church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one
weapon Slander.
Against the witnesses that I have produced there can be brought just
two Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in the
memoir of Stephen Grellet. She had once been a servant in his house.
Grellet tells what happened between this girl and Paine. According to
this account, Paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings,
and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired
468 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he
expected a correct answer.
Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a correct
answer about his writings from one who read very little of them ? Does
not such a statement devour itself? This young lady fuither said that
the " Age of Reason '' was put in her hands, and that the more, she read
in it, the more dark and distressed she felt, and that she threw the book
into the fire. Whereupon Mr. Paine remarked: " I wish all had done
as you did, for if the devil ever had any agency in any work, he had in
my writing that book."
The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of Wil-
let Hicks. The church is always proving something by a nurse. She,
like Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine. To
this young lady Paine, according to his account, said precisely the same
that he did to Mary Roscoe, and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine.
My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one and
the same person, or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the
mouths of both. It is not possible that the identical conversation
should have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe and between
him and Mary Hinsdale. Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks, and
he pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication.
Another thing about this witness. A woman by the name of Mary
Lockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother
about that time and told him that his sister had recanted, and wanted
her to say so at her funeral. This turned out to be a lie.
It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to Charles
Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence Gilbert Vale, one of the
biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning Mary
Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He replied that
some of the Friends believed that she used opiates, and that they did
not give credit to her statements. He also said that he believed what
the Friends said, but thought that when a young woman she might have
told the truth.
In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began collecting
material for a life of Thomas Paine. In this way he became acquainted
with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full
account of what happened in a letter addressed to The Norwich Mercury
in 1819. From this account it seems that Charles Collii s told Cobbett
that Paine had recanted. Cobbett called for the testimony, and told
Mr. Collins that. he must give time, place, and circumstances. He
finally brought a statement that he stated had been made by Mary
Hinsdale. Armed with this document, Cobbett, in October of that
ON THOMAS PAINE. 469
year, called upon the said Mary Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony Street,
New York, and showed her the statement. Upon being questioned by
Mr. Cobbettshe said that it was so long ago that she could not speak
positively to any part of the matter; that she would not say that any
part of the paper was true; that she had never seen the
paper, and that she had never given Charles Collins authority
to say anything about the matter in her name. And so in the
month of October, in the year of grace 1818, in the mist of fog and for.
getfuluess, disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale, the last and only
witness against the intellectual honesty of Thomas Paine.
A letter was written to the editor of The New York World by the
Rev. A. W. Cornell, in which he says:
SIR : I see by your paper that Bob Ingersoll discredits Mary Hins-
dale's story of the scenes which occurred at the death bed of Thomas
Paine. No one who knew that good old lady would for one moment
doubt her veracity, or question her testimony. Both she and her hus-
band were Quaker preachers, and well known and respected inhabitants
of New York City.
Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hins-
dale were the same person. Her maiden mame was Roscoe and she
married Henry Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe, a niece of Mary
Roscoe, and lived with her for some time.
REV. A. W. CORNELL, Harpersville, N. Y.
The editor of the New York Observer took up the challenge that I had
thrown down. I offered $1 000 in gold to any minister who would
prove, or to any person \vlio would prove that Thomas Paine recanted
in his last hours. The New York Observer accepted the wager, and then
told a falsehood about it. But I kept after the gentlemen until I forced
them, in their paper, published on the 1st of November, 1877, to print
these words :
We have never stated in any form, nor have we ever supposed, that
Paine actually renounced his infidelity. The accounts agree in stating
that he died a blaspheming infidel.
This, I hope, for all coming time will refute the slanders of the
churches yet to be.
The next charge they make is that Thomas Paine died in destitution
and want. That, of course, would show that he was wrong. They
boast that the founder of their religion had not whereon to lay his
head, but when they found a man who stood for the rights of man,
when they say that he did, that is an evidence that this doctrine was a
lie. Won't do! Did Thomas Paine die in destitution and want? The
charge has been made over and over again that Thomas Paine died in
want and destitution ; that he was an abandoned pauper an outcast,
without friends and without mouev ^Ms charge is just as false as the
10
47 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
rest. Upon his return to this country, in 1802, he was worth $30,000,
according to his own statement, made at that time in the following let
ter, and addressed to Clio Rickman :
My dear friend, Mr. Monroe t who is appointed minister extraordinary
to France, takes charge of this, to be delivered to Mr. Este, banker, in
Paris, to be forwarded to you.
I arrived in Baltimore, 30th of October, and you can have no idea of
the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to
Georgia (an extent of 1,500 miles), every newspaper was tilled with
applause or abuse.
My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends, and is
now worth six thousand pounds sterling, which, put in the funds, will
bring about 400 sterling a year.
Remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family,
and iu the circle of your friends. THOMAS PAINE.
A man in those days worth $30,000 was not a pauper. That amount
would bring an income of at least $2,000. Two thousand dollars then
would be fully equal to $5,000 now. On the 12th of July, 1809, the
year in which he died, Mr. Paine made his will. From this instrument
we learn that he was the owner of a valuable farm within twenty miles
of New York. He was also owner of thirty shares in the New York
Phoenix Insurance Company, worth upward of $1,500. Besides this,
some personal property and ready money. By his will he gave to
Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmet, a brother of Robert Emmet,
$200 each, and $100 to the widow of Elihu Palmer. Is it possible that
this will was made by a pauper, by a destitute outcast, by a man who
suffered for the ordinary necessities of life ?
But suppose, for the sake of argument, that he was poor, and that he
died a beggar, does that tend to show that the Bible is an inspired book,
and that Calvin did not burn Servetus ? Do you really regard poverty as
a crime? If Paine had died a millionaire, would Christians have
accepted his religious opinions? If Paine had drank nothing but cold
water, would Christians have repudiated the five cardinal points of Cal-
vinism ? Does an argument depend for its force upon the pecuniary
condition of the person making it? As a matter of fact, most reform-
ersmost men and women of genius have been acquainted with
poverty. Beneath a covering of rags have been found some of the
tenderest and bravest hearts.
Owing to the attitude of the churehes for the last fifteen hundred
years, truth telling has not been a very lucrative business. As a rule,
hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the rags. That day is pass-
ing away. You can not now answer a man by pointing at the holes in
his coat. Thomas Paine attacked the church when it was powerful;
when it had what is called honors to bestow ; when it was the keeper ot
ON THOMAS PAINE. 47 r
the public conscience ; when it was strong and cruel. The church
waited till he was dead, and then attacked his reputation and his clothes.
Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The lion was dead. You
just don't know how happy I am to-night that justice so long delayed
at last is going to be done, and to see so many splendid looking people
come here out of deference to the memory of Thomas Paine. I am glad
to be here.
The next thing is: Did Thomas Paine live the life of a drunken
beast, and did he die a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death ? Well, we
will see. Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous
charges. The Christians have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in
their possession, and that evidence I will now proceed to examine.
Their first witness is Grant Thorburn. He made three charges against
Thomas Paine :
1. That his wife obtained a divorce from him in England for cruelty
and neglect.
2. That he was a defaulter and fled from England to America.
3. That he was a drunkard.
These three charges stand upon the same evidence the word of Grant
Thorburn If they are not all true, Mr. Thorburn stands impeached.
The charge that Mrs. Paine obtained a divorce on account of the
cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. There is no such
record in the world, and never was. Paine and his wife separated by
mutual consent. Each respected the other. They remained friends.
This charge is without any foundation, in fact, I challenge the Christian
world to produce the record of this decree of divorce. According to
Mr. Thorburn, it was granted in England. In that country public rec-
ords are kept of all such decrees. I will give $1,000 if they will produce
a decree, showing that it was given on account of cruelty, or admit that
Mr. Thorburn was mistaken.
Thomas Paine was a just man. Although separated from his wife, he
always spoke of her w.th tenderness and respect, and frequently tent
her money without letting her know the source from whence it came.
Was this the conduct of a drunken beast ?
The next is that he was a defaulter, and fled from England to America.
As I told you in the first place, he was an exciseman; if he was a de-
faulter, that fact is upon the records of Great Britain. I will give $1,000
in gold to any man who will show, by the records of England, that he
was a defaulter of a single, solitary cent. Let us bring these gentlemen
to Limerick.
And they charge that he was a drunkard. That is another falsehood,
He drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. It was no unuauaJ
47 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
thing for a preacher going home to stop in a tavern and take a drink of
hot rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to
help the preacher home. You have no idea how they loved the sacra-
ment in those days. They had communion pretty much all the time.
Thorburn says that in 1802 Paine was an " old remnant of mortality,
drunk, bloated, and half asleep." Can anyone believe this to be a true
account of the personal appearance of Mr. Paine in 1802 ? He had just
returned from France. He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jeffer-
son, who had said that he was entitled to the hospitality of every
American.
In 1802 Mr. Paine was honored with a public dinner in the City of
New York. He was called upon and treated with kindness and respect
by such men as De Witt Clinton. In 1806 Mr. Paine wrote a letter to
Andrew A. Dean upon the subject of religion. Read that letter and
then say that the writer of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk,
bloated, and half asleep. Search the files of Christian papers, from the
first issue to the last, and you will find nothing superior to this letter. In
1803 Mr. Paine wrote a letter of considerable length, and of great force,
to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not written by drunken
beasts, nor by remnants of old mortality, nor by drunkards. It was
about the same time that he wrote his " Remarks on Robert Hall's Ser-
mons." These "Remarks" were not written by a drunken beast, but by
a clear-headed and thoughtful man.
In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England and a
treatise on gun-boats, full of valuable maritime information ; in 1805 a
treatise on yellow fever, suggesting modes of prevention. In short, he
was an industrious and thoughtful man. re sympathized with the poor
and oppressed of all lands. He looked upon monarchy as a species of
physical slavery. He had the goodness to attack that form of govern-
ment. He regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental slavery.
He had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. His reasons
filled the churches with hatred. Instead of answering his arguments
they attacked him. Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes blackened
his character. There is too much religious cant in the statement of Mr.
Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what Grant Thorburn
said to Thomas Paine. He names Thomas Jefferson as one of the dis-
reputable men who welcomed Paine with open arms. The testimony
of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable person, as
to the character of anybody, is utterly without value.
Now, Grant Thorburn this gentleman who was " four feet and a half
high, and who weighed ninety eight pounds three and one-half ounces"
says that he uaed to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas
GN T SO MAS PAINS.
Paine. Mrs. Ferguson, the daughter of William Carver, says that she
knew Thorburn when she saw him, but that she never saw him in her
father's house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn, and he
at once wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was com-
menced by Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against Thorburn, the writer,
and Fanshaw, the publisher, of the libel. Thorburn ran away to Con-
necticut. Fanshaw wrote him for evidence of what he had written.
Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could
not be proved. Fanshaw then settled with the Fergusons,^ paying them
the amount demanded.
In 1859 the Fergusons lived at No. 148 Duane Street, New York. In
The Commercial Advertiser of New York, in 1830, appeared the written
acknowledgment of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did, on the
22cl of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles of
cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstook.
Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested, and that when brought
oefore him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his (Comstock's)
mercy.
The Philadelphia Tract Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his rec-
ollections of Thomas Paine.
Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October, 1877>
I received the following letter frem James Parton :
NEWBURYPORT, Mass., Oct 27, 1877. MY DEAR SIR: Touching
Grant Thorburn, I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age
of 92 he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and
brought it to the office of The Home Journal as his own. It was I who
received it and detected the deliberate forgery. * * JAMES PARTON.
So much for Grant Thorburn. In my judgment, the testimony of Mr.
Thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief.
The next witness is the Rev. J. D. Wickham, D. D., who tells what an
elder in his church said. This elder said that Paine passed his last days
on his farm at New Rochelle, with a solitary female attendant. This i s
not true. He did not pass his last days at New Rochelle, consequently,
this pious elder did not see him during his last days at that place. Upon
this elder we prove an alibi. Mr. Paine passed his last days in the City
of New York, in a house upon Columbia Street. The story of the Rev.
J. D. Wickham, D. D., is simply false.
The next competent false witness was the Rev. Charles Hawley, D. D.,
who proceeds to state that the story of the Rev. J. D. Wickham, D. D., is
corroborated by older citizens of New Rochelle. The names of these
ancient residents are withheld. According to these unknown witnesses,
the account given by the deceased elder was entirely correct. But as the
particulars of Mr. Paine's conduct " were too loathsome to be described
in prinV' we are left entirely in the dark^as to what he really did.
474 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
While at New Rochelle, Mr. Paine lived with Mr. Purdy, Mr. Dean,
with Capt. Pel ton, and with Mr. Staple. It is worthy of note that all oi
these gentlemen give the lie direct to Jie statements of " older residents"
and ancient citizens spoken of by the Rev. Charles Hawley, D. D., and
leave him with the "loathsome particulars" existing only in his own
mind.
The next gentleman brought upon the stand is W. H. Ladd, who
quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellett. This gentleman also has
the misfortune to be dead. According to his account, Mr. Paine made
his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary Roscoe. Mr.
Paine uttered the wish thart all who read his book had burned it. I
believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl. Her name was prob-
ably Mary Hinsdale, as it was once claimed that Paine made the same
remark to her.
These are the witnesses of the church, and the only ones you bring
forward to support your charge that Thomas Paine lived a drunken
and beastly life, and died a drunken, cowardly, and beastly death. All
these calumnies are found in a life of Paine by James Cheetham, the
convicted libeler already referred to. Mr. Cheetham was an enemy of
the man whose life he pretended to write. In order to show you the
estimation in which this libeler was held by Mr. Paine, I will give you
a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point:
OCT. 27, 1807. MR. CHEETHAM : Unless you make a public apology
for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday, Oct. 27, respect-
ing me, I will prosecute you for lying. THOMAS PAINE.
In another letter, speaking of this same man, Mr. Paine says : "If an
unprincipled bully can not be reformed, he can be punished." Cheet-
ham has been so long in the habit of giving false information, that truth
is to him like a foreign language.
Mr. Cheetham wrote the life of Mr. Paine to gratify his malice and to
support religion. He was prosecuted for libel was convicted and fined.
Yet the life of Paine, written by this liar, is referred to by the Chris-
tian world as the highest authority.
As to the personal habits of Mr. Paine, we have the testimony of Wil-
liam Carver, with whom he lived; of Mr. Jarvis, the artist, with whom
he lived; of Mr. Purdy, \\ ho was a tenant of Paine's; of Mr. Buyer,
with whom he was intimate; of Thomas Nixon and Capt. Daniel Pel-
ton, both of whom knew him well; of Amasa Woodsworth, who was
with him when he died ; of John Fellows, who boarded at the same
house; of James Wilburn, with whom he boarded; of B. F. Haskins, a
lawyer, who was well acquainted with him, and called upon him during
his last illness; of Walter Morton, President of the Phoenix Insurance
Company; of Clio liickman, who iiad known him for many years; of
ON THOMAS PAINE. 475
Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers, who knew him intimately and well:
of Judge Hjrtell, H. Margary, Elihu Palmer aud many others. All
these testified to the fact that Mr. Paine was a temperate man. In those
days nearly everybody used spirituous liquors. Paine was not an ex-
ception, but he did not drink to excess. Mr. Lovett, who kept the City
Hotel, where Paine stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham declared tluit
Paine drank less than any boarder he had.
Against all this evidence Christians produce the story of Grant Thor
burn, the story of the Rev. J. D. Wickham, that an elder in his church
told him that Paine was a drunkard, corroborated by the Rev. Charles
Hawley, and an extract from Lossing's history to the same effect. The
evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Will you have the fdrness
to admit it? Their witnesses ire merely the repeaters of the falsehoods
of James Cheetham, the convicted libeler.
After all, drinking is not as bad as lying. An honest drunkard is
better than a calumniator of the dead. "A remnant of old mortality
drunk, bloated, and half-asleep," is better than a perfectly sober de-
fender of human slavery. To become drunk is a virtue compared with
stealing a babe from the breast of its mother. Drunkenness is one of the
beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the
defense of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution. Do
you think that Paine was a drunken beast when he wrote u Common
Sense," a pamphlet that aroused three millions "of people, as people
were never aroused by words before ? Was he a drunken beast when he
wrote the "Crisis?" Was it to a drunken beast that the 'following
letter was a .dressed : -
ROCKY HILL, September 10, 1783. I have learned, since I have been
at this place, that you are at Bordentown. Whether for the sa*e of
retirement or economy, I know not. Be it for either, or both, or what-
ever it may, if you will come to this place and partake with me, I shall
be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind Con-
gress of your past services to this country; and if it is in my power to
impress them, command my best exertions with freedom, as they will
be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of th:- im-
portance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes him-
self your sincere friend, GEORGE WASHINGTON.
Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the following
letters were received by him:
You express a wish 5n your letter to return to America in a national
ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will present
you wiih this letter, is charged witli orders to the Captain of the Mary-
land to receive and accommodate you l.otk, if you can be ready to
depart at such a short warning. You will, in general, find us returned
to sentiments worthy of former times; in tht^e it \\\\\ !>c your L'lory to
have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That
4/6 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward
in the thankfulness of nations, is my sincere prayer. Accept the assur-
ances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment.
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
It has been very generally propagated through the continent that I
wrote the pamphlet " Common Sense." I could not have written any-
thing in so manly and striking a style. JOHN ADAMS.
A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth
and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine and unanswerable reasoning
contained in the pamphlet u Common Sense," will not leave numbers
at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation.
GEORGE WASHINGTON.
It is not necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen
I speak of the great mass of the people are interested in your wel-
fare. They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution, and
the difficult scenes through which they passed ; nor do they review its
several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the
merits of those who served them in that great and arduous conflict. The
crime of ingratitude has not yet stained, and I trust never will stain, GUI'
national character. You are considered by them as not only having
rendered important services in our revolution, but as being on a more
extensive scale the friend of human right and a distinguished and able
advocate in favor of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine,
the Americans are not, nor can they be, indifferent.
JAMES MONROE.
No writer has exceeded Paine in ease and familiarity of style, in
perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation, and in simple and
unassuming language. THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the
Legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with 500 sterling ?
Did the State of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast, and confer
upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres ? Did the Con-
gress of the United States thank him for his services because he had
lived a drunken and beastly life? Was he elected a member of the
French convention because he was a drunken beast ? Was it the act of
a drunken beast to put his own life in jeopardy by voting against the
death of the King? Was it because he was a drunken beast that he op-
posed the " Reign of Terror " that he endeavored to stop the shedding
of blood, and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies ? Do
the following extracts sound like the words of a drunken beast:
I believe in the equality of man, and I believe that religious duties
consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fel-
low creatures happy.
My own mind is my own church.
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful
to himself.
ON THOMAS PAINE. 477
., Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child can not be a
""true system.
The work of God is the creation which we behold.
The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system,
It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action it begets a calamitous
necessity of going on.
To read the Bible without horror, we must undo everything that is
tender, sympathizing, and benevolent in the heart of man.
The man does not exist who can say I have persecuted him, or that I
have, in any case, returned evil for evil-
Of all the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny in religion is the
worst.
The belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man.
My own opinion is, that those whose lives have been spent in doing
good, and endeavoring to make their fellow-mortals happy, will be
happy hereafter.
The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every man
and his Maker, and in which no third party has any right to interfere.
The practical part consists in our doing good to each other.
No man ought to make a living by religion. One person can not act
religion for another every person must act for himself.
One good school-master is of more use than a hundred priests.
Let us propagate morality, unfettered by superstition.
God is the power, or first cause ; nature is the law, and matter is the
subject acted upon.
I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for happiness beyond
this life.
The key of happiness is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought the
road to it to be obstructed by any.
My religion, and the whole of it, is the fear and love of the Deity, and
universal philanthropy.
I have yet, I believe, some years in store, for I have a good state of
health and a happy mind. I taKe care of both, by nourishing the first
with temperance and the latter with abundance.
He lives immured within the bastile of a word.
How perfectly that sentence describes the orthodox. The bastile in
which they are immured is the word " Calvinism."
Man has no property in man.
The world is my country, to do good my religion.
I ask again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of
a drunken beast ?
" Man has no property in
478
What a splendid motto that would make for the religious newspapers
of this country thirty years ago. I ask, again, whether these splendid
utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast ?
Only a little while ago two or three days I read a report of an ad-
dress made by Bishop Doane, an Episcopal Bishop in apostolic succes-
sion regular line from Jesus Christ down to Bishop Doane. The
Bishop was making a speech to young preachers the sprouts, the
theological buds. He took it upon him to advise them all against early
marriages. Let us look at it. Do you believe there is any duty that
man owes to God that will prevent a man marrying the woman he
loves? Is there some duty that I owe to the clouds that will prevent
me from marrying some good, sweet woman? Now, just think of that!
I tell you, young man, you marry as soon as you can find her and sup-
port her. I had rather have one woman that I know than any amount
of gods that I am not acquainted with. If there is any revelation from
God to man, a good woman is the best revelation He has ever made;
and I will admit that that revelation was inspired.
Now, on the subject of marriage, let me offset the speech of Bishop
Doane by a word from this " wretched infidel :"
Though I appear a sorry wanderer, the marriage state has not a sin-
cerer friend than I. It is the harbor of human life, and is, with respect
to the things of this world, what the next world is to this. It is home,
and that one word conveys more than any other word can express. For
a few years we may glide along the tide of a single life, but it is a tide
that flows but once, and, what is still worse, it ebbs faster than it flows,
and leaves many a hapless voyager aground. I am one, you see, that
has experienced the fall I am describing. I have lost my tide; itpassed
by while every throb of my heart was on the wing for the salvation of
America, and I have now, as contentedly as I can, made myself a little
tower of walls on that shore that has the solitary resemblance of home
I just want you to know what this dreadful infidel thought of home.
I just wanted you to know what Thomas Paine thought of home.
Then here is another letter that Thomas Paine wrote to congress on the
21st day of January, 1808, and I wanted you to know those two. It is
only a short one:
To THE HONORABLE THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES: The
purport of this address is to state a claim I feel myself entitled to make
on the United States, leaving it to their representatives in congress to
decide on its worth and its merits. The case is as follows :
Toward the latter end of the year 1780 the continental money had
become depreciated the paper dollar being then not more than a cent
that it seemed next to impossible to continue the war. As the United
States was then in alliance with France, it became necessary to make
France acquainted with our real situation. I therefore drew up a letter
to the Count De Vergennes, stating undisguisedly the whole case, and
concluding with a request whether France could not, either as a sub-
ON THOMAS PAINE. 479
sidy or a loan, supply the United States with a million pound* sterling,
and continue that supply, annually, during the war. I showed this
letter to Mr. Morbois, secretary of the French minister. His remark
upon it was that a million sent out of the nation exhausted it more than
ten millions spent in it. I then showed it to Mr. Ralph Izard, member
of congress from South Carolina. He borrowed the letter of me and
said: " We will endeavor to dp something about it in congr< ss." Ac-
cordingly, congress then appointed John A. Laurens to go to France and
make representation for the purpose of obtaining assistance. Col.
Laurens wished to decline the mission, and asked that congress would
appoint Col. Hamilton, who did not choose to do it. Col. Laurens then
came and stated the case to me, and said that he was well enough
acquainted with the military difficulties of the army, but he was not
acquainted with political affairs, or with the resources of the country,
to undertake such a mission. Said he, '* If you will go with me I will
accept the mission." This I agreed to do, and did do. We sailed from
Boston in the Alliance frigate February, 1781, and arrived in France in
the beginning of March. The aid obtained fro.n France was six millions
of liyres, as at present, and ten millions as a loan, borrowed in Holland
on the security of France. We sailed from Brest in the French frigate
Resolue the 1st of June, and arrived at Boston on the 25th of August,
bringing with us two millions and a half in silver, and conveying a ship
and a brig laden with clothing and military stores.
The money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the National
bank at Philadelphia, which enable I our army to move to Yorktown to
attack in conjunction with the French army under Kochambeau, the
British army under Cornwallis.
As I never had a single cent for these services, I felt myself entitled,
as the country is now in a sta f e of prosperity, to state the case to congress.
As to my political works, beginning with the pamphlet "Common
Sense," published the beginning of January 1776, which awakened
America to a declaration of independence, as the president and vice-
president both know, as they were works done from principle I can not
dishonor that principle by ever asking any reward for them. The
country has been benefited by them, and I make myself happy in the
knowledge of that benefit. It is, however, proper for me to add that the
mere independence of America, were it to have been followed by a
system of government modeled after the corrupt system of the English
government, would not have interested me with the u abated ardor it did.
It was to bring forward and establish a representative system of govern-
ment. As the work itself will show, that was the leading principle
with me in writing that work, and all my other works during the
progress of the revolution, and I followed the same principle in
writing in English the " Rights of Man.''
After the failure of the 5 per cent, duty recommended by congress to
pay the interest of the loan to be borrowed in Holland, I wrote to
Chancellor Livingston, then minister for foreign affairs, and Robert
Morris, minister of finance, and proposed a method for getting over the
difficulty at once, which was by adding a continental legislature which
should be empowered to make laws for the whole union instead of
recommending them. So the method proposed met with their fui. ^
probation. I held myself in reserve to take a step up whenever a
lirect occasion occurred.
480 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
In a conversation afterward with GOT. Clinton, of New York, ncro
vice-president, it was judged that for the purpose of iny going fully
into the subject, and to prevent any misconstruction of my motive or
object, it would be best that I received nothing from congress, but to
leave it to the states individually to make me what acknowledgment
they pleased. The State of New York presented me with a farm, which
since my return to America, I have found it necessary to sell, and the
State of Pennsylvania voted me 500 of their currency, but none of the
states to the east of New York, or the south of Pennsylvania, have
made me the least acknowledgment. They had received benefits from
me which they accepted, and there the matter ended. This story will
not tell well in history. All the civilized world knows I have been of
great service to the United States, and have generously given away that
which would easily have made me a fortune. I much question if an
instance is to be found in ancient or modern times of a man who had
no personal interest in the case to take up that of the establishment of
a r 'presentative government, and who sought neither place nor office
after it was established ; that pursued the same undeviating principles that
I had for more than thirty years, and that in spite of dangers, difficulties,
and inconveniences of which I have had my share. THOMAS PAINE.
An old man in Pennsylvania told me once that his father hired a
old revolutionary soldier by the name of Thomas Martin to work for
him. Martin was then quite an old man ; and there was an old Presby-
terian preacher used to come there, by the name of Crawford, and he sat
down by the fire and he got to talking one night, among other things,
about Thomas Paine what a wretched, infamous dog he was; and
while he was in the midst of this conversation the old soldier rose from
the fireplace, and he walked over to the preacher, and he said to him :
" Did you ever see Thomas Paine ?" " No." 4< Well," he says, " I have ;
I saw him at Valley Forge. I heard read at the head of every regiment
and company the letters of Thomas Paine. I heard them read the
' Crisis,' and I saw Thomas Paine writing on the head of a drum, sit-
ting at the bivouac fire, those simple words that inspired every patriot's
bosom, and I want to tell you Mr. Preacher, that Thomas Paine did
more for liberty than any priest that ever lived in this world.
And yet they say he was afraid to die ! Afraid of what ? Is there
any God in heaven that hates a patriot ? If there is Thomas Paine
ought to be afraid to die. Is there any God that would damn a man for
helping to free three millions of people ? If Thomas Paine was in hell
to-night, and could get God's attention long enough to point him to the
old banner of the stars floating over America, God would have to let
him out. What would he be afraid of? Had he ever burned anybody ?
No. Had he ever put anybody in the inquisition? No. Ever put the
thumb-screw on anybody ? No. Ever put anybody in prison so that
some poor wife and mother would come and hold her little babe up at
the grated window that the man bound to the floor might get one glimpse
f his blue-eyed babe?_ Did he, ever dg that?
ON THOMAS PAINE. 48 1
Did he ever light a fagot? Did he ever tear human % flesh? Why,
what had he to be afraid of? lie had helped to make the world free.
He had helped create the only republic then on the earth. What was
he afraid of? Was God a tory ? It won't do.
Oue would think from the persistence with which the orthodox have
charged for the last seventy years that Thomas Paine recanted, that there
must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges. Even
with my ideas of the average honor of the believers in superstition, the
average truthfulness of the disciples of fear, I did not believe that all
those infamies rested solely upon poorly-attested falsehoods. I had
charity enough to suppose that something had been said or done by
Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a foundation of all these
calumnies. What crime had Thomas Paine committed that he should
have feared to die? The only answer you can give is Unit he denied the
inspiration of the scriptures. If that is- crime, the civilized world is
filled with criminals The pioneers of human thought, the intellectual
leaders of this world, the foremost men in every science, the kings of
literature and art, those who stand in the front of investigation, the men
who are civilizing and elevating and refining mankind, are all un.
believers in the ignorant do^ma of inspiration.
Why should we think Thomas Paine was afraid to die? and why
should the American people malign the memory of that great man?
He was the first to advocate the separation from the mother country-
He was the first to write these words: "The United States of America."
Think of maligning that man ! He was the first to lift his voice against
liuman slavery, and while hundreds and thousands of ministers all over
the United States not only believed in slavery, but bought and sold
women and babes in the name of Jesus Christ, this infidel, this wretch
who is now burning in the flames of hell, lifted his voice against human
slavery and said: " It is robbery, and a slaveholder is a theif; the
whipper of women is a barbarian; the seller of a child is a savage."
No wonder that the theiving hypocrite of his day hated him!
I have no love for any man who ever pretended to own a human being.
I have no love for a man that would sell a babe from the mother's throb-
bing, heaving, agonized breast. I have no respect for a man who
considered a lash on the naked back as a legal tender for labor performed.
So write it down, Thomas Paine was the first great abolitionist of
America
Now let me tell you another thing. He was the first man to raise his
voice for the abolition of the death penalty in the French convention.
What more did he do? He was the first to suggest a federal constitu-
tion for the United States. He saw that the old articles of confederation
482 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
were nothing; that they were ropes of water and chains of mist, and h
said, " We want a federal constitution so that when you pass a law raig.
ing 5 per cent, you can make the states pay it.'' Let us give him his
due. What were all these preachers doing at that time ?
He hated superstition; he loved the truth. He hated tyranny; he
loved liberty. He was tho friend of the human race. He lived a brave
and thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man, and
lie died as he lived. Like a great and peaceful river with srreen and
shaded banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the
waveless ocean of eternal peace. I love him; I love every man who
gave me, or helped to give me the liberty I enjoy to-night; I love every
man who helped me put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has
lilted his voice in any age for liberty, fora cha'mless body and a fetterless
brain. I love every man who has given to every other human being
every right that he claimed for himself. I love every man who has
thought more of principle than he has of position. I love the men who
have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something
for mankind, and for that reason I love Thomas Paine.
I thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, every one every one, toe *&*
Attention you have given me this evening.
INGEKSOLL'S LECTUKE
ON
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD,
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In my judgment slavery is
the child of ignorance. Liberty is born of intelligence.
Only a few years ago there was a great awakening in the
human mind, Men began to inquire, By what right does
a crowned robber make me work for him? The man
who asked this question was called a traitor. Others
said, by what right does a robed priest rob me? That
man was called an infidel. And whenever he asked a
question of that kind, the clergy protested. When they
found that the earth was round, the clergy protested;
when they found that the stars were not made out of the
scraps that were left over on the sixth day of 'creation,
but were really great, shining, wheeling worlds, the
clergy protested and said: " When is this spirit of inves-
tigation to stop? " They said then, and they say now,
that it is dangerous for the mind of man to be free. I
deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there is room
483
484 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
for every sail. In the intellectual air, there is space
enough for every wing. And the man who does not do
his own thinking is a slave, and does not do his duty to
his fellow men. For one, I expect to do my own
thinking. And I will take my own oath this minute that
I will express what thoughts I have, honestly and sin-
cerely. I am the slave ol no man and of no organiza-
tion. I stand under the blue sky and the stars, under
the infinite flag of nature, the peer of every human be-
ing. Standing as I do in the presence of the Unknown,
I have the same right to guess as though I had been
through five theological seminary. I have as much in-
terest in the great absorbing questions of origin and des-
tiny as though I had D.D., L. L. D. at the end of my
name.
All I claim, all I plead is simple liberty of thought.
That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is true and
all the truth. I do not claim that I have floated level
with the heights of thought, or that I have descended to
the depths of things; I simply claim that what ideal have
I have a right to express, and any man that denies it to
me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is all. I
say, take those chains off from the human soul; I say,
break these orthodox fetters, and if there are wings to
the spirit let them be spread. That is all I say. And I
ask you if I have not the same right to think that any
other human has? If I have no right to think, why
have I such a thing as a thinker. Why have I a
brain? And if I have no right to think, who has? If
I have lost my right, Mr. Smith, where did you
find yours? If I have no right, have three or four
men or 300 or 400, who get together and sign a card
LIBERTY. 485
and build a house and put a steeple on it with a bell in
it have they any more right to think than they had be-
fore? That is the question . And I am sick of the whip
and lash in the region of mind and intellect. And I say
to these men, '-Let us alone. Do your own think-
ing; express your own thoughts." And I want to say to-
night that I claim no right that I am not willing to give
to every other human being beneath the stars none
whatever. And I will fight to-night for the right of
those who disagree with me to express their thoughts
just as soon as I will fight for my owu right to express
mine.
In the good old times, our fathers had an idea that
they could make people believe to suit them. Our an-
cestors in the ages that are gone really believed that by
force you could convince a man. You cannot change
the conclusion of the brain by force, but I will tell you
what you can do by force, and what you have done by
force. You can make hypocrites by the million. You
can make a man say that he has changed his mind, but
he remains of the same opinion still. Put fetters all
over him; crush his feet in iron boots; lash him to the
stock; burn him if you please, but his ashes are of the
same opinion still. I say our fathers, in the good old
times and the best thing I can say about them is, they
are dead they had an idea they could force men to
think their way, and do you know that idea is still prev-
lent even in this country? Do you know they think
they can make a man think their way if they say,
,, We will not trade with that man; we won't
vote for that man; we won't hire him, if he is a
lawyer; we will die before we take his medicine, if he is a
486 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
doctor, we won't invite him; we will socially ostracise
him; he must come to our church; he must thiuk our
way or he is not a gentleman. There is much of that
even in this blessed country not excepting the city of
Albany itself.
Now in the old times of which I have spoken, they
said, "We can make all men think alike." All the me-
chanical ingenuity of this earth cannot make two clocks
run alike, and how are you going to make millions of
people of different quantities and qualities and amount
of brain, clad in this living robe of passionate flesh how
are you going to make millions of them think alike? If
the infinite God, if there is one, who made us, wished us
to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to
one man, and a bushel to another? Why is it that we
have all degrees of humanity, from the idiot to the
genius, if it was intended that all should think alike ? I
say our fathers concluded they would do this by force,
and I used to read in books how they persecuted man-
kind, and do you know I never appreciated it; I did not.
I read it, but it did not burn itself, as it were, into my
very soul what infamies had been committed in the name
of religion, and I never fully appreciated it until a little
while ago I saw the iron arguments our fathers used to
use. I tell you the reason we are through that, is, be-
cause we have better brains than our fathers had. Since
that day we have become intellectually developed, and
there is more real brain and real good sense in the world
to-day than in any other period of its history, and that is
the reason we have more liberty, that is the rea-
son we have more kindness. But I say I saw these
iron arguments our fathers used to use. I saw
LIBERTY. 487
there the thumb-screw two little innocent looking
pieces of iron, armed on the inner surface with protuber-
ences to prevent their slipping and when some man de-
nied the efficacy of baptism, or may be said, " I do not
believe that the whale ever swallowed a man to keep him
from drowning," then they put these pieces ot iron upon
his thumb, and there was a screw at each end, and then,
in the name of love and forgiveness, they began screw-
ing these pieces of iron together. A great many men,
when they commenced, would say, " I recant." I ex-
pect I would have been one of them. I would have
said, "Now you just stop that; I will admit anything on
earth that you want. I will admit there is one god or a
million, one hell or a billion; sutt yourselves, but stop
that." But I want to say, the thumbscrew having got
out of the way, I am going to have my say.
There was now and then some man who wouldn't turn
Judas Iscariot to his own soul; there was now and then
a man willing to die for his conviction, and if it were not
for such men we would be savages to-night. Had it not
been for a few brave and heroic souls in every age, we
would have been naked savages this moment, with pic-
tures of wild beasts tattoed upon our naked breasts,
dancing around a dried snake fetish; and I to-night thank
every good and noble man who stood up in the face of
opposition, and hatred, and death for what he believed
to be right. And then they screwed this thumbscrew
down as far as they could and threw him into some
dungeon, where, in throbbing misery and the darkness
of night, he dreams of the damned; but that was done
in the name of universal love.
I saw there at the same time what they called the
488 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
4< collar of torture." Imagine a circle of iron, and on the
inside of that more than a hundred points as sharp as
needles. This being fastened upon the throat, the suf-
ferer could not sit down, he could not walk, he could
not stir without being punctured by those needles, and in
a little while the throat would begin to swell, and finally
suffocation would end the agonies of that man, when
may be the only crime he had committed was to say,
with tears upon his sublime cheeks, " I do not believe
that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal pun-
ishment any of the children of men." Think of it!
And I saw there at the same time another instrument,
called " the scavenger's daughter," which resembles a
pair of shears, with handles where handles ought to be,
but at the points as well. And just above the pivot that
fastens the blades, a circle of iron through which the
hands would be placed, into the lower circles the feet,
and into the center circle the head would be pushed, and
in that position he would be thrown prone upon the
earth, and kept there until the strain upon the muscles
produced such agony that insanity and death would end
his pain. And that was done in the name of "Who-
soever smiteth thee upon one cheek, turn him the other
also." Think of it!
And I saw also the rack, with the windlass and chains,
upon which the sufferer was laid. About his ankles
were fastened chains, and about his wrists also, and then
priests began turning this windlass, and they kept turn-
ing until the ankles, the shoulders and the wrists were
all dislocated, arid the sufferer was wet with the sweat
of agony. And they had standing by a physician to feel
his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. What
LIBERTY. 489
for? In mercy? No. Simply that they might preserve
his life, that they might rack him once again. And this
was done recollect it it was done in the name of civ-
ilization, it was done in the name of law and order, it
was done in the name of morality, it was done in the
name of religion, it was done in the name of God.
Sometimes when I get to reading about it, and when I
get to thinking about it, it seems to me that I have suf-
fered all these horrors myself, as though I had stood
upon the shore of exile and gazed with a tear-filled eye
toward home and native land; as though my nails had
been torn from my hands, and into my throat the sharp
needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been
crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in
the cells of the Inquisition, and had watched and waited
in the interminable darkness to hear the words of release;
as thongh I had been taken from my fireside, from my
wife and children, and taken to the public square, chained,
and fagots had been piled around me; as though the
flames had played around my limbs, and scorched the
sight from my eyes; as though my ashes had been scat-
tered to the four winds by the hands of hatred; as though
I had stood upon the scaffold and felt the glittering ax
fall upon me. And while I feel and see all this, I swear
that while I live I will do what little I can to augment
the liberty of man, woman and child.
My friends, it is all a question of sense; it is all a ques-
tion of honesty. If there is a man in this house who is
not willing to give to everybody else what he claims for
himself he is just so much nearer to the barbarian than
I am. It is a simple question of honesty; and the man
who is not willing to give to every other human being the
490 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
same intellectual rights he claims himself is a rascal,
and you know it. It is a simple question. I say, of in-
tellectual development and of honesty. And I want to
say it now, so you will see it. You show me the narrow,
contracted man; you show me the man who claims every-
thing for himself and leaves nothing for others, and that
man has got a distorted and deformed brain. That is
the matter with him. He has no sense; not a bit. Let
me show you.
A little while ago I saw models of everything man has
made for his use and for his convenience. I saw all the
models of all the watercraft, from the dug-out, in which
floated a naked savage one of our ancestors a naked
savage, with teeth two inches long, with a spoonful of
brains in the back of his head; I saw the watercraft of
the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that
carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas; from that
dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow from
the port of New York through 3,000 miles ot billows,
with a compass like a conscience, that does not miss
throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from one shore to
the other. I saw at the same time the weapons that
man has made, from a rude club, such as was grasped by
that savage when he crawled from his den, from his
hole in the ground, and hunted a snake for his dinner
from that club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the
cross-bow, to the blunderbus, to the flint-lock, to the
cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up *to the cannon cast by
Krupp, capable of hurling a ball of 2,000 pounds through
eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw, too, the arrno?
from the turtle-shell that our ancestor lashed upon hii
skin when he went out to ffght for his country, to the
LIBERTY. 491
skin of the porcupine, with the quills all bristling, which
he pulled over his orthodox head to defend himself from
his enemies I mean, of course, the orthodox head of
that day up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the
middle ages, capable of resisting the edge of the sword
and the point of the spear; up to the iron-clad, to the
monitor completely clad in steel, capable only a few
years ago of defying the navies of the globe.
I saw at the same time the musical instruments, from
the tomtom, which is a hoop with a couple of strings of
rawhide drawn across it from that tomtom up to the
instruments we have to-day, which make the common
air blossom with melody. I saw, too, the paintings,
from the daub of yellow mud up to the pieces which adorn
the galleries of the world. And the sculpture, from the
rude gods, with six legs and a half dozen arms, and the
rows of ears, up to the sculpture of now, wherein the
marble is clad with such loveliness that it seems almost
a sacrilege to touch it; and in addition I saw there ideas
of books books written upon skins of wild beasts,
books written upon shoulder-blades of sheep; books writ-
ten upon leaves, upon bark, up to the splendid volumes
that adorn the libraries of our time. When I think of
libraries, I think of the remark of Plato, ' ' The house
that has a library in it has a soul."
I saw there all these things, and also the implements
of agriculture, from a crooked stick up to the plow which
makes it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without
being an ignoranris. I saw at the same time a row of
skulls, from the lowest skull that has ever been found;
skulls from the central portion of Africa, skulls from the
bushmen of Australia, up to the best skulls of the last
generation.
49 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
And I notice that there was the same difference be-
tween those skulls that there is between the products of
those skulls. And I said to myself: " It is all a question
of intellectual development. It is a question of brain
and sinew." I noticed that there was the same differ-
ence between those skulls that there was between that
dug-out, and that man-of-war and that steamship. That
skull was low. It had not a forehead a quarter of an
inch high. But shortly after, the skulls became doming
and crowning, and getting higher and grander. That
skull was a den in which crawlee the base and meaner
instincts of mankind, and this skull was a temple in
which dwelt joy, liberty and love. So said I: "This is
all a question of brain, and anything that tends to de-
velop, intellectually, mankind, is the gospel we want."
Now I want te be honest with you. Honor bright!
Nothing like it in the world! No matter what I believe.
Now, let us be honest. Suppose a king, if there was a
king at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out
and charmed his ears with the music of the tomtom;
suppose the king at that time, if there was one, and the
priest, if there was one, had said: "That dug-out is the
best boat that ever can be built. The pattern of that
came from on high, and any man who says he can im-
prove it, by putting a log or a stick in the bottom of it,
with a rag on the end, is an infidel." Honor bright,
what, in your judgment, wonld have been the effect upon
the circumnavigation of the globe? That is the question.
Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if
there was one and I presume there was, because it was
a very ignorant age suppose they had said: "That tom-
tom is the most miraculous instrument of music that any
LIBERTY. 493
man can conceive of; that is the kind of music they have
in heaven. An angel, sitting upon the golden edge of a
fleecy cloud, playing upon that tomtom, became so en-
raptured, so entranced with her own music, that she
dropped it, and that is how we got it and any man that
says that it can be improved by putting a back and front
to it, and four strings and a bridge on it, and getting
some horsehair and resin, is no better than one of the
weak and unregenerate. "
I ask you what effect would that have had upon mu-
sic? I ask you, honor bright, if that course had been
pursued, would the human ears ever have been enriched
witn the divine symphonies of Beethoven? That is th*
question. And suppose the king, if there was one, and
the priest had said: * ' That crooked stick is the best plow
we can ever have invented. The pattern of that plow
was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that
twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things;
and any man who says he can make an improvement,
we will twist him." Honor bright, what, in your judg-
ment, would have been the effect upon the agricultural
world?
Now, you see, the people said, "We want better weap-
ons with which to kill our enemies;" the people said,
" we want better plows;" the people said, "we want
better music;" the people said, "we want better paint-
ings; " and they said, ' ' whoever will give us better plows,
and better arms, and better paintings, and better music,
we will give him honor; we will crown him with glory;
we will robe him in the garments of wealth; " and every
incentive has been held ont to every human being to im-
prove something in every direction. And that is the
494 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
reason the club is a cannon; that the reason the dug-
out is a steamship; that the reason the daub is a paint-
ing, and that is the reason that that piece of stone has
finally become a glorified statue.
Now, then, this fellow in the dug-out had a religion.
That fellow was orthodox. He had no doubt; he was
settled in his mind. He did not wish to be insulted. He
wanted the bark of his soul to lie at the wharf of ortho-
doxy, and rot in the sun. He wanted to hear the sails
of old opinions flap against the mast of old creeds. He
wanted to see the joints in the sides open and gape, as
though thirsty for water, and he said: " Now don't dis-
turb my opinions; you'll get my mind unsettled; I have
got it all made up, and I don't want to hear any infidel-
ity, either.'" As far as I am concerned, I want to be
out on the high sea; I want to take my chance with wind
and wave and star; and I had rather go down in the
glory and grandeur of the storm than to rot at any ortho-
dox wharf. Of course I mean by orthodoxy all that
don't agree with my doxy. Do you understand?
Now this man had a religion. That fellow believed
in hell. Yes, sir; and he thought he wonld be happier
in heaven if he could just lean over and see certain peo-
ple that he disliked, broiled. That fellow has had a
great many intellectual descendents. It is an unhappy
fact in nature that the ignorant multiply much faster
than the intellectual. This fellow believed in the devil,
and his devil had a cloven hoof. (Many people think I
have the same kind of footing.) He had a long tail,
armed with a fiery dart, and he breathed brimstone.
And do you know there has not been a patentable im-
provement made on that devil for 4,000 years? That
LIBERTY. 495
fellow believed that God was a tyrant. That fellow be-
lieved that the earth was flat. That fellow believed, as
I told you, in a literal burning, seething lake of fire and
brimstone. That is what he believed in. That fellow,
too, had his idea of politics, and his idea was, "Might
makes right." And it will take thousands of years be-
fore the world will behevingly say, ' ' Right makes might. "
Now all I ask is the same privilege of improving on
that gentleman'e theology as upon his musical instru-
ment; the same right to improve upon his politics as
upon his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the human
soul the same liberty in every direction. And that is
all. That is the only crime that I have committed.
That is all. I say, let us have a chance. Let us think,
and let each one express his thoughts. Let us become
investigators, not followers; not cringers and crawlers.
If there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be
satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites.
Honest unbelief will be a perfume in heaven when hypoc-
risy, no matter however religious it may be outwardly,
will be a stench, That is my doctrine. That is all
there is to it; give every other human being all the
chance you claim for yourself. To keep your mind
open to the voices of nature, to new ideas, to new
thoughts, and to improve upon your doctrine whenever
you can; that is my doctrine.
Do you know we are improving all the time? Do you
know that the most orthodox people in this town to-day,
three hundred years ago would have been burned for
heresy? Do you know some ministers who denounce
me would have been in the Inquisition themselves two
hundred years ago? Do you know where once boirned
496 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
and blazed the bivouac fires of the army of progress, the
altars of the church glow to-day? Do you know that the
church to-day occupies about the same ground that un-
believers did one hundred years ago? Do you know that
while they have followed this army of progress, protest-
ing and denouncing, they have had to keep within pro-
testing and denouncing distance, but they have followed
it? They have been the men, let me say, in the valley;
the men in swamps, shouting to and cursing the pio-
neers on the hills; the men upon whose forehead was the
light of the coming dawn, the coming day but they
have advanced. In spite of themselves, they have ad-
vanced! If they had not, I would not speak here to-
night. If they had not, not a solitary one of you could
have expressed your real and honest thought. But we
are advancing, and we are beginning to hold all kinds of
slavery in utter contempt; do you know that? And we
are beginning to question wealth and power; we are
questioning all creeds and all dogmas; and we are not
bowing down, as we used to, to a man simply because he
is in the robe of a clergyman, and we are not bowing
down to a man now simply because he is a king. No!
We are not bowing down simply because he is rich. We
used to worship the golden calves, but we do not now.
The worst you can say of an American, is, he worships
the gold of the calf, not the calf; and even the calves
are beginning to see this distinction.
It no longer fills the ambition of a man to be emperor
or king. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being
Emperor of the French; he was not satisfied with hav-
ing a circlet of gold about his head; he wanted some ev-
idence that he had something within his head, so he wrote
LIBERTY. 497
the life of Julius Caesar, that he might become a member
of the French Academy. Compare, for instance, in the
German Empire, King William and Bismarck. King
William is the one anointed of the most high, as they
claim the one upon whose head has been poured the
divine petroleum of authority. Compare him with Bis-
marck, who towers, an intellectual Colossus, above this
man. Go into England and compare George Eliot with
Queen Victoria Queen Victoria, clothed in the gar-
ments given to her by blind fortune and by chance.
George Elliot, robed in garments of glory, woven in the
loom of her own genius. Which does the world pay
respect to? I tell you we are advancing! The pulpit
does not do all the thinking; the pews do it; nearly all
of it. The world is advancing, and we question the au-
thority of those men who simply say " it is so." Down
upon your knees and admit it!
When I think of how much this world has suffered, I
am amazed- when I think of how long our fathers were
slaves, I am amazed. Why, just think of it! This
world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in fifty
years. No, it has not. It was not until the year 1808
that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to
that time her judge, sitting upon the bench in the name
of justice; her priests, occupying the pulpit in the name
of universal love, owned stock in slave ships and lux-
uriated in the profits of piracy and murder. It was not
until the year 1808 that the United States abolished the
slave trade between this and other countries, but pre-
served it as between the States. It w r as not until the
28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished
human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the
498 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
1st day of January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln wiped
from our flag the stigma of disgrace. Abraham Lincoln
in my judgment, the grandest man ever president of
the United States, and upon whose monument these
words could truthfully be written: "Here lies the only
man in the history of the world who, having been clothed
with almost absolute power, never abused it except on
the side of mercy."
Think, I say, how long we clung to the institution of
human slavery; how long lashes upon the naked back
were the legal tender for labor performed! Think of it!
when the pulpit of this country deliberately and willfully
changed the Cross of Christ into the whipping-post.
Think of it! And tell me then if I am right when I say
this world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in
fifty years. I hate with every drop of my blood every
form of tyranny. I hate every form of slavery. I hate
dictation I want something like liberty; and what do I
mean by that? The right to do anything that does not
interfere with the happiness of another, physically. Lib-
erty of thought includes the right to think right and the
right to think wrong. Why? Because that is the means
by which we arrive at truth; for if we knew the truth
before, we needn't think. Those men who mistake their
ignorance for facts, never do think. You may say to
me, "How far is it across this room?" I say 100 feet.
Suppose it is 105; have I committed any crime? I
made the best guess I could. You ask me about any
thing; 1 examine it honestly, and when I get through,
what should I tell you what I think or what you think?
What should I do?"
There is a book put in my hands. They say "That is
LIBERTY. 499
the koran; that was written by inspiration; read it." I
read it. Chapter VII, entitled "The Cow;" chapter
IX, entitled "The Bee," and so on. I read it. When
I get through with it, suppose I think in my heart and
in my brain, "I don't believe a word of it; " and you
ask me, " What do you think of it?" Now, admitting
that I live in Turkey, and have a chance to get an
office, what should I say? Now, honor bright, should I
just make a clean breast of it and say " Upon my honor,
I don't believe it?" Then is it right for you to say
"That fellow will steal that fellow is a dangerous man
he is a robber? " Now, suppose I read the book
called the bible (and I read it, honor bright), and when I
get through with it I make up my mind that book was
written by men; and along comes the preacher of my
church, and he says "Did you read that book?" "I
did." " Do you think it is divinely inspired?" I say to
myself, " Now if I say it is not, they will never send me
to Congress from this district on earth." Now, honor
bright, what ought I to do? Ought I to say, "I have
read it. I have been honest about it; don't believe it?"
Now, ought I to say that, if that is a real transcript of
my mind, or ought I to commence hemming and hawing
and pretend that I do believe it, and go away with the
respect of that man, hating myself for a cringing coward?
Now which? For my part I would rather a man would
tell me what he honestly thinks, and he will preserve his
manhood. I had rather be a manly unbeliever than an
unmanly believer. I think I will stand higher at the
judgment day, if there is one, and stand with as good a
chance to get my case dismissed without costs as a man
who sneaks through life pretending he beeves what he
5oo INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
does not. I tell you one thing; there is going to be one
free fellow in this world. I am going to say my say, I
tell you. I am going to do it kindly, I am going to do
it distinctly, but I am going to do it.
Now, if men have been slaves, what about women?
Women have been the slaves of slaves; and that's a
pretty hard position to occupy for life. They have been
the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions
of ages for women to come from the condition of abject
slavery up to the institution of marriage. Let me say
right here, to-night, I regard marriage as the holiest in-
stitution among men. Without the fireside there is no
human advancement; without the family relation, there
is no life worth living. Every good government is made
up of good families. The unit of government is family,
and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly
devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and I hold
in utter contempt the opinions of long-haired men and
short-haired women who denounce the institution of mar-
riage. Let me say right here and I have thought a
good deal about it let me say right here, the grandest
ambition that any man can possibly have is to so live
and so improve himself in heart and brain as to be
worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the
grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy
of the love and adoration of some magnificent man.
That is my idea, and there is no success in life without it.
If you are the grand emperor of the world, you had bet-
ter be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart,
and she the grand empress of yours. The man who has
really won the love of one good woman in this world, I
do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has
been a success.
LIBERTY. 5OI
I say it took millions of years to come from the con-
dition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage.
Ladies, the ornaments you bear upon your person to-
night are but the souvenirs of your mothers' bondage.
The chains around your necks and the bracelets clasped
upon your wrists by the thrilling hand of love, have been
changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining,
glittering gold. But nearly every religion has accounted
for the devilment in this world by the crime of woman.
What a gallant thing that is! And if it is true, I had
rather live with the woman I love in a world full of
trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.
I say that nearly every religion has accounted for all
the trouble in this world by the crime of woman. I
read in a book and I will say now that I cannot give
the exact language; my memory does not retain the
words but I can give the substance. I read in a book
that the supreme being concluded to make a world and
one man; that he took some nothing and made a world
and one man, and put this man in a garden: but he no-
ticed that he got lonesome; he wandered around as if he
was waiting for a train; there was nothing to interest
him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and as
the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no
chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service re-
form. Well, he would wander about this garden in this
condition until finally the supreme being made up his
mind to make him a companion; and having used np all
the nothing he originally took in making the world and
one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a
woman with, and so he caused a deep sleep to fall upon
502 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
this man now, understand me, I didn't say this story is
true. After the sleep fell upon this man, he took a rib,
or, as the French would call it, a cutlet out of this man,
and from that he made a woman; and considering the
raw material, I look upon it as the most successful job
ever performed. Well, after He got the woman done,
he was brought to the man; not to see how she liked
liim, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and
they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain
things they might do, and one thing they could not do
and of course they did it. I would have done it in fif-
teen minutes, and I know it. There wouldn't have been
an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the
limbs could have been full of clubs. And then they were
turned out of the park, and an extra force was put on to
keep them from getting back. Then devilment com-
menced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whoop-
ing cough and the scarlet fever started in their race for
man, and they began to have the toothache, the roses
began to have thorns, and snakes began to have
poisoned teeth, and people began to divide about relig-
ion and politics; and the world has been full of trouble
from that day to this. Now, nearly all of the religions
of this world account for the existence of evil by such a
story as that .
I read in another book what appeared to be an account
of the same transaction. It was written about 4,000
'years before the other; but all commentators agree that
the one that was written last was the original, and that
the one that was written first was copied from the one
that was written last; but I would advise you all not to
allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of
LIBERTY. 5O3
four or five thousand years. In this other story the
Supreme Brahma made up his mind to make the world
and man and woman; and he made the world, and he
made the man and he made the woman, and he put them
on the island of Ceylon; and according to the account,
it was the most beautiful island of which man can con-
ceive. Such birds, such songs, such flowers and such
verdure! And the branches of the trees were so ar-
ranged that when the wind swept through them every
tree was a thousand aeolian harps. The Supreme
Brahma when he put them there said, " Let them have
a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that
true love should forever precede marriage." When I
read that, it was so much more beautiful and lofty than
the other, that I said to myself, " If either one of these
stories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this
one."
Then they had their courtship, with the nightingales
singing and the stars shining and the flowers blooming,
and they fell in love. Imagine the courtship! No pros-
pective fathers or mothers in law; no prying and gossip-
ing neighbors, nobody to say, ' * Young man, how do
you expect to support her? " Nothing of that kind.
They were married by the Supreme Brahma, and he
said to them: " Remain here; you must never leave this
island." Well, after a little while the man and his
name was Amond, and the woman's name was Heva
and the man said to Heva: "I believe I'll look about a
little;" and he went to the northern extremity of the
island, where there was a little, narrow neck of land con-
necting it with the mainland; and the devil, who is
always playing pranks with us, got up a mirage, and
504 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and
dells, vales and dales; such mountains, crowned with sil-
ver; such cataracts, clad in robes of beauty, did he see
there, that he went back and told Heva: "The country
over there is a thousand times better than this; let us
migrate." She, like every other woman that ever lived,
said: "Let well enough alone; we have all we want; let
us stay here. " But he said, ' ' No, let us go; " so she fol-
lowed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of
land he took her on his back like a gentleman and car-
ried her over. But the moment they got over they heard
a crash, and, looking back, discovered that this narrow
neck of land had fallen into the sea, with the exception
of now and then a rock, and the mirage had disappeared*
and there was naught but rocks and sand; and then a
voice called out, cursing them. Then it was that the
man spoke up and I have liked him ever since for it
" Curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it
was mine." That's the kind of man to start a world
with. The Supreme Brahma said, " I will save her but
not thee." She spoke up out of her feelings of love, out
of a heart in which there was love enough to make all of
her daughters rich in holy affection, and said, ' ' If thou
wilt not spare him, .spare neither me; I do not wish to
live without him; I love him." Then the Supreme
Brahma said and I have liked him firstrate ever since I
read it " I will spare you both and watch over you."
Honor bright, isn't that the better story?
And from that same book I want to show you what
ideas some of these miserable heathen had the heathen
we are trying to convert. We send missionaries over
yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers
LIBERTY. 505
out on the plains to kill heathen there. If we can con-
vert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home?
Why not convert those we can get at? Why not con-
vert those who have the immense advantage of the exam-
ple of the average pioneer? But to show you the men
we are trying to convert in this book it says: " Man is
strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is
love. When the one man loves the one woman and the
one woman loves the one man, the very angels leave
heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy.''
/They are the men we are converting. Think of it! I
tell you when I read these things I begin to say, " Love
is not of any country; nobility does not belong exclu-
sively here; " and through all the ages there have been a
few great and tender souls lifted far above their fellows .
Now, my friends, it seems to me that the woman is
the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have,
and one more, and that is the right to be protected.
That's my doctrine. You are married; try and make
the woman you love happy; try and make the man you
love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will
make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well
that he says "I will make her happy," makes no mis-
take; and so with the woman who says ' ' I will make him
happy." There is only one way to be happy, and that is
to make somebody else so, and you can't be happy cross-
lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.
If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks
he is the head of the famil} the man who thinks he is
"boss." That fellow in the dug-out used that word
"boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions that
he was *' boss." Imagine a young man and a young
506 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the
nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though
the thorn touched her heart imagine them stopping
there in the moonlight and, starlight and song, and saying
" Now here, let's settle who's boss! " I tell you it is an
infamous word, and an infamous feeling a man who
is " boss," who is going to govern his family, and when
he speaks let all the rest of them be still some mighty
idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you
know I dislike this man unspeakably; and a cross man I
hate above all things.
What right has he to murder the sunshine of the day?
What right has he to assassinate the joy of life? When
you go home you ought to feel the light there is in the
house; if it is in the night it will burst out of doors and
windows and illuminate the darkness. It is just as well
to go home a ray of sunshine as an old sour, cross cur-
mudgeon, who thinks he is the head of the family. Wise
men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil;
they have been thinking about who will be alderman
from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about pol-
itics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their
minds; they have bought calico at 8 cents, or 6, and
want to sell it for 7. Think of the intellectual strain that
must have been upon a man, and when he gets home
everybody else in the house must look out for his com-
fort. A woman who has only taken care of five or six
children, and one or two of them may be sick; has been
nursing them and singing to them, and taking care of
them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work
of two she, of course, is fresh and fine, and ready to
wait upon this great gentleman the head of the family.
I don't like him a bit!
LIBERTY. 507
Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man.
I don't see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty
millions of dollars, or ten millions of dollars, in a city
full of want, when he meets almost every day the with-
ered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How
a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of
his greed twenty or thirty millions of dollars, is past my
comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I
should not think he could do it any more than he could
keep a pile of lumber where hundreds and thousands of
men were drowning in the sea. I should not think he
could do it.
Do you know I have known men who would trust
their wives with their hearts and their honor, but not
with their pocketbook ; not with a dollar. When I see
a man of that kind I always think he knows which of
these articles is the most valuable. Think of making
your wife a beggar! Think of her having to ask you
every day for a dollar, or for two dollars, err for fifty
cents! "What did you do with that dollar I gave you
last week?" Think of having a wife that was afraid of
you! What kind of children do you expect to have with
a beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh, I tell you,
if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got
to spend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it
were a dry leaf and you the owner of unbounded forests!
That's the way to spend it! I had rather be a beggar
and spend my last dollar like a king, than he a king and
spend my money like a beggar. If it's got to go, let
it go.
Get the best you can for your family try to look as
well as you can yourself. When you used to go court-
508 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
ing, how nice you looked! Ah, your eye was bright,
your step was light, and you just put on the very best
look you could. Do you know that it is insufferable
egotism in you to suppose that a woman is going to love
you always looking as bad as you can? Think of it!
Any woman on earth will be true to you forever when
you do your level best. Some people tell me, " Your
doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that is splendid
for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell you
to-night there is on the average more love in the homes
of the poor than in the palaces of the rich; and the
meanest hut with love in it is fit for the gods, and a pal-
ace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That's
my doctrine!
You can't be so poor but that you can help somebody.
Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world;
and love is the only thing that will pay 10 per cent to
borrower and lender both. Don't tell me that you have
got to be rich! We have all a false standard of great-
ness in the United States. We think here that a man
to be great, must be notorious; must be extremely
wealthy, or his name must be between the lips of rumor.
It is all nonsense! It is not necessary to be rich to be
great, or to be powerful to be happy; and the happy man
is the successful man. Happiness is the legal tender of
the soul. Joy is wealth.
A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old
Napoleon, a magnificent tomb, fit for a dead deity al-
most, and gazed into the great circle at the bottom of it.
In the sarcophagus, of black Egyptian marble, at last
rest the ashes of that restless man. I looked over the
balustrade, and I thought about the career of Napoleon.
LIBERTY. 509
I could see him walking upon the banks of the Seine con-
templating suicide, I saw him at Toulon. I saw him
putting down the mob in the streets of Paris. I saw him
at the head of the army of Italy. I saw him crossing the
bridge at Lodi. I saw him in Egypt, fighting the bat-
tle of the pyramids. I saw him cross the Alps, and min-
gle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I
saw him at Austerlitz. I saw him with his army scat-
tered and dispersed before the blast. I saw him at Leip-
sic when his army was defeated and he was taken cap-
tive. I saw him escape. I saw him land again upon
French soil, and retake an empire by the force of his
own genius. I saw him captured once more, and again
at St. Helena, with his arms behind him, gazing out upon
the sad and solemn sea; and I thought of the orphans
and widows he had made. I thought of the tears that
had been shed for his glory.
I thought of the only woman who ever loved him, who
had been pushed from his heart by the cold hand of am-
bition; and as I looked at the sarcophagus, I said, " I
would rather have been a French peasant and worn
wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut, with
a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing
and ripening in the autumn sun; I would rather have
been that peasant, with my wife by my side and my
children upon my knees, twining their arms of affection
about me; I would rather have been that poor French
peasant, and gone down at last to the eternal promiscuity
of the dust, followed by those who loved me; I would a
thousand times rather have been that French peasant
than that imperial personative of force and murder."
And so I would, ten thousand times.
510 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not
necessary to be rich to be just and generous, and to have
a heart filled with divine affection. No matter whether
you are rich or poor, use, your wife as though she were
a splendid creation, and she will fill your life with per-
fume and joy. And do you know, It is a splendid thing
for me to think that the woman you really love will
never grow old to you? Through the wrinkles of time,
through the music of years, if you really love her, you
will always see the face you loved and won. And a
woman who really loves a man, does not see that he
grows older; he is not decrepit; he does not tremble; he
is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman
who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in
that way I like to think of all passions; love is eternal,
and, as Shakespeare says, ' ' Although Time, with his
sickle, can rob ruby lips and sparkling eyes, let him reach
as far as he can, he cannot quite touch Ibve; that reaches
even to the end of the tomb." And to love in that way,
and then go down the hill of life together, and as you
go down hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren
the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless
branches of age. I believe in the fireside. I believe in
the democracy of home. I believe in the republicanism
of the family. I believe in liberty and equality with
those we love.
If women have been slaves, what shall I say of
children; of the little children in the alleys and sub-cel-
lars; the little children who turn pale when they hear
their father's footsteps; little children who run away
when they only hear their names called by the lips of a
mother; little children the children of poverty, the
LIBERTY. 511
children of crime, the children of brutality wherever you
are flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life,
my heart goes out to you, one and all. I tell you the
children have the same rights that we have, and we
ought to treat them as though they were human beings;
and they should be reared by love, by kindness, by ten-
derness, and not by brutality. That is my idea of
children. When your little child tells a lie, don't rush
at him as though the world were about to go into bank-
ruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant father will have
liars for children; do you know that? A lie is born of
tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the
other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club
in your hand, of course he lies. I thank Mother Nature
that she has put ingenuity enough in the breast of a child,
when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little
breastwork in the shape of a lie.
When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with
him; tell him you have told hundreds of them yourself.
Tell him it is not the best way; you have tried it. Tell
him, as the man did in Maine when his boy left home:
"John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both."
Just be honest with him. Imagine now; you are about
to whip a child five years of age. What is the child to
do? Suppose a man, as much larger than you are larger
than a child five years old, should come at you with lib-
erty-pole in hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who
broke the plate? " There is not a solitary one of you
who wouldn't swe^ar you never saw it, or that it was
cracked when you found it. Why not be honest with
these children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks
putting false rumors afloat!
512 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for
evading the truth, when he makes half of his own living
that way! Think of a minister punishing his child for
not telling all he thinks! Just think of it! When your
child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel
your heart beat against its heart; let the child know
that you really and truly and sincerely love it. Yet
some Christians, good Christians, when a child commits
a fault, drive it from the door, and say, " Never do you
darken this house again." Think of that! And then
these same people will get down on their knees and ask
God to take care of the child they have driven from home.
I will never ask God to take care of my chil dren unless I
am doing my level best in that same direction. But I
will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where
you will; commit what crime you may; fall to what
depth of degradation you may; you can never commit
any crime that will shut my door, my arms, my heart to
you; as long as I live you shall have no more sincere
friend."
Do you know, I have seen some people who acted as
though they thought when the Savior said, " Suffer little
children to come unto me, for such is the Kingdom of
Heaven," that he had a rawhide under his mantle and
made that remark to get the children within striking dis-
tance. I don't believe in the government of the lash.
If any one of you ever expect to whip your children
again after you hear me, I want you to have a photo-
graph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with
your face red with vulgar anger; and then the face of
the little child, with eyes swimming in tears, and the lit-
tle chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water struck
LIBERTY. 513
by a sudden, cold wind. Have the picture taken. If
that little child should die, I cannot find a sweeter way
to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cem-
etery, when the maples are clad in bright colors, and lit-
tle scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret,
from the sad heart of the earth than to go out to the
cemetery and sit down upon the grave and look at this
photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that you
beat.
I tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children!
Make your home happy. Be honest with them, divide
fairly with them in everything. Give them a little lib-
erty, and you cannot drive them out of the house. They
will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let
them play any game they want to. Don't be so foolish
as to say: " You may roll balls on the ground, but you
must not roll them on green cloth. You may knock
them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a
cue. You may play with little pieces of paper which
have * Authors' written on them, but you must not have
'keerds.'' Think of it! "You may go to a minstrel
show, where people blacken themselves up and degrade
themselves, and imitate humanity below themselves, but
you must not go to the theater and see the characters of
immortal genius put upon the stage." Why? Well, I
can't think of any reason in the world except " minstrel "
is a word of two syllables and theater has three. Let
children have some daylight at home if you want to
keep them there, and don't commenee at the cradle and
yell, "Don't!" "Don't!" "Stop!" That is nearly all
that is said to a youngone from the cradle until he is
twenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other
514 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
people begin saying "Don't!" And the church says
"Don't!" And the party that he belongs to says
"Don't!" I despise that way of going through this
world. Let us have a little, liberty just a little bit.
There is another thing. In old times, you know,
they thought some days were too good for a child to en-
joy himself in. When I was a boy Sunday was consid-
ered altogether too good to be happy in; and Sunday
used to commence then when the sun went down Satur-
day night. That was to get good ready a kind of run-
ning jump; and when the sun went down, a darkness
ten thousand times deeper than that of night fell on that
house. Nobody said a word then; nobody laughed; and
the child that looked the sickest was regarded the most
pious. You couldn't crack hickory nuts; you couldn't
chew gum; and if you laughed, it was only another evi-
dence of the total depravity of man. That was a sol-
emn night; and the next morning everybody looked sad,
mournful, dyspeptic and thousands of people think they
have religion when they have only got dyspepsia thou-
sands!
But there is nothing in this world that would break np
the old orthodox churches as quick as some specific for
dyspepsia some sure cure.
Then we went to church, and the minister was up in
a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-
board over him, and he commenced with Firstly and
went on to about twenty-thirdly, and then around by
way of application, and then divided it off again once or
twice, and after having put in about two hours, he got to
Revelations. We were not allowed to have any fire,
even if it was in the winter. It was thought to be out-
LIBERTY. 5 I 5
rageous to be comfortable while you are thanking the
Lord, and the first church that ever had a stove put in it
in New England was broken up on that account. Then
we went a-nooning, and then came the catechism, the
chief end of man. We went through that; and then
this same sermon was preached, commencing at the other
end, and going back. After that was over we started
for home, solemn and sad " not a soldier discharged his
farewell shot;" not a word was said and when we got
home, if we had been good boys, they would take us up
to the graveyard to cheer us up a little.
It did cheer rne! When I looked at those tombs the
comforting reflection came to my mind that this kind of
thing couldn't last always. Then we had some certain
books that we read just by way of cheerfulness. There
wasMilner's <l History of the Wilderness," Baxter's <( Call
to the Unconverted," and Jenkins' "On the Atonement."
I used to read Jenkins' "On the Atonement;" and I
have often thought the atonement would have to be very
broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who
would write a book like that for a boy to read. Well,
you know, the Sunday had to go at last; and the mo-
ment the sun went down Sunday night we were free.
About 4 or 5 o'clock we would go to see how the sun was
coming out. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was
just stopping from pure cussedness; but finally it had to
go down, and when the last rim of light sank below the
horizon, out would come our traps, and we would give
three cheers for liberty once more. In those times it
was thought wrong for a child to laugh on Sunday. Think
of that! A little child a little boy could go out in
the garden, and there would be a tree laclen with blos-
soms, and this little fellow would lean up against the
516 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
tree, and there would be a bird singing and swinging,
and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by
the breast of its mate singing and swinging, and the mu-
sic coming rippling out of its throat, and the flowers
blossoming and the air full of perfume, and the great
white clouds floating in the sky; and that little boy would
lean up against that trunk, and think of hell.
That's true! I have heard them preach when I sat in
the pew, and my feet didn't come within eighteen inches
of the floor, about that hell. And they said, "Suppose
that once in a million years a bird would come from
some far distant planet, and carry og in its bill a grain of
sand, the time would finally come when the last atom
composing this earth would be carried away;" and the
old preacher said, in order to impress upon the boys the
length of time they would have to stay, "it wouldn't be
sun-up in hell yet."
Think of that to preach to children! I tell you, my
friends, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a
little child will make it holier still no day! And yet, at
that time, the minds of children were polluted by this in-
famous doctrine of eternal punishment; and I denounce
it to-day as an infamous doctrine beyond the power of
language to express. Where did that doctrine of eternal
punishment for the children of men come from? It came
from that wretch in the dug-out. Where did he get it?
It was a souvenir from the animals, and the doctrine of
eternal punishment was born in the eyes of snakes when
they hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It
was a doctrine born of the howling and barking and
growling of wild beasts; it was born in the grin of the
hyenas, and of the depraved chatter of the baboons; and
LIBERTY . 517
I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there
is a God in the serene heaven that will damn his children
for the expression of an honest belief!
There have been more men who died in their sins, ac-
cording to your orthodox religion, than there are leaves
on all the forests of this world ten thousand times over.
Tell me they are in hell ! Tell me they are to be pun-
ished for ever and ever! I denounce it as an infamous
lie!
And when the great ship containing the hope and as-
piration of the world, when the great ship freighted with
mankind goes down in the night of death and disaster, I
will go down with the ship. I don't want to paddle off
in any orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship;
and if there is a God who will damn his children forever
I had rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep
the society of such an infamous Deity.
I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine, and
I'll tell you why. It has covered the cheeks of this
world with tears. It has polluted the heart of children.
It has been a pain and terror to every man that ever be-
lieved it. It has filled the good with horror and fear, but
it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. I tell
you it is a bad doctrine. I read in the papers to-day
what Henry Ward Beecher, whom I regard as the most
intellectual preacher in the pulpit of the United States
I will read from the paper what he said yesterday, and
you will see an abstract of it in the New York Times of
to-day. He has had the courage, and he has had the
magnificent manhood, to say:
"I say to you, and I swear to you, by the wounds in
the hands of Christ I swear to you by the wounds in
5i8 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the body and feet of Christ, that this doctrine of eternal
hell is a most infamous nightmare of theology! It never
should be preached again."
What right have you, sir; you, minister, as you are, to
stand at the portal of eternity, or the portal of the tomb,
and fill the future with horror and with fear? You have
no right to do it. I don't believe it, and neither do you.
You would not sleep one night. Any man who believes
it, who has got a decent heart in his bosom, will go in-
sane. Yes, sir, a man that really believes that doctrine
and does not go insane, has got the conscience of a snake
and the intellect of a hyena. O! I thank my stars that
you do not believe it. You cannot believe it, and you
never will believe it. Old Jonathan Edwards, the dear
old soul, he is in heaven I suppose, said: "Can the be-
lieving husband in heaven be happy with his unbeliev-
ing wife in hell? Can the believing father in heaven be
happy with his unbelieving children in hell? Can the
loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving hus-
band in hell? I tell you yea. Such will be their sense
of justice that it will increase rather than diminish their
happiness."
Think of these infamous doctrines that have been
taught in the name of religion! Do not stuff these
things into the minds of your children. Give them a
chance. Let them read. Let them think. Do not
treat your children like posts, to be set in the orthodox
road, but like trees, that need light and sun and air. Be
honest with them. Be fair with them. In old times
they used to make all children go to bed when they were
not sleepy, and all of them got up when they were sleepy.
I say let them go to bed when they are sleepy and
LIBERTY. 519
get up when they are not. But they say that will do for
the rich, but not for the poor. Well, if the poor have
to wake their children early in the morning, it is as easy to
wake them with a kiss as with a club. I believe in let-
ting children commence at which end of the dinner they
want to.
Let them eat what they want. It is their business.
They know what they want to eat. And it they have
had their liberty from the first, they can beat any doctor
in the world. All the improvement that has ever been
made in medicine has been made by the recklessness of
patients. Yes, sir. Thousands and thousands of years
the doctors wouldn't let a man have water in fever.
Every now and then some fellow got reckless and said:
"I will die, I am so thirsty, "and drank two or three
quarts of water and got well. And they kept that up un-
til finally the doctors said, " that is the best thing for a
fever you can do. "
I have more confidence to agree with nature about
these things than any of the conclusions of the schools.
Just let your children have freedom, and they will fall
right into your ways and do just as you do. But you
try to make them, and there is some magnificent, splen-
did thing in the human heart that will not be driven.
And do you know it is the luckiest thing for this world
that ever happened that people are so. What would we
have been if the people in any age of the world had
done just as the doctors told them? They would have
been all dead. What would we have done if, at any
age of the world, we had followed implicitly the direction
of the church? We would have been all idiots, everyone.
It is a splendid thing that there is always some fellow
520 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
who won't mind, and will think for himself. And I be-
lieve in letting children think for themselves. I believe
in having a family like a democracy. If there is any-
thing splendid in this world it is a home of that kind.
They used to tell us, <( Let your victuals close your
mouth. " We used to eat as though it was a religious
performance. I like to see the children about, and
every one telling what he has seen and heard. I like to
hear the clatter of the knives and spoons mingling with
the laughter of their voices. I had rather hear it than
any opera that has ever been put upon the boards. Let
them have liberty; let them have freedom, and I tell you
your children will love you to death.
Now, I have some excuses to offer for the race to which
I belong. I have two. My first excuse is that this is
not a very good world to raise folks in anyway. It is
not very well adapted to raising magnificent people.
There's only a quarter of it land to start with. It is
three times better fitted for raising fish than folks, and
in that one quarter of land there is not a tenth part fit
to raise people on. You can't raise people without a
good climate. You have got to have the right kind of
climate, and you have got to have certain elements in
the soil, or you can't raise good people. Do you know
that there is only a little zig-zag strip around the world
within which have been produced all men of genius?
The southern hemisphere has never produced a man of
genius, never; and never will until civilization, fighting
the heat that way and the cold this, widens this portion
of the earth until it is capable of producing great men
and great women. It is the same with men that it is with
vegetation; you go into a garden, and find there flowers
LIBERTY. 521
growing. And as you go up the mountain, the birch
and the hemlock and the spruce are to be found. And
as you go toward the top, you find little, stunted trees
getting a miserable subsistence out of the crevices of the
rocks, and you go on up and up and up, until finally you
find at the top little moss-like freckles. You might as
well try to raise flowers where those freckles grow as to
raise great men and women where you havn't got the
soil.
I don't believe man ever came to any high station
without woman. There has got to be some restraint,
something to make you prudent, something to make you
industrious. And in a country where you don't need any
bedquilt but a cloud, revolution is the normal condition
of the people. You have got to have the fireside; you
have got to have the home, and there by the fireside will
grow and bloom the fruits of the human race. I recol-
lect a while ago I was in Washington when they were
trying to annex Santo Domingo. They said: "We
want to take in Santo Domingo." Said I: "We don't
want it." "Why," said they, "it is the best climate
the earth can produce. There is everything you want."
"Yes, "said I, "but it won't produce men. We don't
want it. We have got soil enough now. Take 5,000
ministers from New England, 5,000 presidents of col-
leges, and 5,000 solid business men, and their families,
and take them to Santo Domingo; and then you will see
the effect of climate. The second generation, you will
see barefooted boys riding bareback on a mule, with
their hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros, with
a rooster under each arm, going to a cock-fight on Sun-
day. "
522 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
You have got to have the soil; you have got to nave
the climate, and you have got to have another thing
you have got to have the fireside. That is one excuse I
have for us.
The next excuse is that I think we came up from the
lower animals. Else how can you account for all this
snake and hyena and jackal in man? Now, when I first
heard that doctrine, I didn't like it. I felt sorry for peo-
ple who had nothing but ancestors to be proud of. It
touched my heart to think that they would have to go
back to the Duke Orangoutang or the Duchess Chimpan-
zee. I was sorry, and I hated to believe it. I don't
know that it is the truth now. I am not satisfied upon
that question; I stand about eight to seven.
I thought it over. I read about it. 1 read about
these rudimentary bones and muscles. I didn't like that.
I read that everybody had rudimentary muscles coming
from the ear right down here (indicating); that the most
intellectual people in the world have got them. I say,
"What are they?" "Rudimentary muscles." "What
kind of muscles?" " Muscles that your ancestors used
to have fully developed." "What for?" "To flap
their ears with."
Weli, whether we ever had them or not, I know of lots
of men who ought to have them yet. And finally I said,
"Well, I guess we came up from the lower animals." I
thought it all over; the best I could, and I said, " I guess
we did." And after a while I began to like it, and I like
it better now than I did before.
Do you know that I would rather belong to a race
that started with skull-less vertebrae in the dim Lauren-
tian seas, wiggling without knowing why they wiggled,
LIBERTY. 523
swimming without knowing where they were going; but
kept developing and getting a little further up and a lit-
tle further up, all through the animal world, and finally
striking this chap in the dug-out A getting a little big-
ger, and this fellow calling that fellow a heretic, and that
fellow calling the other an infidel, and so on. For in
the history of the world, the man who has been ahead has
always been called a heretic. Recollect this!
I would rather come from a race that started from that
skull-less vertebrae, and came up and up and up, and
finally produced Shakespeare, who found the human in-
tellect wallowing in a hut, and touched it with a wand
of his genius, and it became a palace dome and pinna-
cle. I would rather belong to a race that commenced
then, and produced Shakespeare, with the eternal hope
of an infinite future for the children of progress leading
from the far horizon, beckoning men forward forward
and onward forever. I had rather belong to this race,
and commence there, with that hope, than to have
sprung from a perfect pair on which the Lord has lost
money every day since.
These are the excuses I have for my race.
Now, my friends, let me say another thing. I do not
pretend to have floated even with the heights of thought;
I do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss. All I
pretend is to give simply my honest thought. Every
creed that we have to-day has upon it the mark of whip
and chain and fagot. I do not want it. Free labor
will give us wealth, and has given us wealth, and why?
Because a free brain goes into partnership with a free
hand. That is why. And when a man works for his
wife and children, the problem of liberty is, how to do
524 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
the most work in the shortest space of time; but the
problem of slavery is, how to do the least work in the
longest space of time. Slavery is poverty; liberty is
wealth.
It is the same in thought. Free thought will give us
truth; and the man who is not in favor of free thought
occupies the same relation to those he can govern that
the slaveholder occupied to his slaves, exactly. Free
thought will give us wealth. There has not been a gen-
eration of free thought yet. It will be time to write a
creed when there have been a few generations of free-^
brained men and splendid women in this world. I don't
know what the future may bring forth; I don't know
what inventions are in the brain of the future; I don't
know what garments may be woven, with the years to
come; but I do know, coming from the infinite sea of
the future, there will never touch this ' ' bank and shoal of
time " a greater blessing, a grander glory, than liberty
for man, woman and child.
Oh, liberty! Float not forever in the far horizon!
Remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast and
the poet and the philanthropist! But come and take up
thine abode with the children of men forever!
LNGERSOLLS LECTURE
ON
ORTHODOXY"
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: It is utterly inconceivable
that any man believing in the truth of the Christian
religion could publicly deny it, because he who believes
in that religion would believe that, by a public denial, he
would peril the eternal salvation of his soul. It is con-
ceivable, and without any great effort of the mind, that
millions who don't believe in the Christian religion should
openly say that they did. In a country where religion is
supposed to be in power where it has rewards for pre-
tense, where it pays a premium upon hypocrisy, where it
at least is willing to purchase silence it is easily con-
ceivable that millions pretend to believe what they do
not. And yet I believe it has been charged against my-
self, not only that I was insincere, but that I took the
side I am on for the sake of popularity; and the audience
to-night goes far toward justifying the accusation.
It gives me immense pleasure to say to this immense
525
526 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
audience that orthodox religion is dying out of the civil-
ized world. It is a sick man. It has been attacked
with two diseases softening of the brain and ossification
of the heart. It is a religion that no longer satisfies the
intelligence of this country; a religion that no longer
satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of
every civilized man and woman protests. It is a religion
that gives hope only to a few; a religion that puts a
shadow upon the cradle; a religion that wraps the coffin
in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame
and fear. It is a religion that I am going to do what
little I can while I live to destroy; and in its place I
want humanity, I want good-fellowship, I want a brain
without a chain, I want a religion that every good heart
will cheerfully applaud.
We must remember that this is a world of progress, a
world of change. There is perpetual death and there is
perpetual birth . By the grave of the old forever stands
youth and joy; and, when an old religion dies, a better
one is born. When we find but that an assertion is a
falsehood, a shining truth takes its place, and we need
not fear the destruction of the false. The more false we
destroy the more room there will be for the true. There
was a time when the astrologer sought to read in the
stars the fate of men and nations. The astrologer has
faded from the world, but the astronomer has taken his
place. There was a time when the poor alchemist, bent
and wrinkled and old, over his crucible, endeavored to
find some secret by which he could change the baser
metals into purest gold. The alchemist is gone; the
chemist took his place; and, although he finds nothing
to change metals into gold, he finds something that cov-
ORTHODOXY. 527
ers the earth with wealth. There was a time when the
soothsayer and auger flourished, and after them came
the parson and the priest; and the parson and priest
must go. The preacher must go, and in his place must
come the teacher that real interpreter of nature. We
are done with the supernatural. We are through with
the miraculous and the wonderful. There was once a
prophet who pretended to read in the book of the future.
His place was taken by the philosopher, who reasons
from cause to effect a man who finds the facts by which
he is surrounded and endeavors to reason from these
premises, and to tell what in all probability will happen
in the future. The prophet is gone, the philosopher is
here. There was a time when man sought aid entirely
from heaven when he prayed to the deaf sky. There
was a time when the world depended upon the supernat-
uralist. That time in Christendom has passed. We
now depend upon the naturalist not upon the disciple
of faith, but upon the discoverer of facts upon the
demonstrator of truth. At last we are beginning to
build upon a solid foundation, and just as we progress
the supernatural must die.
Religion of the supernatural kind will fade from this
world, and in its place we will have reason. In the place
of the worship of something we know not of, will be the
religion of mutual love and assistance -the great religion
of reciprocity. Superstition must go. Science will re-
main. The church, however, dies a little hard. The
brain of the world is not yet developed. There are
intellectual diseases the same as diseases of the body.
Intellectual mumps and measles still afflict mankind.
Whenever the new comes, the old protests, and the old
528 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
fights for its place as long as it has a particle of power.
And we are now having the same warfare between super-
stition and science that there was between the stage-
coach and the locomotive. But the stage-coach had to
go. It had its day of glory and power, but it is gone. It
went West. In a little while it will be driven into the
Pacific, with the last Indian aboard. So we find that
there is the same conflict between the different sects and
the different schools, not only of philosophy, but of med-
icine. Recollect that everything except the demonstrated
truth is liable to die. That is the order of nature.
Words die. Every language has a cemetery. Every
now and then a word dies and a tombstone is erected,
and across it is written the word "obsolete." New words
are continually being born. There is a cradle in which
a word is rocked. A thought is molded to a sound, and
the child-word is born. And then comes a time when
the word gets old, and wrinkled, and expressionless, and
is carried mournfully to the grave, and that is the end of
it. So in the schools of medicine. You can remember,
so can I, when the old alopathists reigned supreme. If
there was anything the matter with a man, they let out
his blood. Called to the bedside, they took him to the
edge of eternity with medicine, and then practiced all
their art to bring him back to life. One can hardly
imagine how perfect a constitution it took a few years
ago to stand the assault of a doctor. And long after it
was found to be a mistake, hundreds and thousands of
the old physicians clung to it, carried around with them,
in one pocket, a bottle of jalap, and in the other a rusty
lancet, sorry that they couldn't find some patient idiotic
enough to allow the experiment to be made again.
ORTHODOXY. S 2 9
So these schools, and these theories, and these relig-
ions die hard. What else can they do? Like the paint-
ings of the old masters, they are kept alive because so
much money has been invested in them. Think of the
amount of money that has been invested in superstition!
Think of the schools that have been founded for the
more general diffusion of useless knowledge! Think of
the colleges wherein men are taught that it is dangerous
to think, and that they must never use their brains ex-
cept in an act of faith! Think of the millions and
billions of dollars that have been expended in churches,
in temples and in cathedrals! Think of the thousands
and thousands of men who depend for their living upon
the ignorance of mankind! Think of those who grow
rich on credulity and who fatten on faith! Do you sup-
pose they are going to die without a struggle? They will
die if they don't struggle. What are they to do? From
the bottom of my heart I sympathize with the poor cler-
gyman that has had all his common sense educated out
of him, and is now to be thrown out upon the cold and
uncharitable world. His prayers are not answered; he
gets' no help from on high, and the pews are beginning
to criticise the pulpit. What is the man to do? If he
suddenly change, he is gone. If he preaches what he
really believes, he will get notice to quit. And yet if he
and the congregation would come together and be per-
fectly honest, they would all admit they didn't believe
anything of it.
Only a little while ago a couple of ladies were riding
together from a revival in a carriage late at night, and
one said to the other, as they rode along: " I am going
to say something that will shock you, and I beg of you
530 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
never to tell it to anybody else. I am going to tell it to
you." "Well, what is it?" Says she: "I don't believe
in the bible." The other replied: "Neither do I." I
have often thought how splendid it would be if the min-
isters could but come together and say: "Now let us be
honest. Let us tell each other, honor bright like Dr.
Currie did in the meeting here the other day let us tell
just what we believe." They tell a story that in the old,
time a lot of people, about twenty, were in Texas in a
little hotel, and one fellow got up before the fire, put his
hands behind him, and says he: "Boys, let us all tell
our real names." If the ministers and the congregations
would only tell their real thoughts they would find that
they are nearly as bad as I am, and that they believe
just about as little.
Now, I have been talking a great deal about the ortho-
dox religion; and, after having delivered a lecture, I
would meet some good, religious person, and he would
say to me: "You don't tell it as we believe it." "Well,
but I tell it as you have it written in your creed." "Oh,
well," he says, "we don't mind that any more." "Well,
why don't you change it?" "Oh, well," he says, "we
understand it." Possibly the creed is in the best possi-
ble condition for them now. There is a tacit understand-
ing that they don't believe it. There is a tacit under-
standing that they have got some way to get around it,
that they read between the lines; and if they should meet
now to form a creed, they might fail to agree; and the
creed is now so that they can say as they please, except
in public. Whenever they do so in public, the church,
in self-defense, must try them; and I believe in trying
very minister that doesn't preach the doctrine as he
ORTHODOXY. 53 1
agrees to. I have not the slightest sympathy with a
Presbyterian preacher who endeavors to preach infidelity
from his pulpit and receive Presbyterian money. When
he changes his views, he should step down and out like
a man, and say: "I don't believe your doctrine, and I
will not preach it. You must hire some bigger fool than
I am."
But I find that I get the creed very nearly right. To-
day there was put into my hands the new Congregational
creed. I have just read it, and I thought I would call
your attention to it to-night,, to find whether the church
has made any advance; to find whether it has been
affected by the light of science; to find whether the sun
of knowledge has risen in the heavens in vain; whether
they are still the children of intellectual darkness; whether
they still consider it necessary for you to believe some-
thing that you by no possibility can understand, in order
to be a winged angel forever. Now, let us see what their
creed is. I will read a little of it. They commence by
saying that they "believe in one God, the Father
Almighty, maker of heaven, and of earth, and of all
things visible and invisible." I am perfectly willing that
He should make the invisible, if they want Him to. They
say, now, that there is this one personal God; that He is
the maker of the universe, and its ruler. I again ask the
old question: of what did He make it? If matter has
not existed through eternity, then this God made it. Of
what did He make it? What did He use for the pur-
pose? There was nothing in the universe except this
God. What had the God been doing for the eternity He
had been living? He had made nothing called nothing
into existence; never had had an idea, because it is im-
532 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
possible to have an idea unless there is something to
excite an idea. What had He been doing? Why doesn't
the Congregational Church tell us? How do they know
about this infinite being? And if He is infinite, how can
they comprehend Him? What good is it to believe
something that you don't understand that you never
can understand? In the old creeds they described this
God as a being without body and parts or passions.
Think of that! Something without body and parts or
passions. I defy any man in the world to write a letter
descriptive of nothing. You can not conceive of a finer
word-painting of a vacuum than a something without
body and parts or passions. And yet this God,. without
passions, is angry at the wicked every day; this God,
without passions, is a jealous God, whose anger burneth
to the lowest hell . This God, without passions, loves
the whole human race, and this God, without passions,
damns a large majority of the same. So, too, He is the
ruler of the world, and I find here that we find His prov-
idence in the government of the nations. What nations?
What evidence can you find, if you are absolutely honest
and not frightened, in the history of nations, that this
universe is presided over by an infinitely wise and good
God? How do you account for Russia? How do you
account for Siberia? How do you account for the fact
that whole races of men toiled beneath the master's lash
for ages without recompense and without reward? How
do you account for the fact that babes were sold
from the arms of mothers arms that had been reached
toward God in supplication? How do you account for it?
How do you account for the existence of martyrs? How
do you account for the fact that this God allows people
ORTHODOXY. 533
to be burned simply for loving Him? How do you ac-
count for the fact that justice doesn't always triumph?
How do you account for the fact that innocence is not a
perfect shield ? How do you account for the fact that
the world has been filled with pain, and grief, and tears?
How do you account for the fact that people have been
swallowed by volcanoes, swept from the earth by storms,
dying by famine, if there is above us a ruler who is in-
finitely good and infinitely powerful?
I don't say there is none. I don't know. As I have
said before, this is the only planet I was ever on. I live
in one of the rural districts of the universe. I know not
about these things as much as the clergy. And if they
know no more about the other world than they do about
this, it is not worth mentioning. How do they answer
all this? They say that God "permits it." What would
you say to me if I stood by and saw a ruffian beat out
the brains of a child, when I had full and perfect power
to prevent it? You would say truthfully that I was as
bad as the murderer. That is what you would say. Is
it possible for this God to prevent it? Then, if He
doesn't, He is a fiend; He is not good. But they say He
' ' permits it . " What for? So we may have freedom of
choice. What for? So that God may find, I suppose,
who are good and who are bad. Didn't He know that
when He made us? Did He not know exactly just what
He was making? Why should He make those whom He
knew would be criminals? If I should make a machine
that would walk your streets and commit murder, you
would hang me. Why not ? And if God made a man
whom He knew would commit murder, then God is guilty
of that murder. If God made a man, knowing he would
534 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
beat his wife, that he would starve his children, that he
would str%w on either side of his path of life the wrecks
of ruined homes, then, I say, the being who called that
wretch into existence is directly responsible. And yet
we are to find the providence of God in the history of
nations. What little I have read shows me that when
man has been helped, man had to do it; when the chains
of slavery have been broken, they have been broken by
man; when something bad has been done in the govern-
ment of mankind, it is easy to trace it to man, and to fix
the responsibility upon human beings. You will not look
to the sky; you need throw neither praise nor blame;
you can find the efficient causes nearer home right
here.
What is the next thing I find in this creed? " We be-
lieve that man was made in the image of God, that he
might know, love and obey God, and enjoy Him for-
ever. " I don't believe that anybody ever did love God,
because nobody ever knew anything about Him. We
love each other. We love something that we know.
We love something that our experience tells us is good
and great, and good and beautiful. We cannot by any
possibility love the unknown. We can love truth, be-
cause truth adds to human happiness. We can love
justice, because it preserves human joy. We can love
charity. We can love every form of goodness that we
know, or of which we can conceive, but we cannot love
the infinitely unknown. And how can we be made in
the image of something that has neither body and parts
nor passions?
"That our first parents, by disobedience, fell under
the condemnation of God, and that all men are so alien-
ORTHODOXY. 535
ated from God that there is no salvation from the guilt
and power of sin except through God's redeeming power."
Is there an intelligent man or woman now in the world
who believes in the Garden of Eden story? If there is,
strike here (tapping his forehead) and you will hear an
echo. Something is for rent. Does any human being
now believe that God made man of dust and a woman of
a rib, and put them in a garden, and put a tree in the
middle of it? Wasn't there room outside of the garden
to put His tree, if He didn't want people to eat His
apple? If I didn't want a man to eat my fruit I would
not put him in my orchard.
Does anybody now believe in the snake story? I pity
any man or woman who, in this nineteenth century, be-
lieves in that childish fable. Why did they disobey?
Why, they were tempted. Who by? The devil. Who
made the devil? What did He make him for? Why
didn't He tell Adam and Eve about this fellow? Why
didn't he watch the devil instead of watching Adam and
Eve? Instead of turning them out, why didn't He keep
him from getting in? Why didn't He have His flood first
and drown the devil, before He made man and woman?
And yet people who call themselves intelligent pro-
fessors in colleges and presidents of venerable institutions
teach children, and young men who ought to be chil-
dren, that the Garden of Eden story is an absolute, his-
torical fact! Well, I guess it will not be long until that
will fade from the imagination of men. I defy any man
to think of a more childish thing. This God waiting
around there, knowing all the while what would happen,
made them on purpose so it would happen; and then
what does he do? Holds all of us responsible; and we
536 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
were not there. Here is a representative before the con-
stituency had been born. Before I am bound by a rep-
resentative, I want a chance to vote for or against him;
and if I had been there, a.id known all the circumstances,
I should have voted against him. And yet, I am held
responsible.
What did Adr.m do? I cannot see that it amounted to
much anyway. A god that can create something out of
nothing ought not to have complained of the loss of an
apple. I can hardly have the patience to speak upon
such a subject.
Now, that absurdity gave birth to another that, while
we could be rightfully charged with the rascality of
somebody else, we could also be credited with the virtues
of somebody else; and the atonement is the absurdity
which offsets the other absurdity of the fall of man. Let
us leave them both out; it reads a great deal better with
both of them out; it makes better sense.
Now, in consequence of that, everybody is alienated
from God. How? Why? Oh, we are all depraved,
you know; we all want to do wrong. Well, why? Is
that because we are depraved? No. Why do we make
so many mistakes? Because there is only on^ right way,
and there is an almost infinite number of wrong ones;
and as long as we are not perfect in our intellects we
must make mistakes. There is no darkness but igno-
rance; and alienation, as they call it, from God, is sim-
ply a lack of intellect upon our part. Why were we not
given better brains? That may account for the aliena-
tion. But the church teaches that every soul that finds
its way to the shore of this world is against God natu-
rally hates God; that the little dimpled child in the
ORTHODOXY. 537
cradle is simply a chunk of depravity. Everybody against
God! It is a libel upon the human race; it is a libel
upon all the men who have worked for wife and child; it
is a libel upon all the wives who have suffered and
labored, wept and worked for children; it is a libel upon
all the men who have died for their country; it is a libel
upon all who have fought for human liberty; it is a libel
upon the human race. Leave out the history of the
church, and there is nothing in this world to prove the
depravity of man left.
Everybody that comes is against God. Every soul,
they think, is like the wrecked Irishman. He was
wrecked in the sea and drifted to an unknown island,
and as he climbed up the shore he saw a man, and said
to him, ''Have you a government here?" The man
said, "We have." "Weil, "said he, "lam agin it!"
The church teaches us that that is the attitude of every
soul in the universe of God. Ought a god to take any
credit to himself for making depraved people? A god
that cannot make a soul that is not totally depraved, I
respectfully suggest, should retire from the business.
And if a god has made us, knowing that we would be
totally depraved, why should we go to the same being
for repairs?
What is the next? "That all men are so alienated
from God that there is no salvation from the guilt and
power of his sin except through God's redeeming grace."
Reformation is not enough. If the man who steals
becomes perfectly honest, that is not enough; if the man
who hates his fellow-man changes and loves his fellow-
man, that is not enough; he must go through the myste-
rious thing called the second birth; he must be born
538 TNGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
again. That is not enough unless he has faith; he must
believe something that he does not- understand. Refor-
mation is not enough; there must be what they call con-
version. I deny it . According to the church, nothing
so excites the wrath of God nothing so corrugates the
brows of Jehovah with revenge as a man relying on his
own good works. He must admit that he ought to be
damned, and that of the two he prefers it, before God
will consent to save him. I saw a man the other day,
and he said to me, " I am a Unitarian Universalist; that
is what I am." Said I, " What do you mean by that?"
"Well," said he, "here is what I mean: the Unitarian
thinks he is too good to be damned, and the Universalist
thinks God is too good to damn him, and I believe them
both."
What is the next thing in this great creed?
"We believe that the scriptures of the old and new
testaments are the records of God's revelation of Him-
self in the work of redemption; that they are written by
men, under the special guidance of the Holy Spirit, and
that they constitute an authoritative standard by which
religious teaching and human conduct are to be regulated
and judged."
This is the creed of the Congregational Church; that
is, it is the result of the high-joint commission appointed
to draw up a creed for churches; and there we have the
statement that the bible was written " by men, under the
special guidance of the Holy Spirit." What part of the
bible? All of it; all of it; and yet what is this old testa-
ment that was written by an infinitely good God? The
being who wrote it did not know the shape of the world
He had made. The being who wrote it knew nothing of
ORTHODOXY. 539
human nature; He commands men to love Him, as if
one could love upon command. The same God upheld
the institution of human slavery; and the church says
the bible that upholds that institution was written by
men under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Then I dis-
agree with the Holy Ghost upon that institution.
The church tells us that men, under the guidance of
the Holy Ghost, upheld the institution of polygamy I
deny it; that under the guidance of the Holy.Ghost these
men upheld wars of extermination and conquest I deny
it; that under the guidance of the Holy Ghost these men
wrote that it was right for a man to destroy the life of
his wife if she happened to differ with him on the subject
of religion I deny it. And yet that is the book now
upheld in this creed of the Congregational Church. If
the devil had written upon the subject of slavery, which
side v/ould he have taken? Let every minister answer,
honor bright. If you knew the devil had written a little
work on human slavery, in your judgment would he up-
hold slavery or denounce it? Would you regard it as
any evidence that he ever wrote it if he upheld slavery?
And yet, here you have a work upholding slavery, and
you say that it was written by an infinitely good, wise
and beneficent God! If the devil upheld polygamy would
you be surprised? If the devil wanted to kill somebody
for differing with him would you be surprised? If the
devil told a man to kill his wife, would you be aston-
ished? And yet, you say, that is exactly what the God
of us all did. If there be a God, then that creed is blas-
phemy. That creed is a libel upon Him who sits upon
heaven's throne. I want if there be a God I want
Him to write in the book of His eternal remembrance
that I denied these lies for Him.
540 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
I do not believe in a slave-holding God; I do not wor-
ship a polygamous Holy Ghost; I do not get upon my
knees before any being who commands a husband to slay
his wife because she expresses her honest thought .
Did it ever occur to you that if God wrote the old tes-
tament, and told the Jews to crucify or kill anybody that
disagreed with them on religion, and that God afterward
took upon Himself flesh and came to Jerusalem, and
taught a different religion, and the Jews killed Him did
it ever occur to you that He reaped exactly what he had
sown? Did it ever occur to you that He fell a victim to
His own tyranny, and was destroyed by His own law!
Of course I do not believe that any God ever was the
author of the bible, or that any God was ever crucified,
or that any God was ever killed or ever will be, but I
want to ask you that question.
Take this old testament, then, with all its stories of
murder and massacre; with all its foolish and cruel
fables; with all its infamous doctrines; with its spirit of
caste; with its spirit of hatred, and tell me whether it
was written by a good God. Why, if you will read the
maledictions and curses of that book, you would think
that God, like Lear, had divided heaven among his
daughters, and then, in the insanity of despair, had
launched his curses upon the human race.
And yet, I must say I must admit that the old tes-
tament is better than the new. In the old testament,
when God got a man dead, He let him alone. When
He saw him quietly in his grave He was satisfied. The
muscles relaxed, and a smile broke over the Divine face.
But in the new testament the trouble commences just at
death. In the new testament God is to wreak His re-
venge forever and ever. It was reserved for one who
ORTHODOXY. 541
said, " Love your enemies," to tear asunder the veil be-
tween time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of men
upon the gulfs of eternal fire, The new testament is just
as much worse than the old, as hell is worse than sleep;
just as much worse as infinite cruelty is worse than anni-
hilation; and yet, the new testament is pointed to as a
gospel of love and peace.
But "more of that hereafter," as the ministers say.
' ' We believe that Jesus Christ came to establish among
men the Kingdom of God, the reign of truth and love, of
righteousness and peace."
Well, that may have been the object of Jesus Christ.
I do not deny it. But what was the result? The Chris-
tian world has caused more war than all the rest of the
world besides; all the cunning instruments of death have
been devised by Christians; all the wonderful machinery
by which the brains are blown out of a man, by which
nations are conquered and subdued all these machines
have been born in Christian brains. And yet He came
to bring peace, they say. But the testament says other-
wise: " I came not to bring peace, but a sword." And
the sword was brought. What are the Christian nations
doing to-day in Europe? Is there a solitary Christian
nation that will trust any other? How many millions of
Christians are in the uniform of everlasting forgiveness,
loving their enemies?
There was an old Spaniard upon the bed of death, and
he sent for a priest, and the priest told him that he would
have to forgive his enemies before he died. He says, "T
have not any." "What! no enemies?" "Not one,"
said the dying man: " I killed the last one three weeks
ago."
54 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
How many millions of Christians are now armed and
equipped to destroy their fellow-Christians? Who are
the men in Europe crying out against war? Who wishes
to have the nations disarmed? Is it the church? No; it
is the men who do hot believe in what they call this re-
ligion of peace. When there is a war, and when they
make a few thousand widows and orphans, when they
strew the plain with dead patriots, then Christians as-
semble in their churches and sing ' 'Te Deum Laudamus"
to God. Why? Because He has enabled a few of His
children to kill some others of His children. This is the
religion of peace the religion that invented the Krupp
gun, that will hurl a bullet weighing 2,000 pounds
through twenty-four inches of solid steel. This is the
religion of peace, that covers the sea with men-of-war,
clad in mail, all in the name of universal forgiveness.
What effect had this religion upon the nations of the
earth? What have the nations been fighting about?
What was the Thirty Years' War in Europe for? What
was the war in Holland for? Why was it that England
persecuted Scotland? Why is it that England persecutes
Ireland even unto this day? At the bottom of every one
of these conflicts you will find a religious question. The
religion of Jesus Christ, as preached by His church,
causes war, bloodshed, hatred, and all uncharitableness;
and why? Because they say a certain belief is necessary
to salvation. They do not say, if you behave yourself
pretty well you will get there; they do not say, if you
pay your debts and love your wife, and love your chil-
dren, and are good to your friends, and your neighbors,
and your country, you will get there; that will do you no
good; you have got to believe a certain thing. Oh, yes.
ORTHODOXY. 543
no matter how bad you are, you can instantly be for-
given then; and no matter how good you are, if you fail
to believe that, the moment you get to the day of judg-
ment nothing is left but to damn you forever, and all the
angels will shout " Hallelujah!"
What do they teach to-day? Every murderer goes to
heaven; there is only one step from the gallows to God;
only one jerk between the halter and heaven. That is
taught by this same church. I believe there ought to
be a law to prevent the slightest religious consolation
being given to any man who has been guilty of murder.
Let a Catholic understand that if he imbrues his hands
in his brother's blood, he can have no extreme unction;
let it be understood that he can have no forgiveness
through the church; and let the Protestant understand
that when he has committed that crime, the community
will not pray him into heaven. Let him go with his
victim. The victim, you know, dying in his sins, goes to
hell, and the murderer has the happiness of seeing him
there. And if heaven grows dull and monotonous, the
murderer can again give life to the nerve of pleasure by
watching the agony of his victim. I am opposed to that
kind of forgiveness. And yet that is the religion of uni-
versal peace to everybody.
Now, what is the next thing that I wish to call your
attention to?
" We believe in the ultimate prevalence of the King-
dom of Christ over all the earth."
What makes you? Do you judge from the manner in
which you are getting along now? How many people are
being born a year? About fifty millions. How many are
you converting a year; really, truthfully? Five or six
544 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
thousand. I think I have overestimated the number. Is
orthodox Christianity on the increase? No. There are
a hundred times as many unbelievers in orthodox Chris-
tianity as there were ten years ago. What are you doing
in the missionary world? How long is it since you con-
verted a Chinaman? A fine missionary religion, to send
missionaries, with their bibles and tracts, to China, but if
a Chinaman comes here, mob him, simply to show him
the difference between the practical and theoretical work-
ings of the Christian religion. How long since you have
had a convert in India? In my judgment, never; there
never has been an intelligent Hindoo converted from the
time the first missionary put his foot upon that soil; and
never, in my judgment, has an intelligent Chinaman been
converted since the first missionary touched that shore.
Where are they? We hear nothing of them, except in
the reports. They get money from poor old ladies, trem-
bling on the edge of the grave, and go and tell them
stories how hungry the average Chinaman is for a copy
of the new testament, and paint the sad condition of a
gentleman in the interior of Africa without the work of
Dr. McCosh, longing for a copy of the Princeton Review.
In my judgment, it is a book that would suit a savage.
Thus money is scared from the dying and frightened from
the old and feeble. About how long is it before this
kingdom is to be established?
What is the next thing here? They all also believe in
the resurrection of the dead, and in their confession of
faith hereto attached I find they also believe in the resur-
rection of the body. Does anybody believe that, that
has ever thought? Here is a man, for instance, that
weighs 200 pounds, and gets sick and dies weighing 120;
ORTHODOXY. 545
how much will he weigh in the morning of the resurrec-
tion? Here is a cannibal, who eats another man; and
we know that the atoms that you eat go into you body
and become a part of you. After the cannibal has eaten
the missionary, and appropriated his atoms to himself,
and then he dies, who will the atoms belong to in the
morning of the resurrection in an action of replevin
brought by the missionary against the cannibal? It has
been demonstrated again and again that there is no crea-
tion in nature, and no destruction in nature. It has been
demonstrated again and again that the atoms that are in us
have been in millions of other beings; grown in the forest,
in the grass, blossomed in the flowers, been in the metals;
in other words, there are atoms in each one of us that
have been in millions of others, and when we die these
atoms return to the earth, an again spring in vegetation,
taken up in the leaves of the trees, turned into wood.
And yet we have a church, in the nineteenth century,
getting up this doctrine, presided over by professors, by
presidents of colleges, and by theologians, who tell us
that they believe in the resurrection of the body.
They know better. There is not one so ignorant but
what knows better.
And what is the next thing? " And in a final judg-
ment." It will be a set day. All of us will be there,
and the thousands, and millions, and billions, and
trillions, and quadrillions that have died will be there. It
will be the day of judgment, and the books will be opened
and our case will be called. Does anybody believe in
that now that has got the slightest sense? one who
knows enough to ' ' chew gum without a string? "
' ' The issues of which are everlasting punishment for
546 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the wicked and everlasting life for the redeemed." That
is the doctrine to-day of the Congregational church, and
that is the doctrine that I oppose. That is the doctrine
that I defy and deny.
But I must hasten on. Now this comes to us after all
the discussion that has been, and we are told that this
religion is finally to conquer this world. This is the same
religion that failed to successfully meet the hordes of
Mohammed. Mohammed wrested from the disciples of
the cross the fairest part of Europe. It was known that
he was an impostor. They knew he was because the
people of Mecca said so, and they knew that Christ was
not because the people of Jerusalem said he was. This
impostor wrested from the disciples ot Christ the fairest
part of Europe, and that fact sowed the seeds of distrust
and infidelity in the minds of the Christian world. And
the next was an effort to rescue from the infidels the
empty sepulchre of Christ. That commenced in the
eleventh century and ended in 1291. Europe was almost
depopulated. For every man owed a debt, the debt was
discharged if he put a cross upon his breast and joined
the Crusades. No matter what crime he had committed
the doors of the prison were open for him to join the
Crusades. And what was the result? They believed that
God would give them victory over the infidel, and they
carried in front of the first Crusade a goat and a goose,
believing that both those animals had been blessed by the
indwelling of the Holy Ghost. And I may say that those
same animals are in the lead to-day in the orthodox
world. Until 1291 they endeavored to get that sepul-
chre, until finally the hosts of Christ were driven back,
baffled, beaten, and demoralized a poor, miserable re-
ORTHODOXY. 547
ligious rabble. They were driven back, and that fact
sowed the seeds of distrust in Christendom. You know
at that time the world believed in trial by battle that
God would take the side of right and there had been a
trial by battle between the Cross and Mohammed, and
Mohammed had been victorious.
Well, what was the next? You know when Christianity
came into power it destroyed every statue it could lay its
ignorant hands upon. It defaced and obliterated every
painting; it destroyed every beautiful building; it de-
stroyed the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin; it de-
stroyed all the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy
it could find, and burned every library that it could reach
with its torch. And the result was the night of the
middle ages fell upon the human race. But by accident,
by chance, by oversight, a few of the manuscripts es-
caped the fury of religious zeal; a few statues had been
buried; and the result was, that these manuscripts be-
came the seed, the fruit of which is our civilization of
to-day. A few forms of beauty were dug from the earth
that had protected them, and now the civilized world is
filled with art, with painting, and with statuary, in spite
of the rage of the early church.
What is the next blow that that this church received?
The discovery of America. That is the next. The
Holy Ghost, who inspired a man to write the bible, did
not know of the existence of this continent, never dreamed
of it; the result was that His bible never spoke of it.
He did not dream that the earth is round. He believed
it was flat, although He made it Himself, and at that
time heaven was just up there beyond the clouds. There
was where the gods lived, there was where the angels
548 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
were, and it was against that heaven that Jacob's ladder
was that the angels ascended and descended. It was to
that heaven that Christ ascended after His resurrection.
It was up there where the New Jerusalem was, with its
streets of gold, and under this earth was perdition; there
was where the devils lived; there was where a pit was
dug for all unbelievers, and for men who had brains, and
I say that for this reason: That just in proportion that
you have brains, just in that proportion your chances for
eternal joy are lessened, according to this religion . And
just in proportion that you lack brains, your chances are
increased. They believe, under there that they discovered
America. They found that the earth is round. It was
circumnavigated by Magellan. In 1519 that brave man
set sail. The church told him: "The earth is flat, my
friend; don't go off. You will go off the edge." Magellan
said: " I have seen the shadow of the earth upon the
moon, and I have more confidence in the shadow even
than I have in the church." The ship went round. The
earth was circumnavigated. Science passed its hand
above it and beneath it, and where was the heaven, and
where was the hell? Vanished forever! And they dwell
now only in the religion of superstition. We found there
was no place for Jacob's ladder to lean against; no place
there for the gods and angels to live; no place there to
empty the waters of the deluge; no place there to which
Christ could have ascended; and the foundations of the
New Jerusalem crumbled, and the towers and domes fell
and became simply space space sown with an infinite
number of stars; not with New Jerusalems, but with con-
stellations.
Then man began to grow great, and with that you
ORTHODOXY. 549
know came astronomy. Now just see what they did in
that. In 1473 Copernicus was born. In 1543 his great
work. In 1616 the system of Copernicus was condemned
by the pope, by the infallible Catholic church, and the
church is about as near right upon that subject as upon
any other. The system of Copernicus was denounced.
And how long do you suppose the church fought that?
Let me tell you. It was revoked by Pius VII. in the
year of grace 1821. For 205 years after the death of
Copernicus the church insisted that that system was false,
and that the old idea was true. Astronomy is the first
help that we ever received from heaven. Then came
Kepler in 1609, and you may almost date the birth of
science from the night that Kepler discovered his first law.
That was the dawn of the day of intelligence his first
law, that the planets do not move in circles; his second
law, that they described equal spaces in equal times; his
third law, that there was a direct relation between weight
and velocity. That man gave us a key to heaven. That
man opened its infinite book, and we now read it, and
he did more good than all the theologians that ever lived.
I have not time to speak of the others of Galileo, of
Leonardo da Vinci, and of hundreds of others that I
could mention.
The next thing that gave this church a blow was*statis-
tics. Away went special providence. We found by
taking statistics that we could tell the average length of
human life; that this human life did not depend upon in-
finite caprice; that it depended upon conditions, circum-
stances, laws and facts, and that those conditions, cir-
cumstances, and facts were ever active. And now you
will see the man who depends entirely upon special prov-
550 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
idence gets his life insured. He has more confidence
even in one of these companies than he has in the whole
Trinity. We found by statistics that there were just so
many crimes on an average committed; just so many
crimes of one kind and so many of another; just so
many suicides, so many deaths by drowning; just so
many accidents on an average; just so many men marry-
ing women, for instance, older than themselves; just so
many murders of a particular kind; just the same number
of accidents; and I say to-night statistics utterly demolish
the idea of special providence. Only the other day a
gentleman was telling me of a case of special providence.
He knew it. He had been the subject of it. Yes, sir!
A few years ago he was about to go on a ship when he
was detained; he didn't go, and the ship was lost and all
on board. Yes! I said, " Do you think the fellows that
were drowned believed in special providence?" Think of
the infinite egotism of such a doctrine. Here is a man
that fails to go upon a ship with 500 passengers, and
they go down to the bottom of the sea fathers, mothers,
children, and loving husbands, and wives waiting upon
the shores of expectation. Here is one poor little wretch
that didn't happen to go! And he thinks that God, the
infinite being, interfered in his poor little withered be-
half and let the rest all go. That is special providence!
You know we have a custom every year of issuing a
proclamation of thanksgfving. We say to God, "Although
You have afflicted all the other countries, although You
have sent war, and desolation, and famine on everybody
else, we have been such good children that You have
been kind to us, and we hope you will keep on." It
don't make a bit of difference whether we have good
ORTHODOXY. 5 5 I
times or not not a bit; the thanksgiving is always ex-
actly the same. I remember a few years ago a governor
of Iowa got out a proclamation of that kind. He went
on to tell how thankful the people were, how prosperous
the State had been; and there was a young fellow in the
State who got out another proclamation, saying: " Fear-
ing that the Lord might be misled by official correspond-
ence," he went on to say that the governor's proclama-
tion was entirely false; that the State was not prosperous;
that the crops had been an almost entire failure; that
nearly every farm in the State was mortgaged; that if the
Lord did not believe him, all he asked was He would
send some angel in whom he had confidence to look the
matter over for himself.
Of course I have not time to recount the enemies of
the church . Every fact is an enemy of superstition.
Every fact is a heretic. Every demonstration is an in-
fidel. Everything that ever happened testified against
the supernatural. I have only spoken of a few of the
blows that shattered the shield and shivered the lance of
superstition. Here is another one the doctrine of
Charles Darwin. This century will be called Darwin's
century, one of the greatest men who ever touched this
globe. He has explained more of the phenomena of life
than all of the religious teachers. Write the name of
Charles Darwin there (on the one hand) and the name
of every theologian that ever lived there (on the other
hand), and from that name has come more light to the
world than from all those. His doctrine of evolution,
his doctrine of the survival of the fittest, his doctrine of
the origin of species, has removed in every thinking mind
the last vestige of orthodox Christianity. He has not
552 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
only stated, but he has demonstrated, that the inspired
writer knew nothing of this world, nothing of the origin
of man, nothing of geology, nothing of astronomy, noth-
ing of nature; that the bible is a book written by ignor-
ance by the instigation of fear! Think of the man who
replied to him. Only a few years ago there was no
parson too ignorant to successfully answer Charles Dar-
win; and the more ignorant he was the more cheerfully
he undertook the task. He was held up to the ridicule,
the scorn, and the contempt of the Christian world, and
yet when he died England was proud to put his dust with
that of her noblest and her grandest.
Charles Darwin conquered the intellectual world, and
the doctrine of evolution is now an accepted fact. His
light has broken in on some of the early clergy, and the
greatest man who to-day occupies the pulpit is a believer
in the evolution theory of Charles Darwin and that is
Henry Ward Beecher a man of more brains than the
entire clergy of that entire church put together. And
yet we are told in this little creed that orthodox religion
is about to conquer the world. It will be driven to the
wilds of Africa. It must go to some savage country; it
has lost its hold upon civilization, and I tell you it is un-
fortunate to have a religion that cannot be accepted by
the intellect of a nation. It is unfortunate to have a
religion against which every good and noble heart pro-
tests. Let us have a good one or none. O! 'my pity has
been excited by seeing these ministers endeavor to warp
and twist the passages of scripture to fit some demon-
stration in science.
These pious evasions! These solemn pretenses! When
they are caught in one way they give a different meaning
ORTHODOXY. 553
to the words and say the world was not made in seven
days. They say " good whiles" epochs. And in this
same confession here of faith and creeds they believe the
Lord's day is holy every seventh day. Suppose you
lived near the north pole, where the day is three months
long. Then which day will you keep? Suppose you
could get to the north pole, you could prevent Sunday
from ever overtaking you. You could walk around the
other way f aster than the world could revolve. How would
you keep Sunday then? Suppose we ever invent any-
thing that can go 1,000 miles an hour? We can just
chase Sunday clear around the globe. Is there anything
that can be more perfectly absurd than that a space of
time can be holy! You might as well talk about a pious
vacuum. These pious evasions. I heard the other night
of an old man. He was not very well educated, you
know, and he got into the notion that he must have read-
ing of the bible and have family worship; and there was
a bad boy in the family a pretty smart boy and they
were reading the bible by course, and in the fifteenth chapte
of Corinthians is this passage: " Behold, brethren,! show
you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall be
changed." And this boy rubbed out the "c" in the
" changed." So next night the old man got on his specs
and got down his bible and said: " Behold, brethren, I
show you a mystery; we shall not all die, but we shall be
hanged." The old lady said, " Father, I don't think it
reads that way." He says, "Who is reading this?"
' ' Yes, mother, it says be hanged, and, more than that,
I see the sense of it. Pride is the besetting sin of the
human heart, and if there is anything calculated to take
the pride out of a man it is hanging."
554 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
I keep going back to this book; I keep going back to
the miracles, to the prophecies, to the fables, and people
ask me, if I t,ake away the bible, what are we going to do?
How can we get along without the revelation that no one
understands? What are we going to do if we have no
bible to quarrel about? What are we to do without hell?
What are we going to do with our enemies? What are
we going to do with the people we love but don't like?
They tell me that there never would have been any civili-
zation if it had not been for this bible. Um! The Jews
had a bible; the Romans had not. Which had the greater
and the grander government? Let us be honest. Which
of those nations produced the greatest poets, the greatest
soldiers, the greatest orators, the greatest statesmen, the
greatest sculptors? Rome had no bible. God cared
nothing for the Roman Empire. He let the men come
up by chance. His time was taken up by the Jewish
people. And yet Rome conquered the world, apd even
conquered God's chosen people. The people that had
the bible were defeated by the people who had not. How
was it possible for Lucretius to get along without the
bible? How did the great and glorious of that empire?
And what shall we say of Greece? No bible. Compare
Athens with Jerusalem. From Athens comes the beauty
and intellectual grace of the world. Compare the
mythology of Greece with the mythology of Judea. One
covering the earth with beauty, and the other rilling
heaven with hatred and injustice. The Hindoos had no
bible; they had been forsaken by the Creator, and yet
they became the greatest metaphysicians of the world.
Egypt had no bible. Compare even Egypt with Judea.
What are we to do without the bible? What became of
ORTHODOXY. 555
the Jews who had no bible; their temple was destroyed
and their city was taken; and, as I said before, they
never found real prosperity until their God deserted them.
Do without the bible?
Now I come again to the new testament. There are
a few things in there, I give you my word, I cannot be-
lieve. I cannot I cannot believe in the miraculous
origin of Jesus Christ. I believe He was the son of
Joseph and Mary; that Joseph and Mary had been duly
and legally married; that He was the legitimate offspring
of that marriage, and nobody ever believed the contrary
until He had been dead 150 years. Neither Matthew,
Mark nor Luke ever dreamed that He was of divine
origin. He did not say to either Matthew, Mark or
Luke, or to any one in their hearing, that He was the son
of God, or that He was miraculously conceived. He
did not say it. The angel Gabriel, who, they say, brought
the news, never wrote a word upon the subject. His
mother never wrote a word upon the subject. His father
never wrote a word upon the subject. We are lacking in
the matter of witnesses. I would not believe it now! I
cannot believe it then. I would not believe people I
know, much less would I believe people I don't know. I
say that at that time Matthew, Mark and Luke believed
that He was the son of Joseph and Mary. And why?
They say He descended from the blood of David, and in
order to show that He was of the blood of David they
-gave the geneology of Joseph. And if Joseph was not
his father, why not give the geneology of Pontius Pilate
or Herod? Could they, by giving the geneology of Jo-
seph, show that He was of the blood of David if Joseph
was in no way related to David; and yet that is the posi-
556 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
tion into which the Christian world is now driven. It says
the son of Joseph, and then interpolated the words ' * as
was supposed." Why, then, do they give a supposed
geneology. It will not do. And that is a thing that can-
not in any way, by any human testimony, be established;
and if it is important for us to know that He was the
Son of God, I say then that it devolves upon God to
give us evidence. Let Him write it across the face of
the heavens, in every language of mankind. If it is
necessary for us to believe it, let it grow on every leaf
next year. No man should be damned for not believing
unless the evidence is overwhelming. And he ought
not to be made to depend upon say-so. He should have
it directly for himself. A man says God told him so and
so, and he tells me, and I haven't anyone's word but
that fellow's. He may have been deceived. If God has
a message for me He ought to tell it to me, and not
somebody that has been dead 4,000 or 5,000 years, and
in another language; God may have changed His mind
on many things; He has on slavery at least, and polyg-
amy; and yet His church now wants to go out here and
destroy polygamy in Utah with a sword. Why don't
they send missionaries there with copies of the old testa-
ment? By reading the lives of Abraham, and Isaac, and
Lot, and a few other fellows that ought to have been in
the penitentiary, they can soften their hearts.
Now, there is another miracle I do not believe. I
want to speak about it as we would about any ordinary
transaction in the world. In the first place, I do not
believe that any miracle was ever performed, and if there
was, you can't prove it. Why? Because it is altogether
more reasonable that the people lied about it than that it
ORTHODOXY. 557
happened. And why? Because, according to human
experience, we know that people will not always tell the
truth, and we never saw a miracle, and we have got to
be governed by our experience, and if we go by our experi-
ence, it is in favor that the thing never happened; that
the man is mistaken. Now, I want you to remember it.
Here is a man that comes into Jerusalem, and the first
thing he does he cures the blind. He lets the light of
day visit the darkness of blindness. The eyes are opened
and the whole world is again pictured upon the brain.
Another man is clothed with leprosy. He touches him,
and the disease falls from him, and he stands pure, and
clean, and whole. Another man is deformed, wrinked,
bent. He touches him and throws upon him again the
garment of youth. A man is in his grave, and He says,
" Come forth! " and he again walks in life, feeling his
heart throb and beat, and his blood going joyously
through his veins. They say that happened. I don't
know. There is one wonderful thing about the dead peo-
ple that were raised we don't hear of them any more.
What became of them? Why, if there was a man in
this town that had been raised from the dead, I would go
to see him to-night. I would say, "Where were you
when you got the notice to come back? What kind of
country is it? What kind of opening there for a young
man? How did you like it?" But nobody ever paid the
slightest attention to them there. They didn't even ex-
cite interest when they died the second time. Nobody
said, ' Why, that man isn't afraid. He has been there."
Not a word. They pass away quietly. You see I don't
believe it. There is something wrong somewhere about
that business. And then there is another trouble in my
558 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
mind. Now, you know I may suffer eternal punishment
for all this.
Here is a man that does all these things, and there-
upon they crucify Him. Now, then, let us be honest.
Suppose a- man came into Chicago and he should meet a
funeral procession, and he should say, "Who is dead?"
and they should say, "The son of a widow; her only
support," and he should say to the procession, " Halt!"
And to the undertaker, "Take out that coffin, unscrew
that lid." " Young man, I say unto thee, arise!" And
the latter should step from the coffin, and in one moment
after hold his mother in his arms. Suppose he should go
to your cemetery and should find some woman holding a
little child in each hand, while the tears fell upon a new-
made grave, and he should say to her, " Who lies buried
here?" and she should reply, "My husband," and he
should say, "I say unto thee, oh grave, give up thy
dead," and the husband should rise and in a moment
after have his lips upon his wife's, and the little children
with their arms around his neck. Suppose that it is so.
Do you think that the people of Chicago would kill him?
Do you think any one would wish to crucify him? Do
you not rather believe that every one who had a loved
.one out in that cemetery would go to him, even upon their
knees, and beg him and implore him to give back their
dead? Do you believe that any man was ever crucified
who was the master of death? Let me tell you to-
night if there shall ever appear on this earth the master,
the monarch of death, all human knees will touch the
earth; he will not be crucified, he will not be touched.
All the living who fear death; all the living who have lost
a loved one will stand and cling to him. And yet we are
ORTHODOXY. 559
told that this worker of miracles, this worker of wonders,
this man who could clothe the dead in the throbbing flesh
of life, was crucified by the Jewish people. It was never
dreamed that he did a miracle until 100 years after he
was dead.
There is another miracle I do not believe, I cannot be-
lieve it, and that is the resurrection. And why? If it
was the fact, if the dead got out of the grave, why did
He not show himself to his enemies? Why did He not
again visit Pontius Pilate? Why did He not call upon
Caiaphas, the high priest? Why did He not make
another triumphal entery into Jerusalem? Why did He
not again enter the temple and dispute with the doctors?
Why didn't He say to the multitude: "Here are the
wounds in My feet, and in My hands, and in My side. I
am the one you endeavored to kill, but Death is My
slave." Why didn't He? Simply because the thing
never happened. I cannot believe it. But recollect, it
makes no difference with its teachings. They are exactly
as good whether He wrought miracles or not. Twice
two are four; that needs no miracle. Twice two are five
a miracle would not help that. Christ's teachings are
worth their effect upon the human race. It makes no
difference about miracle or about wonder, but you must
remember in that day every one believed in miracles.
Nobody had any standing as a teacher, a philosopher, a
governor, or a king, about whom there was not a some-
ing miraculous. The earth was then covered with the
sons and daughters of the gods and goddesses. That
was believed in Greece, in Rome, in Egypt, in Hindostan;
everybody, nearly, believed in such things.
Then there is another miracle that 1 cannot believe
560 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
in, and that is the ascension the bodily ascension of
Jesus Christ. Where was He going? Since the telescope
has been pointed at the stars, where was He going?
The New Jerusalem is not there. The abode of the gods
is not there. Where was He going? Which way did
He go? That depends upon the time of day that He left.
If He left in the night He went exactly the opposite way
from what He would in the day. Who saw this miracle?
They say the disciples. Let us see what they say about
it. Matthew did not think it was worth mentioning. He
doesn't speak of it at all. On the contrary, he says that
the last words of Christ were: "Lo, I am with you
always, even unto the end of the world." That is what
he says. Mark, he saw it. "So, then, after the Lord
had spoken unto them He was received up into heaven
and sat on the right hand of God." That is all he has
to say about the most wonderful thing that ever blessed
human vision about a miracle great enough ' to have
stuffed credulity to bursting; and yet we have one poor,
little meagre verse. So, then, after He had quit speak-
ing, He was caught up and sat on the right hand of God.
How does he know He was on the right hand? Did he
see Him after He had sat down? Luke says: " And it
came to pass while He blessed them He was parted from
them and was carried up into heaven." But John does
not mention it. He gives as His last words this address
to Peter: "Follow thou Me." Of course He did not
say that as He ascended. In the Acts we have another
account. A conversation is given not spoken of in any
of the others, and we find there two men clad in white
apparel, who said: " Men of Galilee, why stand ye here
gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus that was taken
ORTHODOXY. 561
up into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have
seen Him go up into Heaven." Matthew didn't see that;
Mark forgot it; Luke didn't think it was worth mention-
ing, and John didn't believe it; and yet upon that evi-
dence we are led to believe that the most miraculous of
all miracles actually occurred. I cannot believe it.
I may be mistaken; but the church is now trying"] to
parry, and when they come to the little miracles of the
new testament all they say is: " Christ didn't cast out
devils; these men had fits." He cured fits. Then I read
in another place about the fits talking. Christ held a
dialogue with the fits, and the fits told Him his name,
and the fits at that time were in a crazy man. And the
fits made a contract that they would go out of the man
provided they would be permitted to go into swine. How
can fits that attack a man take up a residence in swine?
The church must not give up the devil. He is the right
bower. No devil, no hell; no hell, no preacher; no fire,
no insurance. I read another miracle that this devil
took Christ and put him on the pinnacle of a temple.
Was that fits, too? Why is not the theological world
honest? Why do they not come up and admit what they
know the book means? They have not the courage.
Now, their next doctrine is the absolute necessity of
belief. That depends upon this: Can a man believe as
he wants to? Can you? Can anybody? Does belief
depend at all upon the evidence? I think it does some-
what in some cases. How is it that when a jury is
sworn to try a case, hearing all the evidence, hearing
both sides, hearing the charge of the judge, hearing the
law, and upon their oaths, are equally divided, six for the
plaintiff and six for the defendant? It is because evi-
562 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
dence does not have the same effect upon all people.
Why? Our brains are not alike not the same shape;
we have not the same intelligence or the same experience,
the same sense. And yet I am held accountable for my
belief. I must believe in the Trinity three times one
is one, once one is three and my soul is to be eternally
damned for failing to guess an arithmetical conundrum.
And that is the poison part of Christianity that salva-
tion depends upon belief that is the poison part, and
until that dogma is discarded religion will be nothing but
superstition. No man can control his belief. If I hear
certain evidence I will believe a certain thing. If I fail to
hear it I may never believe it. If it is adapted to my
mind I may accept it; if it is not, I reject it. And what
am I to go by? My brain. That is the only light I have
from nature, and if there be a God, it is the only torch
that this God has given me by which to find my way
through the darkness and the night called life. I do not
depend upon hearsay for that. I do not have to take the
word of any other man, nor get upon my knees before a
book. Here, in the temple of the mind, I go and con-
sult the God that is to say, my reason and the oracle
speaks to me, and I obey the oracle. What should I
obey? Another man's oracle? Shall I take another man's
word and not what he thinks, but what God said to him?
I would not know a god if I should see one. I have
said before, and I say again, the brain thinks in spite of
me, and I am not responsible for my thought. No more
can I control the beating of my heart, the expansion and
contraction of my lungs for a moment; no more can I
stop the blood that flows through the rivers of the veins.
And yet I am held responsible for my belief. Then
ORTHODOXY. 563
why does not the God give me the evidence? They say
He has. In what? In an inspired book. But I do not
understand it as they do. Must I be false to my under-
standing? They say: " When you come to die you will
be sorry you did not. " Will I be sorry when I come to
die that I did not live a hypocrite? Will I be sorry I did
not say I was a "Christian when I was not? Will the
fact that I was honest put a thorn in the pillow of death?
God cannot forgive me for that. They say when He
was in Jerusalem, He forgave His murderers. Now He
won't forgive an honest man for differing with Him on
the subject of the Trinity. They say that God says to
me, " Forgive your enemies." I say, " All right, I do;"
but he says, " I will damn mine." God should be con-
sistent. If He wants me to forgive my enemies, He
should forgive His. I am asked to forgive enemies who
can hurt me. God is only asked to forgive enemies who
cannot hurt Him. He certainly ought to be as generous
as He asks us to be. And I want no God to forgive me
unless I do forgive others. All I ask, if that be true, is
that this God should live according to His own doctrine.
If I am to forgive my enemies I ask Him to forgive His.
That is justice, that is right. Here are these millions to-
day who say: "We are to be saved by belief, by faith;
but what are we to believe? "
In St. Louis last Sunday I read an interview with a
Christian minister one who is now holding a revival.
They call him the boy preacher a name that he has
borne for fifty or sixty years. The question was whether
in these revivals, when they were trying to rescue souls
from eternal torture, they would allow colored people to
occupy seats with white people, and that revivalist,
564 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
preaching the unsearchable richness of Christ, said he
would not allow the colored people to sit with white peo-
ple; they must go to the back of the church. The same
people go and sit right next- to them in heaven, swap
harps with them, and yet this man, believing as he says
he does, that if he did not believe in the Lord Jesus
Christ he would eternally perish, was not willing that the
colored man should sit by a white man while he heard the
gospel of everlasting peace. He was not willing that the
colored man should get into the lifeboat of Christ,
although those white men might be totally depraved, and
if they had justice done them, according to his doctrine,
would be eternally damned and yet he has the impu-
dence to put on airs, although he ought to be eternally
damned, and go and sit by the colored man. His doctrine
of religion, the color line, has not my respect. I believe
in the religion of humanity, and it is far better to love
our fellow-men than to love God, because we can help
them, and we cannot help Him. You had better do
what you can than to be always pretending to do what
you cannot.
Now I come to the last part of the bible this creed
and that is, eternal punishment, and I have concluded;
and I have said I will never deliver a lecture that I do
not give the full benefit of its name. That part of the
Congregational creed would disgrace the lowest savage
that crouches and crawls in the jungles of Africa. The
man who now, in the nineteenth century, preaches the
doctrine of eternal punishment, the doctrine of eternal
hell, has lived in vain. Think of that doctrine! The
eternity of punishment! Why, I find in that same creed
that Christ is finally going to triumph in this world and
ORTHODOXY. 565
establish His kingdom; but if their doctrine is true, He will
never triumph in the other world. He-will have billions
in hell forever. In this world we never will be perfectly
civilized as long as a gallows casts its shadow upon the
earth. As long as there is a penitentiary, behind the walls
of which a human being is immured, we are not a civil-
ized people. We will never be perfectly civilized until
we do away with crime and criminals. And yet, accord-
ing to this Christian religion, God is to have an eternal
penitentiary; He is to be an everlasting jailor, an ever-
lasting turnkey, a warden of an infinite dungeon, and
He is going to keep prisoners there, not for the purpose
of reforming them because they are never going to get
any better, only getting worse just for the purpose of
punishing them. And what for? For something they
did in this world; born in ignorance, educated it may be
in poverty, and yet responsible through the countless
ages of eternity. No man can think of a greater horror;
no man can think of a greater absurdity. For the
growth of that doctrine, ignorance was soil and fear was
rain. That doctrine came from the fauged mouths of
wild beasts, and yet it is the "glad tidings of great joy."
" God so loved the world " He is going to damn most
everybody, and. if this Christian religion be true, some
of the greatest, and grandest, and best who ever lived
upon this earth, are suffering its torments to-night. It
don't appear to make much difference, however, with this
church. They go right on enjoying themselves as well
as ever. If their doctrine is true, Benjamin Franklin,
one of the wisest and best of men, who did so much to
give us here a free government, is suffering the tyranny
of God to-night, while he endeavored to establish free-
566 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
dom among men. If the churches were honest, their
preachers would tell their hearts, " Benjamin Franklin is
in hell, and we warn any and all the youth not to imitate
Benjamin Franklin. Thorrras Jefferson, the author of
the Declaration of Independence, with its self-evident
truths, has been damned these many years." That is
what all the ministers ought to have the courage to say.
Talk as you believe. Stand by your creed or change it.
I want to impress it upon your mind, because the thing
I wish to do in this world is to put out the fires of hell.
I want to keep at it just as long as there is one little coal
red in the bottomless pit. As long as the ashes are warm
I shall denounce this infamous doctrine.
I want you to know that the men who founded this
great and glorious government are there. The most of
the men who fought in the Revolutionary War and
wrested from the clutch of Great Britain this continent
have been rewarded by the eternal wrath of God. The
old Revolutionary soldiers are in hell by the thousands.
Let the preachers have the courage to say so. The men
who fought in 1812, and gave to the United States the
freedom of the seas, nearly all of them have been
damned since 1 81 5 all that were killed. The greatest
of heroes, they are there. The greatest of poets, the
greatest scientists, the men who have made the world
beautiful and grand, they are all, I tell you, among the
damned, if this creed is true. Humboldt, who shed light,
and who added to the intellectual wealth of mankind;
Goethe, and Schiller, and Lessing, who almost created
the German language all gone! All suffering the wrath
of God to-night, and every time an angel thinks of one
of those men he gives his harp an extra twang.
ORTHODOXY. 567
La Place, who read the heaven like an open book he
is there. Robert Burns, the poet of human love he is
there because he wrote the ;' Prayer of Holy Willie; "
because he fastened upon the cross the Presbyterian
creed, and made a lingering crucifixion. And yet that
man added to the tenderness of human heart. Dickens,
who put a shield of pity before the flesh of childhood
God is getting even with him. Our own Ralph Waldo
Emerson, although he had a thousand opportunities to
hear Methodist clergymen, scorned the means of grace,
and the Holy Ghost is delighted that he is in hell to-night.
Longfellow refined hundreds and thousands of homes,
but he did not believe in the miraculous origin of the
Savior. No, sir; he doubted the report of Gabriel. He
loved his fellow-men; he did what he could to free the
slaves; he did what he could to make mankind happy;
but God was just waiting for him. He had His consta-
ble right there. Thomas Paine, the author of the
"Rights of Man," offering his life in both hemisphres for
the freedom of the human race, and one of the founders
of the Republic it has often seemed to me that if we
could get God's attention long enough to point Him to
the American flag, He would let him out. Compte, the
author of the "Positive Philosophy, " who loved his fellow-
men to that degree that he made of humanity a God, who
wrote his great work in poverty, with his face covered
with tears they are getting their revenge on him now.
Voltaire, who abolished torture in France; who did more
for human liberty than any other man, living or dead;
who was the assassin of superstition, and whose dagger
still rusts in the heart of Catholicism all the priests
who have been translated have their happiness increased
568 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
by looking at Voltaire. Glorious country where the
principal occupation is watching the miseries of the lost.
Geordani Bruno, Benedict Spinoza, Diderot, the
encyclopedist, who endeavored to get all knowledge in a
small compass so that he could put the peasant on an
equality with the prince intellectually; the man who
wished to sow all over the world the seeds of knowledge;
who loved to labor for mankind. While the priests
wanted to burn, he did all he could to put out the fire-
he has been lost long, long ago. His cry for water has
become so common that his voice is now recognized
through all the realms of hell, and they say to one
another, "That is Diderot." David Hume, the philoso-
pher, he is there with the rest.
Beethoven, the Shakespeare of music, he has been lost,
and Wagner, the master of melody, and who has made
the air of this world rich forever, he is there, and they
have better music in hell than in heaven.
Shelley, whose soul, like his own skylark, was a winged
joy-- he has been damned for many, many years; and
Shakespeare, the greatest of the human race, who has
done ini)re to elevate mankind than all the priests who
ever lived and died he is there; and all the founders of
Inquisitions, the builders of dungeons, the makers of
chains, the inventors of instruments of torture, tearers,
and burners, and branders of hunan flesh, stealers of
babes and sellers of husbands, and wives, and children,
the drawers of the swords, of persecution, and they who
kept the horizon lurid with the fagot's flame for a thou-
sand years they are in heaven to-night. Well, I wish
heaven joy of such company.
And that is the doctrine with which we are polluting
ORTHODOXY. 569
the souls of children. Trhat is the doctrine that puts a
fiend by tL^ir dying bed and a prophesy of hell over every
cradle. That is <( glad tidings of great joy." Only a
little while ago, when the great flood came upon the
Ohio, sent by him who is ruling in the world and pay-
ing particular attention to the affairs of nations, just in
the gray of the morning they saw a house floating down,
and on its top a human being; and a few men went out
to the rescue in a little boat, and they found there a
mother, a woman, and they wanted to rescue her, and
she said: " No, I am going to stay where I am. I have
three dead babes in this house." Think of a love so
limitless, stronger and deeper than despair and death,
and yet the Christian religion says that if that woman
did not happen to believe in their creed, God would send
that mother's soul to eternal fire. If there is another
world, and if in heaven they wear hats, when such a
woman climbs up the opposite bank of the Jordan,
Christ should lift His to her.
That is the trouble I had with this Christian religion-
its infinite heartlessness; and I cannot tell them too
often that during our last war Christians who knew that
if they were shot they would go right to heaven, went
and hired wicked men to take their places, perfectly will-
ing the men should go to hell, provided they could stay
at home. You see they are not honest in it; they do not
believe it, or, as the people say, " They don't sense it; "
they have not religion enough to conceive what it is they
believe and what a terriffic falsehood they assert. And I
beg of every one who hears rm to-night, I beg, I im-
plore, I beseech you never give "another dollar to build a
church in which that lie is preached Never give_another
570 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES-
cent to send a missionary with his moult** 1 ' stuffed with
that falsehood to a foreign land. Why, thtW say, the
heathen will go to heaven anyway if you let thei~n alone;
what is the use of sending them to hell by enlightening '
them. Let them alone. The idea of going and telling
a man a thing that if he does not believe he will be
damned, when the chances are ten to one that he won't
believe it. Don't tell him, and as quick as he gets to
the other world and finds it necessary to believe, he will
say "yes." Give him a chance.
My objection to the Christian religion is that it destroys
human love, and tells you and me that the love of your
dear ones is not necessary in this world to make a heaven
in the next. No matter about your wife, your children,
your brother, your sister no matter about all the affec-
tions of the human heart when you get there you wjll
be along with the angels. I don't know whether I would
like the angels. I don't know whether the angels would
like me. I would rather stand by the folks who have
loved me and whom I know; and I can conceive of no
heaven without the love of this earth. That is the trouble
with the Christian religion; leave your father, leave your
mother, leave your wife, leave your children, leave every-
thing and follow Jesus Christ . I will not. I will stay
with the folks. I will not sacrifice on the altar of a
selfish fear all the grandest and noblest promptings of
my heart. You do away with human love, and what are
we without it? What would we be in another world, and
what would we be here without it? Can any one con-
ceive of music without human love? Human love builds
every home human love is the author of all the beauty
in this world. Love paints every picture, and chisels
ORTHODOXY.
every statue; love, I tell you, builds every fireside. What
would heaven be without love? And yet that is what we
are promised a heaven with your wife lost, your mfother
lost, some of your children gone. And you expect to be
made happy by falling in with some angel.
Such a religion is demoralizing; and how are you to
get there? On the efforts of another. You are to be
perpetually a heavenly pauper, and you will have to
admit through all eternity that you never would have got
here if you hadn't got frightened. "I am here," you
will say, ' ' I have these wings, I have this musical in-
strument, because I was scared." What a glorious world;
and then think of it! No reformation in the next world
not the slightest. If you die in Arkansas that is the
end of you. At the end you will be told that being born
in Arkansas you had a fair chance. Think of telling a
boy in the next world, who lived and died in Delaware,
that he had a fair show! Can anything be more infamous?
All on an equality the rich and the poor, those with
parents loving them, those with o^ery opportunity for
education, on an equality with the poor, the abject, and
the ignorant and the little ray called life, this little
moment with a shadow and a tear, this little space be-
tween your mother's arms and the grave, that balances
an entire eternity. And God can do nothing for you
when you get there. A little Methodist preacher can do
no more for the soul here than its Creator can when you
get there. The soul goes to heaven, where there is noth-
ing but good society; no bad examples; and they are all
there, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, and yet they can do
nothing for that poor unfortunate except to damn him.
Is there any sense in that? Why should this be a period
572 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
of probation? It says in the bible, I believe, "Now is
the accepted time." When does that mean? That
means whenever the passage is pronounced. Now is the
accepted time. It will be the same to-morrow, won't it?
And just as appropriate then as to-day, and if appropriate
at any time, appropriate through all eternity. What I
say is this: There is no world there can be no world
in which every human being will not have an oppor-
tunity of doing right. That is my objection to this Chris-
tian religion, and if the love of earth is not the love of
heaven, if those who love us here are to be separated
there, then I want eternal sleep. Give me a good cold
grave rather than the furnace of Jehovah's wrath.
Gabriel, don't blow! Let me alone! If, when the grave
bursts, I am not to meet faces that have been my sun-
shine in this life, let me sleep on. Rather than that the
doctrine of endless punishment should be tried, I would
like to see the fabric of our civilization crumble and fall
to unmeaning chaos and to formless dust, where oblivion
broods and where even memory forgets. I would rather
a Samson of some unprisoned force, released by chance,
should so wreck and strain the mighty world that man in
stress and strain of want and fear should shudderingly
crawl back to savage and barbaric night. I would rather
that every planet would in its orbit wheel a barren star
rather than that the Christian religion should be true.
I think it is better to love your children than to love
God, a thousand times better, because you can help them,
and I am inclined to think that God can get along with-
out you. I believe in the religion of the family. I be-
lieve that the roof-tree is sacred from the smallest fibre
held in the soft, moist clasp of the earth to the little
ORTHODOXY. 5/3
blossom on the topmost bough that gives its fragrance to
the happy air. The family where virtue dwells with love
is like a lily with a heart of fire the fairest flower in all
this world. And I tell you God cannot afford to damn a
man in the next world who has made a happy family in
this. God cannot afford to cast over the battlements of
heaven the man who has built a happy home here. God
cannot afford to be unpitying to a human heart capable
of pity. God cannot clothe with fire the man who has
clothed the naked here; and God cannot send to eternal
pain a man who has done something toward improving
the condition of his fellow-man. If he can, I had rather
go to hell than to heaven and keep the company of such
a God.
They tell me the next terrible thing I do is to take away
the hope of immortality . I do not, I would not, I could
not. Immortality was first dreamed of by human love, and
yet the church is going to take human love out of im-
mortality. We love it; therefore we wish to love. A
loved ones dies, and we wish to meet again, and from the
affection of the human heart grew the great oak of the
hope of immortality. And around that oak has climbed
the poisonous vine, superstition. Theologians, pretenders,
soothsayers, parsons, priests, popes, bishops, have taken
all that hope, and they have had the impudence to stand
by the grave and prophesy a future of pain. They have
erected their toll-gates on the highway to the other
world, and have collected money from the poor people
on the way, and they have collected it from their fear.
The church did not give us the idea of immortality; the
bible did not give us the idea of immortality. Let me
tell you now the old testament tells you hovv you lost im-
574 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
mortality; it does not say another word about another
world from the first mistake in Genesis to the last curse
in Malachi. There is not in the old testament one burial
.
service.
No man in the old testament stands by the bed and
says, " I will meet them again" not one word. From
the top of Sinai came no hope of another world. And
when we get to the new testament, what do we find
there? " Have thy heart counted worthy to obtain that
world and the resurrection of the dead." As though
some would be counted unworthy to obtain the resurrec-
tion of the dead. And, in another place: "Seek for
honor, glory, immortality." If you have got it, why seek
for it? And in another place: 4< God, who alone hath
immortality; " and yet they tell us that we get our ideas
of immortality from the bible. I deny it. If Christ was
in fact God, why didn't He plainly say there was another
life? Why didn't He tell us something about it? Why
didn't He turn the tear-stained hope of immortality into
the glad knowledge of another life?
Why did He go dumbly to his death, and leave the
world in darkness and in doubt? Why? Because He
was a man and didn't know. I would not destroy the
smallest star of human hope, but I deny that we got our
idea of immortality from the bible. It existed long be-
fore Moses existed. We find it symbolized through all
Egypt, through all India. Wherever man has lived, his
religion has made another world in which to meet the
lost. It is not born of the bible. The idea of immor-
tality, like the great sea, has ebbed and flowed in the
human heart, beating with its countless waves against
the rocks and sands of fate and time. It was not born
ORTHODOXY. 575
of the bible. It was born of the human heart, and it
will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and
clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the
lips of death. We do not know. We do not prophesy
a life of pain. We leave the dead with nature, the
mother of us all, under a seven-hued bow of hope.
Under the seven-hued arch let the dead sleep. "Ah,
but you take the consolation of religion." What conso-
lation has religion for the widow of the unbeliever, the
widow of a good, brave, kind man who lies dead? What
can the orthodox ministers say to relieve the bursting
heart of that woman? What can the orthodox ministers
say to relieve the aching hearts of the little orphans as
they kneel by the grave of that father, if that father
didn't happen to be an orthodox Christian? What con-
solation have they? I find that when a Christian loses a
friend the tears spring from his eyes as quickly as from
the eyes of others. Their tears are as bitter as ours.
Why? The echo of the promises spoken eighteen
hundred years ago is so low, and the sound of the clods
upon the coffin so loud, the promises are so far away,
and the dead are so near. That is the reason. And
they find no consolation there. I say honestly we do not
know; we cannot say. We cannot say whether death is
a wall or a door; the beginning or end of a day; the
spreading of pinions too soar or the folding forever of
wings; whether it is the rising or the setting of sun, or
an endless life that brings rapture and love to every one
we do not know; we can not say.
There is an old fable of Orpheus and Eurydice: Eury-
dice had been captured and taken to the infernal regions,
jmd Orpheus went after her, taking with him his harp
576 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
and playing as he went; and when he came to the infer-
nal regions he began to play, and Sysiphus sat down
upon the stone that he had been heaving up the side ol
the mountain so many years, -and which continually rolled
back upon him; Ixion paused upon his wheel of fire;
Tantalus ceased in his vain efforts for water; the
daughters of the Danaidse left off trying to fill their
sieves with water; Pluto smiled, and for the first time in
the history of hell the cheeks of the Furies were wet
with tears; monsters relented and they said, "Eurydice
may go with you, but you must not look back." So he
again threaded the caverns, playing as he went, and as
he again reached the light he failed to hear the footsteps
of Eurydice, and he looked back and in a moment she
was gone. This old fable gives to us the idea of the per-
petual effort to rescue truth from the churches cf mon-
sters. Some time Orpheus will not look back. Some
day Eurydice will reach the blessed light, and at some
time there will fade from the memory of men the super-
stition of religion.
LNGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
"BLASPHEMY"
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: There is an old story of a
missionary trying to convert an Indian. The Indian
made a little circle in the sand and said, " That is what
the Indian knows." Then he made another circle a little
larger and said, "that is what missionary knows; but
outside there the Indian knows just as much as mission-
ary."
I am going to talk mostly outside that circle to-night.
First, what is the origin of the crime known as blas-
phemy? It is the belief in a God who is cruel, revenge-
ful, quick tempered and capricious; a God who punishes
the innocent for the guilty; a God wjio listens with delight
to the shrieks of the tortured and gazes enraptured on
their spurting blood. You must hold this belief before
you can believe in the doctrine of blasphemy. You must
believe that this God loves ceremonies, that this God
knows certain men to whom He has told all His will. It
577
578 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
then follows that, if this God loves ceremonies and has
certain men to teach His will and perform these cere-
monies, these men must have a place to live in. This
place was called a temple, and it was sacred. And the
pots and pans and kettles and all in it were sacred, too.
No one but the priests must touch them. Then the God
wrote a book in which He told His covenants to men,
and gave this book to priests to interpret. While it was
sacrilege to touch with the hands the pots and pans of
the temple, it was blasphemy to doubt or question any-
thing in the book. And then the right to think was gone,
and the right to use the brain that God had given was
taken away, and religion was intrenched behind that
citadel called blasphemy.
God was a kind of juggler. He did not wish man to
be impudent or curious about how He did things. You
must sit in audience and watch the tricks and ask no
questions. In front of every fact He has hung the im-
penetrable curtain of blasphemy. Now, then, all the
little reason that poor man had is useless. To say any-
thing against the priest was blasphemy and to say any-
thing against God was blasphemy to ask a question was
blasphemy. Finally we sank to the level of fetichism.
We began to worship inanimate things. If you will read
your bible you will find that the Jews had a sacred box.
In it were the rod oPAaron and a piece of manna and the
tables of stone. To touch this box was a crime. You
remember that one time when a careless Jew thought the
box was going to tip he held it. God killed him. What
a warning to baggage smashers of the present day.
We find also that God concocted a hair oil and threat-
ened death to any one who imitated it. And we see that
BLASPHEMY. 5/9
He also made a certain perfume and it was death to
make anything that smelt like it. It seems to me this is
carrying protection too far. It always has been blas-
phemy to say "I do not know whether God exists or
not." In all Catholic countries it is blasphemy to doubt
the bible, to doubt the sacredness of the relics. It always
has been blasphemy to laugh at a priest, to ask questions,
to investigate the Trinity. In a world of superstition,
reason is blasphemy. In a world of ignorance, facts are
blasphemy. In a world of cruelty, sympathy is a crime,
and in a world of lies, truth is blasphemy. Who are the
real blasphemers? Webster offers the definition; blas-
phemy is an insult offered to God by attributing to Him
a nature and qualities differing from His real nature and
qualities, and dishonoring Him. A very good definition,
if you only know what His nature and qualities are.
But that is not revealed; for, studying Him through the
medium of the bible, we find Him inimitably contradic-
tory. He commands us not to work on the Sabbath day,
because it is holy. Yet God works himself on the Sab-
bath day. The sun, moon and stars swing round in
their orbits, and all the creation attributed to this God
goes on as on other days. He says: " Honor thy father
and mother," and yet this God, in the person of Christ,
offered honors, and glory, and happiness a hundred fold
to any who would desert their father and mother for Him.
Thou shalt not kill, yet God killed the first-born of Egypt,
and he commanded Joshua to kill all His enemies, not
sparing old or young, man, woman or child, even an un-
born child. "Thou shalt not commit adultery," he says,
and yet this God gave the wives of defeated enemies to
His soldiers of Joshua's army. Then again He says,
580 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
" Thou shalt not steal." By this command He protected
the inanimate property and the cattle of one man against
the hand of another, and yet this God who said <4 Thou
shalt not steal," established human slavery. The prod-
ucts of industry were not to be interfered with, but the
producer might be stolen as often as possible. ' ' Thou
shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor." And
yet the God who said this said also, " I have sent lying
spirits unto Ahab." The only commandment He really
kept was, "Thou shalt have none other gods but Me."
Is it blasphemous to describe this God as malicious?
You know that laughter is a good index of the character
of a man. You like and rejoice with the man whose
laugh is free and joyous and full of good will. You fear
and dislike him of the sneering laugh. How does God
laugh? He says, "I will laugh at their calamity and
mock at their misfortune," speaking of some who have
sinned. Think of the malice and malignity of that in an
infinite God when speaking of the sufferings He is going
to impose upon His children. You know that it is said
of a Roman emperor that he wrote laws very finely, and
posted them so high on the walls that no one could read
them, and then he punished the people who disobeyed
the laws. That is the acme of tyranny: to provide a
punishment for breach of laws the existence of which
were unknown. Now we all know that there is sin
against the Holy Ghost which will not be forgiven in this
world nor in the world to come. Hundreds of thousands
of people have been driven to the lunatic asylum by the
thought that they had committed this unpardonable sin.
Every educated minister knows that that part of the bible
is an interpolation, but they all preach it. What that
BLASPHEMY. 581
sin against the Holy Ghost is, is not specified. I say,
" Oh, but my good God, tell me what this sin is." And
He answers, "Maybe now asking is the crime. Keep
quiet." So I keep quiet and go about tortured with the
fear that I have committed that sin. Is it blasphemy to
describe God as needing assistance from the Legislature?
Calling for the aid of a mob to enforce His will here.
Compare that God with a man, even with Henry Bergh.
See what Mr. Bergh has done to awaken pity in our peo-
ple and call sympathy to the rescue of suffering animals.
And yet our God was a torturer of dumb brutes.
It is blasphemy to say that our God sent the famine
and dried the mother's breast from her infant's withered
lips? Is it blasphemy to say that He is the author of the
pestilence; that He ordered some of His children to con-
sume others with fire and sword? Is it blasphemy to be-
lieve what we read in the lOQth Psalm? If these things
are not blasphemy, then there is no blasphemy. If there
be a God I desire Him to write in the book of judgment
opposite my name that I denied these lies for Him.
Let us take another step; let us examine the Presbyte-
rian confession of faith. If it be possible to commit
blasphemy, then I contend that the Presbyterian creed is
most blasphemous, for, according to that, God is a cruel,
unrelenting, revengeful, malignant and utterly unreasona-
ble tyrant. I propose now to pay a little attention to
the creed. First, it confesses that there is such a thing
as a light of nature. It is sufficient to make man inex-
cusable, but not sufficient for salvation; just light enough
to lead man to hell. Now imagine a man who will put
a false light on a hilltop to lure a ship to destruction.
What would we say of that man? What can we say of
582 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
a God who gives this false light of nature which, if its
lessons are followed, results in hell? That is the Pres-
byterian God. I don't like Him. Now it occurred to
God that the light of nature was somewhat weak, and
He thought He'd light another burner. Therefore He
made His book and gave it to His servants, the priests,
that they might give it to men. It was to be accepted,
not on the authority of Moses, or any other writer, but
because it was the word of God . How do you know it's the
word of God? You're not to take the word of Moses, or
David, or Jeremiah, or Isaiah, or any other man, because
the authenticity of their work has nothing to do with the
matter; this creed expressly lets them out. How are you
to know that it is God's word? Because it is God's word.
Why is it God's word? What proof have we that it is
God's word? Because it is God's word.
Now, then, I find that the next thing in this wonder-
ful confession of faith of the Presbyterians is the decree
of predestination. [Reads the decree.] I am pleased
to assure you that it is not necessary to understand this.
You have only to believe it. You see that by the decree
of God some men angels are predestinated to heaven and
others to eternal hell, and you observe that their number
is so certain and definite that it can neither be changed
nor altered. You are asked to believe that billions of
years ago this God knew the names of all the men and
women whom He was going to save. Had 'em in His
book, that being the only thing except Himself that then
existed. He had chosen the names by the aid of the se-
cret council. The reason they called it secret was be-
cause they knew all about it.
In making His choice, God was not at all bigoted. He
BLASPHEMY. 583
did not choose John Smith because He foresaw that
Smith was to be a Presbyterian, and was to possess a
loving nature, was to be honest and true and noble in all
his ways, doing good himself and encouraging others in
the same. Oh, no! He was quite as likely to pick
Brown, in spite of the fact that He knew long before that
Brown would be a wicked wretch. You see He was just
as apt to send Smith to the devil and take Brown to
heaven and all for " His glory." This God also blinds
and hardens ah! he's a peculiar God. If sinners per-
severe, He will blind and harden and give them over at
last to their own wickedness instead of trying to reclaim
and save them.
Now we come to the comforting doctrine of the total
depravity of man, and this leads us to consider how he
came that way. Can any person read the first chapters
of Genesis and believe them unless his logic was assas-
sinated in the cradle? We read that our first parents
were placed in a pleasant garden; that they were given
the full run of the place and only forbidden to meddle
with the orchard; that they were tempted as God knew
they were to be tempted; that they fell as God knew they
would fall, and that for this fall, which He knew would
happen before He made them, He fixed the curse of
original sin upon them, to be continued to all their chil-
dren. Why didn't He stop right there? Why didn't He
kill Adam and Eve and make another pair who didn't
like apples? Then when He brought His flood why did
He rescue eight people if their descendants were to be
so totally depraved and wicked? Why didn't He have
His flood first, and then drown the devil? That would
have solved the problem, and He could then have tried
experiments unmolested.
584 INGERSOLI/S LECTURES.
The Presbyterian confession says this corruption was
in all men. It was born with them, it lived through
their life, and after death survived in the children. Well,
can't man help himself? No. I'll show you. God's got
him. Listen to this. [Reads extracts.] So that a
natural man is not only dead in sin and unable to accom-
plish salvation, but he is also incapable of preparing him-
self therefor. Absolutely incapable of taking a trick.
He is saved, if at all, completely by the mercy of God.
If that's the case, then why doesn't He convert us all?
Oh, He doesn't. He wishes to send the most of us to
hell to show His justice. Elect infants dying in infancy
are regenerate. So also are all persons incapable of un-
belief. That includes insane persons and idiots, because
an idiot is incapable of unbelief. Idiots are the only
fellows who've got the dead wood on God. Then accord-
ing to this, the man who has lived according to the light
of nature, doing the best he knew how to make this earth
happy, will be damned by God because he never heard of
His son. Whose fault is it that an infinite God does not
advertise? Something wrong about that. I am inclined
to think that the Presbyterian church is wrong.
I find here how utterly unpardonable sin is. There is
no sin so small but it is punished with hell, and away
you go straight to the deepest burning pit unless your
heart has been purified by this confession of faith un-
less this snake has crawled in there and made itself a
nest. Why should we help religion? I would like people
to ask themselves that question. An infinite God, by
practicing a reasonable economy, can get along without
assistance. Loudly this confession proclaims that salva-
tion comes from Christ alone. What, then, becomes of
BLASPHEMY. 585
the savage who, having never known the name of Christ,
has lived according to the light of nature, kind and heroic
and generous, and possessed of and cultivating all the
natural virtues? He goes to hell. God, you see, loves
us. If He had not loved us what would He have done?
The light of nature then shows that God is good and
therefore to be feared on account of his goodness, to be
served and honored without ceasing. And yet this creed
says that on the last day God will damn anyone who has
walked according to this light. It's blasphemy to walk
by the light of nature.
The next great doctrine is on the preservation of the.
saints. Now, there are peculiarities about saints. They
are saints without their own knowledge or free will; they
may even be down on saints, but its no good. God has
got a rolling hitch on them, and they have to come into
the kingdom sooner or later. It all depends on whether
they have been elected or not. God could have made
me a saint just as easy as not, but He passed me by.
Now you know the Presbyterians say I trample on holy
things. They believe in hell and I come and say there is
no hell. I hurt their hearts, they say, and they add
that I am going to hell myself. I thank them for that;
but now let's see what these tender Presbyterians say of
other churches. Here it is:
This confession of faith calls the pope of Rome anti-
Christ and a son of perdition. Now there are forty
Roman Catholics to one Presbyterian on this earth. Do
not the Presbyterians rather trample on the things that
are holy to the Roman Catholics, and do they respect
their feelings? But the Presbyterians have a pope them-
selves, composed of the presbyters and preachers. This
586 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
confession attributes to them the keys of heaven and hell
and the power to forgive sins [Here extracts are read.]
Therefore these men must be infallible, for God would
never be so foolish as to intrust fallible men with the
keys of heaven and hell. I care nothing for their keys,
nor for any world these keys would open or lock; I pre-
fer the country.
We are told by this faith that at the last day all the
men and women and children who have ever lived on the
earth will appear in the self same bodies they have had
when on earth. Everyone who knows anything knows
the constant exchange which is going on between the
vegetable and animal kingdom. The millions of atoms
which compose one of our bodies have all come from
animals and vegetables, and they in their turn drew them
from animals and vegetables which preceded them.
The same atoms which are now in our bodies have pre-
viously been in the bodies of our ancestors. The negro
from Central Africa has many times been mahogany and
the mahogany has many times been negro. A mission-
ary goes to the cannibal islands and a cannibal eats him
and dies. The atoms which composed the missionary's
body now compose in great part the cannibal's body. To
whom will these atoms belong on the morning of the
resurrection?
How did the devil, who had always lived in heaven
among the best society, ever happen to become bad? If
a man surrounded by angels could become bad, why can-
not a man surrounded by devils become good?
Here is the last Presbyterian joy: At the day of
judgment the righteous shall be caught up to heaven and
shall stand at the right hand of Christ and share with
BLASPHEMY. 587
Him in judging the wicked. Then the Presbyterian hus-
band may have the ineffable pleasure of judging his wife
and condemning her to eternal hell, and the boy will say
to his mother, echoing the command of God: " Depart,
thou accursed, into everlasting torment! " Here will
come a man who has not believed in God. He was a
soldier who took up arms to free the slaves and who
rotted to death in Andersonville prison rather than accept
the offer of his captors to fight against freedom. He
loved his wife and his children and his home and his
native country and all mankind, and did all the good he
knew. God will say to the Presbyterians, " What shall
we do to this man?" and they will answer, "Throw him
into hell."
Last night there was a fire in Philadelphia, and at a
window fifty feet above the ground Mr. King stood amid-
flame and smoke and pressed his children to his breast
one after the other, kissed them, and threw them to the
rescuers with a prayer. That was man. At the last day
God takes His children with a curse and hurls them into
eternal fire. That's your God as the Presbyterians de-
scribe Him. Do you believe that God if there is one
will ever damn me for thinking Him better than He is?
If this creed be true, God is the insane keeper of a mad
house.
We have in this city a clergyman who contends that
this creed gives a correct picture of God, and further-
more says that God has the right to do with us what He
pleases because He made us. If I could change this
lamp into a human being, that would not give me the
right to torture him, and if I did torture him and he
cried out, " Why torturest thou me?" and I replied,
588 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
" Because I made you," he would be right in replying,
"You made me, therefore you are responsible for my
happiness." No God has a right to add to the sum of
human misery. And yet this minister believes an honest
thought blasphemy. No doubt he is perfectly honest.
Otherwise he would have too much intellectual pride to
take the position he does. He says that the bible offers
the only restraint to the savage passions of man. In lands
where, there has been no bible there have been mild and
beneficent philosophers, like Buddha and Confucius. Is
it possible that the bible is the only restraint, and yet the
nations among whom these men lived have been as moral
as we? In Brooklyn and New York you have the bible,
yet do you find that the restraint is a great success? Is
there a city on the globe which lacks more in certain
directions than some in Christendom, or even the United
States?
What are the natural virtues of man? Honesty, hos-
pitality, mercy in the hour of victory, generosity do we
not find these virtues among some savages? Do we find
them among all Christians? I am also told by these
gentlemen that the time will come when the infidel will
be silenced by society. Why that time came long ago.
Society gave the hemlock to Socrates. Society in
Jerusalem cried out for Barrabas and crucified Jesus. In
every Christian country society has endeavored to crush
the infidel.
Blasphemy is a padlock which hypocrisy tries to put
on the lips of all honest men. At one time Christianity
succeeded in silencing the infidel, and then came the
dark ages, when all rule was ecclesiastical, when the air
was filled with devils and spooks, when birth was a mis-
BLASPHEMY. 589
fortune, life a prolonged misery of fear and torment, and
death a horrible nightmare. They crushed the infidels,
Galileo, Kepler, Copernicus, wherever a ray of light ap-
peared in the ecclesiastical darkness. But I want to tell
this minister to-night, and all others like him, that that
day is passed. All the churches in the United States can
not even crush me. The day for that has gone, never to
return. If they think they can crush free thought in this
country, let them try it. What must this minister think
of you and the citizens of this republic when he says,
11 Take the fear of hell out of men's hearts and a majority
of them will become ungovernably wicked. " Oh, think
of an angel in heaven having to allow that he was scared
there.
This minister calls for my arrest. He thinks his God
needs help, and would like to see the police crush the
infidel. I would advise Mr. Talmage (hisses) to furnish
his God with a rattle, so that when he is in danger again
he can summon the police immediately.
I'll tell you what is blasphemy. It is blasphemy to
live on the fruits of other men's labor, to prevent the
growth of the human mind, to persecute for opinion's
sake, to abuse your wife and children, to increase in any
manner the sum of human misery.
I'll tell you what is sacred. Our bodies are sacred,
our rights are sacred, justice and liberty are sacred.
I'll tell you what is the true bible. It is the sum of all
actual knowledge of man, and every man who discovers
a new fact adds a new verse to this bible. It is different
from the other bible, because that is the sum of all that
its writers and readers do not know.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ENTITLED
SOME REASONS WHY.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The history of the world
shows that religion has made enemies instead of friends.
That one word " religion " paints the horizon of the past
with every form of agony and torture, and when one
pronounces the name of "religion" we think of 1,500
years of persecution, of 6,000 years of hatred, slander
and vituperation. Strange, but true, that those who
have loved God most have loved men least; strange that
in countries where there has been the most religion there
has been the most agony; and that is one reason why I
am opposed to what is known as religion.
By religion I mean the duties that men are supposed
to owe to God; by religion I mean, not what man owes
to man, but what we owe to some invisible, infinite and
supreme being. The question arises, Can any relation
exist between finite man and infinite being? An infinite
being is absolutely conditional. An infinite being can-
not walk, cannot receive, and a finite being cannot give
590
SOME REASONS WHY. 591
to the infinite. Can I increase his happiness or decrease
his misery? Does he need my strength or my life?
What can I do for him? I say, nothing.
For one, I do not believe there is any God who gives
rain or sunshine for praying. For one, I do not be lieve
there is any being who helps man simply because he
kneels. I may be mistaken, but that is my doctrine
that the finite cannot by any possibility help the infinite,
or the infinite be indebted to the finite; that the finite
cannot by any possibility assist a being who is all in all.
What can we do? We can help man; we can help
clothe the naked, feed the hungry; we can help break
the chains of the slave; we can help weave a garment of
joy that will finally cover this world.
That is all that man can do. Wherever he has en-
deavored to do more he has simply increased the mis-
ery of his fellows. I can find out nothing of these things
myself by my unaided reasoning. If there is an infinite
God and I have not reason enough to comprehend His
universe, whose fault is it? I am told that we have the
inspired will of God. I do not know exactly what they
mean by inspired. Not two sects agree on that word.
Some tell me that every great work is inspired; that
Shakespeare is inspired. I would be less apt to dispute
that than a similar remark about any other book on this
earth. If Jehovah had wanted to have a book written,
the inspiration of which should not be disputed, He
should have waited until Shakespeare lived.
Whatever they mean by inspiration, they at least
mean that it is true. If it is true, it does not need to be
inspired. The truth will take care of itself. Nothing
except a falsehood needs inspiration. What is inspira-
592 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
tion? A man looks at the sea, and the sea says some-
thing to him. Another man looks at the same sea, and
the sea tells another story to him. The sea cannot tell
the same story to any two human beings. There is not
a thing in nature, from a pebble to a constellation, that
tells the same story to any two human beings. It de-
pends upon the man's experience, his intellectual devel-
opment, and what chord of memory it touches. One
looks upon the sea and is filled with grief; another looks
upon it and laughs.
Last year, riding in the cars from Boston to Ports-
mouth, sat opposite me a lady and gentleman. As we
reached the latter place the woman, for the first time in
her life, caught a burst of the sea, and she looked and
said to her husband " Isn't that beautiful!" And he
looked and said: " I'll bet you can dig clams right
there."
Another illustration: A little while ago a gentleman
was walking with another in South Carolina, at Charles-
ton one who had been upon the other side. Said the
Northerner to the Southerner, " Did you ever see such a
night as this; did you ever in your life see such a moon?"
4 'Oh, my God," said he, "you ought to have seen that
moon before the war! "
I simply say these things to convince you that every-
thing in nature has a different story to tell every human
being. So the bible tells a different story to every man
that reads it. History proves what I say. Why so
many sects? Why so much persecution? Simply be-
cause two people couldn't understand it exactly alike.
You may reply that God intended it should be so under-
stood, and that is the real revelation that God intended.
SOME REASONS WHY. 593
For instance, I write a letter to Smith. I want to
convey to him certain thoughts. If I am honest I will
use the words which will convey to him my thoughts,
but not being infinite, I don't know exactly how Smith
will understand my words; but if I were infinite I would
be bound to use the words that I know Smith would get
my exact idea from. If God intended to make a revela-
tion to me He has to make it to me through my brain
and my reasoning. He cannot make a revelation to
another man for me. That other man will have God's
word for it but I will only have that man's word for it.
As that man has been dead for several thousand years,
and as I don't know what his reputation was for truth
and veracity in the neighborhood in which he lived, I will
wait for the Lord to speak again.
Suppose when I read it, the revelation to me, through
the bible, is that it is not true, and God knew that I
would know that when I did read it, and knew, if I did
not say it, I would be dishonest. Is it possible that He
would damn me for being honest, and give me wings if
I would play the hypocrite?
The inspiration of the bible depends upon the ignor-
ance of the gentleman who reads it. Yet they tell me
this book was written by the creator of every shining star.
Now let us see. I want to be honest and candid . I
have just as much at stake in the way of soul as any
doctor of divinity that ever lived, and more than some I
have met. According to this book, the first attempt at
peopling this world was a failure. God had to destroy
all but eight. He saved some of the same kind to start
again, which I think was a mistake. After that, the
people still getting worse, he selected from the wide
594 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
world a few of the tribe of Abraham. He had no time
to waste with everybody. He had no time to throw
away on Egypt. It had at that time avast and splendid
civilization, in which there were free schools; in which
the one man married the one wife; where there were
courts of law; where there were codes of laws.
Neither could He give attention to India, that had at
that time a literature as splendid almost as ours, a lan-
guage as perfect; that had produced poets, philosophers,
statesmen. He had no time to waste with them, but
took a few of the tribe of Abraham, and He did His
best to civilize these people. He was their governor,
their executive, their supreme court. He established a
despotism, and from Mount Sinai He proclaimed His
laws. They didn't pay much attention to them. He
wrought thousands of miracles to convince them that He
was God..
Isn't it perfectly wonderful that the priest of one re-
ligion never believes the miracles told by the priest of
another? Is it possible that they know each other? I
heard a story the other day. A gentleman was telling a
very remarkable circumstance that happened to himself,
and all the listeners except one said, "Is it possible;
did you ever hear such a wonderful thing in all your life? "
They noticed that this one man didn't appear to take a
vivid interest in the story, so one said to him, "You
don't express much astonishment at the story?" "No, 4
says he, " I am a liar myself."
I find by reading this book that a worse government
was never established than that established by Jehovah;
that the Jews were the most unfortunate people who
lived upon the globe. Let us compare this book. In
SOME REASONS WHY. 595
all civilized countries it is riot only admitted, but passion-
ately asserted, that slavery is an infamous crime; that a
war of extermination is murder; that polygamy enslaves
woman, degrades man and destroys home; that nothing
is more infamous than the slaughter of decrepit men and
helpless women, and of prattling babes; that the cap-
tured maiden should not be giveh to her captors; that
wives should not be stoned to death for differing in re-
ligion from their husbands. We know there was a time
in the history of most nations when all these crimes were
regarded as divine institutions. Nations entertaining
these views to-day are called savage, and with the ex-
ception of the Feejee islanders, some tribes in Central
Africa, and a few citizens of Delaware, no human being
can be found degraded enough to agree upon those sub-
jects with Jehovah.
To-day, the fact that a nation has abolished and aban-
doned those things is the only evidence that it can offer
to show that it is not still barbarous; but a believer in
the inspiration of the bible is compelled to say there was
a time when slavery was right, when polygamy was the
highest form of virtue, when wars of extermination were
waged with the sword of mercy, and when the creator of
the whole world commanded the soldier to sheathe the
dagger of murder in the dimpled breast of infancy. The
believer of inspiration of the bible is compelled to say
there was a time when it was right for a husband to mur-
der his wife because they differed upon subjects of re-
ligion. I deny that such a time ever was. If I knew
the real God said it, I would still deny it.
Four thousand years ago, if the bible is true, God was
in favor of slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination and
596 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
religious persecution. Now we are told the devil is in
favor of all those things, and God is opposed to them;
in other words, the devil stands now where God stood
4,000 years ago; yet they tell me God is just as good
now as he was then, and the devil just as bad now as
God was then. Other nations believed in slavery, poly-
gamy, and war and persecution without ever having re-
ceived one ray of light from heaven. That shows that a
special revelation is not necessary to teach a man to do
wrong. Other nations did no worse without the bible
than the Jews did with it.
Suppose the devil had inspired a book. In what re-
spect would he have differed from God on the subject of
slavery, polygamy, wars of extermination, and religious
persecution? Suppose we knew that after God had fin-
ished his book the devil had gotten possession of it, and
written a few passages to suit himself, which passages,
O Christian, would you pick out now as having probably
been written by the devil? Which of these two, " Love
thy neighbor as thyself," or "Kill all the males among
the little ones, and kill every man, but all the women and
girls keep alive for yourselves " which of those two pas-
sages would they select as having been written by the
devil?
If God wrote the last, there is no need of a devil. Is
there a Christian in the wide world who does not wish
that God, from the thunder and lightning of Sinai, had
said: "You shall not enslave your fellow-man!" I am
opposed to any man who is in favor of slavery. If revo-
lution is needed at all it is to prevent man enslaving his
fellow-man.
But they say God did the best He could; that the
SOME REASONS WHY. 597
Jews were so bad that He had to come up kind of slow.
If He had told them suddenly they must not murder and
steal, they would not have paid any respect to the ten
commandments. Suppose you go to the Cannibal Islands
to prevent the gentlemen there from eating missionaries,
and you found they ate them raw. The first move is to
induce them to cook them. After you get them to eat
cooKed missionaries, you will then, without their know-
ing it, occasionally slip in a little mutton. We will go
on gradually decreasing missionaries and increasing mut-
ton until finally the last will be so cultivated that they
will prefer the sheep to the priest. Ithink the mission-
aries would object to that mode, of course.
I .know this was written by the Jews themselves. If
they were to write it now, it would be different. To-
day they are a civilized people. I do not wish it under-
stood that a word I say to-night touches the slightest
prejudice in any man's mind against the Jewish people.
They are as good a people as live to-day. I will say
right here, they never had any luck until Jehovah aban-
doned them.
Now we come to the new testament. They tell me
that is better than the old. I say it is worse. The
great objection to the old testament is that it is cruel;
but in the old testament the revenge of God stopped with
the portals of the tomb. He never threatened punish-
ment after death. He never threatened one thing be-
yond the grave. It was reserved for the new testament
to make known the doctrine of eternal punishment.
Is the new testament inspired? I have not time to
give many reasons, but I will give some. In the first
place, they tell me the very fact that the witnesses
598 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
disagree in minor matters shows that they have not con-
spired to tell the same story. Good. And I say in every
lawsuit where four or five witnesses testify, or endeavor
to testify, to the same transaction, it is natural that they
should differ on minor points. Why? Because no two
occupy exactly the same position; no two see exactly
alike; no two remember precisely the same, and their
disagreement is due to and accounted for by the imper-
fection of human nature, and the fact that they did not
all have an equal opportunity to know. But if you ad-
mit or say that the four witnesses were inspired by an
infinite being who did see it all, then they should remem-
ber all the same, because inspiration does not depend on
memory.
That brings me to another point. Why were there
four gospels? What is the use of more than one correct
account of anything? If you want to spread it, send cop-
ies. No human being has got the ingenuity to tell me
why there were four gospels, when one correct gospel
would have been enough. Why should there have been
four original multiplication tables? One is enough, and
if anybody has got any use for it he can copy that one.
The very fact that we have got four gospels shows that
it is not an inspired book.
The next point is that, according to the new testament,
the salvation of the world depended upon the atone-
ment. Only one of the books in the new testament says
anything about that, and that is John. The church fol-
lowed John, and they ought to follow John, because the
church wrote that book called John. According to that,
the whole world was to be damned on account of the sins
of one man; and that absurdity was the father and
SOME REASONS WHY- 599
mother of another absurdity that the whole world could
be saved on account of the virtue of another man. I deny
both propositions. No man can sin forme; no man can
be virtuous for me; I must reap what I sow. But they
say the law must be satisfied. What kind of a law is it
that would demand punishment of the innocent? Just
think of it. Here is a man about to be hanged, and
another comes up and says: " That man has got a fam-
ily, and I have not; that man is in good health and I am
not well, and I will be hung in his place." And the gov-
ernor says: "All right; a murder has been committed,
and we have got to have a hanging we don't care who."
Under the Mosaic dispensation there was no remis-
sion of sins without the shedding of blood. If a man
committed a murder he brought a pair of doves or a
sheep to the priest, and the priest laid his hands on the
animal, and the sins of the man were transferred to the
animal. You see how that could be done easy enough.
Then they killed the animal, and sprinkled its blood on
the altar. That let the man off. And why did God de-
mand the sacrifice of a sheep? I will tell you; because
priests love mutton.
To make the innocent suffer is the greatest crime. I
don't wish to go to heaven on the virtues of somebody
else. If I can't settle by the books and go, I don't
wish to go. I don't want to feel as if I was there on suf-
ferance that I was in the poorhouse of the universe,
supported by the town.
They teil us Judas betrayed Christ. Well, if Christ
had not been betrayed, no atonement would have been
made, and then every human soul would have been
damned, and heaven would have been for rent.
6oo INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Supposing that Judas knew the Christian system, then
perhaps he thought that by betraying Christ he could get
torgiven, not. only for the sins that he had already com-
mitted but for the sin of betrayal, and if, on the way to
Calvary, and later, some brave, heroic soul had rescued
Christ from the mob, he would have made his own
damnation sure. It won't do. There is no logic in
that.
They say God tried to civilize the Jews. If He had
succeeded, according to the Christian system, we all
would have been damned, because if the Jews had been
civilized they would not have crucified Christ. They
would have believed in the freedom of speech, and as a
result the world would have been lost for two thousand
years. The Christian world has been trying to explain
the atonement, and they have always ended by failing to
explain it.
Now I come to the second objection, which Is that cer-
tain belief is necessary to salvation. I will believe ac-
cording to the evidence. In my mind are certain scales,
which weigh everything, and my integrity stands there
and knows which side goes up and which side goes down.
If I am an honest man I will report the weights like an
honest man. They say I must believe a certain thing or
I will be eternally damned. They tell me that to believe
is the safer way. I deny it. The safest thing you can
do is to be honest. No man, when the shadows of the
last hours were gathering around him, ever wished that
he had lived the life of a hypocrite. If I find at the Day
of Judgment that I have been mistaken, I will say so,
like a man. If God tells me then that he is the anthor
of the old testament I will admit that he is worse than I
SOME REASONS WHY. 6oi
thought He was, and when He comes to pronounce sen-
tence upon me, I will say to Him: "Do unto others
as You would that others should do unto You." I have a
right to think; I cannot control my belief; my brain is
my castle, and if I don't defend it, my soul becomes a
slave and a serf.
If you throw away your reason, your soul is not worth
saving. Salvation depends, not upon belief but upon
deed upon kindness, upon justice, upon mercy. Your
own deeds are your savior, and you can be saved in no
other way. I am told in this testament to love my en-
emies. I cannot; I will not. I don't hate enemies; I
don't wish to injure enemies, but I don't care about see-
ing them. I don't like them. I love my friends, and
the man who loves enemies and friends loves me. The
doctrine of non-resistance is born of weakness. The
man that first said it, said it because it was the best he
could do under the circumstances. While the church
said, "love your enemies," in her sacred vestments
gleamed the daggers of assassination. With her cun-
ning hand, she wore the purple for hypocrisy, and placed
the crown upon the brow of crime.
For more than one thousand years larceny held the
scales of justice, and hypocrisy wore the mitre, and the
tiara of Christ was in fact God. He knew of the future.
He knew what crimes and horrors would be committed
in His name. He knew the fires of persecution would
climb around the limbs of countless martyrs; that brave
men and women would languish in dungeons and dark-
ness; that the church would use instruments of torture;
that in His name His followers would trade in human
flesh; that cradles would be robbed and women's breasts
602 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
unbabed for gold, and yet He died with voiceless lips.
If Christ was God, why did He not tell His disciples,
and through them, the world, ' ' Man shall not persecute
his fellow-man? " Why didn't He say, "I am God?"
Why didn't He explain the doctrine of the Trinity? why
didn't He tell what manner of baptism was pleasing to
Him? why didn't He say the old testament is true? why
didn't He write His testament himself? why did He leave
His words to accident, to ignorance, to malice, and to
chance? Why didn't He say something positive, defin-
ite, satisfactory, about .another world? Why did He
not turn the tear-stained hope of immortality to the glad
knowledge of another life? Why did he go dumbly to
His death, leaving the world to misery and to doubt?
Because He was a man.
Colonel Ingersoll read several extracts from the bible,
which he said originated with Zoroaster, Buddha, Cicero,
Epictetus, Pythagoras and other ancient writers, and he
read extracts from various pagan writers, which he
claimed compared favorably with the best things in the
bible. He continued:
No God has a right to create a man who is to be
eternally damned. Infinite wisdom has no right to make
a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not
a conspicuous success. Infinite wisdom has no right to
make an instrument that will not finally pay a dividend.
No God has a right to add to the agony of this universe,
and yet around the angels of immortality Christianity
has coiled this serpent of eternal pain. Upon love's
breast the church has placed that asp, and yet people
talk to me about the consolations of religion.
A few days ago the bark Tiger was found upon the
SOME REASONS WHY. 603
wide sea 126 days from Liverpool. For nine days not a
mouthful of food or a drop of water was to be had.
There was on board the captain, mate, and eleven men.
When they had been out 117 days they killed the
captain's dog. Nine days more no food, no water, and
Captain Kruger stood upon the deck in the presence of
his starving crew, with a revolver in his hand, put it upon
his temple, and said, " Boys, this can't last much longer;
I am willing to die to save the rest of you." The mate
grasped the revolver from his hand, and said, "Wait;' 1
and the next day upon the horizon of despair was the
smoke of the ship which rescued them. Do you tell me
to-night if Captain Kruger was not a Christian and he
had sent that ball crashing through his generous brain
that there was an Almighty waiting to clutch his naked
soul that He might damn him forever? It won't do.
Ah, but they tell me "You have no right to pick the
bad things out of the bible." I say, an infinite God has
no right to put bad things into His bible. Does any-
body believe if God was going to write a book now He
would uphold slavery; that He would favor polygamy;
that He would 'say kill the heathen, stab the women,
dash out the brains of the children? We have civilized
him. We make our own God, and we make Him better
day by day.
Some honest people really believe that in some wonder-
ful way we are indebted to Moses for geology, to Joshua
for astronomy and military tactics, to Samson for
weapons of war, to Daniel for holy curses, to Solomon
for the art of cross-examination, to Jonah for the science
of navigation, to Saint Paul for steamships and locomo-
tives, to the four Gospels for telegraphs and sewing-ma.-
604 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
chines, to the Apocalypse; for looms, saw-mills, and
telephones; and that to the sermon on the mount we are
indebted for mortars and Krupp guns. We are told that
no nation has ever been civilized without a bible. The
Jews had one, and yet they crucified a perfectly innocent
man. They couldn't have done much worse without a
bible.
God must have known 6,000 years ago that it was im-
possible to civilize people without a bible just as well as
they know it now. Why did He ever allow a nation to
be without a bible? Why didn't He give a few leaves to
Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden? Take from the
bible the miracles, and I admit that the good passages
are true. If they are true they don't need to be inspired.
Miracles are the children of mendacity. Nothing can be
more wonderful than the majestic, sublime, and eternal
march of cause and effect. Reason must be the final
arbiter. An inspired book cannot stand against a demon-
strated fact. Is a man to be rewarded eternally for be-
lieving without evidence or against evidence? Do you
tell me that the less brain a man has the better chance
he has for heaven? Think of a heaven filled with men
who never thought. Better that all that is should cease
to be; better that God had never been; better that all the
springs and seeds of things should fall and wither in
great nature's realm; better that causes and effects should
lose relation; better that every life should change to
breathless death and voiceless blank, and every star to
blind oblivion and moveless naught, than that this
religion should be true.
The religion of the future is humanity. The religion
of the future will say to every man, "You have the
SOME REASONS WHY.
60 5
right to thinK and investigate for yourself." Liberty is
my religion everything that is true, every good thought,
every beautiful thing, every self-denying action all these
make my bible. Every bubble, every star, are passages
in my bible. A constellation is a chapter. Every shin-
ing world is a part of it. You cannot interpolate it; you
cannot change it. It is the same forever. My bible is
all tha| speaks to man. Every violet, every blade of
grass, every tree, every mountain crowned with snow,
every star that shines, every throb of love, every honest
act, all that is good and true combined, make my bible;
and upon that book I stand.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: In the first place I want to
admit that there are a great many good people, quite
pious people, who don't agree with me, and all that
proves in the world, is, that I don't agree with them. I
am not endeavoring to force my ideas or notions upon
other people, but I am saying what little I can to induce
everybody in the world to grant to every other person
every right .he claims for himself. I claim, standing
under the flag of nature, under the blue and the stars,
that I am, the peer of any other man, and have the right
to think and express my thoughts. I claim that in the
presence of" the unknown, and upon a subject that no-
body knows anything about, and never did, I have as
good a right to guess as anybody else. The gentlemen
who hold views against mine, if they had any evidence,
would have no fears not the slightest.
If a man has a diamond that has been examined by the
606
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 6o/
lapidaries of the world, and some ignorant stonecutter
tells him that it is nothing but an ordinary rock, he
laughs at him; but if it has not been examined by
lapidaries, and he is a little suspicious himself that it is
not genuine, it makes him rnad. Any doctrine that will
not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of
an honest man. Any man who is afraid to have his
doctrine investigated is not only a coward but a hypocrite.
Now, all I ask is simply an opportunity to say my say.
I will give that right to everybody else in the world. I
understand that owing to my success in the lecture field
several clergymen have taken it into their heads to lecture
some of them, I believe, this evening. I say all that
I claim is the right I give to others, and any man who
will not give that right is a dishonest man, no matter
what church he may belong to or not belong to if he
does not freely accord to all others the right to think, he
is not an honest man. I said some time ago that if
there was any being who would eternally damn one of his
children for the expression of an honest opinion that he
was not a God, but that he was a demon; and from that
they have said first, that I did not believe in any God,
and, secondly, that I called Him a demon. If I did not
believe in Him how could I call Him anything? These
things hardly hang together. But that makes no differ-
ence; I expect to be maligned; I expect to be slandered;
I expect to have my reputation blackened by gentlemen
who are not fit to blacken my shoes.
But letting that pass I simply believe in liberty; that
is my religion; that is the altar where I worship; that is
my shrine that every human being shall have every
right that I have that is rny religion. I am going to
608 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
live up to it and going to say what little I can to make
the American people brave enough and generous enough
and kind enough to give everybody else the rights they
have themselves. Can there ever be any progress in this
world to amount to anything until we have liberty? The
thoughts of a man who is not free are not worth much
not much. A man who thinks with the club of a creed
above his head a man who thinks casting his eye
askance at the flames of hell, is not apt to have very
good thoughts. And for my part, I would not care to
have any status or social position even in heaven if I
had to admit that I never would have been there only I
got scared. When we are frightened we do not think
very well. If you want to get at the honest thoughts
of a man he must be free. If he is not free you will not
get his honest thought. You won't trade with a mer-
chant, if he is free; you won't employ him if he is a law-
yer, if he is free; you won't call him if he is a doctor,
if he is free; and what are you going to get out of him but
hypocrisy. Force will not make thinkers, but hypocrites.
A minister told me awhile ago, " Ingersoll," he
says, "if you do not believe the bible you ought
not to say so." Says I, "Do you believe the bible? "
He says, "I do." I says, " I don't know whether you
do or not; may be you are following the advice you gave
me; how shall I know whether you believe it or not? "
Now, I shall die without knowing whether that man be-
lieved the bible or not. There is no way that I can
possibly find out. because he said that even if he did not
believe it he would not say so. Now, I read, for instance,
a book. Now, let us be honest. Suppose that a clergy-
man and I were on an island nobody but us two and I
were to read a book, and I honestly believed it untrue,
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 609
and he asked me about it what ought I to say? Ought
I to say I believed it, and be lying, or ought I to say I
did not? that is the question; and the church can take
its choice between honest men, who differ, and hypocrites,
who differ, but say they do not you can have your
choice, all of you. *
If you give to us liberty, you will have in this country
a splendid diversity of individuality; but if on the con-
trary you say men shall think so and so, you will have
the sameness of stupid nonsense. In my judgment, it is
the duty of every man to think and express his thoughts;
but at the same time do not make martyrs of yourselves.
Those people that are not willing you should be honest,
are not worth dying for; they are not worth being a mar-
tyr for; and if you are afraid you cannot support your
wife and children in this town and express your honest
thought, why keep it to vourself, but if there is such a
man here he is a living certificate of the meanness of the
community in which he lives. Go right along, if you are
afraid it will take food from the mouths of your dear
babes- if you are afraid you cannot clothe your wife and
children, go along with them to church, say amen in as
near the right place as you can, if you happen to be
awake, and I will do your talking for you.
I will say my say, and the time will come when every
man in the country will be astonished that there ever was
a time that everybody had not the right to speak his
honest thoughts. If there is a man here or in this town,
* ' ' These black-coats are the only persons of my acquaintance who re-
semble the chameleon, in being able to keep one eye directed upwards to
heaven, and the other downwards to the good things of this world."
Alex, von Humboldt.
6io INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
preacher or otherwise, who is not willing that I should
think and speak, he is just so much nearer a barbarian
than I am. Civilization is liberty, slavery is barbarism;
civilization is intelligence,' slavery is ignorance; and if we
are any nearer free than were our fathers, it is because
we have got better heads and more brains in them that
is the reason. Every man who has invented anything
for the use and convenience of man has helped raise his
fellow-man, and all we have found out of the laws and
forces of nature so that we are finally enabled to bring
these forces of nature into subjection, to give us better
houses, better food, better clothes these are the real
civilizers of our race; and the men who stand up as
prophets and predict hell to their fellow-man, they are
not the civilizers of our race; the men who cut each
other's throats because they fell out about baptism they
are riot the civilizers of my race; the men who built the
inquisitions and put into dungeons all the grand and
honest men they could find they are not the civilizers of
my race.
The men who have corrupted the imaginations and
hearts of men by their infamous dogma of hell they are
not the civilizers of my race. The men who have been
predicting good for mankind, the men who have found
some way to get us better homes and better houses and
better education, the men who have allowed us to make
slaves of the blind forces of nature they have made this
world fit to live in.
I want to prove to you if I can that this is all a ques-
tion of intellectual development, a question of sense, and
the more a -man knows the more liberal he is; the less a
man knows the more bigoted he is. The less a man
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 6 1 I
knows the more certain he is that he knows it, and the
more a man knows the better satisfied he is that he is
entirely ignorant. Great knowledge is philosophic, and
little, narrow, contemptible knowledge is bigoted and
hateful. I want to prove it to you . I saw a little while
ago models of nearly everything man has made for his
use nearly everything. I saw models of all the water-
craft; from the rude dug-out, in which paddled the naked
savage, with his forehead about half as high as his teeth
were long all the water craft from that dug-out up to a
man of war that carries a hundred guns and miles of can-
vas; from that rude dug-out to a steamship that turns its
brave prow from the port of New York, with three thou-
sand miles of foaming billows before it, not missing a
throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from one shore to
the other. I saw their ideas of weapons, from the rude
club, such as was siezed by that same barbarian as he
emerged from his den in the morning, hunting a snake
for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the
dagger, to the sword, to the blunderbuss, to the old flint-
lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, to the cannon
invented by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing
two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid
steel.
I saw their ideas of defensive armor, from the turtle-
shell which one of these gentlemen lashed upon his breast
preparatory to going to war, or the skin of a porcupine,
dried with the* quills on, that he pulled on his orthodox
head before he sallied forth. By ' ' orthodox " I mean a
man who has quit growing; not simply in religion, but in
everything; whenever a man is done, he is orthodox;
whenever he thinks he has found out all, he is orthodox;
612 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
whenever he becomes a drag on the swift car of progress,
he is orthodox. I saw their defensive armor, from the
turtle-shell and the porcupine skin to the shirts of mail of
the middle ages, that defied the edge of the sword and
the point of the spear. I saw their ideas of agricultural
implements, from the crooked stick that was attached to
the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricult-
ural implements of to-day, that make it possible for a
man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.
When they had none of these agricultural implements
when they depended upon one crop they were super-
stitious, for if the frosts struck one crop they thought
the gods were angry with them.
Now, with the implements, machinery and knowledge
of mechanics of to-day, people have found out that no
man can be good enough nor bad enough to cause a frost.
After having found out these things are contrary to the
laws of nature, they began to raise more than one kind
of crop. If the frost strikes one they have the other; if
it happins to strike all in that locality there is a surplus
somewhere else, and that surplus is distributed by rail-
ways and steamers and by the thousand ways that we
have to distribute these things; and as a consequence the
agriculturist begins to think and reason, and now for the
first time in the history of the world the agriculturist
begins to stand upon a level with the mechanic and with
the man who has confidence in the la^vs and facts of
nature.
I saw there their musical instruments, from the tom-
tom (that .is a hoop with two strings of rawhide drawn
across it) to the instruments we have that make the com-
mon air blossom with melody. I saw their ideas or orna-
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 613
ments, from a string of the claws of a wild beast that
once ornamented the dusky bosom of some savage belle,
to the rubies and sapphires and diamonds with which
civilization to-day is familiar. I saw the books, written
upon the shoulder-blades of sheep, upon the bark of trees,
down to the illustrated volumes that are now in the
libraries of the world. I saw their ideas of paintings,
from the rude daubs of yellow mud, to the grand pictures
we see in the art galleries of to-day. I saw their ideas
of sculpture, from a monster god with several legs, a
good many noses, a great many eyes, and one little, con-
temptible, brainless head, to the sculpture that we have,
where the marble is clothed with such personality that it
seems almost impudence to touch it without an introduce
tion. I saw all these things, and how men had gradually
improved through the generations that are dead. And
I saw at the same time a row of men's skulls skulls
from the Bushmen of Australia, skulls from the center of
Africa, skulls from the farthest islands of the Pacific,
skulls from this country from the aborigines of America,
skulls of the Aztecs, up to the best skulls, or many of
the best of the last generation; and I noticed there was
the same difference between the skulls as between the
products of the skulls, the same between that skull and
that, as between the dugout and the man-of-war, as be-
tween the dugout and the steamship, as between the
tom-tom and an opera of Verdi, as between those ancient
agricultural implements and ours, as between that yellow
daub and that landscape, as between that stone god and
a statue of to-day; and ]> said to my self, " This is a
question of intellectual development; this is a question of
brain. " The man has advanced just in proportion as he
614 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
has mingled his thoughts with his labor, and just in pro-
portion that his brain has gotten into partnership with
his hand. Man has advanced just as he has developed
intellectually, and no other way. That skull was a low
den in which crawled and groped the meaner and baser
instincts of mankind, and this was a temple in which
dwelt love, liberty ar*i joy.
Why is it that we have advanced in the arts? It is
because every incentive has been held out to the world;
because we want better clubs or better cannons with
which to kill our fellow Christians; we want better music,
we want better houses, and any man who will invent
them, and any man who will give them to us we will
clothe him in gold and glory; we will crown him with
honor,. That gentleman in his dugout not only had his
ideas of mechanics, but he was a politician. His idea of
politics was, "Might makes right;" and it will take
thousands of years before the world will be willing to say
that, "Right makes might." That was his idea of
politics, and he had another idea that all power came
from the clouds, and that every armed thief that lived
upon the honest labor of mankind had had poured out
upon his head the divine oil of authority. He didn't
believe the power to govern came from the people; he
did not believe that the great mass of people had any
right whatever, or that the great mass of people could be
allowed the liberty of thought and we have thousands
of such to-day.
They say thought is dangerous don't investigate; *
* "There is no method of reasoning more common, or more blamable,
than in philosophical disputes, to endeavor the refutation of any hypo-
thesis, by a pretense of its dangerous consequences to religion and moral-
ity DAVID HUME.
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 615
don't inquire; just believe; shut your eyes, and then you
are safe. You must not hear this man or that man or
some other man, or our dear doctrines will be overturned,
and we have nobody on our side except a large majority;
we have nobody on our side except the wealth and re-
spectability of the world; we have nobody on our side
except the infinite God, and we are afraid that one man,
in one or two hours, will beat the whole party.
This man in the dugout also had his ideas of religion
that fellow was orthodox, and any man who differed
with him he called an infidel, an atheist, an outcast, and
warned everybody against him. He had his religion he
believed in hell; he was glad of it; he enjoyed it; it was
a great source of comfort to him to think when he didn't
like people that he would have the pleasure of looking
over and seeing them squirm upon the gridiron. When
any man said he didn't believe there was a hell this
gentleman got up in his pulpit and called him a hyena.
That fellow believed in a devil too; that lowest skull was
a devil factory he believed in him. He believed he had
a long tail adorned with a fiery dart; he believed he had
wings like a bat, and had a pleasant habit of breathing
sulphur; and he believed he had a cloven foot such as
most of your clergymen think I am blessed with myself.
They are shepherds of the sheep. The people are the
sheep that is all they are, they have to be watched and
guarded by these shepherds and protected from the wolf
who wants to reason with them. That is the doctrine.
Now, all I claim is the same right to improve on that
gentleman's politics, as on the dug-out, and the same
right to improve upon his religion as upon his plough, or
the musical instrument known as the tomtom that is all.
616 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Now, suppose the king and priest, if there was one, and
and there probably was one, as the farther you go back
the more ignorant you find mankind and the thicker you
find these gentlemen suppose the king and priest had
said: " That boat is the best boat that ever can be built;
we got the model of that from Neptune, the god of the
seas, and I guess the god of the water knows how to
build a boat, and any man that says he can improve it by
putting a stick in the middle with a rag on the end of it,
and has any talk about the wind blowing this way, and
that, he is-a heretic he is a blasphemer." Honor bright,
what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon
the circumnavigation of the globe? I think we would
have been on the other side yet. Suppose the king and
priests had said: " That plow is the best that ever can
be invented; the model of that was given to a pious
farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne
plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says
he can out-twist it, we will twist him." Suppose the
king and priests had said: "That tomtom is the finest
instrument of music in the world that is the kind of
music found in heaven. An angel sat upon the edge of
a glorified cloud playing upon that tomtom and became
so entranced with the music that in a kind of ecstasy she
dropped it and that is how we got it, and any man who
talks about putting any improvement on that, he is not
fit to live." Let me ask you do you believe if that had
been done that the human ears ever would have been
enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven?
All I claim is the same right to improve upon this bar-
barian's ideas of politics and religion as upon everything
else, and whether it is an improvement or not, I have a
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT.
right to suggest it that is my doctrine. They say to
me, "God will punish you forever, if you do these
things." Very well. I will settle with Him. I had
rather settle with Him than any one of His agents. I dc
not like them very well. In theology I am a granger 1
do not believe in middle-men, what little business I have
with heaven I will attend to myself. Our fathers thought,
just as many now think, that you could force men to
think your way and if they failed to do it by reason, they
tried it another way. I used to read about it when I was
a boy it did not seem to me that these things were true;
it did not seem to me that there ever was such heartless
bigotry in the heart of man- but there was and is to-night.
I used to read about it I did not appreciate it. I never
appreciated it until I saw the arguments of those gentle-
men. They used to use just such arguments as that man
in the dug-out would have used to the next man ahead of
him. This low, miserable skull this next man was a
little higher, and this fellow behind called him a heretic,
and the next was still a little higher, and he was called
an infidel.
And, so it went on through the whole row always
calling the man who was ahead an infidel and a heretic.
No man was ever called so who was behind the army of
progress. It has always been the man ahead that has
been called the heretic. Heresy is the last and best
thought always. Heresy extends the hospitality of the
brain to a new idea; that is what the rotting says to the
growing; that is what the dweller in the swamp says to
the man on the sun-lit hill; that is what the man in the
darkness cries out to the grand man upon whose forehead
is shining the dawn of a grander day; that is what the
618 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
coffin says to the cradle. Orthodoxy is a kind of shroud,
and heresy is a banner orthodoxy is a frog and heresy a
star shining forever above the cradle of truth. I do not
mean simply in religion, I mean in everything, and the
idea I wish to impress upon you is that you should keep
your minds open to all the influences of nature; you
should keep your minds open to reason. Hear what a
man has to say, and do not let the turtle-shell of bigotry
grow above your brain. Give everybody a chance and
an opportunity; that is all.
I saw the arguments that those gentlemen have used
on each other through all the ages. I saw a little bit of
a thumbscrew not more than so long (illustrating), and
attached to each end was a screw, and the inner surface
was trimmed with little protuberances to prevent their
slipping; and when some man doubted when a man had
an idea then those that did not have an idea put the
thumbscrew upon him who did. He had doubted some-
thing. For instance, they told him, " Christ says you
must love your enemies;" he says, "I do not know
about that;" then they said, "We will show you!"
" Do unto others as you would be done by," they said is
the doctrine. He doubted. "We will show you that it
is!" So they put this screw on; and in the name of uni-
versal love and universal forgiveness " pray for those
who despitefully use you " they began screwing these
pieces of iron into him always done in the name of
religion always. It never was done in the name of
reason, never was done in the name of science never.
No man was ever persecuted in defense of a truth
never. No man was ever persecuted except in defense
of a lie never.
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 6lQ
This man had fallen out with them about something;
he did not understand it as they did. For instance he
said, "I do not believe there ever was a man whose
strength was in his hair." They said: "You don't?
We'll show you! " " I do not believe," he says, " that
a fish ever swallowed a man to save his life." "You
don't? Well, we'll show you! " And so they put this on,
and generally the man would recant and say, ' ' Well, I'll
take it back." Well I think I should. Such men are
not worth dying for. The idea of dying for a man that
would tear the flesh of another on account of an honest
difference of opinion such a man is not worth dying for;
he is not worth living for, and if I was in a position that
I could not send a bullet through his brain, I would
recant. I would say: "You write it down and I will
sign it I will admit that there is one God, or a million
suit yourself; one hell or a billion; you just write it
only stop this screw. You are not worth suffering for,
you are not worth dying for and I am never going to take
the part of any Lord that won't take my part you
just write it down and I'll sign it."
But there was now and then a man who would not do
that. He said, "No, I believe I am right, and I will die
for it," and I suppose we owe what little progress we
have made to a few men in all ages of the world who
really stood by their convictions. The men who stood
by the truth and the men who stood by a fact, they are
the men that have helped raise this world, and in every
age there has been some sublime and tender soul who was
true to his convictions, and who really lived to make men
better. In every age some men carried the torch of
progress and handed it to some other, and it has been
620 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
carried through all the dark ages of barbarism, and had
it not been for such men we would have been naked and
uncivilized to-night, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed
on our skins, dancing around some dried snake fetish.
When a man would not recant, these men, in the
name of the love of the Lord, screwed them down to the
last thread of agony and threw them into some dungeon,
where, in the throbbing silence of darkness, they suffered
the pangs of the fabled damned; and this was done in
the name of civilization, love and order, and in the
name of the most merciful Christ.
There are no thumbscrews now; they are rusting away;
but every man in this town who is not willing that
another shall do his own thinking and will try to prevent
it, has in him the same hellish spirit that made and used
that very instrument of torture, and the only reason he
does not use it to-day is because he cannot. The reason
that I speak here to-night is because they cannot help it.
I saw at the same time a beautiful little instrument for
the propagation of kindness, called "The Scavenger's
Daughter." (The lecturer here described and illustrated
construction of the instrument.) The victim would be
thrown upon that instrument and the strain upon the
muscles was such that insanity would sometimes come to
his relief. See what we owe to the civilizing influence of
the gentlemen who have made a certain idea in meta-
physics necessary to salvation see what we owe to them.
[ saw a collar of torture which they put about the
neck of their victim, and inside of that there were a
hundred points, so that the victim could not stir without
the skin being punctured with these points, and after a
little while the throat would swell and suffocation would
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 621
end the agony, and they would have that done in the
presence of his wife and weeping children. That was all
done so that finally everybody would love everybody else
as his brother. I saw a rack. Imagine a wagon with a
windlass on each end, and each windlass armed with
leather bands,' and a ratchet that prevented slipping.
The victim was placed. upon this.
May be he had denied something that some idiot said
was true; may be he had a discussion a division of opin-
ion with a man like John Calvin. John Calvin said
Christ was the Eternal Son of God and Michael Servetus
said that Christ was the son of the Eternal God. That
was the only difference of opinion. Think of it! What
an important thing it was! How it would have affected
the price of food! " Christ is the Eternal Son of God,"
said one; " No," said the other, " Christ is the Son of
Eternal God" that was all, and for that difference of
opinion Michael Servetus was burned at a slow fire of
green wood, and the wind happening to blow the flames
from him instead of towards him, he was in the most
terrible agony, writhing for minutes and minutes, and
hours and hours, and finally he begged and implored
those wretches to move him so that the wind would blow
the flames against him and destroy him without such
hellish agony, but they were so filled with the doctrine
of "love your enemies" that they would not do it. I
never will, for my part, depend upon any religion that
has ever shed a drop of human blood. *
Upon this rack I have described, this victim was
* Speaking of the Inquisition, Prof. Draper says: " With such savage
alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion,
that between 1480 and 1808 it had punished 340,000 persons, and of these
nearly 32,000 had been burnt! " Conflict between Religion and Science.
622 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
placed, and those chains were attached to his Ankles and
then to his waist, and clergymen good men! pious men!
men that were shocked at the immorality of their day!
They talked about playing cards and the horrible crime
of dancing! Oh, how such things shocked them; men
going to theaters and seeing a play written by the grand-
est genius the world ever has produced. How it shocked
their sublime and tender souls! But they commenced
turning this machine, and they kept on turning until the
ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists were
all dislocated and the victim was red with the sweat of
agony, and they had standing by a physician to feel the
pulse, so that the last faint flutter of life would not leave
his veins. Did they wish to save his life? Yes. In
mercy? No! Simply that they might have the pleasure
of racking him once again . That is the spirit, and it is
a spirit born of the doctrine that there is upon the throne
of the universe a being who will eternally damn his chil-
dren, and they said: " If God is going to have the su-
preme happiness of burning them forever, certainly he
ought not to begrudge to us the joy of burning them for
an hour or two." That was their doctrine, and when I
read these things it seems to me that I have suffered
them myself.
When I look upon those instruments I look upon them
as though I had suffered all these tortures myself. It
seems to me as though I had stood upon the shore an
exile and looking with tear-filled eyes toward home and
native land. It seems as though my nails had been
plucked out and into bleeding flesh needles had been
thrust; as though my eyelids had been torn away and I
had been set out in the ardent rays of the sun; as though
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 623
I had been set out upon the sands of the sea and drowned
by the inexorable tide; as though I had been in the
dungeon waiting for the coming footsteps of relief; as
though I had been upon the scaffold and seen the glitter-
ing axe falling upon me; and seen bending above me the
the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though I had been
taken from my wife and children to the public square,
where faggots had been piled around me and the flames
had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to
blindness; as though my ashes had been scattered by all
the hands of hatred; and I feel like saying, that while I
live I will do what little I can to preserve and augment
the rights of men, women and children; while I live I
will do a little something so that they who come after
me shall have the right to think and express that thought.
The trouble is those who oppose us pretend they are
better than we are. They are more mortal, they are
kinder, they are more generous. I deny it. They are
not. And if they are the ones that are to be saved in
another world, and if those who simply think they are
honest, and express that honest thought, are to be
damned, there will be but little originality, to say the
least of it, in heaven. They say they are better than we
are and to show you how much better they are I have
got at home copies of some letters that passed between
gentlemen high in the church several hundred y^ars ago,
and the question was this: " Ought we to cut out the
tongues of blasphemers before we burn them? " And
they finally decided that they ought to do so, and I will
tell you the reason they gave. They said if they were
not cut out that while they were being burned, they might,
by their heresies, scandalize the gentleman who would
624 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
bring the wood; they were too good to hear these things
and they might be injured; and the same idea appears to
prevail in this world now that they are too good and they
must not be shocked.
They say to us: " You must not shock us, and when
you say there is no hell we are shocked. You must not
say that." When I go to church and they tell me there
is a hell I must not get shocked; and if they tell me that
there is not only a hell, but that I am going to it, I must
not be shocked. Even if they take the next step and act
as though they would be glad to see me there, still I
must not be shocked. I will agree to keep from being
shocked as long as anybody in the world they can say
what they please; I will not get shocked, but let me say
it. You send missionaries to Turkey and tell them that
the Koran is a lie. You shock them. You tell them
that Mahomet was not a prophet . You shock them. It
is too bad to shock them. You go to India and you tell
them that Vishnu was nothing, Purana was nothing, that
Buddha was nobody, and your Brahma, he is nothing.
Why do you shock these people? You should not do
that; you ought not to hurt their feelings. I teli you no
man on earth has a right to be shocked at the expression
of an honest opinion when it is kindly done, and I don't
believe there is any God in the universe who has put a
curtain over the fact and made it a crime for the honest
hand of investigation to endeavor to draw that curtain.
This world has not been fit to live in fifty years. There
is no liberty in it very little. Why, it is only a few
years ago that all the Christian nations were engaged in
the slave trade. It was not until 1808, that England
abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her priests
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 625
in her churches, and her judges on her benches, owned
stock in slave ships, and luxuriated on the profits 1 of
piracy and murder; and when a man stood up and de-
nounced it, they mobbed him as though he had been a
common burglar or a horse thief. Think of it! It was
not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that England
abolished slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the
first day of January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, by
direction of the entire North, wiped that infamy out of
this country; and I never speak of Abraham Lincoln but
I want to say that he was, in my judgment, in many re-
spects the grandest man ever president of the United
States. I say that upon his tomb there ought to be this
line and I know of no other man deserving it so well as
he: "Here lies one who, having been clothed with
almost absolute power, never abused it except on the
side of mercy."
Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they
call themselves, defending the institution of slavery.
When I was a little boy I used to see steamers go down
the Mississippi river with hundreds of men and women
chained hand to hand, and even children, and men stand-
ing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in
their pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civ-
ilization and in the name of religion! I used to hear
them preach to these slaves in the South and the only
text they ever took was "Servants, be obedient unto
your masters," That was the salutation of the most
merciful God to a man whose back was bleeding, that
was the salutation of the most merciful God to the slave-
mother bending over an empty cradle, to the woman
from whose breast a child had been stolen "Servants,
626 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
be obedient unto you masters." That was what they
said to man running for his life and for his liberty through
tangled swamps and listening to the baying of blood-
hounds, and when he listened for them the voice came
from heaven : ' ' Servants, be obedient unto your masters. "
That is civilization. Think what slaves we have been!
Think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth
even! How they used to cringe in old times before a
man who was rich there are so many of them gone into
bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear.
We used to worship the golden calf, and the worst you
can say of us now, is, we worship the gold of the calf,
and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction.
We used to go down on our knees to every man that held
office; now he must fill it if he wishes any respect. We
care nothing for the rich, except what will they do with
their money? Do they benefit mankind? That is the
question. You say this man holds an office. How does
he fill it? that is the question. And there is rapidly
growing up in the world an aristocracy of heart and brain
the only aristocracy that has a right to exist. We are
getting free. We are thinking in every direction. We
are investigating with the microscope and the tele-
scope. We are digging into the earth and finding sou-
venirs of all the ages. We are finding out something
about the laws of health and disease. We are adding
years to the span of human life and we are making the
world fit to live in. That is what we are doing, and every
man that has an honest thought and expresses it, helps,
and every man that tries to keep honest thought from
being expressed is an obstruction and a hindrance.
Now if men have been slaves what shall we say of
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 627
women? They have been the slaves of slaves. The
meaner a man is, the better he thinks he is than a wom-
an. As a rule, you take an ignorant, brutal man don't
talk to him about a woman governing him, he don't
believe it not he; and nearly every religion of this world
has been gallant enough to account for all the trouble and
misfortune we have had by the crime of woman.
Even if it is true, I do not care; I had rather live in a
world full of trouble with the woman I love than in
heaven with nobody but men. Nearly every religion
accounts for all the trouble we have ever had by the
crime of woman. I recollect one book where I read an
account of what is called the creation I arn not giving
the exact words, I will give the substance of it. The su-
preme being thought best to make a world and one man
never thought about making a woman at that time;
making a woman was a second thought, and I am free to
admit that second thoughts as a rule are best. He made
this world and one man, and put this man in a park, or
garden, or public square, or whatever you might call it,
to dress and keep it. The man had nothing to do. He
moped around there as though he was waiting for a train.
And the supreme being noticed that he got lonesome I
am glad He did! It occurred to Him that he would
make a companion, and having made the world and one
man out of nothing, and having used up all the nothing,
He had to take a part of the man to start the woman
with I am not giving the exact language, neither do I
say this story is true. -I do not know. I would not want
to deceive anybody.
So sleep fell upon this man, and they took from his
side a rib the French would call it a cutlet. And out
628 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
of that they made a woman, and taking into considera-
tion the amount and quality of the raw material used, I
look upon it as the most successful job ever accomplished
in this world. I am giving just a rough outline of this
story. After He got the woman done she was brought
to the man not to see how she liked him, but to see how
he he liked her. He liked her and the} went to keeping
house. Before she was made there was really nothing
to do; there was no news, no politics, no religion, not
even civil service reform. And as the divil had not yet
put in an appearance, there was no chance to conciliate
him. They started in the housekeeping business, and
they were told they could do anything they liked except
eat an apple. Of course they ate it. I would have done
it myself I know. I am satisfied I would have had an.
apple off that tree, if I had been there, in fifteen minutes.
They were caught at it, and they were turned out, and
there was an extra police force put on to keep them from
coming in again. And then measles, and whooping-
cough, mumps, etc. , started in the race of man, roses be-
gan to have thorns and snakes began to have teeth, and
people began to fight about religion and politics, and
they have been fighting and scratching each other's eyes
out from that day to this.
I read in another book an account of the same trans-
action. They tell us the Supreme Brahma made up his
mind to make a man, a woman, and a world; and that
he put this man and woman in the island of Ceylon.
According to the description, it was the most beautiful
isle that ever existed; it beggared the description of a
Chicago land agent completely. It was delightful; the
branches of the trees were so arranged that when the
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 629
wind swept through them they seemed like a thousand
seolian harps, and the man was named Adami, and the
woman's name was Heva. This book was written about
three or four thousand years before the other one, and
all the commentators in this country agree that the story
that was written first was copied from the one that was
written last. I hope you 'will not let a matter of three or
four thousand years interfere with your ideas on the sub-
ject. The Supreme Brahma said: " Let them have a
period of courtship, because it is my desire that true love
always should precede marriage " and that was so much
better than lugging her up to him and saying, ' ' Do you
like her?" that upon my word I said when I read it, " If
either one of these stories turn out to be true, I hope it
will be this one."
They had a courtship in the starlight and moonlight,
and perfume-laden air, with the nightingale singing his
song of joy, and they got in love. There was nobody
to bother them, no prospective fathers or mothers-in-
law, no gossiping neighbors, nobody to say ' * Young
man, how do you propose to support her" they got in
love and they were married, and they started keeping
house, and the Supreme Brahma said to them: " You
must not leave this island." After awhile the man got
uneasy wanted to go West. He went to the western
extremity of the island, and there the devil got up,
and when he looked over on the main land he saw
such hills and valleys and torrents, and such mountains
crowned with snow; such cataracts, robed in glory, that
he went right back to Heva. Says he: "Come over
here; it is a thousand times better;" says he: " let us
emigrate." She said, like another woman: "No, let
630 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
well enough alone; we have no rent to pay, and no taxes;
we are doing very well now, let us stay where we are.'''
But he insisted, and so she went with him, and when he
got to this western extremity, where there was a little
neck of land leading to this better land, he took her on
his back and walked over, and the moment he got over
he heard a crash, and he looked back and this narrow
neck of land had sunk into the sea, leaving here and
there a rock (and those rocks are called even unto this
day the footsteps of Adami), and when he looked back
this beautiful mirage had disappeared.
Instead of verdure and flowers there was naught but
rocks and sand, and then he heard the voice of the Su-
preme Brahrna crying out cursing them both to the low-
est hell, and then it was that Adami said: " Curse me,
if you choose, but not her; it was not her fault, it was
mine; curse me." That is the kind of a man to start a
world with. And the Supreme Brahma said "I will
spare her, but I will not spare you." Then she spoke,
out of a breast so full of affection that she has left a
legacy of love to all her daughters: " If thou wilt not
spare him, spare neither me, because I love him." Then
the Supreme Brahma said and I have liked him ever
since " I will spare both, and watch over you and your
children forever."
Now, really this story appears to me better than the
other one. It is loftier; there is more in it than I can
admire.
In order to show you that humanity does not belong
to any particular nation, and that there are great and
tender souls everywhere, let me tell you a little more
that is in this book.
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 631
" Blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods who
is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid."
Think of that kind of character! Another: "Man is
strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is
love; and where the one man loves the one woman the
very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house
and sing for joy." I think that is nearly equal to this:
" If you do not want your wife, give her a writing of
divorcement," and make the mother of your children a
houseless wanderer and a vagrant nearly as good as
that.
1 believe that marriage should be a perfect partnership;
that woman should have all the rights that man has, and
one more the right to be protected. I believe in mar-
riage. It took hundreds and thousands of years for
woman to get from a state of abject slavery up to the
height even of marriage. I have not the slightest respect
for the ideas of those short-haired women and long-haired
men who denounce the institution of the family, who
denounce the institution of marriage; but I hold in greater
contempt the husband who would enslave his wife. I hold
in greater contempt the man who is anything in his family
love and tenderness, and kindness. I say it took except
hundreds of years for woman to come from a state of
slavery to marriage; and ladies, the chains that are upon
your necks and the bracelets that are put upon your
arms were iron, and they have been changed by the touch
of the wand of civilization to shining, glittering gold.
Woman came from a condition of abject slavery and
thousands and thousands of them are in that condition
now. I believe marriage should be a perfect and equal
partnership. I do not like a man who thinks he is boss.
632 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
That fellow in the dug-out was always talking about
being boss. I do not like a man who thinks he is the
head of the family. I do not like a man who thinks he
has got authority and that the woman belongs to him
that wants for his wife a slave. I would not have a
slave for my wife. I would not want the love of a wom-
an that is not great enough, grand enough, and splendid
enough to be free. I will never give to any woman my
heart upon whom I afterwards would put chains.
Do you know sometimes I think generosity is about
the only virtue there is. How I do hate a man that has
to be begged and importuned every minute for a few cents
by his wife. "Give me a dollar?" "What did you do
with that fifty cents I gave you last Christmas? " If you
make your wife a perpetual beggar, what kind of chil-
dren do you expect to raise with a beggar for their
mother? If you want great children, if you want to peo-
ple this world with great and grand men and women they
must be born of love and liberty. I have known men
that would trust a woman with their heart if you call
that thing which pushes their blood around a heart; and
with their honor if you call that fear, of getting into
the penitentiary, honor; I have known men that would
trust that heart and that honor with a woman, but not
their pocket-book not a dollar bill. When I see a man
of that kind, I think they know better than 1 do which
of these three articles is the most valuable. I believe if
you have got a dollar in the world and you have got to
spend it, spend it like a man; spend it like a king, like a
prince. If you have to spend it, spend it as though it
was a dried leaf, and you were the owner of unbounded
forests. I had rather be a beggar and spend my last
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 633
dollar like a king than be a king and spend my money
like a beggar. What is it worth compared with the love
of a splendid woman?
People tell me that is very good doctrine for rich folks,
but it won't do for poor folks. I tell you that there is
more love in the huts and homes of the poor, than in the
mansions of the rich, and the meanest hut with love in it
is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without that, is
a den only fit for wild beasts. The man who has the love
of one splendid woman is a rich man. Joy is wealth, and
love is the legal tender of the soul! Love is the only thing
that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both;
and if some men were as ashamed of appearing cross in
public as they are of appearing tender at home, this world
would be infinitely better. I think you can make your
home a heaven if you want to you can make up your
minds to that. When a man comes home let him come
home like a ray of light in the night bursting through the
doors and illuminating the darkness. What right has a
man to assassinate joy, and murder happiness in the
sanctuary of love to be a cross man, a peevish man is
that the way he courted? Was there always something
ailing him? Was he too nervous to hear her speak? When
I see a man of that kind I am always sorry that doctors
know so much about preserving life as they do.
It is not necessary to be rich, nor powerful, nor great
to be a success; and neither is it necessary to have your
name between the putrid lips of rumor to be great. We
have had a false standard of success. In the years when
I was a little boy we read in our books that no fellow
was a success that did not make a fortune or get a big
office, and he generally was a man that slept about three
634 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
hours a night. They never put down in the books the
names of those gentlemen that succeeded in life that
slept all they wanted to; and we all thought that we
could not sleep to exceed three or four hours if we ever
expected to be anything in this world. We have had a
wrong standard. The happy man is the successful man;
and the man who makes somebody else happy, is a happy
man. The man that has gained the loye of one good,
splendid, pure woman, his life has been a success, no
matter if he dies in the ditch; and if he gets to be a
crowned monarch of the world, and never had the love
of one splendid heart, his life has been an ashen vapor.
A little while ago I stood by the tomb of the first
Napoleon, a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost
for a dead deity, and here was a great circle, and in the
bottom there, in a sarcophagus, rested at last the ashes
of that restless man. I looked at that tomb, and I
thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the
modern world. As I looked in imagination I could see
him walking up and down the banks of the Seine con-
templating suicide. I could see him at Toulon; I could
see him at Paris, putting down the mob; I could see him
at the head of the army of Italy; I could see him cross-
ing the bridge of Lodi, W 7 ith the tri-color in his hand; I
saw him in Egypt, fighting battles under the shadow of
the Pyramids; I saw him returning; I saw him conquer
the Alps, and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles
of Italy; I saw him at Marengo, I saw him at Austerlitz;
I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and
the blast smote his legions, when death rode the icy
winds of winter. I saw him at Leipsic; hurled back upon
Paris, banished; and I saw him escape from Elba and
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 635
retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him
at the field of Waterloo, where fate and chance com-
bined to wreck the fortune of their former king. 1 saw
him at St. Helena, with his hands behind. his back, gaz-
ing out upon the sad and solemn sea, and I thought of
all the widows he had made, of all the orphans, of all
the tears that had been shed for his glory; and I thought
of the woman, the only woman who ever loved him,
pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition
and I said to myself, as I gazed, " I would rather have
been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes, and
lived in a little hut with a vine running over the door
and the purple grapes growing red in the armorous kisses
of the autumn sun I would rather have been that poor
French peasant, to sit in my door, with my wife knitting
by my side and rny children upon my knees with their
arms around my neck I would rather have lived and
died unnoticed and unknown except by those who loved
me, and gone down to the voiceless silence of the dream-
less dust I would rather have been that French peasant
than to have been that imperial impersonation of force
arid murder who covered Europe with blood and tears."
I tell you I had rather make somebody happy, I would
rather have the love of somebody; I would rather go to
the forest, far away, and build me a little cabin build it
myself and daub it with mud, and live there with my wife
and children; I had rather go there and live by myself
our little family and have a little path that led down to
the spring, where the water bubbled out day and night
like a little poem from the heart of the earth; a little hut
wirh some hollyhocks at the corner, with their bannered
bosoms open to the sun, and with the thrush in the air,
636 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
like a song of joy in the morning; I would rather live
there and have some lattice work across the window, so
that the sunlight would fall checkered on the baby in the
cradle; I would rather live there and have my soul erect
and free, than to live in a palace of gold and wear the
crown of imperial power and know that my soul was
slimy with hypocrisy. It is not necessary to be rich and
great and powerful in order to be happy. If you will
treat your wife like a spendid flower, she will fill your life
with a perfume and with joy.
I believe in the democracy of the fireside, I believe in
the republicism of home, in the equality of man and
woman, in the equality of husband and wife, and for this
I am denounced by the sentinels upon the walls of Zion.
They say there must be a head to the family. I say
no equal rights for man and wife, and where there is
really love there is liberty, and where the idea of author-
ity comes in you will find that love has spread its pinions
and flown forever. It is a splendid thing for me to think
that when a woman really loves a man he never grows
old in her eyes; she always sees the gallant gentleman
that won her hand and heart; and when a man really and
truly loves a woman she does not grow old to him;
through the wrinkles of years he sees the face he loved
and won. That is all there is in this world all the rest
amounts to nothing it is a tale told by an idiot signify-
ing nothing. You take from the family love, and nothing
is left. There must be equality; there must be no master;
there must be no servant. There must be equality and
kindness. The man should be infinitely tender towards
the woman and why? because she cannot go at hard
work, she cannot make her own living. She has
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 637
squandered her wealth of beauty and youth upon him.
Now, if women have been slaves, what do you say
about children? Children have been the slaves of the
slaves. I know children that turn pale with fright when
they hear their mother's voice; children of property; chil-
dren of crime, children of sub-cellars; children of the
narrow streets, the flotsam and jetsam upon the wild,
rude sea of life my heart goes out to them one and all;
I say they have all the rights we have and one more
the right to be protected. I believe in governing chil-
dren by kindness, by love, by tenderness. If a child
commits a fault take it in your arms, let your heart beat
against its heart; don't go and talk to it about hell and the
bankruptcy of the universe. If your child tells a lie
what of it? Be honest with the child, tell him you have
told hundreds of them yourself. Then your child will not
be afraid to tell you when it commits a fault; it will not
regard you as old perfection, until it gets a few years
older, and finds you are an old hypocrite and you can-
not put a thick enough veil upon you but what the eyes
of childhood will peep through it; they will see; they will
find out; and when your child tells a lie, examine your-
self, and in all probability you will find you have been a
tyrant. A tyrant father will have liars for his children.
A liar is born of tyranny on the one hand and fear on
the other. Truth comes from the lips of courage. It is
born in confidence and honor. If you want a child to
tell you the truth you want to be a faithful man yourself.
You go at your little child, five or six years old, with a
stick in your hand what is he to do? Tell the truth? Then
he will get whipped. What is he to do? I thank Mother
Nature for putting ingenuity in the mind of a little child
so that when it is attacked by a brutal parent it throws
638 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. That being
done by nations it is called strategy, and many a general
wears his honors for having practiced it; and will you
deny it to little children to protect themselves from brutal
parents. Supposing a man as much larger than we are,
larger than child would come at us with a liberty-pole in
his hand and would shout in tones of thunder, "Who
broke that plate? " Every one of us including myself
would just stand right up and swear either that we
never saw that plate, or that it was cracked when we got
it. Give a child a chance; there is no other way to have
children tell the truth tell the truth to them keep
your contracts with your children the same as you would
to your banker.
I was up at Grand Rapids, Michigan, the other day.
There was a gentleman there, and his wife, who had
promised to fake their little boy for a ride every night for
ten days, or every day for ten days, but they did not do it.
They slipped out to the barn and they went without him.
The day before I was there they played the same game
on him again. He is a nice little boy, an American boy,
a boy with brains, one of those boys that don't take the
hatchet-story as a fact; he had his own ideas. They
fooled him again, and they came around the corner as
big as life, man and wife. The little fellow was stand-
ing on the door step with his nurse, and he looked at
them, and he made this remark: "There go the two
damndest liars in Grand Rapids." I merely tell you this
story to show you that children have level heads; they
understand this business.
Teach your children to tell you the truth-- tell them
the truth. If there is one here that ever intends to whip
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 639
his child I have a favor to ask. Have your photograph
taken when you are in the act, with your red and vulgar
face, your brow corrugated, pretending you would rather
be whipped yourself. Have the child's photograph taken
too, with his eyes streaming with tears, and his chin
dimpled with fear, as a little sheet of water struck by a
sudden cold wind; and if your child should die I cannot
think of a sweeter way to spend an afternoon than to go
to the graveyard in the autumn, when the maples are
clad in pink and gold, when the little scarlet runners
come like poems out of the breast of the earth go there
and sit down and look at that photograph and think of
the flesh, now dust, and how you caused it to writhe in
pain and agony.
I will tell you what I am doing; I am doing what little
I can to save the flesh ot children. You have no right
to whip them. It is not the way; and yet some Chris-
tians drive their children from their doors if they do
wrong, especially if it is a sweet, tender girl I believe
there is no instance on record of any veal being given for
the return of a girl some Christians drive them from
their doors and then go down upon their knees and ask
God to take care of their children! I will never ask God
to take care of my children unless I am doing my level
best in that same direction. Some Christians act as
though they thought when the Lord said, "Suffer little
children to come unto me " that he had a raw-hide under
His mantle they act as if they thought so. That is all
wrong. I tell you my children this: Go where you may,
commit what crime you may, fall to what depths of de-
gradation you may, I can never shut my arms, my heart
or my door to you. As long as I live you shall have one
640 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
sincere friend; do not be afraid to tell anything wrong
you have done; ten to one if I have not done the same
thing. I am not perfection, and if it is necessary to sin
in order to have sympathy, I- am glad I have committed
sin enough to have sympathy. The sternness of perfec-
tion I do not want. I am going to live so that my chil-
dren can come to my grave and truthfully say, " He who
sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." Whether
you call that religion or infidelity, suit yourselves; that is
the way I intend to do it.
When I was a little fellow most everybody thought
that some days were too sacred for the young ones to
enjoy themselves in. That was the general idea. Sun-
day used to commence Saturday night at sundown, under
ihe old text. " The evening and the morning were the
first day." They commenced then, I think, to get a good
ready. When the sun went down Saturday night, dark-
ness ten thousand times deeper than ordinary night fell
upon the house. The boy that looked the sickest was
regarded as the most pious. You could not crack
hickory nuts that night, and if you were caught chewing
gum it was another evidence of the total depravity of the
human .heart. It was a very solemn evening. We
would sometimes sing "Another Day has Passed."
Everybody looked as though they had the dyspepsia
you know lots of people think they are pious, just because
they are bilious, as Mr. Hood says. It was a solemn
night, and the rext morning the solemnity had increased.
Then we went to church, and the minister was in a pulpit
about twenty feet high. If it was in the winter there was
no fire; it was not thought proper to be comfortable while
you were thanking the Lord. The minister commenced
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 64!
at firstly and ran up to about twenty-fourthly, and then
he divided it up again; and then he made some conclud-
ing remarks, and then he said lastly, and when he said
lastly he was about half through. Then we had what
we called the catechism the chief end of man. I think
that has a tendency to make a boy kind of bubble up
cheerfully.
We sat along on a bench with our feet about eight
inches from the floor. The minister said, "Boys, do
you know what becomes of the wicked? " We all
answered as cheerfully as grasshoppers sing in Minnesota,
"Yes, sir." " Do you know, boys, that you all ought to
go to hell?" "Yes, sir." As a final test: "Boys,
would you be willing to go to hell if it was God's will? "
And every little liar said, "Yes, sir." The dear old
minister used to try to impress upon our minds about how
long we would stay there after we got there, and he used
to say in an awful tone of voice do you know I think
that is what gives them the bronchitis that tone you
never heard of an auctioneer having it " Suppose that
once in a billion of years a bird were to come from some
far, distant clime and carry off in its bill a grain of sand,
when the time came when the last animal matter of
which this mundane sphere is composed would be carried
away, said he "boys, by that time in hell it would not
be sun up." We had this sermon in the morning and the
same one in the afternoon, only he commenced at the
other end. Then we started home full of doctrine we
went sadly and solemly back. If it was in the summer and
the weather was good and we had been good boys, they
used to take us down to the graveyard, and to cheer us
up we had a little conversation about coffins, and shrouds,
642 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
and worms, and bones, and dust, and I must admit that
it did cheer me up when I looked at those sunken graves*
those stones, those names half effaced with the decay of
years. I felt cheered, for I said, "'This thing can't last
always." Then we had to read a good deal. We were
not allowed to read joke books or anything of that kind.
We read Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted;" Fox's
"Book of Martyrs;" Milton's "History of the
Waldenses," and "Jenkins on the Atonement." I gen-
erally read Jenkins; and I have often thought that the
atonement ought to be pretty broad in its provisions to
cover the case of a man that would write a book like that
for a boy.
Then we used to go and see how the sun was getting
on when the sun was down the thing was over. I would
sit three or four hours reading Jenkins, and then go out
and the sun would not have gone down perceptibly. I
used to think it stuck there out of simple, pure cussed-
ness. But it went down at last, it had to; that was a
part of the plan, and as the last rim of light would sink
below the horizon, off would go our hats and we would
give three cheers for liberty once again.
I do not believe in making Sunday hateful for children".
I believe in allowing them to be happy, and no day can
be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make it
holier still. There is no God in the heavens that is
pleased at the sadness of childhood. You cannot make
me believe that. You fill their poor, little, sweet hearts
with the fearful doctrine of hell. A little child goes out
into the garden; there is a tree covered with a glory of
blossoms and the child leans against it, and there is a
little bird on the bough singing and swinging, and the
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 643
waves of melody run out of its tiny throat, thinking about
four little speckled eggs in the nest, warmed by the
breast of its mate, and the air is filled with perfume, and
that little child leans against that tree and thinks about
hell and the worm that never dies; think of filling the
mind of a child with that infamous dogma!
Where was that doctrine of hell born? Where did it
come from? It came from that gentleman in the dug-out;
it was a souvenir from the lower animal. I honestly be-
lieve that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering
eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for
their prey. I believe it was born in the yelping and
howling and growling and snarling of wild beasts. I
believe it was born in the grin of hyenas and in the mali-
cious chatter of depraved apes. I depise it, I defy it and
hate it; and when the great ship freighted with the world
goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I
will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of pushing
from my breast my wife and children and padding off in
some orthodox canoe. I will go down with those I love
and with those who love me. I will go down with the
ship and with my race. I will go where there is sym-
pathy. I will go with those I love. Nothing can make
me believe that there is any being that is going to burn
and torment and damn his children forever. No, sir!
You will never make me believe you can divide the world
up into saints and sinners, and that the saints are all
going to heaven and the others to hell. I don't believe
that you can draw the line.
You are sometimes in the presence of a great disaster;
there is a fire; at the fourth story window you see the
white face of a woman with a child in her arms, and
644 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
humanity calls out for somebody to go to the rescue
through that smoke and flame, may be death. They
don't call for a Baptist, nor a Presbyterian, nor a
Methodist, but humanity calls for a man. And all at
once, out steps somebody that nobody ever did think was
much, not a very good man, and yet he springs up the
ladder and is lost in the smoke, a:nd a moment afterward
he emerges, and the cruel serpents of fire climb and hiss
around his brave form, but he goes on and you see that
woman and child in his arms, and you see them come
down and they are handed to the bystanders, and he has
fainted, may be, and the crowd stand hushed, as they
always do, in the presence of a grand action, and a
moment after the air is rent with a cheer. Tell me that
that man is going to hell, who is willing to lose his life
merely to keep a woman and child from the torment of
a moment's flame tell me that he is going to hell; I tell
you that it is a falsehood, and if anybody says so he is
mistaken.
I have seen upon the battlefield a boy sixteen years of
age struck by the fragment of a shell and life oozing
slowly from the ragged lips of his death-wound, and I
have heard him and seen him die with a curse upon his
lips, and he had the face of his mother in his heart. Do
you tell me that that boy left that field where he died
that the flag of his country might^wave forever in the air
do you tell me that he went from that field, where he
lost his life in defense of the liberties of men, to an eternal
hell? I tell you it is infamous! and such a doctrine as
that would tarnish the reputation of a hyena and smirch
the fair fame of an anaconda.
Let us see whether we are to believe it or not. We
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 645
had a war a little while ago and there was a draft made,
and there was many a good Christian hired another fel-
low to take his place, hired one that was wicked, hired
a sinner to go to hell in his place for five hundred dollars!
While if he was killed he would go to heaven. Think of
that. Think of a man willing to do that for five hundred
dollars! I tell you when you come right down to it they
have got too much heart to believe it; they say they do,
but they do not appreciate it. They do not believe it.
They would go crazy if they did. They would go- insane.
If a woman believed it, looking upon her little dimpled
darling in the cradle, and said, "Nineteen chances in
twenty I am raising fuel for hell," she would go crazy.
They don't believe it, and can't believe it. The old doc-
trine was that the angels in heaven would become happier
as they looked upon those in hell. That is not the doc-
trine now; we have civilized it. That is not the doctrine
what is the doctrine now? The doctrine is that those
in heaven can look upon the agonies of those in hell,
whether it is a fire or whatever it is, without having the
happiness of those in heaven decreased that is the doc-
trine.
That is preached to-day in every orthodox pulpit in
Harrisburg. Let me put one case and I will be through
with this branch of the subject. A husband and wife
love each other. The husband is a good fellow and the
wife a splendid woman. They live and love each other
and all at once he is taken sick, and they watch day after
day and night after night around his bedside until their
property is wasted and finally she has to go to work, and
she works through eyes blinded with tears, and the senti-
nel of love watches at the bedside of her prince, and at
646 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the least breath or the least motion she is awake; and
she attends him night after night and day after day for
years, and finally he dies, and she has him in her arms
and covers his wasted face with the tears of agony and
love. He is a believer and she is not. He dies, and she
buries him and puts flowers above his grave, and she
goes there in the twilight of evening and she takes her
children, and tells her little boys and girls through her
tears how brave and how true and how tender their
father was, and finally she dies and she goes to hell, be-
cause she was not a believer; and he goes to the battle-
ments of heaven and looks over and sees the woman who
loved him with all the wealth of her love, and whose
tears made his dead face holy and sacred, and he looks
upon her in the agonies of hell without having his happi-
ness diminished in the least.
With all due respect to everybody, I say, damn any
such doctrine as that. It is infamous! It never ought
to be preached; it never ought to be believed. We ought
to be true to our hearts, and the best revelation of the
infinite is the human heart.
Now, I come back to where I started from. They
used to think that a certain day was too good for a child
to be happy in, so they filled the imagination of this
child with these horrors of hell. I said, and I say again,
no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will
make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand
of fire, oh, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's
golden hair; fill the vast cathederal aisles with symphonies
sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow
bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch the skies,
with moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering on
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 647
the vine-clad hills; but know, your sweetest strains are
discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh, the
laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with
joy; oh, rippling river of life, thou art the blessed bound-
ary-line between the beasts and man, and every way-
ward wave of thine doth drown some fiend of care; oh,
laughter, divine daughter of joy, make dimples enough
in the cheeks of the world to catch and hold and glorify
all the tears of grief.
I am opposed to any religion that makes them melon-
choly, that makes children sad, and that fills the human
heart with shadow.
Give a child a chance. When I was a boy we always
went to bed when we were not sleepy, and we always got
up when we were sleepy. Let a child commence at
which end of the day thy please, that is their business;
they know more about it than all the doctors in the world.
The voice of nature when a man is free, is the voice of
right, but when his passions have been damned up by
custom, the moment that is withdrawn, he rushes to
some excess. Let him be free from the first. Let your
children grow in the free air and they will fill your house
with perfume. Do not create a child to be a post set in
an orthodox row; raise investigators and thinkers, not
disciples and followers; cultivate reason, not faith; culti-
vate investigation, not superstition; and if you have any
doubt yourself about a thing being so, tell them about it;
don't tell them the world was made in six days if you
think six days means six good whiles, tell them six good
whiles. If you have any doubts about anybody being in
a furnace and not being burnt, or even getting uncom-
fortably warm, tell them so be honest about it. If you
648 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
look upon the jaw-bone of a donkey as not a good
weapon, say so. Give a child a chance. If you think a
man never went to sea in a fish, tell them so, it won't
make them any worse. Be honest that is all; don't
cram their heads with things that will take them years
and years to unlearn; tell them facts it is just as easy.
It is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and
geology, and history it is as easy to find out all these
things as to cram their minds with things you know
nothing about, * and where a child knows what the
name of a flower is when it sees it, the name of a bird
and all those things, the world becomes interesting every-
where, and they do not pass by the flowers they are not
deaf to all the songs of birds, simply because they are
walking along thinking about hell.
I tell you, this is a pretty good world if we only love
somebody in it, if we only make somebody happy, if we
are only honor-bright in it, if we have no fear. That is
my doctrine. I like to hear children at the table telling
what big things they have seen during the day; I like to
hear their merry voices mingling with the clatter of knives
and forks. I had rather hear that than any opera that
was ever put on the stage. I hate this idea of authority.
I hate dignity. I never saw a dignified man that was not
after all an old idiot. Dignity is a mask; a dignified man
is afraid that you will know he does not know everything.
A man of sense and argument is always willing to admit
what he don't know why? because there is so much
that he does know; and that is the first step towards
* " We know of no difference between matter and spirit, because we
know nothing with certainty about either. Why trouble ourselves about
matters of which, however important they may be we do know nothing
and can know nothing? " HUXLEY.
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 649
learning anything willingness to admit what you don't
know and when you don't understand a thing, ask no
matter how small and silly it may look to other people
ask, and after that you know. A man never is in a
state of mind that he can learn until he gets that dignified
nonsense out of him, and so, I say let us treat our chil-
dren with perfect kindness and tenderness.
Now, then, I believe in absolute intellectual liberty;
that a man has a right to think, and think wrong, pro-
vided he does the best he can to think right that is all.
I have no right to say that Mr. Smith shall not think;
Mr. Smith has no right to say I shall not think; I have
no right to go and pull a clergyman out of his pulpit and
say: "You shall not preach that doctrine," but I have
just as much right as he has to say my say. I have no
right to lie about a clergyman, and with great modesty I
claim and with some timidity that he has no right to
slander me that is all.
I claim that every man and wife are equal, except that
she has a right to be protected; that there is nothing like
the democracy of the home and the republicism of the
fire-side, and that a man should study to make his wife's
life one perpetual poem of joy; that there should be
nothing but kindness and goodness; and then I say that
children should be governed by love, by kindness, by
tenderness, and by the sympathy of love, kindness and
tenderness. That is the religion I have got, and it is
good enough for me whether it suits anybody else in the
world or not. I think it is altogether more important to
believe in my wife than it is to believe in the master; I
think it is altogether more important to love my children
than the twelve apostles that is my doctrine. I may be
650 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
wrong, but that is it. I think more of the living than I
do of the dead. This world is for the living. The grave
is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. The living
have a right to control this world. I think a good deal
more of to-day than I do of yesterday, and I think more
of to-morrow than I do of this day; because it is nearly
gone that is the way I feel, and this my creed. The
time to be happy is now; the way to be happy is to make
somebody else happy; and the place to be happy is here.
I never will consent to drink skim milk here with the
promise of cream somewhere else.
Now, my friends, I have some excuses to offer for the
race to which I belong. In the first place, this world is
not very well adapted to raising good people; there is but
one-quarter of it land to start with; it is three times as
well adapted to fish-culture as it is to man, and of that
one-quarter there is but a small belt where they raise
men of genius. There is one-strip from which all the
men and women of genius come. When you go too far
north you find no brain; when you go too far south you
find no genius, arid there never has been a high degree of
civilization except where there is winter. I say that win-
ter is the father and mother of the fireside, the family of
nations; and around that fireside blossom the fruits of our
race. In a country where they don't need any bed-clothes
except the clouds, revolution is the normal condition-
not much civilization there. When in the winter I goby
a house where the curtain is a little bit drawn, and I look
in there and see children poking the fire and wishing they
had as many dollars or knives or something else as there
are sparks; when I see the old man smoking and the
smoke curling above his head like incense from the altar
of domestic peace, the other children reading or doing
something, and the old lady with her needle and shears
I never pass such a scene that I do not feel a little
ache of joy in rny heart.
Awhile ago they were talking about annexing San
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 651
Domingo. They said it was the finest soil in the world,
and so on. Says I, "It don't raise the right kind of folks;
you take five thousand of the best people in the world
and let them settle there and you will see the second
generation barefooted, with the hair sticking out of the
top of their sombreros; you will see them riding bare-
backed, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock-
fight on Sunday. That is one excuse I have.
Another is, I think we came from the lower animals.
I am not dead sure of it. On that question I stand about
eight to seven. If there is nothing of the snake, or
hyena, or jackal in man, why would he cut his brother's
throat for a difference of belief? Why would he build
dungeons and burn the flesh of his brother man with red-
hot irons? I think we came from the lower animals.
When I first heard that doctrine I did not like it. I felt
sorry for our English friends, who would have to trace
their pedigree back to the DuKe of Ourangoutang, or the
Earl of Chimpanzee. But I have read so much about
rudimentary bones and rudimentary muscles that I began
to doubt about it. Says I: "What do you mean by
rudimentary muscles?" They say: " A muscle that has
gone into bankruptcy "Was it a large muscle?"
"Yes." " What did our forefathers use it for?|" They
say: "To flap their ears with." After I found that out
I was astonished to find that they had become rudi-
mentary; I know so many people for whom it would be
handy to-day, so many people where that would have
been on an exact level with their intellectual develop-
ment . So after while I began to like it, and says I to
myself: " You have got to come to it." I thought after
all I had rather belong to a race of people that came
from skullless vertebrae in the dim Laurentian period,
that wiggled without knowing they were wiggling, that
began to develop and came up by a gradual development
until they struck this gentleman in the dug-out; coming
up slowly up up up until, for instance, they pro-
652 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
duced such a man as Shakespeare he who harvested all
the fields of dramatic thought, and after whom all others
have been only gleaners of straw, he who found the hu-
man intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand
of his genius and it became a palace producing him and
and hundreds of others I might mention with the angels
of progress leaning over the far horizon beckoning this
race of work and thought I had rather belong to a race
commencing at the skullless vertebrae producing the
gentleman in the dug-out and so on up, than to have de-
scended from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has
lost money from that day to this . I had rather belong
to a race that is going up than to one that is going down.
I would rather belong to one that commenced at the
skullless vertebrae and started for perfection, than to be-
long to one .that started from perfection and started for
the skullless vertebrae.
These are the excuses I have for my race* and taking
everything into consideration, I think we have done ex-
tremely well.
Let us have more liberty and free thought. Free
thought will give us truth. It is too early in the history
of the world to write a creed. Our fathers were intellect-
"ual slaves; our fathers were intellectual serfs. There
never has been a free generation on the globe. Every
creed you have got bears the mark of whip, and chain,
and fagot. There has been no creed written by a free
brain. Wait until we have had two or three generations
of liberty and it will then be time enough to seize the swift
horse of progress by the bridle and say thus far and no
farther; and in the meantime let us be kind to each other;
let us be decent towards each other. We are all travelers
on the great plain we call life and there is nobody quite sure,
what road to take not just dead sure, you known. There
are lots of guide-boards on the plain and you find thousands
of people swearingto-day that theirguide-board isthe only
board that shows the right direction. I go and talk to them
INTELLECTUAL DEVELOPMENT. 653
and they say: < < You go that way, or you will be damned. "
I go to another and they say: " You go this way, or you
will be damned." I find them all fighting and quarreling
and beating each other, #nd then I say: " Let us cut
down all these guide-boards." "What," they say,
"leave us without any guide-boards? " I say:" Yes. Let
every man take the road he thinks is right; and let every-
body else wish him a happy journey; let us part friends."
I say to you to-night, my friends, that I have no
malice upon this subject not a particle; I simply wish
to express my thoughts. The world has grown better
just in proportion as it is happier; the world has grown
better just in proportion as it has lost superstition; the
world has grown better just in the proportion that the
sacerdotal class has lost influence just exactly; the
the world has grown better just in proportion that secular
ideas have taken possession of the world. The world has
grown better just in proportion that it has ceased talking
about the visions of the clouds, and talked about the
realities of the earth. The world has grown better just
in the proportion that it has grown free, and I want to do
what little I can in my feeble way to add another flame
to the torch of progress. I do not know, of course,
what will come, but if I have said anything to-night that
will make a husband love his wife better, I am satisfied;
if I have said anything that will make a wife love her
husband better, I am satisfied; if I have said anything that
wil) add one more ray of joy to life, I am satisfied;
if I have said anything that will save the tender flesh of
a child from a blow, I am satisfied; if I have said any-
thing that will make us more willing to extend to others
the right we claim for ourselves, I am satisfied.
I do not know what inventions are in the brain of the
future; I do not know what garments of glory may be
woven for the world in the loom of the years to be; we
are just on the edge of the great ocean of discovery. I
do not know what is to be discovered; I do not know
654 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
what science will do for us. I do know that science did
just take a handful of sand and make the telescope, and
with it read all the starry leaves of heaven; I know that
science took the thunderbolts from the hands of Jupiter,
and now the electric spark, freighted with thought and
love, flashes under waves of the sea, I know that science
stole a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it
into steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless
arms the' countless wheels of toil; I know that science
broke the chains from human limbs and gave us instead
the forces of nature for our slaves; I know that we have
made the attraction of gravitation work for us; we have
made the lightnings our messengers; we have taken ad-
vantage of fire and flames and wind and sea; these slaves
have no backs to be whipped; they have no hearts to be
lacerated; they have no children to be stolen, no cradles
to be violated. I know that science has given us better
houses; I know it has given us better pictures and better
books; I know it has given us better wives and better
husbands, and more beautiful children, I know it has
enriched a thousand-fold our lives; and for that reason I
am in favor of intellectual liberty.
I know not, I say, what discoveries may lead the world
to glory; but I do know that from the infinite sea of the
future never a greater or grander blessing will strike this
bank and shoal of time than liberty for man, woman and
child.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have delivered this lecture a
great many times; clergymen have attended, and editors
of religious newspapers, and they have gone away and
written in their papers and declared in their pulpits that
in this lecture I advocated universal adultery; they have
gone away and said it was obscene and disgusting. Be-
tween me and my clerical maligners, between me and
my religious slanderers, I leave you, ladies and gentle-
men, to judge.
LNGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
HUMAN RIGHTS.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I suppose that man, from
the most grotesque savage up to Heckle, has had a phi-
losophy by which he endeavored to account for all the
phenomena of nature he may have observed. From
that mankind may have got their ideas of right and
wrong. Now, where there are no rights there can be po
duties. Let us always remember that only as a man be-
comes free can he by any possibility become good or
great. As I said, every savage has had his philosophy, and
by it accounted for everything he observed. He had an
idea of rain and rainbow, and he had an idea of a con-
trolling power. One said there is a being who presides
over our world, and who will destroy us unless we do
right. Others had many of these beings, but they were
invariably like themselves. The most fruitful imagination
cannot make more than a man, though it may make in-
finite powers and attributes out of the powers and attri-
656 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
butes of man. You can't build a God unless you start
with a human being. The savage said, when there was
a storm, " Somebody is angry." When lightning leaped
from the lurid cloud, he thought, "What have I been
doing?" and when he couldn't think of any wrong he had
been doing, he tried to think of some wrong his neighbor
had been doing.
I may as well state here that I believe man has come
up from the lowest orders of creation, and may have not
come up very far; still, I believe we are doing very well,
considering.
But, speaking of man's early philosophy, his morality
was founded first on self-defense. When gathered to-
gether in tribes, he held that this infinite being would
hold the tribe responsible for the actions of any individual
who had angered him. They imagined this being got
angry. Just imagine the serenity of an infinite being
being disturbed, and a God breaking into a passion be-
cause some poor wretch had neglected to bring two tur-
tle doves to a priest !
Then they sought out this poor offending individual, to
punish him and appease the wroth of this being. And
here commenced religious persecution.
Now, I do not say there is no God, but what I do say
is that I do not know. The only difference between me
and the theologian is that I am honest. There may or
there may not be an infinite being, but I do not know it,
and until I do I cannot conceive of any obedience I owe
to any unknown being.
As soon as men began to imagine they would be held
responsible for the act of any other person, came the
necessity for some one to teach them how to keep from
HUMAN RIGHTS. 657
offending the being. Some called him medicine man,
some called him priest; now, we call him theologian.
These men set out to teach men how to keep from of-
fending this being, and they laid down certain laws to
regulate the conduct of men. First of all it was neces-
sary to believe in this power. To disbelieve in him was
the worst offense of all. To have some human being,
dressed in the skin of a wild beast, deny the existence of
this infinite being, was more than the infinite being could
stand. The first thing, therefore, was to believe in this
power, the next to support this gentleman standing be-
tween you and the supreme wrath. These gentlemen
were the lobbyists with the power, and sometimes suc-
ceeded in getting the veto used in favor of their clients.
For ages, as mankind slowly came through the savage
state, the world was filled with infinite fear. They ac-
counted for everything bad that happened as the wrath
of this supreme being. But they went from savagery to
barbarism a step in improvement and then began to
build temples to, and make images of, this being. Then
man began to believe he could influence this being by
prayer, by getting on his knees to the image he had made.
Nothing, I suppose astonishes a missionary more than
to see a savage in Central Africa on his knees before a
stone praying for luck in hunting or in fighting. And
yet it strikes me we have our army chaplains before a
battle praying for the success of our side. They don't
pray for assistance if our cause is just, but they pray,
" Lord help us. ! " I can't see the difference between the
two.
But there is this said in favor of prayer that, whether
successful or not, it is a sort of intellectual exercise.
658 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Like a man trying to lift himself, he may not succeed,
but he gets a good deal of exercise.
But as man proceeds, he begins to help himself and to
take advantage of mechanical powers to assist him, and
he begins to see he can help himself a little, and exactly
in the proportion he helps himself he comes to rely less
on the power of priest or prayer to help him. Just to
the extent we are helpless, to that extent do we rely upon
the unknown.
As religion developed itself, keeping pace with the be-
lief in theology, came the belief in demonoiogy. They
gave one being all the credit of doing all the good things,
and must give some one credit for the bad things, and so
they created a devil. At one time it was as disreputable
to deny the existence of a devilas to deny the existence
of a God; to deny the existence of a hell, with its fire
and brimstone, as to deny the existence of a heaven with
its harp and love.
With the development of religion came the idea that
no man should be allowed to bring the wrath of God on
a nation by his transgressions, and this idea permeates
the Christian world to-day. Now what does this prove ?
Simply that our religion is founded on fear, and when
you are afraid you cannot think. Fear drops on its
knees and believes. It is only courage that can think.
It was the idea that man's actions could do something,
outside of any effect his mechanical works might have,
to change the order of nature; that he might commit
some offense to bring on an earthquake, but he can't do
it. You can't be bad enough to cause an earthquake;
neither can you be good enough to stop one. Out of that
wretched doctrine and infamous mistake that man's be-
HUMAN RIGHTS. 659
lief could have 1 any effect upon nature grew all these in-
quisitions, racks and collars of torture, and all the blood
that was ever shed by religious persecution.
In Europe the country was divided between kings and
priests. The king held that he got the power from the
unknown; so did the priests. They could not say that
they got it from the people; the people would deny it;
the unknown could not deny it. And thus the altar and
throne stand side by side. And republicanism was a
thing unknown.
It has been said that the pilgrim fathers came to thi s
country to establish religious liberty. They did no such
thing. They were not in favor of it. They came with
the Testament in their hands, and with it they could
have no idea of religious liberty. When they had estab-
lished thirteen colonies here, and had struggled for and
obtained their independence, they established federal
government, but did they seek after religious liberty?
No ! When they formed a federal government each
church and each colony was jealous of the other. They
said to the general government, ' ' You can't have any
religion in the constitution," but each state could make
its own religion, and they made them.
Here the speaker read copious extracts from the stat-
utes of the different states in reference to the qualifica-
tions for the exercise of citizenship the religious belief
necessary; and, on concluding, asked, "Had they (the
members who drew up these state constitutions). any idea
of religious liberty ? "
Continuing, he said: Now, my friends, there's a party
started in this country with the object of giving every
man, woman and child the rights they are entitled to.
66o INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Now every one of us has the same rights. I have the
right to labor and to have the products of my labor. I
have the right to think, and furthermore, to express my
thoughts, because expression is the reward of my intel-
lectual labor. And yet in the United States there are
states where men of my ideas would not be allowed to
testify in a court of justice. Is that right ? There are
states in this country where, if the law had been en-
forced, I would have been sent to the penitentiary for
lecturing. All such laws are enacted by barbarians, and
our country will not be free until they are wiped from the
statute books of every state.
Does an infinite being need to be protected by a State
Legislature ? If the bible is inspired, does the author of
it need the support of the law to command respect ? We
don't need any law to make mankind respect Shakes-
peare. We come to the altar of that great man and
cover it with our gratitude without a statute . Think of
a law to govern tastes ! Think of a law to govern mind,
or any question whatever ! Think of the way in which
they have supported the bible ! They've terrorized the
old with laws, and captured the dear, little innocent
children and poisoned their minds with their false stories
until, when they have reached the age of manhood, they
have been afraid to think for themselves. Let us see
what the laws are now by which they guard their bible
and their God.
[Here the speaker read extracts from the statutes of
several states in reference to blasphemy and profanation
of the Sabbath, commenting on each as he ran them
through.] Pursuing the thread of his discourse, he said:
Every American should see to it that all these laws are
done away with once and forever.
HUMAN RIGHTS. 66 1
There has been a reaction of late years. This country
has begun to be prosperous. We don't think much of re-
ligion; 'tis only when hard times come we turn our at-
tention toward it. There are people in this country who
say we are getting too irreligious, too scientific. Now,
is it not a fact that we are happier to-day than at any
period in our history ? You live in a great country,
though perhaps you do not know it. But live in any
other country for a while, and you'll find it out. See,
then, what we've got by looking a little to the affairs of
the world !
The bible can't stand to-day without the support of the
civil power. No religion ever flourished except by the
support of the sword, and no religion like this could have
been established except by brute force.
At one time we thought a great deal of clergymen,
but now we have got to thinking they ain't of as much
importance as a man that has invented something. The
church seeing this has made up its mind that it is neces-
sary to do something, and so got up a plan to be ac-
knowledged by law. Here's what they wish to do: [Here
the speaker read some extracts from the constitution of
the National Reform Association.] Continuing he said:
Our fathers, in 1776, building better than they knew,
retired the gods from politics. I do not believe Jesus
Christ is the ruler of nations. If he is the ruler of one
he is the ruler of all. Why does he not then rule one as
well as another ? If you give him credit for the good
things of one you must denounce him for the tyranny and
despotism of others. The revealed word of God is not
the standing of civil justice in this country ! The bible
is not the standard of right and wrong or of decency in
this country.
662 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
You can't put God in the constitution, because if you
do there would be no room for the folks. Whatever you
put in the constitution you must enforce by the sword,
and you can't go to war with any man for not believing
in your God. God has no business there, and any man
that is in favor of putting him there is an enemy to the
interests of American institutions.
Now for the purpose of preventing the name of God
being put in the constitution, there's another little party
has been started and these are its doctrines: We want an
absolute divorce between church and state. We demand
that church property should not be exempt from taxation.
If you are going to exempt anything, exempt the home-
steads of the poor. Don't exempt a rich corporation,
and make men pay taxes to support a religion in which
they do not believe. But they say churches do good. I
don't know whether they do or not. Do you see such a
wonderful difference between a member ot a church and
the man who does not believe in it ? Do church mem-
bers pay their debts any better than any others ? Do
they treat their families any better ? Did you ever hear
of any man coming into a town broke and inquire where
the deacon of a Presbyterian church lived ? Has not the
church opposed every science from the first ray of light
until now ? Didn't they damn into eternal flames
the man who discovered the world was round ?
Didn't they damn into eternal flames the man
who discovered the movement of the earth in its
orbit ? Didn't they persecute the astronomers ? Didn't
they even try to put down life insurance by saying it was
sinful to bet on the time God has given you to live ?
Science built the Academy, superstition the Inquisition.
Science constructed the telescope, religion the rack;
science made us happy here, -and says if there's another
HUMAN RIGHTS. 663
life we'll all stand an equal chance there; religion made
us miserable here, and says a large majority will be eter-
nally miserable there. Should we, therefore, exempt it
from taxation for any good it has done ?
The next thing we ask is a perfect divorce between
church and school. We say that every school should be
secular, because its just to everybody. If I was an
Israelite I wouldn't want to be taxed to have my children
taught that his ancestors had murdered a supreme being.
Let us teach, not the doctrines of the past, but the dis-
coveries of the present; not the five points of Calvinism,
but geology and geography. Education is the lever to
raise mankind, and superstition is the enemy of intelli-
gence.
We demand, next, that woman shall be put upon an
equality with man. Why not ? Why shouldn't men be
decent enough in the management of the politics of the
country for women to mingle with them ? It is an out-
rage that anyone should live in this country for sixty or
seventy years and be forced to obey the laws without
having any voice in making them. Let us give woman
the opportunity to care for herself, since men are not de-
cent enough to seek to care for her. The time will come
when we'll treat a woman that works and takes care of
two or three children as well as a woman dressed in dia-
monds who does nothing. The time will come when
we'll not tell our domestic we expect to meet her in
heaven, and yet not be willing to have her speak to us in
the drawing room.
Ignorance is a poor pedestal to set virtue upon and
mock-modesty should not have the right to prevent peo-
ple from knowing themselves. Every child has a right
664 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
to be well-born, and ignorance has no right to people the
world with scrofula and consumption. When we come
to the conclusion that God is not taking care of us and
that we have to take care of ourselves, then we'll begin
to have something in the world worth living for.
I would wish there was seated upon the throne of the
universe one who would see to it that justice did always
prevail. I do not propose to give up the little world I
live in for the unknown.
I would wish that the friends who bid us "good night"
in this world might meet us with "good morning" there.
Just as long as we love one another we'll hope for another
world; just as long as love kisses the lips of death will
we believe and hope for a future reunion. I wonld not
take one hope away from the human heart or one joy
from the human soul, but I hold in contempt the gentle-
men who keep heaven on sale; I look with contempt on
him who keeps it on draught; I look with pitying con-
tempt on him who endeavors to prohibit honest thought
by promising a reward in another world. If there is an-
other world we'll find when we come there that no one has
done enough good to be eternally rewarded, no one has
done enough harm to meet with an unending, eternal
pain and agony. We'll find that there is no being that
ever hindered a man from exercising his reason. Now,
whije we are here, no matter what happens to us here-
after, let us cultivate strength of heart and brain to stand
the inevitable. No creed can help you there . When
the heart is touched with agony nothing but time can
heal it.
I want, if I can, to do a little to increase the rights of
men, to put every human being on an equality, to sweep
HUMAN RIGHTS. 665
away the clouds of superstition, to make people think
more of what happens to-day than what somebody said
happened 3,000 years ago. This is all I want: To do
what little I can to clutch one-seventh of our time from
superstition, to give our Sundays to rest and recreation.
I want a day of enjoyment, a day to read old books, to
meet old friends, and get acquainted with one's wife and
children. I want a day to gather strength to meet the
toils of the next. I want to get that day away from the
church, away from superstition and the contemplation of
hell, to be the best and sweetest and brightest of all the
days in the week. The best way to make a day sacred
is to fill it up with useful labor. That day is best on
which most good is done for the human race. I hope to
see the time when we'll have a day for the opera, the
play good plays for they do good. You never saw the
villain foiled in a play where the audience did not ap-
plaud. You never saw them applaud when the rascal
was successful in his villainy. If you could go to a theater
and see put upon the stage the scenes of the old testa-
ment, with its butcheries and rapes and deeds of vio-
lence, you would detest it all the days of your life. I'd
like to have every horror of the old testament set on this
stage, to have somebody represent the being as he is rep-
resented there, giving his brutal orders, and let the or-
thodox see their God as he really is.
I want to have us all do what little we can to secular-
ize this government take it from the control of savagery
and give it to science, take it from the government of the
past and give it to the enlightened present, and in this
government let us uphold every man and woman in their
rights, that everyone, after he or she comes to the age
666
INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
of discretion^ may have a voice in the affairs of the nation.
Do this, and we'll grow in grandeur and splendor every
day, and the time will come when every man and every
woman shall have the same rights as every other man
and every other woman has. I believe we are growing
better. I don't believe the wail of want shall be heard
forever; that the prison and the gallows will always curse
the ground. The time will come when liberty and law
and love, like the rings of Saturn, will surround the
world; when the world will cease making these mistakes;
when every man will be judged according to his worth
and intelligence. I want to do all I can to hasten that
day.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
-ON
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY.
(SECOND LECTURE.)
Col. Ingersoll began, 4< Only a few years ago the pul-
pit was almost supreme. The palace was almost in the
shadow of the cathedral, and the power behind every
throne was a priest. Man was held in physical slavery
by kings, and in a mental prison by the church. He was
allowed to hold no opinions as to where he came from,
nor as to where he was going. It was sufficient for him
to do the labor and believe the kings would do the gov-
erning and the priests the thinking and, my God, what
thinking ! If the world had obeyed the priests we would
all be idiots to-night. The eagle of intellect would have
given way to the blind bat of faith. They were the rack,
the faggot, the thumbscrew in this world, and hell in the
next. Only a few years ago no man could express an
honest thought unless he agreed with the church. The
667
668 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
church has been a perpetual beggar. It has never plowed,
it never sowed, it never spun, yet Solomon in all his
glory was not so arrayed. . Thanks to modern thought,
the brain of the nineteenth century, to Voltaire, Paine,
Hume, to all the free men, that beggar the church is
no longer upon horseback; and it fills me with joy to
state that even its walking is not now good. Only a little
while ago a priest was thought more than human. No-
body dared contradict the minister. Now there are other
learned professions. There are doctors, lawyers, writ-
ers, books, newspapers, and the priest has hundreds of
rivals.
The priest grew jealous, hateful; he was always thank-
ful for an epidemic or pestilence, so that people would
turn to him in despair. In our country all the men of
intellect were in the pulpit once. Now there are so many
avenues to distinction the men of brain, heart and red
blood have left the pulpit and gone to useful things. I do
not say all. There are still some men of mind in the pulpit,
but they are nearer infidels than any others. Where do
we get our ministers ? A young man, without constitu-
tion enough to be wicked, without health enough to enjoy
the things of this world, naturally fixes his gaze on high.
He is educated, sent to a university where he is taught
that it is criminal to think. Stuffed with a creed, he
comes out a shepherd. Most of them are intellectual
shreds and patches, mental ravelings, selvage. Every
pulpit is a pillory in which stands a convict; every mem-
ber of the church stands over him with a club, called a
creed. He is an intellectual slave, and dare not preach
his honest thought. There are thousands of good men
in the pulpit, honest men. I am simply describing the
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 669
average shepherd; they tell me "they've been called,"
that Almighty God selected them. He looked all over
the world and said: ' Now, there's a man I want ! ' And
what selections ! Shakespeare was not called. Yet he
has done more for this world than all the ministers who
have ever lived in it. Beethoven ! He was not called.
Raphael was not called. He was all an accident. All
the inventors, discoverers, poets God never called one
of them; he turned his attention to popes, cardinals,
priests, exhorters; and what selections he has made !
It's astonishing.
In the United States a great many ministers have been
good enough to take me for a text. Among others the
Rev. Mr. Talmage, of Brooklyn. I have nothing to say
about his reputation. It has nothing to do with the
question. Some ministers think he has more gesticulation
than grace. Some call him a pious pantaloon, a Chris-
tian clown; but such remarks, I think, are born of envy.
He is the only Presbyterian minister in the United States
who can draw an audience. He stands at the head of
the denomination, and I answer him . He's a strange
man. I believe he's orthodox, or intellectual pride would
prevent his saying these things. He believes in a literal
resurrection of the dead; that we shall see countless
bones flying through the air. He has some charges
against me, and he has denied some of my statements.
He has produced what he calls arguments, and I am go-
ing to answer some of the charges. Next Sunday after-
noon, at 2 o'clock; in this place, I shall have a matinee,
and answer his arguments.
He says I am the champion blasphemer. What is blas-
phemy ? To contradict a priest ? to have a mind of your
670 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
own ? Whoever takes a step in advance is a blasphemer.
Blasphemy is what a last year's leaf says to a this year's
bud. To deny that Mohammed is the prophet of God is
not blasphemy in New York. It is in Constantinople.
It is a question, then, largely of Geography. It depends
on where you are. The missionary who laughs at a mod-
ern God is a blasphemer. In a Catholic country whoever
says Mary is not the mother of God is a blasphemer. In
a Protestant country to say she is the mother of God is
blasphemy. Everything has been blasphemy. My doctrine
is this: He is a blasphemer who refuses to tell his hon-
est thought; who is not true to himself; who enslaves his
fellow man ; who charges that God was once in favor of
slavery. If there is any God, that man is a blasphemer.
They're afraid we'll injure God. How ? Is infinite good-
ness and mercy to become livid with wrath because a
finite being expresses an opinion ? I cannot help the
infinite. That man only is the good man who helps his
fellow man. I know men who would do anything for
God, who doesn't need it, but nothing for men, who do
need it. Why should God be so particular about my be-
lieving his book ? It's no more his work than the stars
of gravitation. Yet I may declare that the earth is flat,
and he'll not damn me for that. But if I make a mistake
about that book I'm gone. I can blaspheme the multi-
plication table and deny the power of the wedge in
fact, the less I know the better my chance will be. I
say that book is not inspired, and there is no infinitely
good God who will damn one human soul. At the judg-
ment, if I am mistaken I own up I am here, I do not
know where I came from, nor where I am going I'll be
honest about it. I am on a ship and not on speaking
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 671
terms with the captain, but I propose to have a happy
voyage, and the best way is to do what vou can to make
your fellow passengers happy. If we run into a good
port, I'll be as happy an angel as you'll meet that day.
Blasphemy is the cry of a defeated priest the black
flag of theology it shows where argument stops and
slander and persecution begin. I am told by Mr. Tal-
mage that whoever contradicts this word is a fool, a
howling wolf, one of the assassins of God. I presume
the gentleman is honest. Take Mr. Talmage, now, he
is a good man. Mr. Humboldt, he was another good
man. What Humboldt knew and what Talmage didn't
know would make a library.
The next charge is that I have said the universe was
made of nothing, according to the bible. False in one
thing, false in all, he says. Think of that rule. Let us
apply that to him. If the world was created, what was
it make of ? and who made that ? If the Lord created it,
what did He make it of ? Nothing. That's all He had.
No sides, no top, nothing. Yet God had lived there for-
ever. What did He think about ? What did He do ?
Nothing. Nothing had ever happened. All at once He
made something. What did He make it of ? Mr. Tal-
mage explains. He says if I knew anything I would
know that God made this world out of His omnipotence.
He might just as well made it out of His memory. What
is omnipotence ? Is it a raw material ? The weakest
man in the world can lift as much nothing as God. Yet
He made this world out of His omnipotence. It is so
stated by a doctor of divinity, and I should think such
divinity would need a doctor ! I don't believe this. I
believe this universe has existed throughout all eternity
672 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
everything. All that is, is God. I do not give to that
universe a personality that wants man to get his knees
into dust and his fingers in holy water; that wants some-
body to ring a bell or eat a wafer. I am a part of this
universe, and I believe all there is, is all the God there
is. I may be mistaken; I don't know. I just give my
best opinion. If there's any heaven, I'll give it there.
But there'll be no discussion in heaven. Hell is the only
place where mental improvement will be possible.
I have said, it is charged, that the bible says the world
was made in six days. He says I don't understand Hebrew.
The bible says the world was made in six days. God
didn't work nights evening and morning were the first
day. God rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it.
That, they say, didn't mean days; it meant good
whiles. He made the world in six good whiles.
Adam was made, I think along about Saturday. If the
account is- correct, it's only 6,000 years since man made
his appearance. We know that to be false. A few
years ago a gentleman who was going to California in
the cars met a minister. They came to the place called
the Sink of the Humboldt, the most desolate place in the
world. Just imagine perdition with the fire out. The
traveler asked the minister whether God made the earth
in six days, and the minister said he did. Then don't
you think, said he, He could have put in another day's
work to great advantage right here ? I am charged, too,
with saying that the sun was not made till the fourth
day, whereas, according to the bible, vegetation began
on the third day, before there was any light. But Mr.
Talmage says there was light without the sun. They
got light, he says, from the crystallization of rocks. A
nice thing to raise a crop of corn by. There may have
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 673
been volcanoes, he says. How'd you like to farm it,
and depend on volcanic glare to raise a crop ? That's
what they call religious science. God won't damn a man
for things like that. What else ? The aurora borealis ! A
great cucumber country ! It's strange He never thought
of gldw worms ! Imagine it ! a Presbyterian divine
gravely saying vegetation could grow by the light of the
crystallization of rocks by the light of volcanoes in
other worlds, probably now extinct.
He says of me, too in his pulpit, that I was in favor of
the circulation of immoral literature. Let me tell you
the truth. Several gentlemen, so-called, were trying to
exclude from the mails, books called infidel. I said the
law should be modified. It is impossible for anybody to
reach the depth of one who will print or circulate obscene
books. One of my objections to the bible is that it con-
tains obscene stories. Any book, couched in decent lan-
guage, should have the liberty of the United States mails.
Where books are immoral and obscene, I say, burn them,
and have always said it. Mr. Ta-lmage said what he knew
to be untrue. He said it out of hatred, and because he
cannot answer the arguments I have urged. I believe in
pure books and pure literature. But when a God writes
there is no excuse for Him. In Shakespeare we say ob-
scene things are impure we do not say they are inspired.
That I have falsified the records of the bible showing
the period of Jewish slavery, is another of the
charges against me . That slavery extended over
a period of 215 years; and he proceeded to sub-
stantiate this statement by going through a long and
somewhat complicated geneological table. If I made
any misstatement I was mislead by the new testament.
674 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Mr. Talmage may settle with St. Paul. If you can de-
pend on what my friend Paul says, the Jews, in 215
years, increased from seventy persons till they had 600,-
ooo men of war. I know it isn't so, and so does any
man who knows anything. For such an increase as this
each woman must have borne somewhat over fifty-seven
children, and every child lived.
The next charge is that I have laughed at holy things.
Holy things ! The priest always says: ' Now don't laugh;
look solemn; this is no laughing matter.' There's nothing
a priest hates like mirthfulness. He despises a smile. I
read in the bible that God gave a recipe to Aaron for
making hair-oil and said if anybody made any like it, kill
him. Well, I don't believe it. The penalty for infringing
on that patent was death. Do you believe an infinite
God gave a recipe for hair-oil ? Is it possible for absurdity
to go beyond that ? That's what they call a holy thing.
And water for baptism ! Do you believe God will look
for this water-mark on the soul ?
The next charge is that I misquote the scriptures.
That's because I don't know Hebrew. Why didn't He
write to me in English ? If He wishes to hold a gentle-
man responsible, why doesn't He address him in his na-
tive tongue ? Why write His word in such a way that
hundreds of thousands make their living explaining it ?
If I'd only under stood Hebrew I would have known God
didn't make Eve out of a rib. He made her out of
Adam's side. How did He get it out ? Well, I suppose
He cut it out with a kind of a splinter of His omnipotence!
Then our mother was made from a rib. When you con-
sider the material used it was the most successful job
ever done. There's even a serpent in the bible that knows
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 6/5
a language. It won't do. Sin, how did it come into the
world ? Where did the serpent come from ? He was
wicked. Adam's sin did not make him bad. Then there
was sin in the world before Adam. There's no sense in
it not a particle. Then Talmage touches me upon the
flood. His flood didn't come to America, because America
was not discovered then. He says it was a partial flood.
Then why did they have to take any birds in the ark ?
How did Noah get the animals in the ark ? Talmage says
it was through the instinct to get out of the rain. Ac-
cording to the bible they went in before the rain began.
Dr. Scott says the angels helped carry them in. Imagine
an angel with an animal under each wing. It must have
rained 800 feet a day for forty days. Why does Talmage
try to explain a miracle ? The beauty of a miracle is it
cannot be explained. The moment the church begins to
explain the church is gone. All it's got to do is swear it
is so. The ark landed on Ararat, which is 17,000 feet
high. There was only one window, twenty-two inches
square. Talmage says the window ran clear around the
ark. The bible doesn't say so. That's Brooklyn; that's
no bible.
If the bible account is true the ark must have struck
bottom on the top of a mountain. Would any but a God
of mercy and kindness people a world, and then drown
them all? A God cruel enough to drown His own children
ought not to have the impudence to tell me how to bring
up mine. Why did He save eight of the same kind of
people to take a fresh start ? Why didn't He make a
fresh lot, kill His snake, and give His children a fair
show ? It won't do.
676 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES,
Talmage says the bible does not favor polygamy and
slavery. There was room enough on the table of stone
for saying man should only, have one wife and no slaves.
If not, God might have written it on the other side.
David and Solomon were pursued of God, but they had
a pretty good time of it. Most anybody would be will-
ing to be pursued that way. There is not a word in the
old testament against slavery or polygamy. Frederick
Douglas, a slave in Maryland, is the greatest man that
state ever produced. He was enslaved by Christians.
Why did God pay so much attention to blasphemers,
and so little to slaveholders and robbers ? I am opposed
to any God that was ever in favor of slavery. The bible
upholds polygamy, and that's the reason I don't uphold
the bible. The most glorious temple ever erected is the
home that's my church. I've misquoted the story of
Jonah, Talmage says. When somebody had been guilty
of blasphemy the winds rose; they tried to get Jonah
ashore, but couldn't do it. The sea waxed. He was
swallowed by a whale . The people of Minerva wrapped
all their cattle up in sack-cloth, and if anything would
have pleased God I should think that would. Jonah sat
under a gourd, and God made a worm out of some om-
nipotence he had left over, and set it work on the ground.
Talmage doesn't think Jonah was in the whale's belly-
he said in his mouth. Well, judging from the doctor's
photograph, that explanation would be quite natural to
him. He says he might have been in the whale's stom-
ach, and avoided the action of the gastric juice by walk-
ing up and down. Imagine Jonah, sitting on aback tooth,
leaning against the uppper jaw, longingly looking through
the open mouth for signs of land ! But that's scripture
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 677
and you've got to believe it or be damned. Let me say,
his brother preachers will not thank Talmage for his ex-
planations. I don't believe it, and if I am to be damned
for it, I'll accept it cheerfully.
They say I was defeated for Governor of Illinois be-
cause I was an infidel, and that I am an infidel because
I was defeated. That's logic. Now I'll tell you. They
asked me whether I was an infidel, and I said I was ! I
was defeated. I preserved my manhood and lost an of-
fice. If everybody were as frank as I was, some men
now in office would be private citizens. I would rather
be what I am than hold any office in the world and be a
slimy hypocrite.
Next they say. I slandered my parents because I do
not believe what they believed. My father at one time
believed the bible to be the inspired word of God. He
was an honorable man, and told me to read the bible for
myself and be honest. He lived long enough to believe
that the old testament was not the word of God. He
had not in his life as much happiness as I have in one
year. I hope my children will fe**onor me by being
nearer right than I am. If I have made a mistake, I
want my children to correct it. My mother died when
I was 2 years old. Were she living to-night, or if she
does live, she would say, be absolutely true to yourself
and preserve your manhood. If Talmage had been born
in Constantinople he would have been a dervish. He is
what he is because he can't help it. His head is just that
shape. I am taking away the hope and consolation of
the world, he says. His consolation is that ninety-nine
out of every hundred are going to hell. His church was
founded by John Calvin, a murderer. Better have no
6;8
INGERSOLLS LECTURES'
heaven than a hell. I would rather God would commit
suicide this minute than that a single soul should go to
hell. I want no Presbyterian consolation, I want no
fore-ordination, no consolation, no damnation."
Col. Ingersoll concluded with a few remarks about the
bible women, saying that women to-day are as true to
the gallows as Mary Magdalene was to the cross. Where-
ever there are women there are heroines. Shakespeare's
women are vastly superior to the bible women. I am
accused of putting out the light-houses on the shores of
the other world. The Christians are trimming invisible
wicks and pouring in allegorical oil. The Christian is
willing wife, children and parents shall burn if only he
can sing and have a harp. Mr. Talmage can see count-
less millions burn in hell without decreasing the length
of his orthodox smile.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY.
(THIRD LECTURE.)
We mast judge people somewhat by their creeds.
Mr. Talmage is a Calvinist, and he therefore regards
every human being who has been born only once as
totally depraved. He thinks that God never made a sin-
gle creature that didn't deserve to be damned the min-
ute He finished him. So every one who opposes Mr.
Talmage is infamous. The generosity of an agnostic is
meanness, his honesty is larceny and his love is hate.
Talmage is a consistent follower of Calvin and Knox,
and a consistent worshiper of the Jehovah of the ancient
Jews. I oppose not him, but his creed, because it tends
to crush out the natural tendencies in men to joyousness
and goodness. There is something good in every human
being, and there is something bad. There are no perfect
saints and no totally bad persons. There is the
679
68o INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
seed of goodness in every human heart and the capacity
for improvement in every human soul. Isn't it possible
for a man who acts like Christ to be saved, whatever be
his belief ? Cannot a soul be infinitely generous ? And
can any God damn such a soul ? If Mr. Talmage's creed
be true, nearly all the great and glorious men of the past
are burning to-day. If it be true, the greatest man
England has produced in 100 years is in hell. The
v/orld is poorer since I spoke here last, for Darwin 'has
passed' aw^iy. He was a true child of nature one who
knew more ail/out his mother than any other child she
had. Yet he was not a Calvmist. He did not get his
inspiration from any book, but from every star in the
heavens, from the insect iri the sunbeam, from the flow-
ers in the meadows, and from the everlasting rocks.
If the doctrine of the Calvinists is true, what right had
any one to ask an unbeliever to fight for his country in
the civil war ? What right has a believer to buy an un-
believing substitute, when some day he will look over
the edge of heaven, and pointing downward, would say
to a friend, "that is my substitute blistering there " ?
Mr. Talmage says that my mind is poisoned, and that
the reason why all infidels' minds are poisoned is that
they don't believe the Jew bible. Let us see whether it
is worth believing. I deny that an infinitely merciful
God would protect slavery or would uphold polygamy,
which pollutes the sweetest words in language. I will
not believe that God told men to exterminate their fel-
low-men, to plunge the sword into women's breasts and
into the hearts of tender babes. I am opposed to the Jew
bible because it is bad. I don't deny that there are many
good passages in it, nor that among all the thorns there
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 68 I
are some roses. I admit that many Christians are doing
all they can to idealize the frightful things in the old
testament. It is the protest of human nature. Now,
they tell me that this book is inspired. Let us see what
inspired means. If it means anything, it is that the
thoughts of God, through the instrumentality of men,
constitute this Jew bible, and that these thoughts were
written. Now just suppose that some voice whispered
in your ear, how would you know it was God's ? How
did these gentlemen of old know it was God who was
talking to them ? If anyone now told you that God
whispered in his ear, you wouldn't believe him. Why ?
Because you know him. Why are we asked to believe
those ancient gentlemen ? Because we don't know them.
Another reason, according to Mr. Talmage, why the Jew
bible is inspired, is that prophecies in it have been ful-
filled. How do we know that the prophecies were not
fulfilled before they were written ? They are so vague
that you can't tell what was prophesied. If you will read
the Jew bible carefully, you will see that there was not
a line, not a word, prophesying the coming of Christ.
Catholics were right in saying that if the Jew bible was
to be kept in awe it must be kept from the people.
Protestants are wrong in letting the people read it.
Another argument of Mr. Talmage for the inspiration
of the bible is that the Jews have been kept as a wan-
dering, persecuted race to fulfill the prophecies of the
old testament, I don't believe an infinitely merciful God
world persecute a race for thousands of years to use them
as vitnesse . Christian hate has not allowed the Jews
to .earn a t "i 7 n /ITT to practice a profession, and now,
by a kind < / poetic justice, the Jews control the money
682 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
of the world. Emperors go to their bankers with hats
in hand and beg them to discount their notes. This is
because God has cursed, the Jews. Only a little while
ago Christians have robbed Hebrews, stripped them
naked, turned them into the streets, and pointed to them
as a fulfillment of divine prophecy. If you want to know
the difference between some Jews and some Christians
compare the address of Felix Adler with the sermon of
the Rev. Dr. Talmage. Mr. Talmage thinks that the
light of every burning Jewish home in Russia throws
light upon the gospel. Every wound in a Jewish breast
is to him a mouth to proclaim the divine inspiration of
the bible. Every Jewish maiden violated is another ful-
fillment of God's holy word. What do these horrid per-
secutions prove, except the barbarity of Christians ?
Next it is said that martyrs prove the truth of the bible.
Mr. Talmage affirms that no man ever died cheerfully
for a lie. Why, men have gone cheerfully to their death
for believing that a wafer was God's flesh. Thousands
have died for their belief in Mohammed. Men have died
because they believed in immersion. Either Mr. Talmage
is a Catholic, a Mohammedan, a Baptist, or else he be-
lieves that these thousands died for lies. Every religion
has had its martyrs, and every religion cannot be true.
Then it is said that miracles prove the inspiration of the
bible. But it is impossible by the human senses to es-
tablish a violation of nature's laws. When the Hebrews
threw down sticks before Pharoah, and they became
snakes, did he believe ? No; because he was there.
After the Jews had been lead through the desert and had
been fed with bread rained from heaven, had been
clothed in indestructible pantaloons, and had quenched
TALMAGIAN THEOLOGY. 683
their thirst with water that followed them over moun-
tains and through sands; when they saw Jehovah wrapped
in the smoke of Sinai they still had more faith in a calf
that they could make than anything Jehovah could give
them. It was so with the miracles of Christ. Not twenty
people were convered by one of them. In fact, human
testimony cannot substantiate a miracle. Take the
miracle about the bears which ate the children who
laughed at the bald-headed old prophet. What do you
suppose Mr. Talmage would say that meant ? Why, first,
that children ought to respect preachers, and second,
that God is kind to animals. Nearly every miracle in the
old testament is wrought in the interest of slavery, polyg-
amy, creed or lust. I wish by denying them to rescue
the reputation of Jehovah from the assaults of the bible.
Who are the witnesses to the truth of the narratives
of the Jews' bible ? Eusebius was one. He lived in the
reign of Constantine, and said that the tracks of Pha-
roah's chariots could be seen perfectly preserved in the
sands of the Red sea. He was the man who forged the
passage in Josephus which speaks about the coming of
Christ. Good witness, isn't he. Another one was Poly-
carp. We don't know much about him. He suffered
martydom in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, and when the
fire wouldn't burn and he looked like gold through it, a
heathen was so mad about it that he ran his sword
through Polycarp. The blood gushed out and quenched
the fire, while the martyrs soul flew up to heaven in the
form of a dove. And that's all we know about Polycarp
To know how much reliance should be placed upon the
judgment of such trustworthy witnesses, we should look
at what some of their beliefs were. They thought that
684 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the world was flat; that the phoenix story was true; that
the stars had souls and sinned; and one said there were
four gospels because there, were four winds and four cor-
ners of the earth. He might have added that it was also
because a donkey has four legs.
So far as the argument drawn from the sufferings of the
martyrs is concerned, the speaker said that thousands
upon thousands of men had died as cheerfully in defense
of the koran as Christians had died in defense of the
bible. Their heroic suffering simply proved that they
were sinners in their beliefs, not that those beliefs were
true. This argument, as advanced by Mr. Talmage,
proves too much. Every religion on the face of the globe
has had its martyrs, but all religions cannot be true. Men
do die cheerfully for falsehoods when they believe them
to be true. The question of miracles was discussed at
some length, and Col. Ingersoll declared it was impossi-
ble to establish by any human evidence that a miracle
had ever been performed. Pharoah was not convinced
by the alleged miracle performed by Aaron, of turning a
stick into a serpent. Why ? Because he was there, and
no such miracle was ever done. No twenty people were
convinced by the reported miracles of Christ, and yet
people of the nineteenth century were coolly asked to be
convinced on hearsay by miracles which those who are
supposed to have seen them refuse to credit. It won't
do. The laws of nature never have been interrupted,
and they never will be. All the books in the universe
will never convince a thinking man that miracles have
been performed." The lecture was sprinkled throughou
with the satirical wit for which Col. Ingersoll is famous,
and concluded by the enumeration of a long list of " un-
scientific " facts and events recorded in the bible,
INGEKSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE.
"How anybody ever came to the conclusion that there
was any God who demanded that you should feel sor-
rowful and miserable and bleak one-seventh of the time
is beyond my comprehension. Neither can I conceive
how they can say that one-seventh of time is holy. That
day is the most sacred day on which the most good has
been done for mankind. Now, there was a time among
the Jews, when, if a man violated the Sabbath, they
would kill him. They said God told them to do it. I
think they were mistaken. If not, if any God did tell
them to kill him, then I think he was mistaken. I hope
the time will come when every man can spend the Sab-
bath just as he pleases, provided he does not interfere
with the happiness of others. I would fight just as
earnestly that the Christian may go to church as that
the infidel may have the right to spend the Sabbath as
he wishes. Are the people who go to church the only
685
686 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
good people ? Are there not a great many bad people
who go to church ? Not a bank in Pittsburg will lend a
dollar to the man who belongs to the church, without
security, quicker than to the man who don't go to church.
Now, I believe that all laws upon the statute-book should
be enforced. I do not blame anybody in this town. I
am perfectly willing that every preacher in this to.wn
should preach. They are employed to preach, and to
preach a certain doctrine, and if they don't preach that
doctrine they will be turned out. I have no objection to
that. But I want the same privilege to express my
views, and what is the difference whether the man pays
the day he goes in, or pays for it the week before by
subscription.
What would the church people think if the theatrical
people should attempt to suppress the churches ? What
harm would it do to have an opera here to-night? It would
elevate us more than to hear ten thousand sermons on
the world that never dies. There is more practical wis-
dom in one of the plays of Shakespeare than in all the
sacred books ever written. What wrong would there be
to see one of those grand plays on Sunday ? There was
a time when the church would not allow you to cook on
Sunday. You had to eat your victuals cold. There was
a time they thought the more miserable you feel the bet-
ter God feels. There are sixty odd thousand preachers
in the United States. Some people regard them as a
necessary evil; some as an unnecessary evil. There are
sixty odd thousand churches in the United States; and
it does seem to me that with all the wealth on their side;
with all the good people on their side; with Providences
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 68/
on their side; with all these advantages they ought to let
us at least have the right to speak our thoughts.
The history of the world shows me that the right has
not always prevailed. When you see innocent men
chained to the stake and the flames licking their flesh,
it is natural to ask, why does God permit this ? If you
see a man in prison with the chains eating into his flesh
simply for loving God, you've got to ask why does not a
just God interfere ? You've got to meet this; it won't do
to say that it will all come out for the best. That may
do very well for God, but it's awful hard on the man.
Where was the God that permitted slavery for two hun-
dred years in these United States ? The history of the
world shows that when a mean thing was done, man did
it; when a good thing was done, man did it.
But there was a time when there was a drought, and
this tribe of savages with their false notions of religion
says somebody has been wicked. Somebody has been
lecturing on Sunday. Then the tribe hunted out the
wicked man. They said you've got to stop. We cannot
allow you to continue your wickedness, which brings
punishment upon the whole of us. What is the reason
they allow me to speak to-night. Because the Christians
are not as firm in their belief now as they were a thou-
sand years ago. The lukewarmness and hypocricy of
Christians now permit me to speak to-night. If they
felt as they did a thousand years ago they would kill
me. So religious persecution was born of the instinct
of self-defense.
Is there any duty we owe to God ? Can we help him ?
Can we add to his glory or happiness ? They tell me
this God is infinitely wise, I cannot add to his wisdom;
688 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
infinitely happy I cannot add to his happiness. What
can I do ? Maybe he wants me to make prayers that
won't be answered. I cannot see any relation that can
exist between the finite and the infinite. I acknowledge
that I am under obligations to my fellow man. We owe
duties to our fellow man. And what ? Simply to make
them happy.
The only good, is happiness; and the only evil, is
misery, or unhappiness. Only those things are right
that tend to increase the happiness of man; only those
things are wrong which tend to increase the misery of
man. That is the basis of right and wrong. There
never would have been the idea of wrong except that
man can inflict sufferings upon others. Utility, then, is the
basis of the idea of right and wrong.
The church tells us that this world is a school to pre-
pare us for another, that it is a place to build up char-
acter. Well, if that is the only way character can be
developed it is bad for children who die before they get
any character. What would you think of a school-mas-
ter who would kill half his pupils the first day ?
Now, I read the bible, and I find that God so loved
this world that He made up His mind to damn the most
of us. I have read this book, and what shall I say of it ?
I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now, I
don't believe the bible. Had I not better say so ? They
say that if you do you will regret it when you come to
die. If that be true, I know a great many religious peo-
ple who will have no cause to regret it they don't tell
their honest convictions about the bible. There are two
great arguments of the church the great man argument
and the death-bed. They say the religion of your fath-
RELIGIOUS INTOLERANCE. 689
ers is good enough. Why should your father object to
your inventing a better plow than he had. They say to
me, do you know more than all the theologians dead ?
Being a perfectly modest man I say I think I do. Now
we have come to the conclusion that every man has a
right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make
it a crime to fly ? Would he give me brains and make
it a crime to think ? Any God that would damn one of
his children for the expression of his honest thought
wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and
don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take
the consequence like a man.
And so I object to paying for the support of another
man's belief. I am in favor of the taxation of all church
property. If that property belongs to God, He is able
to pay the tax. If we exempt anything, let us exempt
the home of the widow and orphan.
A voice here interrupted the speaker.
Col. Ingersoll What did the gentleman say ?
A voice O, he's drunk.
Col. Ingersoll I didn't think any Christian ought to
get drunk and come here to disturb us.
The speaker resumed:
The church has to-day $600,000,000 or $700,000,000
of property in this country. It must cost $2,000,000 a
week, that is to say $500 a minute, to run these churches.
You give me this money and if I don't do more good
with it than four times as many churches I'll resign. Let
them make the churches attractive and they'll get more
hearers. They will have less empty pews if they have
less empty heads in the pulpit. The time will come
when the preacher will become a teacher.
690 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Admitting that the bible is the book of God, is that
His only good job ? Will not a man be damned as quick
for denying the equator as denying the bible ? Will he
not be damned as quick for denying geology as for deny-
ing the scheme of salvation ? When the bible was first
written it was not believed. Had they known as much
about science as we know now that bible would not have
been written.
Col . Ingersoll next gave his views of the Puritans, de-
clared they left Holland to escape persecution and came
came here to persecute others. He referred to the per-
secutions heaped upon those of other religious belief by
the Puritans, paid the Catholics the compliment to say
that Maryland, which they ruled, was the first colony to
enact a law tolerating religious views not held by them-
selves, and went on to explain that God was never men-
tioned in the constitution of the United States because
each colony had a different religious belief, and each sect
preferred to have God not mentioned at all than to hav-
ing another religious belief than their own recognized.
"In 1876," said the speaker, kt our forefathers retired
God from politics. They said all power comes from the
people. They kept God out of the constitution, and al-
lowed each state to settle the question for itself."
The present laws of different states were next reviewed,
so far as they relate to the prevention of infidels giving
testimony and to religious intolerance in any way, and
these features were all branded and discussed as a gigan-
tic evil.
The lecture was attentively listened to by the immense
audience from beginning to the end, and the speaker's
most blasphemous flights were the most loudly ap-
plauded.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
HEREAFTER.
MY FRIENDS: I tell you to-night, as I have probably
told many of you dozens of times, that the orthodox
doctrine of eternal punishment in the hereafter is an in-
famous one! I have no respect for the man who preaches
it, or pretends to you he believes it. Neither have I any
respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of
innocent childhood with that infamous lie ! And I have
no respect for the man who will deliberately add to the
sorrows of this world with this terrible dogma; no re-
spect for the man who endeavors to put that infinite
cloud and shadow over the heart of humanity. I will be
frank with you and say, I hate the doctrine; I despise it;
I defy it; I loathe it and what man of sense does not ?
The idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on
the one side, and arrant cowardice on the other. In my
judgment the American people are too brave, too gener-
ous, too magnanimous, too humane to believe in that
outrageous doctrine of eternal damnation.
691
692 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
For a great many years the learned intellects of Chris-
tendom have been examining into the religions of other
countries and other ages, jn the world the religions of
the myriads who have passed away. They examined
into the religions of Egypt, the religion of Greece, that
of Rome and the Scandinavian countries. In the pres-
ence of the ruins of those religions, the learned men of
Christendom insisted that those religions were baseless,
false and fraudulent. But the}' have all passed away.
Now, while this examination was being made, the
Christianity of our day applauded, and when the learned
men got through with the religion of other countries,
they turned their attention to our religion, and by the
same methods, by the same mode of reasoning and the
same arrangements that they used with the old religions
they were overturning the religion of our day. How is
that ? Because every religion in this world is the work
of man. Every book that was ever written was written
by man. Man existed before books. If otherwise, we
might reasonably admit that there was such a thing as a
sacred bible.
I wish to call your attention to another thing. Man
never had an original idea, and he never will have one,
except it be supplied to him by his surroundings. Nature
gave man every idea that he ever had in the world; and
nature will continue to give man his ideas so long as he
exists. No man can conceive of anything, the hint of
which he has not received from the surroundings. And
there is nothing on this earth, coming from any other
sphere whatever.
As I ha?ve before said, man has produced every religion
in the world. Why is this ? Because each generation
HEREAFTER. 693
sends forth the knowledge and belief of the people at the
time it was made, and in no book is there any knowledge
formed, except just at the time it was written. Barbar-
ians have produced barbarian religions, and always will
produce them. They have produced, and always will
produce, ideas and belief in harmony with their sur-
roundings, and all the religions of the past were produced
by barbarians. We are making religions every day; that
is to say, we are constantly changing them, adapting
them to our purposes, and the religion of to-day is not
the religion of a few months or a year ago. Well, what
changes these religions ? Science does it, education does
it; the growing heart of man does it. Some men have
nothing else to do but produce religions; science is con-
stantly changing them. If we are cursed with such bar-
barian religions to-day for our religions are really bar-
barous what will they be an hundred or a thousand
years hence ?
But, friends, we are making inroads upon orthodoxy
that orthodox Christians are painfully aware of, and
what think you will be left of their fearful doctrines fifty
or a hundred years from to-night ? What will become
of their endless hell their doctrine of the future anguish
of the soul; their doctrine of the eternal burning and
never-ending gnashing of teeth. Man will discard the
idea of such a future because there is now a growing
belief in the justice of a Supreme Being.
Do you not know that every religion in the world has
declared every other religion a fraud ? Yes, we all know
it. That is the time all religions tell the truth each of
the other.
Now, do you want to know why this is: Suppose Mr.
694 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Johnson should tell Mr. Jones that he saw a corpse rise
from the grave, and that when he first saw it, it was
covered with loathsome worms, and that while he was
looking at it, it suddenly was re-clothed in healthy,
beautiful flesh. And then, suppose Jones should say to
Johnson, "Well, now, I saw that same thing myself. 1
was in a graveyard once, and I saw a dead man rise and
walk away as if nothing had ever happened to him ! "
Johnson opens wide his eyes and says to Jones, ''Jones,
you are a confounded liar ! " And Jones says to John-
son, "You are an unmitigated liar!" "No, I'm not;
you lie yourself." " No ! I say you lie ! " Each knew
the other lied, because each man knew he lied himself.
Thus when a man says: " I was upon Mount Sinai for
the benefit of my health, and there I met God, who said
to me, ' Stand aside, you, and let me drown these peo-
ple;'" and the other man says to him, "I was upon a
mountain, and there I met the Supreme Brahma."
And Moses steps in and says, "That is not true !" and
contends that the other man never did see Brahrna, and
the other man swears that Moses never saw God; and
each man utters a deliberate falsehood, and immediately
after speaks truth.
Therefore, each religion has charged every other re-
ligion with having been an unmitigated fraud. Still, if
any man had ever seen a miracle himself, he would be pre-
pared to believe that another man had seen the same or
a similar thing. Whenever a man claims to have been
cognizant of, or to have seen a miracle, he either utters
a falsehood, or he is an idiot. Truth relies upon the
unerring course of the laws of nature, and upon reason.
Observe, we have a religion that is, many people
HEREAFTER. 695
have. I make no pretensions to having a religion myself
possibly you do not. I believe in living for this beau-
tiful world in living for the present, to-day; living for
this very hour, and while I do live to make everybody
happy that I can. I cannot afford to squander my short
life and what little talent I am blessed with in studying
up and projecting schemes to avoid that seething lake of
fire and brimstone. Let the future take care of itself,
and when I am required to pass over "on the other side, "
I am ready and willing to stand my chances with you
howling Christians.
We have in this country a religion which men have
preached for about eighteen hundred years, and men
have grown wicked just in proportion as their belief in
that religion has grown strong; and just in proportion as
they have ceased to believe in it, men have become just,
humane and charitable. And if they believed in it to-
night as they believed, for instance, at the time of the
immaculate Puritan fathers, I would not be permitted to
talk here in the city of New York. It is from the coldness
and infidelity of the churches that I get my right to
preach; and I thank them for it, and I say it to their
credit.
As I have said, we have a. religion. What is it ? In
the first place, they say this vast universe was created
by a God. I don't know, and you don't know, whether
it was or not. Also, if it had not been for the first sin
of Adam, they say there would never have been any
Devil, in this world, and if there had been no Devil,
there would have been no sin, and if no sin, no death.
As for myself I am glad there is death in the world, for
that gives me a chance . Somebody has to die to give
696 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
me room, and when my turn comes I am willing to let
some one else take my place. Butthere if is a Being
who gave me this life, I thank Him from the bottom of
my heart because this life has been a joy and a pleasure
to me. Further, because of this first sin of Adam, they
say, all men are consigned to eternal perdition ! But, in
order to save man from that frightful hell of the here-
after, Christ came to this world and took upon himself
flesh, and in order that we might know the road to eter-
nal salvation, He gave us a book called the bible, and
wherever that bible has been read men have immediately
commenced throttling each other; and wherever that
bible has been circulated they have invented inquisitions
and instruments of torture, and commenced hating each
other with all their hearts. Then we are told that this
bible is the foundation of civilization, but I say it is the
foundation of hell and damnation ! and we never shall
get rid of that dogma until we get rid of the idea that the
book is inspired. Now, what does the bible teach? I
am not going to ask this preacher or that preacher what
the bible teaches; but the question is, " Ought a man be
sent to an eternal hell for not believing this bible to be
the work of a merciful God ?" A very few people read
it now; perhaps they should read it, and perhaps not; if
I wanted to believe it, I should never read a word of it
never look upon its pages, I would let it lie on its
shelf, until it rotted ! Still, perhaps, we ought to read
it in order to see what is read in schools that our children
might become charitable and good; to be read to our
children that they may get ideas of mercy, charity
humanity and justice ! Oh, yes ! Now read:
HEREAFTER. 697
"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my
sword shall devour flesh." Deut. xxxii. 42.
Very good for a merciful God !
" That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine
enemies, and the tongue of the dogs in the same. "-
Psalms Ixviii. 24.
Merciful Being ! I will quote several more choice bits
from this inspired book, although I have several times
made use of them.
But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee,
and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until
they be destroyed.
And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and
thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there
shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou
have destroyed them Deut. vii. 23, 24.
And Joshua did unto them as the Lord bade him; he
houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire.
And Joshua at that time turned back, and took Hazor,
and smote the king thereof with the sword; for Hazor be-
foretime was the head of all those kingdoms.
And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of
them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of
the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses, the
servant of the Lord, commanded.
And they smote all the souls that were therein with
the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there
was not any left to breathe; and he burnt Hazor with
fire.
(Do not forget that these things were done by the
command of God !)
But as for the cities that stood still in their strength,
698 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Israel burnt none of them, save Hazor only; that did
Joshua burn.
And all the spoil of those cities, and the cattle, the
children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but
every man they smote with the edge of the sword, until
they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe.
(As the moral and just God had commanded them.)
As the Lord commanded Moses His servant, so did
Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left noth-
ing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Joshua.
So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the
south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the val-
ley, and the plain and mountain of Israel, and the valley
of the same;
Even from the Mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir,
even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount
Hermon; and all their kings he took, and smote them,
and slew them.
Joshua made war a. long time on all those kings.
There was not a city that made peace with the children
of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon;
all the others they took in battle.
So Joshua took the whole land, according to all that
the Lord said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an in-
heritance unto Israel, according to their divisions by their
tribes. And the land rested from war. Josh, xi 7-23.
When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it,
then proclaim peace unto it.
And it shall be, if it make thee answer of peace, a-nd
open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is
found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they
shall serve thee.
HEREAFTER. 699
And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make
war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into
thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the
edge of the sword.
But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and
all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt
thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of
thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee .
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very
far off from thee, which are not of the cities of those
nations.
But of the cities of these people, which the Lord thy
God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save
alive nothing that breatheth.
But thou shalt utterly destroy them.
(Neither the old man nor the woman, nor the beautiful
maiden, nor the sweet dimpled babe, smiling upon the
lap of its mother.)
And He said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of
Israel (a merciful God, indeed), put every man his sword
by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate through-
out the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every
man his neighbor. Ex. xxxii. 29.
(Now recollect, these instructions were given to an
army of invasion, and the people who were slayed were
guilty of the crime of fighting for their homes and their
firesides. Oh, most merciful God ! The old testament
is full of curses, vengeance, jealousy and hatred, and of
barbarity and brutality. Now, do you for one moment
believe that these words were written by the most mer-
ciful God ? Don't pluck from the heart the sweet flower
700 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
of piety and crush it by superstition. Do not believe that
God ever ordered the murder of innocent women and
helpless babes. Do not let this superstition turn your
- heart into stone. When anything is said to have been
written by the most merciful God, and the thing is not
merciful, then I deny it, and say He never wrote it. I
will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in ac-
cordance with reason takes me to perdition, then I will
go to hell with my reason, rather than to heaven with-
out it.)
Now, does this bible teach political freedom; or does
it teach political tyranny ? Does it teach a man to resist
oppression ? Does it teach a man to tear from the throne
of tyranny the crowned thing and robber called king.
Let us see.
Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; For
there is no power but God; the powers that be are or-
dained of God. Rom. xiii. I.
Therefore/^ must needs be subject not only for wrath,
but also for conscience sake. Rom. viii. 4, 4.
(I deny this wretched doctrine. Wherever the sword of
rebellion is drawn to protect the rights of man, I am a
rebel. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give
men liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, I am on
the side of that rebellion.)
Does the bible give woman her rights ? Does it treat
woman as she ought to be treated, or is it barbarian ?
We will see:
Let woman learn in silence with all subjection i
Tim. ii. 1 1.
(If a woman should know anything let her ask her
HEREAFTER. 7<DI
husband. Imagine the ignorance of a lady who had only
that source of information:)
But suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp author-
ity over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was
first formed, then Eve. (Indeed !)
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being
decived, was in the transgression. (Poor woman !)
Here is something from the old testament:
When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies,
and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine
hands, and thou hast taken them captives;
And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and
hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to be
thy wife;
Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and
she shall shave her head, and pare her nails. Deut. xxi.
10, II, 12.
(That is self-defence, I suppose !)
I need not go further in bible quotations to show that
woman, throughout the old testament, is a degraded be-
ing, having no rights which her husband, father, brother,
or uncle is bound to respect. Still, that is bible doctrine,
and that bible is the word of a just and omniscient God !
Does the bible teach the existence of devils ? Of course
it does. Yes, it teaches not only the existence of a good
being, but a bad being. This good being has to have a
home; that home was heaven. This bad being had to
have a home; and that home was hell. This hell is sup-
posed to be nearer to earth than I would care to have it,
and to be peopled with spirits, spooks, hobgoblins, and
all the fiery shapes with which the imagination of ignor-
ance and fear could people that horrible place; and the
7O2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
bible teaches the existence of hell and this big devil and
all these little devils. The bible teaches the doctrine of
witchcraft and makes us believe that there are sorcerers
and witches, and that the dead could be raised by the
power of sorcery. Does anybody believe it now ?
Then said Saul unto his servants, seek me a woman
that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and in-
quire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold,
there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at En-dor.
In another place he declares that witchcraft is an
abomination unto the Lord. He wants no rivals in this
business. Now what does the new testament teach:
Then was Jesus lead up of the Spirit into the wilder-
ness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights,
he was afterward a-hungered.
And when the tempter came to him, he said if thou
be the Son of God, command these stones to be made
bread.
But He answered and said, it is written, man shall
not live by bread alone, but by every word that pro-
ceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city and
setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple;
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast
thyself down, for it is written, He shall give His angels
charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall
bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against
a stone.
Jesus said' unto him, it is written again, Thou shalt
not tempt the Lord, thy God, and Him only shalt thou
serve. Matt. iv. 1-7.
HEREAFTER. 703
(Is it possible that anyone can believe that the devil
absolutely took God Almighty, and put him upon the
pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to persuade him
to jump down ? Is it possible ?)
Again, the devil taketh him into an exceedingly high
mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the
world, and the glory of them;
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee,
if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan, for
it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and
him only shalt thou serve. Matthew iv. 8-1 1.
(Now the devil must have known at that time that He
was God, and God at that time must have known that
the other was the devil, who had the impudence to prom-
ise God a world in which he did not have a tax-title to
an inch of land.)
Now, what of the Sabbath the Lord's day ? Why is
Sunday the Lord's day ? If Sunday alone is the Lord's
day, whose day is Monday, Tuesday, Friday, etc. ? No
matter ! The idea, that God hates to hear your children
laugh on Sunday ! On Sunday let your children play
games. I see a poor man who hasn't money enough to
go to a big church, and he has too much independence
to go to the little church which the big church built for
charity. If he enters the portals of the big church with
poor clothes on, the usher approaches him with a severe
face, and ' ' Brother, I'm sorry, but only high-toned ser-
vants of the living God congregate in this church for
worship, and with that seedy suit on we cannot admit
you. All the seats in this magnificent edifice are owned
and represented by solid ' men, by men of capital. We
704 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
pay our pastor $5,000 a year the annual eight weeks
vacation thrown in and it would not be profitable for
us to seriously encourage the attendance of so insignifi-
cant a person as yourself. Just around the corner there
is a little cheap church with a little cheap pastor, where
they can dish up hell to you in an approved style in a
style more suitable to your needs and condition; and the
dish will not be as expensive to you, either ! "
If I had chanced to be that poor man in the seedy
garments, and had been endeavoring to serve my Maker
for even half a century, I would have felt like muttering
audibly, ' ' You go to hell ! " (I am not much given to
profanity, but when I am sorely aggravated and vexed
in spirit, I declare to you that it is such a relief to me,
such a solace to my troubled soul, and gives me such
heavenly peace, to now and then allow a word or phrase
to escape my lips which can serve me no other earthly
purpose, seemingly, than to render emphatic my other-
wise mildly expressed ideas. I make this confession
parenthetically, and in a whisper, my friends, trusting
you will not allow it to go further.)
Now, I tell you, if you don't want to go to church, go
to the woods and take your wife and children and a lunch
with you, and sit down upon the old log and let the chil-
dren gather flowers, and hear the leaves whispering poems
like memories of long ago ! and when the sun is about
going down kissing the summits of the distant hills, go
home with your hearts filled with throbs of joy and glad-
ness, and the cheeks of your little ones covered with the
rose-blushes of health ! There is more recreation and
solid enjoyment in that than putting on your Sunday
clothes and going to a canal-boat with a steeple on top
HEREAFTER. 705
of it and listening to a man tell you that your chances
are about ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-
nine to one for being eternally damned !
Oh, strike with a hand of fire, weird musician, thy
harp, strung with Appollo's golden hair ! Fill the vast
cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft
toucher of the organ's keys ! Blow, bugler, blow, until
thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves,
and charm the lovers wandering mid the vine-clad hills !
but know your sweetest strains are but discord
compared with childhood's happy laugh the laugh that
fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy! O, rip-
pling river of laughter; thou art the blessed boundary
line between beasts and men, and every wayward wave
of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O,
Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of joy, there are dimples
enough in thy cheek to catch and hold and glorify all the
tears of grief !
Do not make slaves of your children on Sunday.
Don't place them in long, straight rows, like fence-posts,
and " Sh ! children, it's Sunday ! " when by chance you
hear a sound or rustle. Let winsome Johnny have light
and air, and let him grow beautiful; let him laugh until
his little sides ache, if he feels like it; let him pinch the
cat's tail until the house is in an uproar with his yells
let him do anything that will make him happy. When
I was a little boy, children went to bed when they were
not sleepy, and always got up when they were? I would
like to see that changed we may see it some day. It
is really easier to wake a child with a kiss than a blow;
with kind words than with harshness and a curse. An-
other thing: let the children eat what they want to.
706 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they
please. They know what they want much better than
you do. Nature knows perfectly well what she is about,
and if you go a-fooling with her you may get into trouble.
The crime charged to me is this: I insist that the bible
\snot the word of God; that we should not whip our chil-
dren; that we should treat our wives as loving equals;
that God never upheld polygamy and slavery; deny that
God ever commanded his generals to slaughter innocent
babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of
war; that God ever turned Lot's wife into a pillar of
salt (although she might have deserved that fate); that
God ever made a woman out of a man's, or any other
animal's rib 1 And I emphatically deny that God ever
signed or sealed a commission appointing his satanic ma-
jesty governor-general over an extensive territory popular-
ly styled hell, with absolute power to torture, burn, maim,
boil, or roast at his pleasure the victims of his master's
displeasure ! I deny these things, and for that I am
assailed by the clergy throughout the United States.
Now, you have read the bible romance of the fall of
Adam ? Yes, well, you know that nearly or quite all
the religions of this world account for the existence of
evil by such a story as that ! Adam, the miserable cow-
ard, informed God that his wife was at the bottom of the
whole business I "She did tempt me and I did eat!"
And then commenced a row, and we have been engaged
in it ever since ! You know what happened to Adam
and his wife for her transgressions ?
In another account of what is said to have been the
same transaction which is the most sensible account of
the two the Supreme Brahma concluded, as he had a
HEREAFTER. 707
little leisure, that he would make a world, and a man and
woman. He made the world, the man, and then the
woman, and then placed the pair on the Island of Cey-
lon. (Bear in mind, there were no ribs used in this af-
fair.) This island is said to be the most beautiful that
the mind of man can conceive of. Such birds you never
saw, such songs you never heard ! and then such flowers,
such verdure ! The branches of the trees were so ar-
ranged that when the winds swept through, there floated
out from every tree melodious strains of music from a
thousand JEolian harps ! After Brahma put them there,
he said: " Let them have a period of courtship, for it is
my desire and will that true love should forever precede
marriage." And with the nightingale singing, and the
stars twinkling, and the little brooklets murmuring, and
the flowers blooming, and the gentle breezes fanning
their brows, they courted, and loved ! What a sweet
courtship. Then Brahma married the happy pair, and
remarked: "Remain here; you can be happy on this
island, and it is my will that you never leave it." Well,
after a little while the man became uneasy, and said to
the wife of his youth, " I believe I'll look about a little."
He determined to seek greener pastures. He proceeded
to the western extremity of the island, and discovered a
little narrow neck of land connecting the island with the
mainland, and the devil they had a genuine devil in
those days, too, it seems, who is always "playing the
devil " with us produced a mirage, and over on the
mainland were such hills and vales, such dells and dales,
such lofty mountains crowned with perpetual snow, such
cataracts clad in bows of glory, that he rushed breath-
lessly back to his wife, exclaiming: "O, Heva ! the
708 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
country over there is a thousand times better and lovelier
than this; let us migrate." She, woman-like, said:
" Adami, we must let well. enough alone; we have all we
want; let us stay here." But he said: " No, we will go."
She followed him, and when they came to this narrow
neck of land, he took her upon his back and carried her
across. But at the instant he put her down there was a
crash, and looking back they discovered that this narrow
neck of land had fallen into the sea. The mirage had
disappeared, and there was nothing but rocks and sand,
and the Supreme Brahma cursed them to the lowest hell.
Then Adami spoke and it showed him to be every inch
a man "Curse me, but curse not her; it was not her
fault, it was mine." (Our Adam says, with a pusillani-
mous whine, ' Curse her, for it is her fault: she tempted
me and I did eat ! " The world, to-day, is teeming with
just such cowards!) Then said Brahma, "I will save
her, but not thee." And then spoke his wife, out of the
fullness of the love of a heart in which there was enough
to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, "It
thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish
to live without him. I love him." Then magnanimously
said the Supreme Brahma, "I will spare you both, and
watch over you and your children forever 1 "
Now, tell me truly, which is the grander story ? The
book containing this story is full of good things; and yet
Christians style as heathens those who have adopted this
book as their guide, and spend thousands of dollars an-
nually in sending missionaries to convert them !
It has been too often conceded that because the new
testament contains, in many passages, a lofty and terse
expression of love as the highest duty of man, Christianity
HEREAFTER. 709
must have a tendency to ennoble his nature. But Chris-
tianity is like sweetened whisky and water it perverts
and destroys that which it should nourish and strengthen.
Christianity makes an often fatal attack on a man's
morality if he happens to be blessed with any by sub-
stituting for the sentiments of love and duty to our
neighbors, a sense of obligation of blind obedience to an
infinite, mysterious, revengeful, tyrannical God ! The
real principle of Christian morality, is servile obedience
to a dangerous Power ! Dispute the assertions of even
your priest as to the requirements, dislikes, desires and
wishes of the Almighty, and you might as well count
yourself as lost, sulphurically lost ! If you are one of
God's chosen, or in other words, have been saved, and
are even so fortunate as to attain to the glories and joys
of the gold-paved streets of heaven, you are expected, in
looking over the bannisters of heaven down into the
abyss of eternal torture, to view with complacency the
agonized features of your mother, sister, brother, or in-
fant child who are writhing in hell and laugh at their
calamity ! You are not allowed to carry them a drop of
water to cool their parched tongue ! And if you are a
Christian, you at this moment believe you will enjoy the
situation !
If a man in a quarrel cuts down his neighbor in his
sins, the poor, miserable, victim goes directly to hell !
The murderer may reasonably count on a lease of a few
weeks of life, interviews his pastor, confesses the crime,
repents, accepts the grace of God, is forgiven, and then
smoothly and gently slides from the rudely-constructed
scaffold into a haven of joy and bliss, there to sing the
praises of the Lamb of God forever and forever ! Poor,
unfortunate victim ! Happy murderer !
7io INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Ah, what a beautiful religion humanitarianism and
charity * might become ! To do so sweet a thing as to
* The following incident, showing Col. Ingersoll's disposition to prac-
tice what he preaches whenever the opportunity presents itself, we have
never before seen in print. One day, during the winter of 1863-4, when
the colonel had a law office in Peoria, ID. and before the close
of the late war of the rebellion a thinly clad, middle-aged, lady-
like woman came into his office and asked assistance, "My good woman,
why do you ask it?" "Sir, my husband is a private in the -th Illinois
infantry, and stationed somewhere in Virginia, but I do not know where
as I have not heard from him for nearly six months, although previous to
that time I seldom failed to get a letter from him as often as once a
week, and whenever he received his pay the most of his money came to
me. To tell the truth. I do not know whether he is living or not. But
one thing I do know, I do not hear from him. I have seven children to
provide for, but no money in the house, not a particle of bread in the
pantry, nor a lump of coal in the shed, and the landlord threatening to
turn us out in the storm. This city pledged itself to give wives a certain
sum monthly, providing they consented to their husband's responding to
the call of the President for troops, but, disregarding these pledges, we
and our children are left to starve and freeze, and to be turned out of
our houses and homes by relentless landlords. Now, sir, can you tell me
what I am to do?
The colonel drew his bandanna from his great coat pocket, lightly
touched his eyes with it, and rising to his feet, pointed to a chair "Sit
down, madame, and remain till I return. I will be back in a few min-
utes." He picked up a half-sheet of legal-cap and a pencil, and departed
for the law and other offices of the building of which there were several.
Entering the first that appeared, "Good morninb, Smith, give me half-a-
dollar." "Well, now, colonel, you are" "Never mind if I am I must
have it!" It came. He entered another. "Hello! colonel, what's new? 1 '
"I want a half-dollar from you!" "What for?" "None of your busi-
ness I want the money." He got it. He entered a third. "Hello, Bob!
Anything new on eter " "Never mind, I must have fifty cents!" "But '
"But nothing, Jones, give me what I ask for." Of course he got what he
asked for. So on through fourteen offices, from which he obtained $7.
Returning to his office, he put his hand in his own pocket and drew forth
a $5 note, and handed the woman $12. "Take this, my good woman,
and make it go as far as you can. If you obtain relief from no other
source, call on me again and I will do the best I can for you!" And still
Col. Ingersoll is styled by hell-fire advocates an infidel, atheist, dog!
HEREAFTER. J\ I
love our neighbors as we love ourselves; to strive to at-
tain to as perfect a spirit as a Golden Rule would bring
us into; to make virtue lovely by living it, grandly and
nobly and patiently the outgrowth of a brotherhood not
possible in this world where men are living away from
themselves, and trampling justice and mercy and forgive-
ness under their feet !
Speaking of the different religions, of course they are
represented by the different churches; and the best hold
of the churches, and the surest way of giving totally de-
praved humanity a realizing sense of their utterly lost
condition, is to talk and preach hell with all its horrible,
terrible comcomitants. True, the different priests advo-
cate the doctrine, only when they see that it is the only
thing to rouse the sinners from their lethargy; for where
is the man who will not accept the grace of Jesus Christ,
if he becomes convinced that his late in the hereafter is
a terrible one ! The ministers of the different churches
know full well which side of their bread is buttered. A
priest is a divinity among his people a man around
whom his parishioners throw a glamour of sanctity, and
one who can do no wrong; albeit, his chief and growing
characteristics are tyranny, arrogancy, self-conceit, de-
ception, bigotry and superstition ! Tyrannical do I call
them ? Most assuredly ! Suppose, for example, the
Methodist, or Presbyterian church had the power to de-
cide whether you, or I, or any other man, should be a
Methodist or Presbyterian, and we should decline to fol-
low the path pointed out to us, or either of us, what I
solemly and candidly ask you, would be the result ? Our
fate would be more terrible than their endless hell ! The
inquisition would rise again in all its horrid blackness!
712 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Instruments of torture would darken our vision on every
hand 1 But, thank God not that terrible being whom
Christians would have us believe is our Maker this is a
free land free as the air we breathe; and you and I can
partake of the orthodox waters of life freely, or we can
let them alone ! When I see a man perched upon a
pedestal called a ' ' pulpit " a man who is one of nature's
noblemen, physically, and fully able to breast the storms
of life and earn his honest living telling his hearers with
perspiring brow and all his might and main of the terrors
of the seething cauldron of hell, and how certain it is
that they are to be unceremoniously dumped therein to
be boiled through all ages, yet never boiled done un-
less they seek salvation when I look upon that man,
honor bright, I pity him, for I cannot help comparing
him with the lower animals ! Then there is a reaction,
and I feel an utter contempt for him, for he may know,
when he declares hell is a reality, that he is lying !
Now, of the deception of the preacher. At the close
of a sermon in an orthodox church, Rev. Mr. Solemn-
face steps to the side of Bro. Everbright, who has been
absent from the brimstone-mill for several months:
"Ah, Bro. Everbright, how do you do? Long time
since I have seen you; how's your family ? Quite well ?
Is it well with thee to-day ? Rather lukewarm, eh ?
Sorry, sorry. Well, brother, can you do something for
us financially, to-day? Our people think my pulpit is too
common, and say a couple hundred will put it in good
shape, and make it desirable and attractive. Can you
contribute a few dollars to the fund ? "
"Well, Bro. Solemnface, for four long months I have
been ill; not a day's work have I done, and not a cent
HEREAFTER. 713
of money have I that I can call my own. Next year I
trust I can do something for the cause of my Maker."
" Ah-h- h-h-h-h ! " and Bro. S.'s face assumes a terri-
ble look of disappointment, and he is gone in a moment.
Out upon such a fraud ! The pulpits of the land are
full of them. The world is cursed with them ! They
possess all the elements of vagabonds, dead-beats, falsi-
fiers, beggars, vultures, hyenas and jackals !
In past ages the cross has been in partnership with the
sword, and the religion of Christ was established by
murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know
that the church carried the black flag, and I ask you
what must have been the civilizing influence of such a
religion ?
Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man
wanting to get to heaven, caring nothing what becomes
of the rest of mankind, saying: " If I can only get my
little soul in ! " I have always noticed that the people
who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about
getting them saved. Here is what we are taught by the
church of to-day. We are taught by them that fathers
and mothers can all be happy in heaven, no matter who
may be in hell; that the husband could be happy there,
with the wife that would have died for him at any mo-
ment of his life, in hell. But they say, ' ' Hell, we don't
believe in fire. I don't think you understand me. What
we believe in now is remorse." What will you have re-
morse for ? For the mean things you have done when
you are in hell ? Will you have any remorse for the
mean things you have done when you are in heaven ? Or
will you be so good then that you won't care how you
used to be ? I tell you to-day, that no matter in what
714 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
heaven you may be, no matter in~what star you are
spending the summer, if you meet another man whom
you have wronged, you "will drop a little behind in the
tune. And, no matter in what part of hell you are, you
will meet some one who has suffered, whose nakedness
you have clothed, and the fire will cool up a little. Ac-
cording to this Christian doctrine, you won't care how
mean you were once. Is it a compliment to an infinite
God to say that every being He ever made deserved to
be damned the minute He had got him done, and that
He will damn everybody He has not had a chance to
make over ? Is it possible that somebody else can be
good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is
the only anchor for the human soul ?
We sit by the fireside and see the flames and sparks
fly up the chimney everybody happy, and the cold wind
and sleet beating on the window, and out on the door-
step a mother with a child on her breast freezing. How
happy it makes a fire, that beautiful contrast. And we
say God is good, and there we sit, and there she sits and
moans, not one night, but forever. Or we are sitting at
the table with our wives and children, everybody eating,
happy and delighted, and Famine comes and pushes out
its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us
for a crust; how that would increase the appetite ! And
that is the Christian heaven. Don't you see that these
infamous doctrines petrify the human heart ? And I
would have every one who hears me swear that he will
never contribute another dollar to build another church,
in which is taught such infamous lies. Let every man
HEREAFTER.
715
try to make every day a joy, and God cannot afford to
damn such a man. Consequently humanity is the only
real religion.
"Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless millions mourn."
INGEKSOLL'S LECTURE
ON THE
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: "What have I said?"
" What has been my offense? I have been spoken of as
if I were a wolf endeavoring to devour the entire fold of
sheep in the absence of the shepherd." I believe in the
trinity of observation, reason and science; the trinity of
man, woman and child; the trinity of love, joy and hope;
and thought that every man has a right to think for him-
self, and no other man has the right to debar him of this
privilege by torture, by social ostracism, or any of the
numerous other expedients resorted to by the enemies of
advancement. I ask: " Does God wish the lip-worship
of a slave? a sneak? of the man that dares not reason?
If I were the infinite God, I would rather have the wor-
ship of one good man of brains than a world of such
men. I am told that I am in danger of everlasting fire,
and that I shall burn forever in hell. I tell you, my
friends, if I were going to hell to night I would take an
716
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS.
overcoat with me. Do not tell me that the eternal fu-
ture of a man may depend upon his belief. I deny it.
That a man should be punished for having come to an
honest conclusion, the honest production of his brain;
that an honest conclusion should be deemed a crime and
so declared, it is an infamous, monstrous assertion, and
I would rather go to hell than to keep the company of a
God who would damn his child for an honest belief.
" Next, I ' preached ' that a woman was the equal of
man, entitled to everything that he is entitled to, to be
his partner, and to be cherisned and respected because
she is the weaker, to be treated as a splendid flower. I
said that man should not be cross to her, but fill the
house that she is in with such joy that it would burst out
at the window. I have said that matrimony is the holiest
of sacraments, and I have said that the bible took wom-
an up thousands of years ago and handed her down to
man as a slave, and I have said that the bible is a bar-
barous book for teaching that she is a slave, and I repeat
it, and will prove later what I have said. I have pleaded
for the right of man, of wife, and of the little child; I
have said we can govern children by love and affection;!
have asked for tender treatment for the child of crime; I
have asked mothers to cease beating their children and
take them to their hearts; and for this I am denounced by
the religious press and men in the pulpits as a demon and
a monster of heresy, who should be driven out from
among you as an unclean thing.
" But I should not complain. Only a few years ago I
should have been compelled to look at my denouncers
through flame and smoke; but they dare not treat me so
now or they would. One hundred years ago I should
718 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
have been burned for claiming the right of reason; fifty
years ago I should have been imprisoned and my wife
and children would have, been torn away from me, and
twenty-five years ago I could not have made a living in
the United States in my profession the law. But I live
now and can see through it all, and all is light. I
delivered another lecture, on "Ghosts," in which I
sought to show that man had been controlled in the past
by phantoms created by his own imagination; in which
the pencil of fear had drawn pictures for him on the can-
vass of superstition, and that men had groveled in the
dirt before their own superstitious creations. I endeavored
to show that man had received nothing from these ghosts
but hatred, blood, ignorance and unhappiness, and that
they had filled our world with woe and tears. This is
what I endeavored to show no more. Now, every one
has as much right to differ with me as I with them, but
it does not make the slightest difference for the purpose
of argument whether I am a good man or a bad, whether
I am ugly or handsome although I would not object to
resting my case on that issue; the only thing to be con-
sidered and discussed is, is what I have said true, or is it
untrue?
4 'Now, I said that the bible came from the ghosts,
and that they gave us the doctrine of immortality of the
soul, which I deny. Now, the immortality of the soul,
if there is such a thing, is a fact, and therefore no book
could make it. If I am immortal, I am; if not, no book
can make me so. The doctrine of immortality is based
in the hope of the human heart, and is not derived from
any book or a creed. It has its origin in the ebb and
flow of the human affections, and will continue as long as
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS. 719
affection, and is the rainbow in the sky of hope. It does
not depend on a book, on ghosts, superstition of any
kind; it is a flower of the human heart. I did say that
these ghosts, or the book, taught that human slavery was
right, that most monstrous of all crimes, that makes
miserable the victim and debases the master, for a slave
can have all the virtues while the master can not. I did
say that it rivited the chains upon the oppressed, and
that it counseled the robbing of that most precious of all
boons Liberty. I add that the book upheld all this,
that it sustained and sanctified the institution of human
slavery. I did also assert that this same book, which my
critics claim was inspired by God, inculcated the doctrine
of witchcraft, for which people, through its teaching were
hanged and burned for bringing disease upon the regal
persons of kings, and for souring beer. I did say that
this book upheld that most of all infamies, polygamy,
and that it did not teach political liberty or religious
toleration, but political slavery and the most wretched
intolerance. I did try to prove that these ghosts knew
less than nothing about medicine, politics, legislation,
astronomy, geology and astrology, but I am also aware
that in saying these things I have done what my censors
think I ought not to have done. But the victor ought
not to feel malice, and I shall have none. As soon as I
had said all these things, some gentlemen felt called upon
to answer them, which they had a right to do. Now, I
like fairness, am enamored with it, probably because I
get so little of it. I can say a great many mean things,
for I have read all the religious papers, and I ought to be
able to account for every motive in a mean manner after
that, but I will not.
720 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
" The first gentleman whom I shall call your attention
to is the Rev. Dr. Woodbridge. It seems that when
I delivered my lectures the conclusion had come to that
' that man does not believe in anything but matter and
force that man does not believe in spirit. ' Why not?
If by spirit you mean that which thinks, I am one of
them myself. If you mean by spirit that which hopes
and reasons and loves and aspires, why, then, I am a be-
liever in spirits; but whatever spirit there is in this uni-
verse I will take my oath is a natural product and not
superimposed upon this -world. All I will say is that
whatever is, is natural, and there is as much goodness in
my judgment, as much spirit here in this world as in any
other, and you are just as near the heart of the universe
here as you ever can be. But, they say, " there is
matter and force, and there is force and there is spirit. "
Well, what of it? There is no matter without force.
What would keep it together unless there was force? Can
you imagine matter without force? Honor bright, can
you conceive of force without matter? And what is
spirit? They say spirit is the first thing that ever was.
It seems to me sometimes as though spirit was the
blossom and fruit of all, and not the commencement.
But they say spirit was first. What would that spirit do?
No force no matter a spirit living in an infinite vacu-
um without side, edge or bottom. This spirit created
the world; and if this spirit did, there must have been a
time when it commenced to create, and back of that an
eternity spent in absolute idleness. Can a spirit exist
without matter or without force? I honestly say I do not
know what matter is, what force is, what spirit is; but if
you mean by matter anything that I can touch, or by
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS.
force anything that we can overcome then I believe in
them. If you mean by spirit anything that can think and
love, I believe in spirits.
"The next critic who assailed me was the Rev. Mr.
Kalloch. I am not going to show you what I can withstand,
lam not going to say a word about the reputation of this
man, although he took some liberties with mine. This
gentleman says negation is a poor thing to die by. I would
just as lief die by that as the opposite. He spoke of the
last hours of Paine and Voltaire and the terrors of their
death-beds; but the question arises, is there a word of
truth in all he said? I have observed that the murderer
dies with courage and firmness in many instances, but
that does not make me think that it sanctified his crime;
in fact, it makes no impression upon me one way or the
other. When a man through old age or infirmity ap-
proaches death the intellectual faculties are dimmed, his
his senses become less and less, and as he loses these he
goes back to his old superstition. Old age brings back
the memories of childhood. And the great bard gave
even in the corrupt and besotted Falstaff who prattled
of babbling brooks and green fields an instance of the
retracing steps taken by the memory at the last gasp. It
has been said that the bible was sanctified by our mothers.
Every superstition in the world, from the beginning of
all time, has had such a sanctification. The Turk dying
on the Russian battle-field pressing the Koran to his
bosom, breathes his last thinking of the loving adjura-
tion of his mother to guard it. Every superstition has
been rendered sacred by the love of a mother. I know
what it has cost the noble and the brave to throw to the
winds these superstitions. Since the death of Voltaire,
722 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
who was innocent of all else than a desire to shake off
the superstitions of the past, the curse of Rome has pur-
sued him, and ignorant protestants have echoed that
curse. I like Voltaire. Whenever I think of him it is
as a plumed knight coming from the fray with victory
shining upon his brow. He was once in the Bastile, and
while there he changed his name from Francis Marie
Aloysius to Voltaire; and when the Bastile was torn down
" Voltaire " was the battle cry of those who did it. He
did more to bring about religious toleration than any man
in the galaxy of those who strove for the privilege of free
thought. He was always on the side of justice. He was
full of faults and had many virtues. His doctrines have
never brought unhappiness to any country. He died as
serenely as anyone could. Speaking to his servant, he
said, " Farewell my faithful friend." Could he have
done a more noble act than to recognize him who had
served him faithfully as a man? What more could he
wished? And now let me say here, I will give a $ 1,000
in gold to any clergyman who can substantiate that the
death of Voltaire was not as peaceful as the dawn. And
of Thomas Paine, whom they assert died in fear and
agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils, in fact,
frightened to death by God I will give $1,000 likewise
to anyone who can substantiate this absurd story a
story without a word of truth in it. And let me ask, who
dies in the most fear, the man who, like the saint, ex-
claims: "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken
me?" or Voltaire, who peacefully and quietly bade his
servant farewell? The question is not who died right,
but who lived right. I look upon death as the most un-
important moment of life, and believe that not half the
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS. 723
responsibility is attached to dying that is to living pro-
perly. This Rev. Mr. Kalloch is a baptist. He has a
right to be a baptist. The first baptist, though was a
heretic; but it is among the wonders that when a heretic
gets fifteen or twenty to join him he suddenly begins to
be orthodox. Roger Williams was a baptist, but how he,
or anyone not destitude of good sense, could be one,
passes my comprehension. Let me illustrate:
"Suppose it was the Day of Judgment to-night and
we were all assembled, as the ghosts, say we will be, to
be judged, and God should ask a man:
" 'Have you been a good man? '
" 'Yes.'
" ' Have you loved your wife and children? '
" 'Yes.'
" ' Have you taken good care of them and made them
happy? '
" 'Yes.'
" ' Have you tried to do right by your neighbors? '
" 'Yes.'
" 'Paid all your debts?'
" 'Yes.'
41 And then cap the climax by asking:
" 'Were you ever baptized?'
" Could a solitary being hear that question without
laughing? I think not. I once happened to be in the
company of six or seven baptist elders (I never have
been able to understand since how I got into such bad
company), and they wanted to know what I thought of
baptism. I answered that I had not given the matter
any attention, in fact I had no special opinion upon the
subject. But they pressed me and finally I told them that
724 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
I thought, with soap baptism was a good thing.
' ' The Rev. Mr. Guard has attacked me, and has de-
scribed me, among other things, as a dog barking at a
train. Of course he was the train. He said, first, the
bible is not an immoral book, because I swore upon it
when I joined the Free and Accepted Masons. That
settles the question. Secondly, he says that Solomon
had softening of the brain and fatty degeneration of the
heart; thirdly, that the Hebrews had the right to slay all
the inhabitants of Canaan according to the doctrine of
the survival of the fittest. He says that the destruction
of these Canaanites, the ripping open by the bloody
sword of women with child was an act of sublime mercy.
Think of that! He says that the Canaanites should have
been driven from their homes, and not only driven, but
that the men who simply were guilty of the crime of fight-
ing for their native land the old men with gray hairs; the
old mothers, the young mothers, the little dimpled, prat-
tling child that it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge
the sword of religious persecution into old and young.
If that is mercy, let us have injustice. If there is that
kind of a God I am sorry that I exist. Fourthly, Mr.
Guard said God has the right to do as he pleases with
the beings he has created; and, fifthly, that God, by
choosing the Jews and governing them personally, spoiled
them to that degree that they crucified Him the first op-
portunity they had. That shows what a good adminis-
tration will do. Sixthly, He says polygamy is not a bad
thing when compared with the picture of Antony and
Cleopatra, now on exhibition in this city. I will just say
one word about art. I think this is one of the most
beautiful words in our language, and do you know, it
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS. 72$
never seemed to me necessary for art to go into partner-
ship with a rag? I like the paintings of Angelo, of
Raphael I like those splendid souls that are put upon
canvas all there is of human beauty. There are brave
souls in every land who worship nature grand and nude,
and who, with swift, indignant hand, tear off the fig
leaves of the prude. Seventhly, it may be said that the
bible sanctions slavery, but that it is not an immoral
book if it does. Mr. Guard playfully says that he is a
puppy nine days old; that he was only eight days old
when I came here. I'm inclined to think he has over-
stated his age. I account for his argument precisely as
he did for the sin of Solomon, softening of the brain, or
fatty degeneration of the heart. It does seem to me that
if I were a good Christian and knew that another man
was going down to the bottomless pit to be miserable and
in agony forever I would try to stop him, and instead of
filling my mouth with epithet and invective, and drawing
the lips of malice back from the teeth of hatred, my eyes
would be filled with tears, and I would do what I could
to reclaim him and take him up in the arms of my affec-
tion.
" The next gentleman is the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who
delivered a sermon entitled ' Ghost against God, or
Ingersoll against Honesty.' Of course he was honesty.
He apologized for attending an infidel lecture upon the
ground that he hated to contribute to the support of a
materialistic showman. I am willing to trade fagots for
epithets, and the rack for anything that may be said in
his sermon. I am willing to trade the instrument of tor-
ture with which they could pull the nails from my fingers
for anything which the ingenuity of orthodoxy can invent.
726 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
When I saw that report although I do not know that I
ought to tell it I felt bad. I knew that man's conscience
must be rankling like a snake in his bosom, that he had
contributed a dollar to the support of a man as bad as I.
I wrote him a letter, in which I said: "The Rev.
Samuel Robinson, My Dear Sir : In order to relieve
your conscience of the stigma of having contributed to
the support of an unbeliever in Ghosts, I herewith
enclose the dollar you paid to attend my lecture." I
then gave him a little good advice to be charitable, and
regretted exceedingly that any man could listen to me for
an hour and a half and not go away satisfied that other
men had the same right to think that he had.
The speaker went on to answer the argument of Mr.
Robinson with regard to persecution, contending that
protestants had been guilty of it no less than catholics;
and showing that the first people to pass an act of toler-
ation in the new world were the catholics in Maryland.
The reverend gentleman has stated also that infidelity
has done nothing for the world in the development of art
and science. Has he ever heard of Darwin, of Tyndall,
of Huxley, of John W. Draper, of Auguste Comte, of
Descartes, Laplace, Spinoza, or any man who has taken
a step in advance of his time? Orthodoxy never
advances, when it does advance, it ceases to be orthodoxy.
A reply to certain strictures in the Occident led the
lecturer up to another ministerial critic, namely, the Rev.
W. E. Ijams.
" I want to say that, so far as I can see, in his argu-
ment this gentleman has treated me in a kind and con-
siderate spirit. He makes to or three mistakes, but I
suppose they are the fault of the report from which he
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS. 727
quoted. I am made to say in his sermon that there is no
sacred place in the universe. What I did say was:
" There is no sacred place in all the universe of thought;
there 'is nothing too holy to be investigated, nothing too
sacred to be understood, and I said that the fields of
thought were fenceless, that they should be without a
wall. " I say so to-night. He further said that I said
that a man had not only the right to do right, but to do
wrong. What I did say, was: " Liberty is the right to
do right, and the right to think right, and the right to
think wrong," not the right to do wrong. That is all I
have to say in regard to that gentleman, except that, so
far as I could see, he was perfectly fair, and treated me
as though I was a human being as well as he."
The speaker sarcastically referred to the slurs thrown
upon him by his reviewers, who have claimed that his
theories have no foundation, his arguments no reason,
and that his utterances are vapid, blasphemous, and un-
worthy a reply. He said that their statements and their
actions were sadly at variance, for, while declaring him
a senseless idiot, they spent hours in striving to prove
themselves not idiots; in other words, in one breath they
declare that his views were absolutely without point, and
needed no explaining away; while in direct rebuttal of
this declaration, they devoted time and labor in attempts
to disprove the very things they called self-evident
absurdities.
Turning from this subject, Mr. Ingersoll read numer-
ous extracts from the bible, with interpolated comments.
He claimed that the bible authorized slavery, and that
many devoted believers in that book had turned the cross
of Christ into a whipping post. He did not wish it under-
728 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
stood that he could find no good in believers in creeds;
far from it, for some of his dearest friends were most
orthodox in their religious, ideas, and there had been
hundreds of thousands of good men among both clergy
and laymen. History has shown no people more nobly
self-sacrificing than the Jesuit Fathers who first visited
this country to proselyte among the Indians. But these
men and their like were better than their creeds; better
than the book in which their faith was centered. The
bible tells us distinctly that the world was made in six
days not periods, but actual, bona fide days a state-
ment which it iterates and re-iterates. It also tells us
that God lengthened the day for the benefit of a gentle-
man named Joshua, in other words, that he stopped the
rotary motion of the earth. Motion is changed into heat
by stoppage, and the world turns with such velocity that
its sudden stoppage would create a heat of intensity be-
yond the wildest flight of our imagination, and yet this
impossible feat was performed that Joshua might have
longer time to expend in slaying a handful of Amorites.
The bible also upholds the doctrines of witchcraft and
spiritualism, for Saul visited the witch of Endor, and she,
after preparing the cabinet, trotted out the spirit of
Samuel, said spirit kindly joining in conversation with
Saul, without requiring the aid of a trance medium. The
speaker then quoted at length from Leviticus concerning
wizards and evil spirits, described the temptation of
Christ by Satan, and the driving of devils from man into
swine. He sneered at the rights of children as biblically
described, citing the law which sentenced them to be
stoned to death for disobedience to parents, the almost
sacrifice of Isaac by his father, and the actual murder of
REVIEW OF HIS REVIEWERS. 729
Jephthah's daughter, asking if a God who could demand
such worship was worthy the love of man. He next re-
ferred to the conversation between God and Satan con-
cerning the man Job, and of the reward given to the
latter for his long continued patience. His three daughters
and his seven sons had been taken from him merely to
test his patience, and the merciful God gave him in ex-
change three other daughters and seven sons, but they
were not the children whom he had loved and lost. The
bible represents woman as vastly inferior to man, while
he believed, with Robbie Burns, that God made man
with a prentice-hand, and woman after He had learned
the trade. Polygamy, also, was a doctrine supported by
this pure and pious work; a doctrine so foul that language
is not strong enough to express its infamy. The bible
taught, as a religious creed, that if your wife, your sister,
your brother, your dearest friend, tempted you to change
from the religion of your fathers, your duty to God
demanded that you should at once strike a blow at the
life of your tempter. Let us suppose, then, that in truth
God went to Palestine and selected the scanty tribes of
Israel as his chosen people, and supposing that he after-
ward came to Jerusalem in the shape of a man and
taught a different doctrine from the one prescribed by
their book and their clergy, and that the chosen people,
in obedience to the education he had prepared for them,
struck at the life of him who tempted them. Were they
to be cursed by God and man because the former had
reaped the harvest of his own sowing?
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
"HOW THE GODS GROW."
LADIES AND GENTLEMENN: Priests have invented a
crime called blasphemy. That crime is the breastwork
behind which ignorance, superstition and hypocrisy have
crouched for thousands of years, and shot their poisoned
arrows at the pioneers of human thought. Priests tell us
that there is a God somewhere in heaven who objects to
a human being thinking and expressing his thought.
Priests tell us that there is a God somewhere who takes
care of the people of this world; a God somewhere who
watches over the widow and the orphan; a God some-
where who releases the slave; a God somewhere who visits
the innocent man in prison ; the same God that has allowed
men for thousands of years to burn to ashes human beings
simply for loving that God. We have been taught that
it is dangerous to reason upon these subjects extremely
dangerous and that of all crimes in the world, the
greatest is to deny the existence of that God.
Redden your hands in innocent blood; steal the bread
730
HOW THE GODS GROW. 731
of the orphan, deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl
who has loved and trusted you, and for all this you may
be forgiven; for all this you can have the clear writ of
that bankrupt court of the gospel. But deny the exist-
ence of one of these gods, and the tearful face of mercy
becomes lurid with eternal hate; the gates of heaven are
shut against you, and you, with an infinite curse ringing
in your ears, commence your wanderings as an immortal
vagrant, as a deathless convict, as an eternal outcast.
And we have been taught that the infinite has become
enraged at the finite simply when the finite said: " I don't
know!" Why, imagine it. Suppose Mr. Smith should
hear a couple of small bugs in his front yard discussing
the question as to the existence of Smith; and suppose
one little red bug swore on the honor of a bug that, in his
judgment, no such man as Smith lived. What would
you think of Mr. Smith if he fell into a rage, and brought
his heel down on this little atheist bug and said: " I will
teach you that Smith is a diabolical fact! " And yet if
there is an infinite God, there is infinitely a greater dif-
ference between that God and a human being than be-
tween Shakespeare and the smallest bug that ever
crawled. It cannot be; there is something wrong in this
thing somewhere.
I am told, also, that this being watches over us, takes
care of us. And the other day I read a sermon (you will
hardly believe it, but I did); I had nothing else to to. I
had read everything in that paper, including the adver-
tisements; so I read the sermon. It was a sermon by
Rev. Mr. Moody on prayer, in which he took the ground
that our prayer should be " Thy will be done; " and he
seemed to believe that if we prayed that prayer often
732 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
enough we could induce God to have his own way. He
gives an instance of a woman in Illinois who had a sick
child, and she prayed that God would not take from her
arms that babe. She did not pray ''Thy will be done,"
but she prayed, according to Mr. Moody, almost a prayer
of rebellion, and said: "I cannot give up my babe/
God heard her prayer, and the child got well; and Mr.
Moody says it was an idiot when it got well. For fifteen
years that woman watched over and took care of that
idiotic child; and Mr. Moody says how much better
would it have been if she had allowed God to have had
his own way. Think of a God who would punish a
mother for speaking to Him from an agonizing heart and
saying, ' ' I cannot give up my babe, " and making the
child an idiot. What would the devil have done under
the same circumstances? That is the God we are ex-
pected to worship. I range myself with the opposition.
The next day I read another sermon preached by the
Rev. De Witt Talmage, a man of not much fancy, but ofl
great judgment. He preached a sermon on dreams, and
went on to say that God often visited us in dreams, and
that He often convinces men of His existence in that
way. So far as I am concerned I had rather see some-
thing in the light. And, according to that sermon, there
was a poor woman in England, a pauper who had the
rheumatism, and there was another pauper who had not
the rheumatism; and the pauper who had not the rheuma-
tism used to take food to the pauper that had. After a
while the pauper without rheumatism died, and then the
pauper with the rheumatism began to think in her own
mind, who will bring me food? That night God appeared
to her in a dream. He did not cure her rheumatism
HOW THE GODS GROW. 733
though. He appeared to her in a dream, ana ne took
her out of the house and pointed on the right hand to an
immense mountain of bread, and on the left hand to an
immense mountain of butter. And when I read that I
said to myself, my Lord, what a place that would be to
start a political party. And he said to her: ''These
belong to your father; do you think that he will allow one
of his children to starve?" What a place would Ireland
be with that mountain of bread and butter! Until I read
these two sermons I hardly believed that in this day and
generation anybody believed that God would make a child
an idiot simply because the mother had prayed for its
sweet dear life, or that God's visits are only in dreams.
But so it is.
Orthodoxy has not advanced upon the religion of the
Fiji Islander. It is the same yesterday, to-day and forever.
Now we are told that there is a god; and nearly every
nation has had a god; generally a good many of them. You
see the raw material was so cheap, and Gods were man-
ufactured so easily, that heaven has always been cram-
med with the phantoms of these monsters. But they say
there is a god, and every savage tribe believes in a God.
It is an argument made to rne every day. I concede to
you that fact; I concede to you that all savages agree
with you. I admit it takes a certain amount of civiliza-
tion, a certain amount of thought, to rise above the idea
that some personal being, for his own ends, for his own
glory, made and governs this universe. I admit that it
takes some thought to see the universe is good and all
that is good, and every star that shines is a part of God,
and I am something, no matter how little, and that the
infinite cannot exist without me, and that therefore I am
734 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
a part of the infinite. I admit that it takes a little civ-
ilization to get to that point.
Now every nation has made a god, and every man that
has made a god has used himself for a pattern; and men
have put into the mouth of their god all their mistakes
in astronomy, in geography, in philosophy, in morality,
and the god is never wiser or better than his creators. If
they believe in slavery, so did he; if they believe in eat-
ing human flesh, he wanted his share; if they were po-
lygamous, so was he; if they were cruel, so was he. And
just to the extent that man has become civilized, he has
civilized his god. You can hardly imagine the progress
that our God has made in four thousand years. Four
thousand years ago He was a barbarian; to-night He is
quite an educated gentleman. Four thousand years ago
He belived in killing and butchering little babes at the
breasts of their mothers; He has reformed. Four thou-
sand years ago He did not believe in taking prisoners of
war. He said, kill the old men; mingle their blood with
the white hair. Kill the women. But what shall we do,
O God, with the maidens? Give them to satisfy the lust
of the soldiers and of the priests! If there is anywhere
in the serene heaven a real God, I want him to write in
the book of His eternal rememberance, opposite my
name, that I deny that lie for Him.
Four thousand years ago our God was in favor of
slavery; four thousand years ago our God would have a
man beaten to death with rugged rocks for expressing his
honest thought; four thousand years ago our God told the
husband to kill his wife if she disagreed with him upon
the important subject of religion; four thousand years ago
our God was a monster; and if He is any better now, it
HOW THE GODS GROW. 735
is simply because we have made Him so. I am talking
about the God of the Christian world. There may be,
for aught I know, upon the shore of the eternal vast,
some being whose very thought is the constellation of
those numberless stars. I do not know; but if there is
he has never written a bible; he has never been in favor
of slavery; he has never advocated polygamy, and he
never told the murderer to sheathe his dagger in the dim-
pled breast of a babe. But they say to me, our God has
written a book. I am glad he did, and it is by that book
that I propose to judge them. I find in that book that it
was a crime to eat of the tree of knowledge. I find that
the church has always been the enemy of education, and
I find that the church still carries the flaming sword of
ignorance and bigotry over the tree of knowledge.
And if that story is true, ought we not after all to
thank the devil? He was the first school 'master; he was
the first to whisper liberty in our ears; he was the author
of modesty. He was the author of ambition and pro-
gress. And as for me, give me the storm and tempest of
thought and action rather than the dead calm of ignor-
ance and faith. Punish me when and how you will, but
first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. And
there is one peculiar thing I might as well speak of here.
While the world has made gods, it has also made devils;
and as a rule the devils have been better friends to man
than the gods. It was not a devil that drowned the
world; it was not a devil that covered with the multitudi-
nous waves of an infinite sea the corpses of men, women
and children.
That was the good god. The devil never sent pesti-
lence and famine; the devil -never starved women and
736 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
children; that was the good God. The meanest thing
recorded of the devil is what happened concerning my
servant Job. According to that book God met the devil
and said: " Where have you been? " " Oh, been walk-
ing up and down." "Have you noticed my man Job;
nobody like him! " " Well, who wouldn't be; you have
given him everything; but take away what he has, and
he will curse you to your face." And so the devil went
to work and tried it. It was a mean thing. And that
was all done to decide what you might call a wager on a
difference of opinion between the serene highnesses. He
took away his property, but Job didn't sin; and when
God met the devil, he said: "Well, what did I tell you,
smarty? " "Ah," he said, "that is all very well, but
you touch his flesh and he will curse you; and he did, but
Job didn't curse him. And then what did God do to help
him! He gave him some other children better looking
than the first ones. What kind of an idea is that for a
God to kill our children and then give us better looking
ones! If you have loved a child, I don't care if it is de-
formed if you have held it in your arms and covered its
face with kisses, you want that child back and no other.
I find in this bible that there was an old gentleman a
little short of the article of hair. And as he was going
through the town a number of little children cried out to
him "Go up, thou bald head!" And this man of God
turned and cursed them. A real good-humored old fellow!
And two bears came out of the woods and tore in pieces
forty-two children! How did the bears get there? Elisha
could not control the bears. Nobody but God could con-
trol the bears in that way. Now just think of an infinite
God making a shining star, having his attention attracted
HOW THE GODS GROW. 737
by hearing some children saying to an old gentlemen,
" Go up, thou bald head! " and then speaking to his sec-
retary or somebody else, "Bring in a couple of bears
now!" What a magnificent God! What would the
devil have done under the same circumstances? And yet
that is the God they want to put into the constitution in
order to make our children gentle and kind and loving.
You hate a God like that. I do; I despise him. And
yet little children in the Sabbath-school are taught that
infamous lie. Why, I have very little respect for an old
man that will get mad about such a thing, anyway.
What would the Christian world say of me if I should
have a few children torn to pieces if they should make
that remark in my face? What would the devil have
done under the same circumstances?
I tell you, I cannot worship a God who is no better
than the devil! I cannot do it. And if you will just read
the old testament with the bandage off your eyes and
the cloud of fear from your heart, you will come to the
conclusion that it was written not only by men, but by
barbarians, by savages, and that it is totally unworthy of
a civilized age. I believe in no God who believes in
slavery. I will worship no God who ever said that one
of His children should own another of His children.
But they say to me, there must be a God somewhere!
Well, I say I don't know. There may be. I hope there
is more than one one is so lonesome. Just think of an
old bachelor, always alone! I want more than one. And
they say, somebody must have made this! Well, I say I
don't know. But it strikes me that the indestructible
cannot be created. What would you make it of? ' ' Oh,
nothing! " Well, it strikes me that nothing, considered
738 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
in the light of a raw material, is a decided failure. For
my part, I cannot conceive of force apart from matter,
and I cannot conceive of matter apart from force. I can-
not conceive of force somewhere without acting upon
something; because force must be active, or it is not
force; and if it has no matter to act upon, it ceases to be
force. I cannot conceive of the smallest atom of matter
staying together without force. Beside, if some god
made all this, then; must have been some morning when
he commenced! And if he has existed always, there is an
eternity back of that when he never did anything; when
he lived in an infinite hole, without side, top or bottom!
He did not think, for there was nothing to think about.
Certainly he did not remember, for nothing had ever
happened. Now I cannot conceive of this! I do not
say it is not so. I may be damned for my smartness,
yet I simply say I cannot conceive of it, that is all.
But men tell me, you cannot conceive of eternity! That
is just what I can conceive of. I cannot conceive of its
stopping. They say I cannot conceive of infinite space!
That is just what I can conceive of; because, let me im-
agine all I can, my imagination will stand upon the
verge and see infinite space beyond. Infinite space is a
necessity of the mind, because I cannot think of enough
matter to fill it. Eternity is a necessity of the mind,
because I cannot dream of the cessation of time. But
they say there is a design in the world, consequently there
must be a designer. Well, I don't know.
Paley says that the more wonderful thing is, the greater
the necessity for creation; that a watch is a wonderful
thing, and that it must have had a creator; that the
watchmaker is more wonderful than the watch, there-
HOW THE GODS GROW. 739
fore he must have had a creator. Then we come to God;
He is altogether more wonderful than the watchmaker,
therefore He had no creator. There is a link out some-
where; I don't pretend to understand it. And so I say,
that had the world been any other way, you would have
seen the same evidence of design, precisely. We grow
up with our conditions, and you cannot imagine of a first
cause. Why? Every cause has an effect.
Strike your hands together; they feel warm. The
effect becomes a cause instantly, and that cause pro-
duces another effect, and the effect another cause; and
there could not have been a cause until there was an
effect. Because until there was an effect, nothing had
been caused; until something had been caused, I am pos-
itive there was no cause. Now you cannot conceive of
a lost effect, because the lost effect of which you can
think, will in turn become a cause and that cause pro-
duce another effect. And as you cannot think of a lost
effect, you cannot think of a first cause; it is not thinka-
ble by the human mind.
They say God governs this world. Why does He not
govern Russia as well as He does Massachusetts? Why
does He allow the Czar to send beautiful girls of sixteen,
seventeen, eighteen, simply for saying a word in favor of
human liberty, to mines in Siberia, where they draw
carts with knees bruised and bleeding, with hands scarred
and swollen? What is that God worth that allows such
things in the world He governs? Did He govern this
country when it had four millions of slaves? when it
turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post? when
the holy bible was an auction-block on which the mother
stood while her babe was sold from her breast? when
740 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
bloodhounds were considered apostles? Was God gov-
erning the world when the prisoners were confined in the
Bastile? It seems to me, if-there is a God, and someone
would repeat the word " Bastile." it would cover almost
his face with the blood of shame. But they say heaven
will balance all the ills of life. Let us see: A large
majority of us are sinners at least a large majority with
whom I am acquainted; and a majority of the Christians
with whom I am acquainted are worse than sinners. And
if their doctrine is true, you will be astonished at the
gentlemen you will see in hell that day. You will know
by the cast of their countenance that they used to preach
here. They say that it may be that the sinners here have
a very good time, and that the Christians don't have a
very good time; that it is awful hard work to serve the
Lord, and that you carry a cross when you deny yourself
the delights of murder and forgery, and all manner of
rascality that fills life with delight. But they say that
while the rascals are having a good time, they will catch
it in the other world. But, according to their account,
ninety-nine out of a huudred will be damned, and I think
it will be a close call for the hundredth . Like that dear
old Scotch woman, when she was talking about the Pres-
byterian faith, some one said to her: " My dear woman,
if your doctine is true, nobody but you and your husband
will be saved." " Ah," said she, " I'm na' sae sure about
John." About one in a hundred will be saved, and the
other ninety-nine will be in misery. So that on the aver-
age there will not be half as much happiness in the next
world as in this. So, instead of God's plan getting bet-
ter, it gets worse; and throughout all the ages of eternity
there will be less happiness than in this world. This
HOW THE GODS GROW. 74 1
world is a school; this world is where we develop moral
muscle. It may be that w^e are here simply because men
cannot advance only through agony and pain. If it is
necessary to have pain and agony to advance morally,
then nobody can advance in heaven. Hell will be the
only place offering opportunities to any gentleman who
wishes to increase his moral muscle.
A gentleman once asked me if I could suggest any im-
provement on the present order of things, if I had the
power. Well, said I, in the first place, I would make
good health catching instead of disease. There will be
no humanity until we get the orthodox God out of our
religion. I want to do what little I can to put another
one in God's name, so that we will worship a supreme
human god, so that we will worship mercy, justice, love
and truth, and not have the idea that we must sacrifice
our brother upon the altar of fear to please some imagin-
ary phantom. See what Christianity has done for the
world! It has reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-
organ and Ireland to exile. That is what religion has
done. Take every country in the whole world, and the
country that has got the least religion is the most pros-
perous, and the country that has got the most religion is
in the worst condition.
In the vast cemetery, called the past, are most of the
religions of men and there, too, are nearly all their gods.
The sacred temples of India were ruins long ago. Over
column and cornice; over the painted and pictured walls,
cling and creep the trailing vines. Brahma, the golden,
with four heads and four arms; Vishnu, the sombre, the
punisher of the wicked, with his three eyes, his crescent,
and his necklace of skulls; Siva, the destroyer, red with
74-2 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
seas of blood; Kali, the goddess; Draupadi, the white-
armed, and Chrishna, the Christ, all passed away and
left the thrones of heaven desolate. Along the banks of
the sacred Nile, Iris no longer wandering weeps, search-
ing for the dead Osiris. The shadow of Typhon's scowl
falls no more upon the waves. The sun rises as of yore,
and his golden beams still smite the lips of Memnon, but
Memnon is as voiceless as the Sphinx. The sacred fanes
are lost in desert sands; the dusty mummies are still wait-
ing for the resurrection promised by their priests, and the
old beliefs wrought in curiously sculptured stone, sleep in
the mystery of a language lost and dead Odin, the author
of life and soul, Vili and Ve, and the mighty giant Ymir,
strode long ago from the ice halls of the North; and
Thor, with iron glove and glittering hammer, dashes
mountains to the earth no more.
Broken are the circles and the cromlechs of the ancient
Druids; fallen upon the summits of the hills, and covered
with the centuries' moss are the sacred cairns. The
divine fires of Persia and of the Aztecs have died out in
the ashes of the past, and there is none to rekindle, and
none to feed the holy flames. The harp of Orpheus is
still; the drained cup of Bacchus has been thrown aside;
Venus lies dead in stone, and her white bosom heaves no
more with love. The streams still murmur, but no
naiads bathe; the trees still wave, but in the forest aisles
no dryads dance. The gods have flown from high Olym-
pus. Not even the beautiful women can lure them back,
and Danae lies unnoticed, naked to the stars. Hushed
forever are the thunders of Sinai; lost are the voices of
the prophets, and the land once flowing with milk and
honey is but a desert waste. One by one the myths have
HOW THE GODS GROW. 743
faded from the clouds; one by one the phantom host has
disappeared, and, one by one, facts, truths and realities
have taken their places. The supernatural has almost
gone, but man is the natural remains. The gods have
fled, but man is here. Nations, like individuals, have
their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. Religions
are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them
all. The gods created with the nations must perish with
their creators. They were created by men, and, like
men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are
the by-words of the next. The religion of our day, and
country, is no more exempt from the sneer of the future
than others have been. When India was supreme,
Brahma sat upon the world's throne. When the sceptre
passed to Egypt, Isis and Osiris received the homage of
mankind. Greece, with her fierce valor, swept to
empire, and Zeus put on the purple of authority. The
earth trembled with the tread of Rome's intrepid sons,
and Jove grasped with mailed hand the thunderbolts of
heaven. Rome fell, and Christians from her territory,
with the red sword of war, carved out the ruling nations
of the world, and now Jehovah sits upon the old throne.
Who will be His successer?
INGEKSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
THE RELIGION OF OUR DAY.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I am glad that I have
lived long enough to see one gentleman in the pulpit
brave enough to say that God would not be offended at
one* who speaks according to the dictates of his con-
science; who does not believe that God will give wings
to a bird, and then damn the bird for flying. I thank
the pastor and I thank the church for allowing its pastor
to be so brave.
I admit that thousands and thousands of church peo-
ple, with their pastors and the deacons, are to-day ad-
vocating religious principles that they deem right and
good. I honor these men, but I do not believe that
their method is a good one. I do not want these people
to forgive me for the views I entertain, but I want them
so to act that I will not have to forgive them. I am the
friend of every one who preaches the gospel of absolute
intellectual liberty, and that man is my friend.
744
THE RELIGION OF OUR DAY. 745
Is there a God who says that if man does so and so
He will damn him ? Can there be such a fiend ? I am
not responsible to man unless I injure him; nor to God
unless I injure Him, but one cannot injure God, for "He
is infinite."
When I was young I was told that the bible was in-
spired, written by God, that even the lids of the book
were inspired. They say He is a personal God; if so,
He has not revealed Himself to me. There may be many
gods. As I look around I see that justice does not pre-
vail, that innocence is not always effectual and a perfect
shield. If there be a God these things could not be. If
God made us all, why did He not make us all equally
well. He had the power of an infinite god. Why did
God people the earth with so many idiots ? I admit that
orthodoxy could not exist without them, but why did
God make them ? If we believe the bible then He should
have made us all idiots, for the orthodox Christian says
the idiots will not be damned, simply transplanted,
while the sensible man, who believeth not, will be sent
to eternal damnation ? If there is any God that made
us, what right had He to make idiots ? Is a man with a
head like a pin under any obligation to thank God ? Is
the black man, born in slavery, under any obligation to
thank God for his badge of servitude ?
What kind of a God is it that will allow men and
women to be put in dungeons and chains simply because
they loved Him and prayed to Him ? And what kind of
a God is it that will allow such men and women to be
burned at the stake ? If God won't love such men and
women, then under what circumstances will he love ?
746 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Famine stalks over the land and millions die, not only
the bad but the good, and there in the heavens above
sits an infinite God who can do anything, can change the
rocks and the stones, and yet these millions die. I do
not say there is no God, but I do ask, what is God do-
ing ? Look at the agony, and wretchedness and woe all
over the land. Is there goodness, is there mercy in this ?
I do not say there is not, but I want to know, and I want
to know if a man is to be damned for asking the ques-
tion ?
(He eloquently recited the agonies that clustered around
the French Bastile, where great men and heroic women
suffered and died for loving liberty, and said: If there is
a God, I think that one word, Bastile, would bring the
blush of shame to His face.)
I find that the men who have received revelation are
the worst; and that where the bible goes there go the
sword and the fagot . If an infinite God makes a reve-
lation to me He knows how I will understand it. If God
wrote the bible he knew that no two people would under-
stand it alike.
When I read the bible I found that God in His infinite
wisdom couldn't control the people He had created and
that He had to drown them. If I had infinite power
and couldn't make a people that I could control and had
to drown them, why I'd resign.
Then I read in the bible such cruel things, and I do
not believe that God can be cruel. Such cruelty may
make one afraid, but cannot inspire love. I can't love a
god that will inflict pain and sorrow, and I won't.
The preachers say all unbelievers will go to hell tid-
ings of great joy. When I confront them they say I'm
THE RELIGION OF OUR DAY. 747
taking away their consolation. The old bible does not
mention hell or heaven. Now God should have notified
Adam and Cain of hell, but He didn't. When He came
to drown all those people He didn't tell a single one that
He would drown him. He talked all about water noth-
ing about fire. When He came down on Mount Sinai,
and told Moses how to cut out clothes for a priest, He
never said one word on the subject. When God gave
Moses the ten commandments, engraved on stone, there
He said not one word about hell. There was plenty of
room on the stone; why did He not add: "If you don't
keep these commandments you will be damned." Through
all these ages, when God was talking all the time, and
when every howling prophet had His ear, not one word
did He utter of hell or heaven. For 4,000 years God
got along without mentioning those places or even hint-
ing of them. It seems to me that we ought to have been
notified by Him.
(Here the orator recalled many stories from the old
bible and subjected them to keen irony and ridicule.
Reciting the story wherein the she bears came out of the
woods and tore to pieces the forty children who mocked
the prophet, he asked: If God did that, what would the
devil have done under the same circumstances ? Why,
he said, did not God give a sure cure for leprosy, unless
He wanted to have His chosen people to have that
frightful disease ?)
Do you believe that God ever told a widow if her
brother-in-law refused to marry her to spit in his face ? Do
you believe any such nonsense from a god ? I call that
courting under difficulties. (Then Colonel Ingersoll dwelt
pathetically on the sweet, innocent babes eaten up by
748 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the lions in the den, after Daniel was rescued from their
jaws, and asked the question, what kind of a god was it
that allowed such horrible' deeds ?
They say that I pick out all the bad things in the bible.
Well, God ought not to have put bad things in the book.
If you only read the bible YOU will not believe it. Why,
it is such a bad book that it has to be supported by leg-
islation. In Maine and elsewhere they will send you to
jail for two years if you deny the bible or the judgment
day.
No, we are told we must not only believe in the God
we have been talking about, but must also believe in an-
other one.
Let us look at the church to-day. The orthodox
church that is, all but the Universalist. He is trying
to be orthodox, but he can't get in. The God of the
Universalists, to say the least, is a gentleman.
Now, what is this religion ? To believe certain things
that we may be saved, that we won't be damned. What
are they ?
First, that the old and new testament are inspired.
No matter how kind, how just a man may be, unless he
believes in the inspiration, he will be damned.
Second, he must believe in the trinity. That there
are three in one. That father and son are precisely of
the same age, the son, possibly, a little mite older; that
three times one is one, and that once one is three. It
is a mercy you don't know how to understand it, but
you must believe it or be damned. Therein you see the
mercy of the Lord . This trinity doctrine was announced
several hundred years after Christ was born.
Do you believe such a doctrine will make a man good
THE RELIGION OF OUR DAY. 749
or honest ? Will it make him more just ? Is the man
that believes any better than the man who does not be-
lieve ?
How is it with nations ? Look at Spain, the last
slaveholder in the civilized world; she's Christian, she
believes in the trinity ! And Italy, the beggar of the
world. Under the rule of priestcraft money streamed in
from every land and yet she did not advance. To-day she
is reduced to a hand-organ. Take poor Ireland, groan-
ing under the heel of British oppression; could she cast
off her priests she would soon be one with America in
freedom.
Protestantism is better than Catholicism, because there
is less of it. Both dread education. They say they
brought the arts and sciences out of the dark ages; why,
they made the dark ages and what did they preserve ?
Nothing of value, only an account of events that never
happened. What did they teach the world ! Slavery !
The best country the sun ever shown upon is the
northern part of the United States, and there you will
find less religion than anywhere else on the face of the
earth. You will find here more people that don't believe
the bible, and you will find better husbands, better
wives, happier homes, where the women are most re-
spected and where the children get less blows and more
huggings and kissings. We have improved just as we
lost this religion and this superstition.
Great Britain is the religious nation par excellence,
and there you will find the most cant and most hypoc-
ricy. They are always thanking God that they have
killed somebody. Look at the opium war with China.
They forced the Chinese to open their ports and receive
750 IXGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the deadly drug, and then had the impudence to send a.
lot of driviling idiots of missionaries into China.
Go around the world, and where you find the least
superstition, there you will find the best men, the best
women, the best children. Two powerful levers are at
work; love and intelligence. The true test of a man is
generosity, that covers a multitude of sins.
They have got so now they damn a man on a techni-
cality. You must be baptized by immersion, sprinkling
or pouring. If you come to the day of judgment and
can't show the water-mark, you're damned !
What more: That a fellow named Adam, whom you
don't know and never voted for, is your representative.
You are charged with his sins. Equally abused is the
doctrine of atonement, that you are created with the
sacrifice of another.
If Christ had more virtue than Adam had meanness,
then you are ahead.
Atonement is the corner-stone of the Christian religion.
But there is one great objection. It saves the wrong
man, and it is not honest. (In holding up the atone-
ment to ridicule the orator said: " If Judas had failed to
betray Christ, the mother of Christ would be in hell to-
day. "
Then he ridiculed the miracles recorded in the new
testament, pronounced them absurdities. He said that
the four apostolic writers were very contradictory in
their statements, and did not even agree as to the last
word of this great man.
The ascension was the most striking, the grandest of
the miracles, if true, yet the ascension is only recorded
by two of these writers. If He was God, I know he will
THE RELIGION OF OUR DAY. 751
forgive somebody for not believing the miracles, unless
convinced.
Another contradiction in the book: In one gospel the
condition of salvation is "whosoever believeth shall not
be damned," and in another we are promised that if we
forgive our enemies God will forgive us and there's
sense in this last promise. The first I believe a lie it
was never spoken by God.
Christ said: Love your enemies. Nobody can do that.
The doctrine of Confucius is sound to love one's friends
and to do justice to one's enemies without any mixture
of revenge.
If Christ was God, did He not know on His cross what
crimes would be done in His name ? Why didn't He
settle all disputes about the trinity and about baptism ?
Why didn't He post His disciples ? Because He could
no more see into the future than I can. Only in this
way can you acquit him of the crimes committed in His
name.
The way to save our own souls is to save another soul.
God can't turn into hell a man who makes on this earth
a little heaven for himself, wife and babes.
Any minister who preaches the doctrine of hell ought
to be ashamed. I want, if I can while I live, to put an
end to all belief in this infamous doctrine. That doc-
trine has done incalculable harm, wrought incalculable
injury. I despise it, and I defy it.
The orthodox church says that religion does good;
that it restrains crime. It restrains a man from arti-
ficial, not from natural crimes. A man can be made so
religious that he will not eat meat on Friday, yet he will
steal
752
INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Did you ever hear of a tramp coming to town and in-
quiring where the deacon of the Presbyterian church
lived .
The bible says consider the lilies. What good would
it do a naked man standing out in the bitter blasts of
this night to consider the lilies.
What is the social position of a man in heaven who
through all eternity remembers that if he had had a
grain of courage he would never have been there.
The realization of our day does not satisfy the intelli-
gence of the people the people have outgrown it. It
shocks us and we have got to have another religion. We
must have a religion of charity; one that will do away
with poverty, close the prisons and cover this world
with homes.
INGEKSOLL'S LECTUKE
ON-
HERETICS AND HERESIES.
" Liberty, a word without which
All other words are vain."
Whoever has an opinion of his own, and honestly- ex-
presses it, will be guilty of heresy. Heresy is what the
minority believe; it is a name given by the powerful to
the doctrine of the weak. This word was born of the
hatred, arrogance, and cruelty of those who love their
enemies, and who, when smitten on one cheek, turn the
other. This word was born of intellectual slavery in the
feudal ages of thought. It was an epithet used in the
place of argument. From the commencement of the
Christian era, every art has been exhausted, and every
conceivable punishment inflicted to force all people to
hold the same religious opinions. This effort was born
of the idea that a certain belief was necessary to the sal-
vation of the soul. Christ taught, and the church still
teaches, that unbelief is the blackest of crimes. God is
753
754 INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
supposed to hate with an infinite and implacable hatred,
every heretic upon the earth, and the heretics who have
died are supposed, at this moment, to be suffering the
agonies of the damned. The church persecutes the liv-
ing, and her God burns the dead.
It is claimed that God wrote a book called the bible,
and it is generally admitted that this book is somewhat
difficult to understand. As long as the church had all the
copies of this book, and the people were not allowed to
read it, there was comparatively little heresy in the world;
but when it was printed and read, people began honestly
to differ as to its meaning. A few were independent and
brave enough to give the world their real thoughts, and
for the extermination of these men the church used all
her power. Protestants and catholics vied with each
other in the work of enslaving the human mind. For
ages they were rivals in the infamous effort to rid the
earth of honest people. They infested every country,
every city, town, hamlet, and family. They appealed to
the worst passions of the human heart. They sowed the
seeds of discord and hatred in every land. Brother de-
nounced brother, wives informed against their husbands,
mothers accused their children, dungeons were crowded
with the innocent; the flesh of the good and true rotted
in the clasp of chains, the flames devoured the heroic,
and in the name of the most merciful God, his children
were exterminated with famine, sword and fire. Over
the wild waves of battle rose and fell the banner of Jesus
Christ. For sixteen hundred years the robes of the
church were red with innocent blood. The ingenuity of
Christians was exhausted in devising punishment severe
enough to be inflicted upon other Christians who honestly
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 755
and sincerely differed with them upon any point what-
ever.
Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they
would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As
long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salva-
tion, just so long it will kill and burn if it has thepow^r.
Why should the church pity a man whom her God hates?
Why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic
whom her God will burn in eternal fire? Why should a
Christian be better than his God? It is impossible for
the imagination to conceive of a greater atrocity than has
been perpetrated by the church.
Let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted
heretics to the extent of their power. Every nerve in the
human body capable of pain has been sought out and
touched by the church. Toleration has increased only
when and where the power of the church has diminished.
From Augustine until now the spirit of the Christian has
remained the same. There has been the same intoler-
ance, the same undying hatred of all who think for them-
selves, the same determination to crush out of the human
brain all knowledge inconsistent with the ignorant creed.
Every church pretends that it has a revelation from
God, and that this revelation must be given to the people
through the church; that the church acts through its
priests, and that ordinary mortals must be content with
a revelation not from God but from the church. Had
the people submitted to this preposterous claim, of
course there could have been but one church, and that
church never could have advanced. It might have ret-
rograded, because it is not necessary to think, or inves-
tigate, in order to forget. Without heresy there could
have been no progress.
756 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
The highest type of the orthodox Christian does not
forget. Neither does he learn. He neither advances
nor recedes. He is a living fossil, imbedded in that rock
called faith. He makes no effort to better his condition,
because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other
people from improving theirs. The supreme desire of
his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in
order to accomplish this object, he denounces all kinds of
free thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy.
When he had the power, heresy was the most terrible
and formidable of words. It meant confiscation, exile,
imprisonment, torture, and death.
In those days the cross and rack were inseparable com-
panions. Across the open bible lay the sword and fagot.
Not content with burning such heretics as were alive,
they even tried the dead, in order that the church might
rob their wives and children . The property of all her-
etics was confiscated, and on this account they charged
the dead with being heretical indicted, as it were, their
dust to the end that the church might clutch the bread
of orphans. Learned divines discussed propriety of tear-
ing out the tongues of heretics before they were burned,
and the general opinion was that this ought to be done,
so that the heretics should not be able, by uttering blas-
phemies, to shock the Christians who were burning them.
With a mixture of ferocity and Christianity, the priests
insisted that heretics ought to be burned at a slow fire,
giving as a reason, that more time was given them for
repentance.
No wonder that Jesus Christ said, "I came not to
bring peace but a sword! "
Every priest regarded himself as the agent of God.
HERETICS AND HERESIES 757
He answered all questions by authority, and to treat him
with disrespect was an insult offered to God. No one
was asked to think, but all were commanded to obey.
In 1208 the inquisition was established. Seven years
afterward; the fourth council of the Lateran enjoined all
kings and rulers to swear an oath that they would ex-
terminate heretics from their dominions. The sword of
the church was unsheathed, and the world was at the
mercy of ignorant and infuriated priests, whose eyes
feasted upon the agonies they inflicted. Acting as they
believed, or pretended to believe under the command of
God, stimulated by the hope of infinite reward in another
world hating heretics with every drop of their bastile
blood savage beyond description merciless beyond con-
ception these infamous priests in a kind of frenzied joy,
leaped upon the helpless victims of their rage. They
crushed their bones in iron boots, tore their quivering flesh
with iron hooks and pinchers, cut off their lips and eyelids,
pulled out their nails, and into the bleeding quick thrust
needles tore out their tongues, extinguished their eyes,
stretched them upon racks, flayed them alive, crucified
them with their head downward, exposed them to wild
beasts, burned them at the stake, mocked their cries and
groans, ravished their wives, robbed their children, and
then prayed God to finish the holy work in hell.
Millions upon millions were sacrificed upon the altars
of bigotry. The Catholic burned the Lutheran, the
Lutheran burned the Catholic; the Episcopalian tortured
the Presbyterian, the Presbyterian tortured the Episco-
palian. Every denomination killed all it could of every
other; and each Christian felt it duty bound to extermin-
ate every other Chistian who denied the smallest fraction
of his creed.
758 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
In the reign of Henry the VIII. , that pious and moral
founder of the Apostolic Episcopal church, there was
passed by the Parliament of England an act entitled,
4 'An act for abolishing of (diversity of opinion." And in
this act was set forth what a good Christian was obliged
to believe.
First, that in the sacrament was the real body and
blood of Jesus Christ.
Second, that the body and blood of Jesus Christ was
in the bread, and the blood and body of Jesus Christ was
in the wine .
Third, that priests should not marry.
Fourth, that vows of chastity were of perpetual obliga-
tion .
Fifth, that private masses ought to be continued.
And sixth, that auricular confession to a priest must be
maintained.
This creed was made by law, in order that all men
might know just what to believe by simply reading the
st^tate. The church hated to see the people wearing out
their brains in thinking upon these subjects. It was
thought far better that a creed should be made by Parlia-
ment, so that whatever might be lacking in evidence
might be made up in force. The punishment for denying
the first article was death by fire. For the denial of any
other article, imprisonment, and for the second offense
death.
Your attention is called to these six articles, estab-
lished during the reign of Henry VIII, and by the Church
of England, simply because not one of these articles is
believed by that church to-day. If the law then made
by the church could be enforced now, every Episcopalian
would be burned at the stake.
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 759
Similar laws were passed in most Christian countries,
as all orthodox churches firmly believed that mankind
could be legislated into heaven. According to the creed
of every church, slavery leads to heaven, liberty leads to
hell. It was claimed that God had founded the church,
and that to deny the authority of the church was to be a
traitor to God, and consequently an ally of the devil. To
torture and destroy one of the soldiers of Satan was a
duty no good Christian cared to neglect. Nothing can
be sweeter than to earn the gratitude of God by killing
your own enemies. Such a mingling of profit and re-
venge, of heaven for yourself and damnation for those
you dislike, is a temptation that your ordinary Christian
never resists.
According to the theologians, God, the father of us all
wrote a letter to His children. The children have always
differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In
consequence of these honest differences, these brothers
began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land,
where this letter from God has been read, the children to
whom and for whom it was written have been filled with
hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered
each other, and the wives and children of each other. In
the name of God every possible crime has been
committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpe-
trated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful
girls, prattling babes have been exterminated in the name
of Jesus Christ. For more than fifty generations the
church has carried the black flag. Her vengeance has
been measured only by her power. During all these years
of infamy no heretic has ever been forgiven. With
the heart of a fiend she has hated; with the clutch of
760. INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
avarice she has grasped; with the jaws of a dragon she
has devoured, pitiless as famine, merciless as fire, with
the conscience of a serpent. Such is the history of the
church of God.
I do not say, and I do not believe, that Christians are
as bad as their creeds. In spite of church and dogma,
there have been millions and millions of men and women
true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the
human heart. They have been true to their convictions,
and with a self-denial and fortitude excelled by none,
have labored and suffered for the salvation of men. Im-
bued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, believing that by
personal effort they could rescue at least a few souls from
the infinite shadow of hell, they have cheerfully endured
every hardship and scorned danger and death. And yet,
notwithstanding all this, they believed that honest error
was a crime. They knew that the bible so declared, and
they believed that all unbelievers would be eternally lost.
They believed that religion was of God, and all heresy
of the devil. They killed heretics in defence of their own
souls and the souls of their children. They killed them,
because, according to their idea, they were the enemies
of God, and because the bible teaches that the blood of
the unbeliever is a most acceptable sacrifice to heaven.
Nature never prompted a loving mother to throw her
child into the Ganges.
Nature never prompted men to exterminate each other
for a difference of opinion concerning the baptism of in-
fants. These crimes have been produced by religions
filled with all that is illogical, cruel and hideous. These
religions were produced for the most part by ignorance,
tyranny, and hypocrisy. Under the impression that the
HERETICS AND HERESIES. ?6l
infinite ruler and creator of the universe had commanded
the destruction of heretics and infidels, the church per-
petrated all these crimes.
Men and women have been burned for thinking that
there was but one God; that there was none; that the
Holy Ghost is younger than God; that God was some-
what older than his Son; for insisting that good works
will save a man, without faith; that faith will do without
good works; for declaring that a sweet babe will not be
barned eternally, because its parents failed to have its
head wet by a priest; for speaking of God as though He
had a nose; for denying that Christ was His own father;
for contending that three persons, rightly added together,
make more than one; for believing in purgatory; for deny-
ing the reality of hell; for pretending that priests can for-
give sins; for preaching that God is an essence; for deny-
ing that witches rode through the air on sticks; for doubt-
ing the total depravity of the human heart; for laughing
at irresistible grace, predestination, and particular re-
demption; for denying that good bread could be made of
the body of a dead man; for pretending that the Pope
was not managing this world for God, and in place of
God- for disputing the efficacy of a vicarious atonement;
for thinking that the Virgin Mary was born like other
people; for thinking that a man's rib was hardly sufficient
to make a good sized woman; for denying that God used
His finger for a pen; for asserting that prayers are not
answered, that diseases are not set to punish unbelief; for
denying the authority of the bible; for having a bible in
their possession; for attending mass, and for refusing to
attend; for wearing a surplice; for carrying a cross, and
for refusing; for being a Catholic, and for being a Pr Jtes-
762 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
tant, for oemg an Episcopalian, a Presbyterian, a Baptist,
and for being a Quaker. In short, every virtue has been
a crime, and every crime a virtue. The church has
burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy, and all this she
did because it was commanded by a book a book that
men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before
they knew one word that was in it. They had been
taught that to doubt the truth of this book, to examine
it, even, was a crime of such enormity that it could not
be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.
The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned
heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and
trampled upon all the liberties of men.
How long, O how long will mankind worship a book?
How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignor-
ant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how
long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than
death?
Unfortunately for the world, about the beginning of
the sixteenth century a man by the name of Gerard
Chauvin was married to Jeanne Lefranc, and still more
unfortunately for the world, the fruit of this marriage
was a son, called John Chauvin, who afterward became
famous as John Calvin, the founder of the Presbyterian
church.
This man forged five fetters for the brain. These
fetters he called points. That is to say, predestination,
particular redemption, total depravity, irresistible grace,
and the perseverance of the saints. About the neck of
each follower he put a collar, bristling with these five
iron points. The presence of all these points on the
collar is still the test of orthodoxy in the church he
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 763
founded. This man, when in the flush of youth, was
elected to the office of preacher in Geneva. He at once,
in union with Farel, drew up a condensed statement of
the Presbyterian doctrine, and all the citizens of Geneva,
on pain of banishment, were compelled to take an oath
that they believed this statement. Of this proceeding
Calvin very innocently remarked, that it produced great
satisfaction. A man by the name of Caroli had the
audacity to dispute with Calvin. For this outrage he
was banished.
To show you what great subjects occupied the attention
of Calvin, it is only necessary to state, that he furiously
discussed the question, as to whether the sacramental
bread should be leavened or unleavened. He drew up laws
regulating the cut of the citizens' clothes, and prescribing
their diet, and all whose garments were not in the Calvin
fashion were refused the sacrament. At last, the people be-
coming tired of this petty, theological tyranny, banished
Calvin. In a few years, however, he was recalled and
received with great enthusiasm. After this, he was su-
preme, and the will of Calvin became the law of Geneva.
Under the benign administration of Calvin, James
Gruet was beheaded because he had written some pro-
fane verses. The slightest word against Calvin or his
absurd doctrine was punished as a crime.
In 1553, a man was tried at Vienne by the Catholic
church for heresy. He was convicted and sentenced to
death by burning. It was his good fortune to escape.
Pursued by the sleuth hounds of intolerance he fled to
Geneva for protection. A dove flying from hawks,
sought safety in the nest of a vulture. This fugitive
from the cruelty of Rome asked shelter from John Calvin,
764 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
who had written a book in favor of religious toleration.
Servetus had forgotten that this book was written by
Calvin when in the minority; that it was written in weak-
ness to be forgetten in power; that it was produced by
fear instead of principle. He did not know that Calvin
had caused his arrest at Vienne, in France, and had sent
a cop^ of his work, which was claimed to be blasphem-
ous to the archbishop. He did not then know that the
Protestant, Calvin, was acting as one of the detectives
of the Catholic church, and had been instrumental in
procuring his conviction for heresy. Ignorant of all this
unspeakable infamy, he put himself in the power of this
very Calvin. The maker of the Presbyterian creed
caused the fugitive Servetus to be arrested for blasphemy.
He was tried; Calvin was his accuser. He was convicted
and condemned to death by fire. On the morning of the
fatal day, Calvin saw him; and Servetus, the victim,
asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer, for anything
he might have said that had wounded his feelings.
Servetus was bound to the stake, the fagots were lighted.
The wind carried the flames somewhat away from his
body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. Vainly he
implored a speedy death. At last the flame climbed
around his form; through smoke and fire his murderers
saw a white, heroic face. And there they watched until
a man became a charred and shriveled mass.
Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but
Presbyterianism was left; honor, justice, mercy, reason
and charity were all exiled; but the five points of pre-
destination, particular redemption, irresistible grace, to-
tal depravity, and the certain perseverance of the saints
remained instead.
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 765
Calvin founded a little theocracy in Geneva, modeled
after the old testament, and succeeded in erecting the
most detestable government that ever existed, except the
one from which it was copied.
Against all this intolerance, one man, a minister, raised
his voice. The name of this man should never be for-
gotten. It was Castellio. This brave man had the
goodness and the courage to declare tfre innocence of
honest error. He was the first of the so-called reformers
to take this noble ground. I wish I had the genius to
pay a fitting tribute to his memory. Perhaps it would be
impossible to pay him a grander compliment than to say,
Castellio was in all things the opposite of Calvin. To
plead for the right of individual judgment was considered
as a crime, and Castellio was driven from Geneva by
John Calvin. By him he was denounced as a child of
the devil, as a dog of Satan, as a beast from hell, and as
one who, by this horrid blasphemy of the innocence of
honest error, crucified Christ afresh, and by him he was
pursued until rescued by the hand of death.
Upon the name of Castellio, Calvin heaved every
epithet, until his malice was satisfied and his imagination
exhausted. It is impossible to conceive how human
nature can become so frightfully perverted as to pursue a
fellow-man with the malignity of a fiend, simply because
he is good, just and generous.
Calvin was of a pallid, bloodless complexion, thin,
sickly, irritable, gloomy, impatient, egotistic, tyrannical,
heartless and infamous. He was a strange compound of
revengeful morality, malicious forgiveness, ferocious
charity, egotistic humility, and a kind of hellish justice.
In other words, he was as near like the God of the old
testament as his health permitted.
766 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
The best thing, however, about the Presbyterians of
Geneva was, that they denied the power of the Pope,
and the best thing about the Pope was, that he was not a
Presbyterian.
The doctrines of Calvin spread rapidly, and were
eagerly accepted by multitudes on the continent. But
Scotland, in a few years, became the real fortress of
Presbyterianism. The Scotch rivaled the adherents of
Calvin, and succeeded in establishing the same kind of
theocracy that flourished in Geneva. The clergy took
possession and control of everybody and everything. It
is impossible to exaggerate the slavery, the mental deg-
radation, the abject superstition of the people of Scot-
land during the reign of Presbyterianism. Heretics were
hunted and devoured as though they had been wild beasts.
The gloomy insanity of Presbyterianism took possession
of a great majority of the people. They regarded their
ministers as the Jews did Moses and Aaron. They be-
lieved that they were the especial agents of God, and
that whatsoever they bound in Scotland would be bound
in heaven. There was not one particle of intellectual
freedom. No one was allowed to differ from the church,
or to even contradict a priest. Had Presbyterianism
maintained its ascendancy, Scotland would have been
peopled by savages to-day. The revengeful spirit of
Calvin took possession of the Puritans and caused them
to redden the soil of the new world with the brave blood
of honest men. Clinging to the five points of Calvin,
they, too, established governments in accordance with
the teachings of the old testament. They, too, attached
the penalty of death to the expression of honest thought.
They, too, believed their church supreme, and exerted
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 767
all their power to curse this continent with a spiritual
despotism as infamous as it was absurd. They believed
with Luther that universal toleration is universal error,
and universal error is universal hell. Toleration was
denounced as a crime.
Fortunately for us, civilization has had a softening
effect upon the Presbyterian church. To the ennobling
influence of the arts and science the savage spirit of Cal-
vinism has, in some slight degree, succumbed. True, the
old creed remains substantially as it was written, but by
a kind of tacit understanding it has come to be regarded
as a relic of the past. The cry of <( heresy" has been
growing fainter and fainter, and, as a consequence, the
ministers of that denomination have ventured now and
then to express doubts as to the damnation of infants,
and the doctrine of total depravity. The fact is, the old
ideas became a little monotonous to the people. The
fall of man, the scheme of redemption and irresistible
grace, began to have a familiar sound. The preachers
told the old stories while the congregation slept. Some
of the ministers became tired of these stories themselves.
The five points grew dull, and they felt that nothing
short ot irresistible grace could bear this endless repeti-
tion. The outside world was full of progress, and in
every direction men advanced, while the church, anchored
to a creed, idly rotted at the shore. Other denomina-
tions, imbued some little with the spirit of investigation,
were springing up on every side, while the old Presbyte-
rian ark rested on the Ararat of the past, rilled with the
theological monsters of another age.
Lured by the splendors of the outer world, tempted by
the achievements of science, longing to feel the throw
768 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
and beat of the mighty march of the human race, a few
of the ministers of this conservative denomination were
compelled by irresistible sense, to say a few words in
harmony with the splendid ideas of to-day.
These utterances have upon several occasions so nearly
awakened some of the members, that, rubbing their
eyes, they have feebly inquired whether these grand ideas
were not somewhat heretical? These ministers found
that just in proportion as their orthodoxy decreased, their
congregations increased. Those who dealt in the pure
unadulterated article, found themselves demonstrating
the five points to a less number of hearers than they had
points. Stung to madness by this bitter truth, this gall-
ing contrast, this harassing fact, the really orthodox have
raised the cry of heresy, and expect with this cry to seal
the lips of honest men. One of these ministers, and one
who has been enjoying the luxury of a little hones*
thought, and the real rapture of expressing it, has already
been indicted, and is about to be tried by the Presby-
tery of Illinois.
He has been charged:
First. With speaking in an ambiguous language in
relation to that dear old doctrine of the fall of man .
With having neglected to preach that most comforting
and consoling truth, the eternal damnation of the soul.
Surely, that man must be a monster who could wish
to blot this blessed doctrine out and rob earth's wretched
children of this blissful hope!
Who can estimate the misery that has been caused by
this most infamous doctrine of eternal punishment?
Think of the lives it has blighted of the tears it has
caused of the agony it has produced. Think of the
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 769
millions who have been driven to insanity by this most
terrible of dogmas. This doctrine renders God the basest
and most cruel being in the universe. Compared with
him, the most frightful deities of the most barbarous and
degraded tribes are miracles of goodness and mercy.
There is nothing more degrading than to worship such a
God. Lower than this the soul can never sink. If the
doctrine of eternal damnation is true, let me have my
portion in hell, rather than in heaven with a God infam-
ous enough to inflict eternal misery upon any of the sons
of men.
Second With having spoken a few kind words of
Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill .
I have the honor of a slight acquaintance with Robert
Collyer. I have read with pleasure some of his exquisite
productions. He has a brain full of the dawn, the head
of a philosopher, the imagination of a poet, and the sin-
cere heart of a child.
Is a minister to be silenced because he speaks fairly of
a noble and candid adversary? Is it a crime to compli-
ment a lover of justice, an advocate of liberty; one who
devoted his life to the elevation of man, the discovery of
truth, and the promulgation of what he believed to be
right?
Can that tongue be palsied by a presbytery that praises
a self-denying and heroic life? Is it a sin to speak a charit-
able word over the grave of John Stuart Mill? Is it
heretical to pay a just and graceful tribute to departed
worth? Must the true Presbyterian violate the sanctity
of the tomb, dig open the grave, and ask his God to curse
the silent dust? Is Presbyterianism so narrow that it
conceives of no excellence, of no purity of intention, of
7/O INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
no spiritual and moral grandeur outside of its barbaric
creed? Does it still retain within its stony heart all the
malice of its founder? Is it still warming its fleshless
hands at the flames that consumed Servetus? Does it
still glory in the damnation of infants, and does it still
persist in emptying the cradle in order that perdition
may be filled? Is it still starving the soul and famishing
the heart? Is it still trembling and shivering, crouching
and crawling, before its ignorant confession of faith?
Had such men as Robert Collyer and John Stuart Mill
been present at the burning of Servetus, they would have
extinguished the flames with their tears. Had the Pres-
bytery of Chicago been there, they would have quietly
turned their backs, solemnly divided their coat-tails and
warmed themselves.
Third. With having spoken disparagingly of the doc-
trine of predestination.
If there is any dogma that ought to be protected by
law, predestination is that doctrine. Surely it 'is a cheer-
ful, joyous thing to one who is laboring, struggling and
suffering in this weary world, to think that before he ex-
isted, before the earth was, before a star had glittered in
the heavens, before a ray of light had left the quiver of
the sun, his destiny had been irrevocably fixed, and that
for an eternity before his birth he had been doomed to
bear eternal pain!
Fourth. With having failed to preach the efficacy of
"vicarious sacrifice."
Suppose a man had been convicted of murder, and was
about to be hanged the Governor acting as the execu-
tioner. And suppose just as the doomed man was to
suffer death, some one in the crowd should step forward
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 7/1
and say, " I am willing to die in the place of that mur-
derer. He has a family, and I have none." And sup-
pose further that the Governor should reply. " Come
forward, young man, your offer is accepted. A murder
has been committed, and somebody must be hung, and
your death will satisfy the law just as well as the death
of the murderer." What would you then think of the
doctrine of " vicarious sacrifice?"
This doctrine is the consummation of two outrages
forgiving one ciime and committing another.
Fifth. With having inculcated a phase of the doctrine
commonly known as "Evolution" or "Development.''
The church believes and teaches the exact opposite of
this doctrine. According to the philosophy of theology,
man has continued to degenerate for six thousand years.
To teach that there is that in Nature which impels to
higher forms and grander ends, is heresy of course. The
Deity will damn Spencer and his "Evolution," Darwin
and his "Origin of Species," Bastin and his "Spon-
taneous Generation," Huxley and his "Protoplasm,"
Tyndall and his "Prayer Guage," and will save those,
and those only who declare that the universe has been
cursed from the smallest atom to the grandest star; that
everything tends to evil, and to that only; and that the
only perfect thing in Nature is the Presbyterian confes-
sion of faith.
Sixth. With having intimated that the reception of
Socrates and Penelope at heaven's gate was, to say the
least, a trifle more cordial than that of Catherine II.
Penelope waiting patiently and trustfully for her lord's
return, delaying her suitors, while sadly weaving and un-
weaving the shroud of Laertes, is the most perfect type
77 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
of wife and woman produced by the civilization of
Greece.
Socrates, whose life was above reproach, and whose
death was beyond all praise, stands to-day, in the esti-
mation of every thoughtful man, at least the peer of
Christ.
Catharine II assassinated her husband. Stepping
upon his corpse, she mounted the throne. She was the
murderess of Prince Iwan, the grand-nephew of Peter the
Great, who was imprisoned for eighteen years, and who,
during all that time, saw the sky but once. Taken all in
all, Catharine was probably one of the most intellectual
beasts that ever wore a crown.
Catharine, however, was the head of the Greek Church,
Socrates was a heretic, and Penelope lived and died with-
out having once heard of " particular redemption," or
''irresistible grace."
Seventh. With repudiating the idea of a "call "to
ministry, and pretending that men were "called," to
preach as they were to the other avocations of life.
If this doctrine is true, God, to say the least of it, is
an exceedingly poor judge of human nature. It is more
than a century since a man of true genius has been found
in an orthodox pulpit. Every minister is heretical just
to the extent that his intellect is above the average. The
Lord seems to be satisfied with mediocrity; but the peo-
ple are not.
An old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular
preacher, advised him to give up the ministry, and turn
his attention to something else. The preacher replied
that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he
had a "call" to the ministry. To which the deacon
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 773
replied, " That may be so, but it's mighty unfortunate
for you that when God called you to preach, He forgot
to call anybody to hear you."
There is nothing more stupidly egotistic than the claim
of the clergy that they are, in some divine sense, set
apart to the service of the Lord; that they have been
chosen and sanctified; that there is an infinite difference
between them and persons employed in secular affairs.
They teach us that all other professions must take care
of themselves; that God allows anybody to be a doctor,
a lawyer, statesman, soldier, or artist; that the Motts
and Coopers the Mansfields and Marshalls the Wilber-
forces and Sumners the Angelos and Raphaels were
never honored by a "call." These chose their profes-
sions and won their laurels without the assistance of the
Lord. All these men were left free to follow their own
inclinations while God was busily engaged selecting and
" calling " priests, rectors, elders, ministers and exhorters.
Eighth. With having doubted that God was the
author of the lOQth Psalm.
The portion of that Psalm which carries with it the
clearest and most satisfactory evidences of inspiration,
and which has afforded almost unspeakable consolation
to the Presbyterian church, is as follows:
"Set thou a wicked man over him; and let Satan
stand at his right hand.
"When he shall be judged, let him be condemned;
and let his prayer become sin.
" Let his days be few; and let .another take his office.
" Let his children be fatherless, and his wife a widow.
" Let his children be continually vagabonds, and beg;
let them seek their bread also out of their desolate places.
774 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
"Let the extortioner catch all that he hated; and let
the strangers spoil his labor.
" Let there be none to. extend mercy unto him; neither
let there be none to favor his fatherless children.
" Let his posterity be cut off; and in the generation
following let their name be blotted out.
* # # * #
"But do thou for me, O God the Lord, for Thy
name's sake; because Thy mercy is good, deliver thou me.
* * * I will greatly praise the Lord with my mouth."
Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to in-
spire this prayer. Think of one infamous enough to
answer it.
Had this inspired Psalm been found in some temple
erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of
some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried
skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony
between its surroundings -and its sentiments.
No wonder that the author of this inspired Psalm
coldly received Socrates and Penelope, and reserved his
sweetest smiles for Catharine the Second!
Ninth. With having said that the battles in which
the Israelites engaged with the approval and command of
Jehovah surpassed in cruelty those of Julius Cassar.
Was it Julius Caesar who said, "And the Lord our
God delivered him before us; and we smote him, and his
sons, and all his people. And we took all his cities, and
utterly destroyed the men, and the women and the little
ones, of every city, we left none to remain? "
Did Julius Caesar send the following report to the
Roman Senate? "And we took all his cities at that
time, there was not a city which we took not from them,
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 775
three-score city, all the region of Argob, the kingdom of
Og, in Bashan. All these cities were fenced with high
walls, gates and bars; besides un walled towns a great
many. And we utterly destroyed them, as we did unto
Sihon, king of Heshbon, utterly destroying the men,
women, and children of every city."
Did Caesar take the city of Jericho "and utterly
destroy all that was in the city, both man and woman,
young and old?" Did he smite " all the country of the
hills, and of the south, and of the vale, and of the springs,
and all their kings, and leave none remaining that
breathed, as the Lord God had commanded?"
Search the records of the whole world, find out the
history of every barbarous tribe, and you can find no
crime that touched a lower depth of infamy than those
the bible's God commanded and approved . For such a
God I have no words to express my loathing and con-
tempt, and all the words in all the languages of man
would scarcely be sufficient. Away with such a God!
Give me Jupiter rather, with lo and Europa, or even
Siva with his skulls and snakes, or give me none.
Tenth. With having repudiated the doctrines of
"total depravity."
What a precious doctrine is that of the total depravity
of the human heart! How sweet it is to believe that the
lives of all the good and great were continual sins and
perpetual crimes; that the love a mother bears her child
is, in the sight of God, a sin; that the gratitude of the
natural heart is simple meanness; that the tears of pity
are impure; that for the unconverted to live and labor for
others is an offense to heaven; that the noblest aspira-
tions of the soul are low and grovelling in the sight of
776 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
God; that man should fall upon his knees and ask for-
giveness, simply for loving his wife and child, and that
even the act of asking forgiveness is in fact a crime.
Surely it is a kind of bliss to feel that every woman
and child in the wide world, with the exception of those
who believe the five points, or some other equally cruel
creed, and such children as have been baptized, ought at
this very moment to be dashed down to the lowest glow-
ing gulf of the hell!
Take from the Christian the history of his own church;
leave that entirely out of the question, and he has no
argument left with which to substantiate the total
depravity of man.
A minister once asked an old lady, a member of his
church, what she thought of the doctrine" of total
depravity, and the dear old soul replied that she thought
it a mighty good doctrine if the Lord would only give the
people grace enough to live up to it?
Eleventh. With having doubted the "perseverance
of the saints."
I suppose the real meaning of this doctrine is that Pres-
byterians are just as sure of going to heaven as all other
folks are of going to hell. The real idea being, that it
all depends upon the will of God, and not upon the
character of the person to be damned or saved; that God
has the weakness to send Presbyterians to Paradise, and
the justice to doom the rest of mankind to eternal fire.
It is admitted that no unconverted brain can see the
least of sense in this doctrine; that it is abhorrent to all
who have not been the recipients of a te new heart; "
that only the perfectly good can justify the perfectly in-
famous.
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 777
It is contended that the saints do not persevere of their
own free will that they are entitled to no credit for per-
severing; but that God forces them to persevere; while on
the other hand, every crime is committed in accordance
with the secret will of God, who does all things for His
own glory.
Compared with this doctrine, there is no other idea,
that has ever been believed by man, that can properly be
called absurd.
As to the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints,
I wish with all my heart that it may prove to be a fact.
I really hope that every saint, no matter how badly he
may break on the first quarter, nor how many shoes he
may cast at the half-mile pole, will foot it bravely down
the long home-stretch, and win eternal heaven by at least
a neck.
Twelfth. With having spoken and written somewhat
ightly of the idea of converting the heathen with doc-
trinal sermons.
Of all the failures of which we have any history or
knowledge the missionary effort is the most conspicuous.
The whole question has been decided here, in our own
country, and conclusively settled. We have nearly ex-
terminated the Indians; but we have converted none.
From the days of John Eliot to the execution of the last
Modoc, not one Indian has been the subject of irresisti-
ble grace or particular redemption. The few red men
who roam the Western wilderness have no thought or
care concerning the five points of Calvin. They are
utterly oblivious to the great and vital truths contained
in the Thirty-nine articles, the Saybrook platform, and
the resolutions of the Evangelical Alliance. No Indian
778 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
has ever scalped another on account of his religious belief.
This of itself shows conclusively that the missionaries
have had no effect.
Why should we convert the heathen of China and kill
our own? Why should we send missionaries across the
seas, and soldiers over the plains? Why should we send
bibles to the East and muskets to the West? If it is im-
possible to convert Indians who have no religion of their
own; no prejudice for or against the " eternal procession
of the Holy Ghost," how can we expect to convert a
heathen who has a religion; who has plenty of gods and
bibles and prophets and Christs, and who has a religious
literature far grander than our own? Can we hope, with
the story of Daniel in the lion's den, to rival the stupend-
ous miracles of India? Is there anything in our bible as
lofty and loving as the prayer of the Buddhist? Com-
pare your "Confession of Faith" with the following:
" Never will I seek nor receive private individual sal-
vation never enter into final peace alone; but forever
and everywhere will I live and strive for the universal
redemption of every creature throughout all worlds.
Until all are delivered, never will I leave the world of sin,
sorrow and struggle, but will remain where I am."
Think of sending an average Presbyterian to convert a
man who daily offers this tender, this infinitely generous
and incomparable prayer! Think of reading the io9th
Psalm to a heathen who has a bible of his own, in which
is found this passage: Blessed is that man, and beloved
of all the gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no
man is afraid! "
Why should you read even the new testament to a
Hindoo, when his own Christna has said: " If a man
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 7/9
strike thee, arid in striking drop his staff, pick it up and
hand it to him again? " Why send a Presbyterian to a
Sufi, who says: " Better one moment of silent contem-
plation and inward love, than seventy thousand years of
outward worship? " " Whosoever would carelessly tread
one worm that crawls on earth, that heartless one is darkly
alienate from God; but he that, living, embraceth all
things in his love, to live with him God bursts all bounds
above, below."
Why should we endeavor to thrust our cruel and heart-
less theology upon one who prays this prayer: " O God,
show pity toward the wicked; for on the good thou hast
already bestowed thy mercy by having created them
virtuous? "
Compare this prayer with the curses and cruelties of
the old testament with the infamies commanded and
approved by the being whom we are taught to worship
as a God, and with the following tender product of Pres-
byterianism: " It may seem absurd to human wisdom
that God should harden, blind, and deliver up some men
to a reprobate sense; that He should first deliver them
over to evil, and then condemn them for that evil; but
the believing spiritual man sees no absurdity in all this,
knowing that God would never be a whit less good, even
though He should destroy all men."
Of all the religions that have been produced by the
egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man,
Presbyterianism is the most hideous.
But what shall I sa^ more? for the time would fail me
to tell of Sabellianism, of a "Model trinity," and the
" eternal procession of the Holy Ghost? "
Upon these charges a minister is to be tried, here in
780 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Chicago; in this city of pluck and progress this marvel
of energy, and this miracle of nerve. The cry of ' ' her-
esy, " here, sounds like a -wail from the Dark Ages a
shriek from the Inquisition, or a groan from the grave of
Calvin.
Another effort is being made to enslave a man.
It is claimed that every member of the church has
solemnly agreed never to outgrow the creed; that he has
pledged himself to remain an intellectual dwarf. Upon
this condition the church agrees to save his soul, and he
hands over his brains to bind the bargain. Should a fact
be found inconsistent with the creed, he binds himself to
deny the fact and curse the finder. With scraps of dog-
mas and crumbs of doctrine, he agrees that his soul shall
be satisfied forever. What an intellectual feast the con-
fession of faith must be! It reminds one of the dinner
described by Sidney Smith, where everything was cold
except the water, and everything sour except the vinegar.
Every member of a church promises to remain ortho-
dox, that is to say stationary. Growth is heresy.
Orthodox ideas are the feathers that have been molted
by the eagle of progress. They are the dead leaves
under the majestic palm, while heresy is the bud and
blossom at the top.
Imagine a vine that grows at one end and decays at
the other. The end that grows is heresy; the end that
rots is orthodox. The dead are orthodox, and your
cemetery is the most perfect type of a well regulated
church. No thought, no progress, no heresy there.
Slowly and silently, side by side, the satisfied members
peacefully decay. There is only this difference the
dead do not persecute.
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 781
And what does a trial for heresy mean? It means that
the church says to a heretic, " Believe as I do, or I will
withdraw my support; I will not employ you; I will pur-
sue you until your garments are rags; until your children
cry for bread; until your cheeks are furrowed with tears.
I will hunt you to the very portals of the tomb, and then
my God will do the rest. I will not imprison you. I
will not burn you. The law prevents my doing that. I
helped make the law, not, however, to protect you, nor
deprive me of the right to exterminate you, but in order
to keep other churches from exterminating me. "
A trial for heresy means that the spirit of persecution
still lingers in the church; that it still denies the right of
private judgment; that it still thinks more of creed than
truth; that it is still determined to prevent the intellectual
growth of man. It means that churches are shambles in
which are bought and sold the souls of men. It means
that the church is still guilty of the barbarity of opposing
thought with force. It means that if it had the power,
the mental horizon would be bounded by a creed, that it
would bring again the whips, and chains, and dungeon
keys, the rack and fagot of the past.
But let me tell the church it lacks the power. There
has been, and still are, too many men who own them-
selves too much thought, too much knowledge for
the church to grasp again the sword of power. The
church must abdicate. For the Eglon of superstition,
science has a message from truth.
The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in
vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light.
Not in vain did Voltaire, that great man, point from the
foot of the Alps, the finger of scorn at every hypocrite in
782 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Europe. Not in vain were the splendid utterances of
the infidels, while beyond all price are the discoveries of
science.
The church has impeded, but it has not and it cannot
stop the onward march of the human race. Heresy can-
not be burned, nor imprisoned, nor starved. It laughs
at presbyteries and synods, at (Ecumencial councils and
the impotent thunders of Sinai. Heresy is the eternal
dawn, the morning star, the glittering herald of the day.
Heresy is the last and best thought. It is the perpetual
new world; the unknown sea, toward which the brave all
sail. It is the eternal horizon of progress. Heresy ex-
tends the hospitalities of the brain to new thoughts.
Heresy is a cradle; orthodoxy a coffin.
Why should a man be afraid to think, and why should
he fear to express his thoughts?
Is it possible that an infinite Deity is unwilling that
man should investigate the phenomena by which he is
surrounded? Is it possible that a God delights in threat-
ening and terrifying men? What glory, what honor and
renown a God must win in such a field! The ocean rav-
ing at a drop; a star envious of a candle; the sun jealous
of a fire. fly!
Go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! Thrust 'the
heretics out of the church. That is to say, throw away
your braius put out your eyes. The Infidels will thank
you. They are willing to adopt your exiles. Every
deserter trom your camp is a recruit for the army of pro-
gress. Cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read
the lOQth Psalrn; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and
babes; thank God for total depravity; shower your honors
upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is
touched with that heresy called genius.
HERETICS AND HERESIES. 783
Be true to your history . Turn out the astronomers,
the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the
honest scientists. With a whip of scorpions, drive them
all out. We want them all. Keep the ignorant, the
superstitious, the bigoted, and the writers of charges and
specifications. Keep them, and keep them all. Repeat
your pious platitudes in the drowsy ears of the faithful,
and read your bible to heretics, as kings read some for-
gotten riot-act to stop and stay the waves of revolution.
You are too weak to excite anger. We forgive your
efforts as the sun forgives a cloud as the air forgives the
breath you waste.
How long, O how long will man listen to the threats
of God, and shut his ears to the spendid promises of
Nature? How long, O how long will man remain the
cringing slave of a false and cruel creed.
By this time the whole world should know that the
real bible has not yet been written; but is being written,
and that it will never be finished until the race begins its
downward march or ceases to exist. The real bible is
not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles,
nor evangelists, nor of Christ. Every man who finds a
fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is
not attested by prophecy, by miracles or by signs. It
makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity of
fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward
for hypocrisy. It appears to men in the name of demon-
stration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of
being read, of being investigated and understood. It
does not pretend to be holy or sacred; it simply claims to
be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores
every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapa"
INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
ble of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the
surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of
its perfection. The earth with its heart of fire and
.crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and
seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf,
and bud, and flower, confirms its every word, and the
solemn stars, shining rn the infinite abysses, are the
eternal witnesses of its truth.
INGEKSOLL'S LECTUKE
ON
THE BIBLE:
The true bible appeals to man in the name of demon-
stration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of
being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated
and understood. It does not pretend to be holy or sacred,
it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny
of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for
himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This
book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each
thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth,
with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests
and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and
cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms
its every w.ord, and the solemn stars, shining in the in-
finite abysses, are the external witnesses of its truth.
I will tell you what I mean by inspiration. I go and
look at the sea, and the sea says something to me; it
makes an impression upon my mind. That impression
785
786 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
depends, first, upon my experience; secondly, upon my
intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea.
He has a different brain, .he has had a different experi-
ence, he has different memories and different hopes.
The sea may speak to him of joy and to me of grief and
sorrow. The sea cannot tell the same thing to two be-
ings, because no two human beings have had the same
experience. So, when I look upon a flower, or a star,
or a painting, or a statue, the more I know about sculp-
ture the more that statue speaks to me. The more I
have had of human experience, the more I have read,
the greater brain I have, the more the star says to me.
In other words, nature says to me all that I am capable
of understanding.
Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to in-
spire this prayer in the iO9th Psalm ! Think of one in-
famous enough to answer it ! Had this inspired Psalm
been found in some temple erected for the worship of
snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, writ-
ten with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would
have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings
and its sentiments.
Now, I read the bible, and I find that God so loved
this world that he made up his mind to damn the most
of us. I have read this book and what shall I say of it ?
I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now, I
don't believe the bible. Had I not better say so ? They
say that if you do you will regret it when you come to
die. If that be true, I know a great many religious peo-
ple who will have no cause to regret it they don't tell
their honest convictions about the bible.
The bible was the real persecutor. The bible burned
THE BIBLE. 787
heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and
trampled upon all the liberties of men. How long, O how
long, will mankind worship a book ? How long will
they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of
the barbaric past ? How long, O how long, will they
pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death ?
The believers in the bible are loud in their denunciation
of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of
the world; and yet few books have been published con-
taining more moral filth than this inspired word of God.
These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit
or humor. They never rise above the dull details of stupid
vice. For one, I cannot afford to soil my pages with
extracts from them; and all such portions of the scrip-
tures I leave to be examined, written upon, and ex-
plained by the clergy. Clergymen may know some way
by which they can extract honey from these flowers.
Until these passages are expunged from the old testa-
ment, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or
young. It contains pages that no minister in the United
States would read to his congregation for any reward
whatever. There are chapters that no gentleman would
read in the presence of a lady. There are chapters that
no father would read to his child. There are narratives
utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when
mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called
inspired.
But as long as the bible is considered as the work of
God, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure
to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be
vile and filthy books. The literature of our country will
not be sweet and clean until the bible ceases to be re-
garded as the production of a god.
TNGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
In the days of Thomas Paine the church believed and
taught that every word in the bible was absolutely true.
Since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony,
false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its
history, and so far as the old testament is concerned,
false in almost everything. There are but few, if any,
scientific men who apprehend that the bible is literally
true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to settle
any scientific question by a text from the bible ? The
old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The
church itself will before long be driven to occupy the
position of Thomas Paine !
I love any man who gave me, or helped to give me,
the liberty I enjoy to-night. I love every man who
helped put our flag in heaven. I love every man who
has lifted his voice in all the ages for liberty, for a chain-
less body, and a fetterless brain. I love every man who
has given to every other human being every right that
he claimed for himself. I love every man who thought
more of principle than he did of position. I love the
men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that
they might do something for mankind.
The best minds of the orthodox world, to-day, are en-
deavoring to prove the existence of a personal Deity.
All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no
longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, Jonah
and all; you are simply required to believe in God, and
pay your pew-rent. There is not now an enlightened
minister in the world who will seriously contend that
Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necroman-
cers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of
wood into serpents. These follies have passed away.
THE BIBLE. 789
For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the
results of scientific investigation than to be inspired as
Moses was. Supposing the bible to be true; why is it
any worse or more wicked for free-thinkers to deny it,
than for priests to deny the doctrine of evolution, or the
dynamic theory of heat ? Why should we be damned for
laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding
the nebular hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to
heaven ?
Now when I come to a book, for instance, I read the
writings of Shakespeare Shakespeare, the greatest hu-
man being who ever existed upon this globe. What do
I get out of him ? All that I have sense enough to under-
stand. I get my little cup full. Let another read him
who knows nothing of the drama, who knows nothing of
the impersonation of passion; what does he get from
him ? Very little. In other words, every man gets from
a book, a flower, a star, or the sea, what he is able to
get from his intellectual development and experience.
Do you then believe that the bible is a different book to
every human being that receives it ? I do. Can God,
then, through the bible, make the same revelation to two
men ? He cannot. Why ? Because the man who reads
is the man who inspires. Inspiration is in the man and
not in the book.
The real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the peo-
ple is the bible. That book is the chain that binds, the
dungeon that holds the clergy. That book spreads the
pall of supersition over the colleges and schools. That
book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest in-
vestigation a crime. That book unmans the politician
and degrades the people. That book fills the world with
bigotry, hypocricy and fear.
79 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity
of this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the
fables contained in that repository of the impossible,
called the bible. To me it is a matter of amazement,
that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent
human being.
Is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this
book is the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth
and error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too
faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure of its
time ? " If there are mistakes in the bible, certainly
they were made by man. If there is anything contrary
to nature, it was written by man. If there is anything
immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was
never written by a being worthy of the adoration of man-
kind.
It strikes me that God might write a book that would
not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In
fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real god could
produce a work that would excite the admiration of man-
kind.
The man who now regards the old testament as, in
any sense, a sacred or inspired book is, in my judgment,
an intellectual and moral deformity. There is in it so
much that is cruel, ignorant and ferocious that it is to
me a matter of amazement that it was ever thought to
be the work of a most merciful deity.
Admitting that the bible is the book of God, is that
His only good job ? Will not a man be damned as quick
for denying the equator as denying the bible ? Will he
not be damned as quick for denying geology as for deny-
ing the scheme of salvation ? When the bible was first
THE BIBLE.
written it was not believed. Had they known as much
about science as we know now, that bible would not
have been written.
Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly re-
vealed His will to man. To each reader the bible con-
veys a different meaning. About the meaning of this
book, called a revelation, there have been- ages of war
and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an in-
finite God, He must have known that these results must
follow; and thus knowing, He must be responsible for all.
Paine thought the barbarities of the old testament in-
consistent with what he deemed the real character of
God. He believed that murder, massacre and indis-
criminate slaughter had never been commanded by the
Deity. He regarded much of the bible as childish, un-
important and foolish. The scientific world entertains
the same opinion. Paine attacked the bible precisely in
the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions
of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in
the world could not make him cower. His reason knew
no <( Holy of Holies," except the abode of Truth.
Nothing can be clearer than that Moses received from
the Egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, mak-
ing such changes and additions as were necessary to
satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people.
According to the theologians, God, the Father of us
all, wrote a letter to His children. The children have
always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter.
In consequence of these honest difficulties, these broth-
ers tygan to cut out each other's hearts. In every
land, where this letter from God has been read, the
children to whom and for whom it was written have been
79 2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned
and murdered each other, and the wives and children of
each other. In the name ot God every possible crime
has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been
perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women,
beautiful girls and prattling babes have been exterminated
in the name of Jesus Christ.
The church has burned honesty and rewarded hypoc-
ricy. And all this, because it was commanded by a book
a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe,
long before they knew one word that was in it. They
had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book to
examine it, even was a crime of such enormity that it
could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince
any reasonable person that the bible is simply and purely
of human invention of barbarian invention is to read
it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as
you would any other; get the bandage of reverence from
your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear;
push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of
superstition then read the holy bible, and you will be
amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a be-
ing of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the
author of such ignorance and such atrocity.
Whether the bible is false or true, is of no consequence
in comparison with the mental freedom of the race.
Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from
slavery is inestimable. As long as man believes the bible
to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilization
of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief
the result of free thought.
THE BIBLE. 793
What man who ever thinks, can believe that blood
can appease God ? And yet our entire system of religion
is based on that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with
the blood of animals, and according to the Christian sys-
tem, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little,
and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few.
It is hard to conceive how any sane man can read the
bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
The bible was originally written in the Hebrew lan-
guage, and the Hebrew language at that time had no
vowels in writing. It was written entirely with conso-
nants, and without being divided into chapters and
verses, and there was no system of punctuation what-
ever. After you go home to-night write an English sen-
tence or two with only consonants close together, and
you will find that it will take twice as much inspiration
to read it as it did to write it.
The real bible is not the result of inspired men, nor
prophets, nor evangelists, nor of christs. The real bible
has not been written, but is being written. Every man
who finds a fact adds a word to this great book.
The bad passages in the brble are not inspired. No
god ever upheld human slavery, polygamy or a war of
extermination. No god ever ordered a soldier to sheathe
his sword in the breast of a motiier, No god ever ordered
a warrior to butcher a smiling, prattling babe. No god
ever upheld tyranny. No god ever said, be subject to
the powers that be. No god endeavored to make man a
slave and woman a beast of burden. There are thou-
sands^pf good passages in the bible. Many of them are
true. There are in it wise laws, good customs, some
lofty and splendid things. And I do not care whether
794 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
they are inspired or not, so they are true. But what I
do insist upon is that the bad is not inspired.
There is no hope for you. It is just as bad to deny
hell as it is to deny heaven. Prof. Swing says the bible
is a poem. Dr. Ryder says it is a picture. The Garden
of Eden is pictorial; a pictorial snake and a pictorial
woman, I suppose, and a pictorial man, and may be it
was a pictorial sin. And only a pictorial atonement !
Man must learn to rely on himself. Reading bibles
will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses,
fire and clothing will. To prevent famine one plow is
worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will
cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the
beginning of the world.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
VOLTAIRE.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: The infidels of one age
have often been the aureoled saints of the next.
The destroyers of the old are the creators of the new.
As time sweeps on the old passes away and the new
in its turn becomes of old.
There is in the intellectual world, as in the physical,
decay and growth, and ever by the grave of buried age
stand youth and joy.
The history of intellectual progress is written in the
lives of infidels.
Political rights have been preserved by traitors; the
liberty of mind by heretics.
To attack the king was treason; to dispute the priest
was blasphemy.
For many years the sword and cross were allies. To-
gether they attacked the rights of man. They defended
each other,
795
796 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
The throne and altar were twins two vultures from
the same egg.
James I said: ' No bishop; no king." He might have
added: No cross, no crown. The king owned the bodies
of men; the priest, the souls. One lived on taxes col-
lected by force, the other on alms collected by fear
both robbers, both beggars.
These robbers and these beggars controlled two worlds.
The king made laws, the priest made creeds. Both ob-
tained their authority from God, both were the agents
of the infinite. With bowed backs the people carried
the burdens of one, and with wonder's open mouth re-
ceived the dogmas of the other. If the people aspired
to be free, they were crushed by the king, and every
priest was a Herod, who slaughtered the children of the
brain.
The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both
by both. The king said to the people: " God made you
peasants, and He made me king; He made you to labor,
and me to enjoy; He made rags and hovels for you,
robes and palaces for me. He made you to obey and me
to command. Such is the justice of God," And the
priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile; He made
me holy and wise; you are the sheep, I am the shepherd;
your fleeces belong to me. If you do not obey me here,
God will punish you now and torment you forever in an-
other world. Such is the mercy of God."
"You must not reason. Reason is a rebel. You must
not contradict contradiction is born of egotism; you
must believe. He that has ears to hear let him hear.
Heaven is a question of ears."
Fortunately for us, there have been traitors and there
VOLTAIRE. 797
have been heretics, blasphemers, thinkers, investigators,
lovers of liberty, men of genius, who have given their
lives to better the condition of their fellow-men.
It may be well enough here to ask the question: ' 'What
is greatness?" A great man adds to the sum of know-
ledge, extends the horizon of thought, releases souls from
the Bastile of fear, crosses unknown and mysterious seas,
gives new islands and new continents to the domain of
thought, new constellations to the firmament of mind.
A great man does not seek applause or place; he seeks
for truth; he seeks the road to happiness, and what he
ascertains he gives to others.
A great man throws pearls before swine, and the swine
are sometimes changed to men. If the great had always
kept their pearls, vast multitudes would be barbarians
now.
A great man is a torch in the darkness, a beacon in
superstition's night, an inspiration and a prophecy.
Greatness is not the gift of majorities; it cannot be
thrust upon any man; men cannot give it to another;
they can give place and power, but not greatness. The
place does not make the man, nor the sceptre the king.
Greatness is from within.
The great men are the heroes who have freed the bod-
ies of men; they are the philosophers and thinkers who
have given liberty to the soul; they are the poets who
have transfigured the common and filled the lives of
minv millions with love and song. " They are the artists
who have covered the bare walls of weary life with the
triumphs of genius. They are the heroes who have slain
the monsters of ignorance and fear, who have outgazed
the Gorgon and driven the cruel gods from their thrones.
INGERSOLLS LECTURES.
They are the inventors, the discoverers, the great me-
chanics, the kings of the. useful who have civilized this
world.
At the head of this heroic army, foremost of all, stands
Voltaire, whose memory we are honoring to-night.
Voltaire ! a name that excites the admiration of men,
the malignity of priests. Pronounce that, name in the
presence of a clergyman, and you will find that you have
made a declaration of war. Pronounce that name, and
from the face of the priest the mask of meekness will
fall, and from the mouth of forgiveness will pour a
Niagara of vituperation and calumny. And yet Voltaire
was the greatest man of his century, and did more for
the human race than any other of the sons of men.
On Sunday, the 2ist of November, 1694, a babe was
born; a babe exceedingly frail, whose breath hesitated
about remaining. This babe became the greatest man
of the eighteenth century.
When Voltaire came to this " great stage of fools, "
his country had been christianized not civilized for
about fourteen hundred years. For a thousand years
the religion of peace and good will had been supreme.
The laws had been given by Christian kings, sanctioned
by 4< wise and holy men."
Under the benign reign of universal love, every court
had its chamber of torture, and every priest relied on
the thumbscrew and rack. Such had been the success
of the blessed gospel that every science was an outcast.
To speak your honest thoughts, to teach your fellow
men, to investigate for yourself, to seek the truth, these
were crimes, and the "Holy Mother Church" pursued
the criminals with sword and flame.
VOLTAIRE. 799
The believers in a God of love an infinite father
punished hundreds of offenses with torture and death.
Suspected persons were tortured to make them confess.
Convicted persons were tortured to make them give the
names of their accomplices. Under the leadership of
the church cruelty had become the only reforming power.
In this blessed year 1694 all authors were at the mercy
of king and priest. The most of them were cast into
prisons, impoverished by fines and costs, exiled or exe-
cuted. The little time that hangmen could snatch from
professional duties was occupied in burning books. The
courts of justice were traps in which the innocent were
caught. The judges were almost as malicious and cruel as
though they had been bishops "or saints. There was no
trial by jury, and the rules of evidence allowed the con-
viction of the supposed criminal by the proof of suspicion
or hearsay. The witnesses, being liable to torture, gen-
erally told what the judges wished to hear.
When Voltaire was born the church ruled and owned
France . It was a period of almost universal corruption.
The priests were mostly libertines, the judges cruel and
venal. The royal palace was a house of prostitution.
The nobles were heartless, proud, arrogant and cruel to
the last degree. The common people were treated as
beasts. It took the church a thousand years to bring
about this happy condition of things.
The seeds of the revolution unconsciously were being
scattered by every noble and by every priest. They were
germinating slowly in the hearts of the wretched; they
were being watered by the tears of agony; blows began
to bear interest. There was a faint longing for blood.
Workmen, blackened by the sun, bowed by labor, de-
8oo INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
formed by want, looked at the white throats of scornful
ladies and thought about cutting them. In those days
the witnesses were cross-examined with instruments of
torture; the church was the arsenal of superstition; mir-
acles, relics, angels, and devils were as common as lies.
Voltaire was of the people. In the language of that
day, he had no ancestors. His real name was Francois
Marie Arouet. Mis mother was Marguerite d'Aumard.
This mother died when he was seven years of age. He
had an elder brother, Armand, who was a devotee, very
religious and exceedingly disagreeable. This brother
used to present offerings to the church, hoping to make
amends for the unbelief of his brother. So far as we
know none of his ancestors were literary people. The
Arouets had never written a line. The Abbe le Chaulieu
was his godfather, and, although an abbe, was a deist
who cared nothing about his religion except in connection
with his salary. Voltaire's father wanted to make a law-
yer of him, but he had no taste for law. At the age of
10 he entered the college of Louis le Grand. This was
a Jesuit school, and here he remained for seven years,
leaving at 17, and never attending any other school.
According to Voltaire he learned nothing at this school
but a little Greek, a good deal of Latin, and a vast
amount of nonsense.
In this college of Louis le Grand they did not teach
geography, history, mathematics, or any science. This
was a Catholic institution, controlled by the Jesuits. In
that day the religion was defended, was protected, or
supported by the state. Behind the entire creed were
the bayonet, the ax, the wheel, the fagot, and the tor-
lure chamber. While Voltaire was attending the college
VOLTAIRE. 801
of Louis le Grand the soldiers of the king were hunting
Protestants in the mountains of Cevennes for magistrates
to hang on gibbets, to put to torture, to break on the
wheel or to burn at the stake.
There is but one use for law, but one excuse for gov-
ernment the preservation of liberty to give to each
man his own, to secure to the farmer what he produces
from the soil, the mechanic what he invents and makes,
to the artist what he creates, to the thinker the right to
express his thoughts. Liberty is the breath of progress.
In France the people were the sport of a king's caprice.
Everywhere was the shadow of the Bastile. It fell upon
the sunniest field, upon the happiest home. With the
king walked the headsman; back of the throne was the
chamber of torture. The church appealed to the rack,
and faith relied on the fagot. Science was an outcast,
and philosophy, so-called, was the pander of supersti-
tion. Nobles and priests were sacred. Peasants were
vermin . Idleness sat at the banquet and industry gath-
ered the crumbs and crusts.
At 17 Votaire determined to devote his life to liter-
ature. The father said, speaking of his two sons, Armand
and Francois: "I have a pair of fools for sons, one in
verse and the other in prose." In 1713 Voltaire, in a
small way, became a diplomat. He went to The Hague
attached to the French minister, and there he fell in
love. The girl's mother objected. Voltaire sent his
clothes to the young lady that she might visit him.
Everything was discovered and he was dismissed. To
this girl he wrote a letter, and in it you will find the key-
note of Voltaire: "Do not expose yourself to the fury of
your mother. Ton know what she is capable of. You
8o2 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
have experienced it too well. Dissemble; it is your only
chance. Tell her that you have forgotten me, that you
hate me; then after telling her, love me all the more."
On account of this epis'ode Voltaire was formally dis-
inherited by his father. The father procured an order
of arrest and gave his son the choice of going to prison
or beyond the seas. He finally consented to become a
lawyer, and says: "I have already been a week at work
in the office of a solicitor learning the trade of a petti-
. fogger." About this time he competed for a prize,
writing a poem on the king's generosity in building the
new choir in the cathedral Notre Dame. He did not
win it. After being with the solicitor a little while, he
hated the law, he began to write poetry and the outlines
of tragedy. Great questions were tnen agitating the
public mind, questions that throw a flood of light upon
that epoch.
Louis XIV having died, the regent took possession;
and then the prisons were opened. The regent called
for a list of all persons then in the prisons sent there at
the will of the king. He found that, as to many prison-
ers, nobody knew any cause why they had been in
prison. They had been forgotten. Many of the prison-
ers did not know themselves, and could not guess why
they had been arrested. One Italian had been in 'the
Bastile thirty-three years without ever knowing why.
On his arrival to Paris thirty-three years before he was
arrested and sent to prison. He had grown old. He
had survived his family and friends. When the rest were
liberated he asked to remain where he was, and lived
there the rest of his life. The old prisoners were par-
doned; but in a little while their places were taken by
VOLTAIRE. .803
new ones. At this time Voltaire was not interested in
the great world knew very little of religion or of gov-
ernment. He was busy writing poetry, busy thinking of
comedies and tragedies. He was full of life. All his
fancies were winged, like moths. He was charged with
having written some cutting epigrams. He was exiled
to Tulle, three hundred miles away. From this place
he wrote in the true vein: "I am at a chateau, a place
that would be the most agreeable in the world if I had
not been exiled to it, and where there is nothing wanting
fjr my perfect happiness except the liberty of leaving.
It would be delicious to remain if I only were allowed to
go." At last the exile was allowed to return. Again he
was arrested; this time sent to the Bastile, where he re-
mained for nearly a year. While in prison he changed
his name from Francois Marie Arouet to Voltaire, and
by that name he has since been known. Voltaire began
to think, to doubt, to inquire. He studied the history of
the church of the creed. He found that the religion of
his time rested on the usurpation of the scriptures the
infallibility of the church the dreams of insane hermits
the absurdities of the fathers the mistakes and false-
hoods of saints the hysteria of nuns the cunning of
priests and the stupidity of the people. He found that
the Emperor Constantine, who lifted Christianity into
power, murdered his wife Fansta and his eldest son
Crispus the same year that he convened the council of
Nice to decide whether Christ was a man or the son of
God. The council decided, in the year 325, that Christ
was consubstantial with the Father. He found that the
church was indebted to a husband who assassinated his
wife a father who murdered his son for settling the
INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
vexed question of the divinity of the Savior. He found
that Theodosius called a council at Constantinople in
381 by which it was decided that the Holy Ghost pro-
ceeded from the Father that Theodosius, the younger,
assembled a council at Ephesus in 431 that declared the
Virgin Mary to be the mother of God that the Emperor
Marcian called another council at Chalcedon in 451 that
decided that Christ had two wills that Pognatius called
another in 680 that declared that Christ had two natures
to go with his tow wills and that in I 274, at the council of
Lyons, the important fact was found that the Holy Ghost
''proceeded" not only from the Father, but also from the
Son at the same time.
So Voltaire has been called a mocker! What did he
mock? He mocked kings that were unjust; kings who
cared nothing for the sufferings of their subjects. He
mocked the titled fools of his day. He mocked the cor-
ruption of courts; the meanness, the tyranny, and the
brutality of judges. He mocked the absurd arid cruel
laws, the barbarous customs. He mocked popes and
cardinals, bishops and priests, and all the hypocrites "on
the earth. He mocked historians who filled their books
with lies, and philosophers who defended superstition.
He mocked the haters of liberty, the persecutors of their
fellow-men. He mocked the arrogance, the cruelty, the
impudence and the unspeakable baseness of his time.
He has been blamed because he used the weapon of
ridicule. Hypocricy has always hated laughter, and al-
ways will. Absurdity detests humor and supidity de-
spises wit. Voltaire was the master of ridicule. He
ridiculed the absurd, the impossible. He ridiculed the
mythologies and the miracles, the stupid lives and lies
VOLTAIRE. 805
of the saints. He found pretense and mendacity crowned
by credulity. He found the ignorant many controlled
by the cunning and cruel few. He found the historian,
saturated with superstition, filling his volumes with the
details of the impossible, and he found the scientists
satisfied with ' 'they say." Voltaire had the instinct of
the probable. He knew the law of average; the sea
level; he had the idea of proportion; and so he ridiculed
the mental monstrosities and deformities the non
sequiturs of his day. Aristotle said women had more
teeth than men. This was repeated again and again by
the Catholic scientists of the eighteenth century. Vol-
taire counted the teeth. The rest were satisfied with
"the> say."
We may, however, get an idea of the condition of
France from the fact that Voltaire regarded England as
the land of liberty. While he was in England he saw
the body of Sir Isaac Newton deposited in Westminster
Abbey. He read the works of this great man and after-
ward gave to France the philosophy of the great English-
man. Voltaire was the apostle of common sense. He
knew that there could have been no primitive or first
language from which all other languages had been
formed. He knew that every language had been influ-
enced by the surroundings of the people. He knew that
the language of snow and ice was not the language of
palm and flower. He knew also that there had been no
miracle in language. He knew it was impossible
that the story of the Tower of Babel should be true.
That everything in the whole world had been natural.
He was the enemy of alchemy, not only in language,
but in science. One passage from him is enough to
806 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
show his philosophy in this regard. He says: "To
transmute iron into gold two things are necessary. First,
the annihilation of the iron; second, the creation of
gold." Voltaire was a man of humor, of good nature,
of cheerfulness. He despised with all his heart the phi-
losophy of Calvin, the creed of the somber, of the se-
vere, of the unnatural. He pitied those who needed the
aid of religion to be honest, to be cheerful. He had the
courage to enjoy the present and the philosophy to bear
what the future might bring. And yet for more than a
hundred and fifty years the Christian world has fought
this man and has maligned his memory. In every Chris-
tian pulpit his name has been pronounced with scorn,
and every pulpit has been an arsenal of slander. He is
one man of whom no orthodox minister has ever told
the truth. He has been denounced equally by Catholics
and Protestants.
Priests and ministers, bishops and exhorters, presiding
elders and popes have filled the world with slanders,
with calm calumnies about Voltaire. I am amazed that
ministers will not or cannot tell the truth about an
enemy of the church. As a matter of fact, for more than
1,000 years almost every pulpit has been a mint in which
slanders were coined.
For many years this restless man filled Europe with
the product of his brain. Essays, epigrams, epics, come-
dies, tragedies, histories, poems, novels, representing
every phase and every faculty of the human mind. At
the same time engrossed in business, full of speculation,
making money like a millionaire, busy with the gossip
of courts, and even with the scandals of priests. At the
same time alive to all the discoveries of science and the
VOLTAIRE. 807
theories oi' philosophers, and in this babel never forget-
ting for a moment to assail the monster of superstition.
Sleeping and waking he hated the church. With the
eyes of Argus he watched, and with the arms of Briarie-
ius he struck. For sixty years he waged continuous and
unrelenting war, sometimes in the open field, sometimes
striking from the hedges of opportunity, taking care dur-
ing all this time to remain independent of all men. He
was in the highest sense successful. He lived like a
prince, became one of the powers of Europe, and in him,
for the first time, literature was crowned. Voltaire, in
spite of his surroundings, in spite of almost universal
tyranny and oppression, was a believer in God and in
what he was pleased to call the religion of nature. He
attacked the creed of his time because it was dishonor-
able to his God. He thought of the Deity as a father,
as the fountain of justice, intelligence and mercy, and
the creed of the Catholic church made him a monster of
cruelty and stupidity. He attacked the bible with all
the weapons at his command. He assailed its geology,
its astronomy, its idea of justice, its laws and customs,.
its absurd and useless miracles, its foolish wonders, its
ignorance on all subjects, its insane prophecies, its cruel
threats, and its extravagant promises. At the same time
he praised the God of nature, the God who gives us rain
and light, and food and flowers, and health and happi-
ness he who fills the world with youth and beauty.
In 1755 came the earthquake at Lisbon. This fright-
ful disaster became an immense interrogation. The op-
timist was compelled to ask, "What was my God do-
ing? Why did the Universal Father crush to shapeless-
ness thousands of his poor children, even at the moment
808 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
when they were upon their knees returning thanks to
Him?" What could be done with this horror? If earth-
quake there must be, why did it not occur in some un-
inhabited desert on some wide waste of sea? This fright-
ful fact changed the theology of Voltaire. He became
convinced that this is not the best possible of all worlds.
He became convinced that evil is evil here, now and for-
ever.
Who can establish the existence of an infinite being?
It is beyond the conception the reason the imagination
of man probably or possibly where the zenith and
nadir meet this God can be found.
Voltaire, attacked on every side, fought with every
weapon that wit, logic, reason, scorn, contempt, laugh-
ter, pathos and indignation could sharpen, form, devise
or use. He often apologized, and the apology was an
insult. He often recanted, and the recantation was a
thousand times worse than the thing recanted. He took
it back by giving more. In the name of eulogy he flayed
his victim. In his praise there was poison. He often
advanced by retreating, and asserted by retraction. He
did not intend to give priests the satisfaction of seeing
him burn or suffer. Upon this very point of recanting,
he wrote:
"They say I must retract. Very willingly. I will
declare the Pascal is always right. That if St. Luke and
St. Mark contradict one another it is only another proof
of the truth of religion to those who know how to under-
stand such things; and that another lovely proof of re-
ligion is that it is unintelligible. I will even avow that
all priests are gentle and disinterested; that Jesuits are
honest people; that monks are neither proud nor given
VOLTAIRE. 809
to intrigue, and that their odor is agreeable; that the
Holy Inquisition is the triumph of humanity and toler-
ance. In a word, I will say all that may be desired of
me, provided they leave me in repose, and will not prose-
cute a man who has done harm to none."
He gave the best years of his wondrous life to succor
the oppressed, to shield the defenseless, to reverse in-
famous decrees, to rescue the innocent, to reform the
laws of France, to do away with torture, to soften the
hearts of priests, to enlighten judges, to instruct kings,
to civilize the people, and to banish from the heart of
man the love and lust of war.
Voltaire was not a saint. He was educated by the
Jesuits. He was never troubled about the salvation of
his soul. All the theological disputes excited his laugh-
ter, the creeds his pity, and the conduct of bigots his
contempt. He was much better than a saint. Most of
the Christians in his day kept their religion not for every-
day use but for disaster, as ships carry lifeboats to be
used only in the stress of storm.
Voltaire believed in the religion of humanity of good
and generous deeds. For many centuries the church had
painted virtue so ugly, sour and cold that vice was re-
garded as beautiful. Voltaire taught the beauty of the
useful, the hatefulness and hideousness of superstition.
He was not the greatest of poets, or of dramatists, but
he was the greatest man of his time, the greatest friend
of freedom, and the deadliest foe of superstition. He
wrote the best French plays but they were not wonder-
ful. He wrote verses polished and persect in their way.
He filled the air with painted moths but not with
Shakespearean eagles.
8 io INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
You may think that I have said too much; that I have
placed this man too high. Let me tell you what Goethe,
the great German, said of this man: "If you wish depth,
genius, imagination, taste, reason, sensibility, philosophy,
elevation, originality, nature, intellect, fancy, rectitude,
facility, flexibility, precision, art, abundance, variety,
fertility, warmth, magic, charm, grace, force, an eagle
sweep of vision, vast understanding, instruction rich,
tone excellent, urbanity, suavity, delicacy, correctness,
purity, cleanness, eloquence, harmony, brilliancy, rapid-
ity, gayety, pathos, sublimity, and universality perfection
indeed, behold Voltaire."
Even Carlyle, the old Scotch terrier, with the growl
of a grizzly bear, who attacked shams, as I have some-
times thought, because he hated rivals, was forced to
admit that Voltaire gave the death stab to modern super-
stition. It was the hand of Voltaire that sowed the
seeds of liberty in the heart and brain of Franklin, of Jef-
ferson, and of Thomas Paine.
Toulouse was a favored town. It was rich in relics.
The people were as ignorant as wooden images, but they
had in their possession the dried bodies of seven apostles
the bones of many of the infants slain by Herod part
of a dress of the Virgin Mary, and lots of skulls and
skeletons of the infallible idiots known as saints.
In this city the people celebrated every year with
great joy two holy events: The expulsion of the Hugue.
nots and the blessed- massacre of St. Bartholomew. The
citizens of Toulouse had been educated and civilized by
the church. A few Protestants, mild because in the
minority, lived among these jackals and tigers. One of
these Protestants was Jean Galas a small dealer in dry
VOLTAIRE. 8ll
goods. For forty years he had been in this business,
and his character was without a stain. He was honest,
kind and agreeable. He had a wife and six children
four sons and two daughters. One of the sons became
a Catholic. The eldest son, Marc Antoine, disliked his
father's business and studied law. He could not be al-
lowed to practice unless he became a Catholic. He tried
to get his license by concealing that he was a Protestant.
He was discovered grew morose. Finally he became
discouraged and committed suicide by hanging himself
one evening in his father's store. The bigots of Toulouse
started the story that his parents had killed him to pre-
vent his becoming a Catholic. On this frightful charge
the father, mother, one son, a servant, and one guest at
their house were arrested. The dead son was considered
a martyr, the church taking possession of the body. This
happened in 1761. There was what was called a trial.
There was no evidence, not the slightest, except here-
say. All the facts were in favor of the accused. The
united strength of the defendants could not have done
the deed.
Jean Calas was doomed to torture and to death upon
the wheel. This was on the 9th of March, 1762, and
the sentence was to be carried out the next day. On the
the morning of the loth the father was taken to the tor-
ture room. The executioner and his assistants were
sworn on the cross to administer the torture according
to the judgment of the court. They bound him by the
wrists to an iron ring in the stone wall four feet from the
ground and his feet to another ring in the floor. Then
they shortened the ropes and chains until every joint in
his arms and legs were dislocated. Then he was ques-
812 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
tioned. He declared that he was innocent. Then the
ropes were again shortened until life fluttered in the torn
body; but he remained firm. This was called the ques-
tion ordinaire. Again the magistrate exhorted the vic-
tim to confess, and again he refused, saying that there
was nothing to confess. Then came the question extra-
ordinaire. Into the mouth of the victim was placed a
horn holding three pints of water. In this way thirty
pints of water were forced into the body of the sufferer.
The pain was beyond description, and yet Jean ('alas re-
mained firm. He was then carried to a scaffold in a
tumbril. He was bound to a wooden cross that lay on
the scaffold. The executioner then took a bar of iron,
broke each leg and arm in two places, striking eleven
blows in all. He was then left to die if he could. He
lived for two hours, declaring his innocence to the last.
He was slow to die and so the executioner strangled
him. Then his poor lacerated, bleeding and broken
body was chained to a stake and burned. All this was
a spectacle a festival for the savages of Toulouse.
What would they have done if their hearts had not been
softened by the glad tidings of great joy, peace on earth
and good will to men?
But this was not all. The property of the family was
confiscated; the son was released on condition that he
become a Catholic; the servant if she would enter aeon-
vent. The two daughters were consigned to a convent
and the heart-broken widow was allowed to wander
where she would.
Voltaire heard of this case. In a moment his soul
was on fire . He took one of the sons under his roof.
He wrote a history of the case. He corresponded with
VOLTAIRE. 813
kings and queens, with chancellors and lawyers. If
money was needed he advanced it. For years he filled
Europe with the echoes of the groans of Jean Galas. He
succeeded. The horrible judgment was annulled the
poor victim declared innocent and thousands of dollars
raised to support the mother and family. This was the
work of Voltaire.
Sirven, a Protestant, lived in Languedoc with his wife
and three daughters. The housekeeper of the bishop
wanted to make one of the daughters a Catholic. The
law allowed the bishop to take the child of Protestants
from its parents for the sake of its soul. The little girl
was so taken and placed in a convent. She ran away
and came back to her parents. Her poor little body was
covered with the marks of the convent whip. ' 'Suffer
little children to come unto me." The child was out of
her mind; suddenly she disappeared; and three days
after her little body was found in a well, three miles
from home. The cry was raised that her folks had mur-
dered her to keep her from becoming a Catholic. This
happened only a little way from the Christian city of
Toulouse while Jean Calas was in prison. The Sirvens
knew that a trial would end in conviction. They fled.
In their absence they were convicted, their property
confiscated. The parents sentenced to die by the hang-
man, the daughters to be under the gallows during the
execution of their mother and then to be exiled. The
family fled in the midst of winter; the married daughter
gave birth to a child in the snows of the Alps; the
mother died, and at last the father, reaching Switzer-
land, found himself without the means of support. They
went to Voltaire. He espoused their cause. He took
care of them, gave them the means to live, and labored
8 14 INGEKSOLL'S LECTURES.
to annul the sentence that had been pronouced against
them for nine long and weary years. He appealed to
kings for money, to Catherine II of Russia, and to hun-
dreds of others. He was successful. He said of this
case: "The Sirvens were tried and condemned in two
hours in January, I 762, and now in January, 1772, after ten
years of effort, they have been restored to their rights.'"
This was the work of Voltaire. Why should the wor-
shipers of God hate the lovers of men?
Espenasse was a Protestant, of good estate. In 1740*
he received into his house a Protestant clergyman, to
whom he gave supper and lodging. In a country where
priests repeated the parable of the "Good Samaritan"
this was a crime. For this crime Espenasse was tried,,
convicted and sentenced to the galleys for life. When he
had been imprisoned for twenty-three years his case came
to the knowledge of Voltaire, and he was, through the ef-
forts of Voltaire, released and restored to his family.
This was the work of Voltaire. There is not time to
tell of the case of Gen. Lally, of the English Gen. Byng,
of the niece of Corneille, of the Jesuit Adam, of the
writers, dramatists, actors, widows and orphans for
whose benefit he gave his influence, his money and his
time.
But I will tell another case: In 1765 at the town of
Abbeville an old wooden cross on a bridge had been
mutilated whittled with a knife a terrible crime.
Sticks, when crossing each other, were far more sacred
than flesh and blood. Two young men were suspected
the Chevalier de la Bc,rre and d'Ettalonde, D'Ettal-
londe fled to Prussia and enlisted as a common soldier.
La Barre remained and stood his trialj He was con-
VOLTAIRE. 815
victed without the slightest evidence, and he and d'Et-
tallonde were both sentenced: First, to endure the tor-
ture, ordinary and extraordinary; second, to have their
tongues torn out by the roots with pincers of iron; third,
to have their right hands cut off at the door of the
church; and fourth, to be bound to stakes by chains of
iron and burned to death by a slow fire. ' 'Forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against
us." Remembering this, the judges mitigated the sen-
tence by providing that their heads should be cut off be-
fore their bodies were given to the flames. The case
was appealed to Paris; heard by a court composed of
twenty-five judges learned in law, and the judgment was
confirmed. The sentence was carried out on the ist
day of July, 1766.
Voltaire had fought with every weapon that genius
could devise or use. He was the greatest of all carica-
turists, and he used this wonderful gift without mercy.
For pure crystallized wit he had no equal. The art of
flattery was carried by him to the height of an exact sci-
ence. He knew and practiced every subterfuge. He
fought the army of hypocricy and pretense, the army of
faith and falsehood. Voltaire was annoyed by the
meaner and baser spirits of his time, by the cringers and
crawlers, by the fawners and pretenders, by those who
wished to gain the favors of priests, the patronage of
nobles. Sometimes he allowed himself to be annoyed
by these scorpions; sometimes he attacked them. And,
but for these attacks, long ago they would have been
forgotten. In the amber of his genius Voltaire preserved
these insects, these tarantulas, these scorpions.
It is fashionable to say that he was not profound.
8i6 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
This is because he was not stupid. In the presence of
absurdity he laughed, and was called irreverent. He
thought God would not damn even a priest forever.
This was regarded as blasphemy. He endeavored to
prevent Christians from murdering each other, and did
what he could to civilize the disciples of Christ. Had he
founded a sect, obtained control o some country, and
burned a, few heretics at slow fires, he would have won
the admiration, respect and love of the Christian world.
Had he only pretended to believe all the fables of anti-
quity, and had he mumbled Latin prayers, counted
beads, crossed himself, devoured now and then the flesh
of God, and carried fagots to the feet of Philosophy in
the name of Christ, he might have been in heaven this
moment, enjoying a sight of the damned.
If he had only adopted the creed of his time if he
had asserted that a God of infinite power and and mercy
had created millions and billions of human beings to suf-
fer eternal pain, and all for the sake of his glorious jus-
tice that he had given his power of attorney to a cun-
ning and cruel Italian pope, authorizing him to save the
soul of his mistress and send honest wives to hell if he
had given to the nostrils of this God the odor of burning
flesh the incense of the fagot if he had filled his ears
with the shrieks of the tortured the music of the rack,
he would now be known as St. Voltaire.
Instead of doing these things he willfully closed his
eyes to the light of the gospel, examined the bible for
himself, advocated intellectual liberty, struck from the
brain the fetters of an arrogant faith, assisted the weak,
cried out against the torture of man, appealed to reason,
endeavored to establish universal toleration, succored
VOLTAIRE. 8 1 /
the indigent, and defended the oppressed. He demon-
strated that the origin of all religions is the same, the
same mysteries the same miracles the same impos-
tures the same temples and ceremonies the same kind
of founders, apostles and dupes the same promises and
threats the same pretense of goodness and forgiveness
and the practice of the same persecution and murder.
He proved that religion made enemies philosophy,
friends and that above the rites of gods were the rights
of man. These were his crimes. Such a man God
would not suffer to die in peace. If allowed to meet
death with a smile, others might follow his example,
until none would be left to light the holy fires of the auto
da fe. It would not do for so great, so successful an
enemy of the church to- die without leaving some shriek
of fear, some shudder of remorse, some ghastly prayer
of chattered horror, uttered by lips covered with blood
and foam. For many centuries the theologians have
taught that an unbeliever an infidel one who spoke or
wrote against their creed, could not meet death with com-
posure; that in his last moments God would fill his con-
science with the serpents of remorse. For a thousand
years the clergy have manufactured the facts to fit this
theory this infamous conception of the duty of man
and the justice of God. The theologians have insisted
that crimes against men were, and are, as nothing com-
pared with crimes against God. That, while kings and
priests did nothing worse than to make their fellows
wretched, that so long as they only butchered and burnt the
innocent and helpless, God would maintain the strictest
neutrality; but when some honest man, some great and
tender soul, expressed a doubt as to the truth of the scrip-
8i8 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
tures, or prayed to the wrong god, or to the right one
by the wrong name, then the real God leaped like a
wounded tiger upon his victim, and from his quivering
flesh tore the wretched soul.
There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand
of murder has been paralyzed no truthful account in all
the literature of the world of the innocent child being
shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are being com-
mitted ever day men are at this moment lying in wait
for their human prey wives are whipped and crushed,
driven to insanity and death little children begging for
mercy, lifting imploring, tear-filled eyes to the brutal
faces of fathers and mothers sweet girls are deceived,
lured and outraged, but God has no time to prevent
these things no time to defend the good and protect
the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and watching
sparrows. He listens for blasphemy; looks for persons
who laugh at priests; examines baptismal registers;
watches professors in college who begin to doubt the
geology of Moses and the astronomy of Joshua. He
does not particularly object to stealing, if you don't
swear. A great many persons have fallen dead in the
act of taking God's name in vain, but millions of men,
women and children have been stolen from their homes
and used as beasts of burden, but no one engaged in this
infamy has ever been touched by the wrathful hand of
God. All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death
with reasonable serenity. As a rule there is nothing in
the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profes-
sion. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on
either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him
in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his
VOLTAIRE. SlQ
home a hell meets death without a quiver, provided he
has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ
or the eternal "procession" of the Holy Ghost.
Now and then a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual
honesty, has appeared. Such men have denounced the
superstition of their day. They have pitied the multi-
tude. To see priests devour the substance of the people
priests who made begging one of the learned profes-
sions filled them with loathing and contempt. These
men were honest enough to tell their thoughts, brave
enough to speak the truth. Then they were denounced,
tried, tortured, killed by rack or flame. But some es-
caped the fury of the fiends who loved their enemies and
died naturally in their beds. It would not do for the
church to admit that they died peacefully. That would
show that religion was essential at the last moment.
Superstition gets its power from the terror of death. It
would not do to have the common people understand
that a man could deny the bible, refuse to kiss the cross;
contend that humanity was greater than Christ, and then
die as sweetly as Torquemada did after pouring molten
lead into the ears of an honest man, or as calmly as Cal-
vin after he had burned Servetus, or as peacefully as
King David after advising with his last breath one son to
assassinate another.
The church has taken great pains to show that the last
moments of all infidels (that Christians did not succeed
in burning) were infinitely wretched and despairing. It
was alleged that words could not paint the horrors that
were endured by a dying infidel. Every good Christian
was expected to, and generally did, believe these ac-
counts . They have been told and retold in every pulpit
82O INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
of the world. Protestant ministers have repeated the
lies invented by Catholic priests, and Catholics, by a
kind of theological comity, have sworn to the lies told
by the Protestants. Upon this point they have always
stood together, and will as long as the same falsehood
can be used by both. Upon the death-bed subject the
clergy grew eloquent. When describing the shudderings
and shrieks of the dying unbeliever their eyes glitter
with delight. It is a festival. They are no longer men.
They become hyenas. They dig open graves. They de-
vour the dead. It is a banquet. Unsatisfied still, they
paint the terrors of hell. They gaze at the souls of the
infidels writhing in the coils of the worm that never dies.
They see them in flames in oceans of fire in gulfs of
pain in abysses of despair. They shout with joy. They
applaud.
It is an auto da fe, presided over by God. But let us
come back to Voltaire to the dying philosopher. He
was an old man of 84. He had been surrounded with
the comforts, the luxuries of life. He was a man of great
wealth, the richest writer that the world had known.
Among the literary men of the earth he stood first. He
was an intellectual monarch one who had built his own
throne and had woven the purple of his own power. He
was a man of genius. The Catholic God had allowed
him the appearance of success. His last years were filled
with the intoxication of flattery of almost worship. He
stood at the summit of his age. The priests became
anxious. They began to fear that God would forget, in
a multiplicity of business, to make a terrible example of
Voltaire. Toward the last of May, 1778, it was whis-
pered in Paris that Voltaire was dying. Upon the fences
VOLTAIRE, 821
of expectation gathered the unclean birds of superstition,
impatiently waiting for their prey. Two days before his
death, his nephew went to seek the cure of Saint Sul-
plice and the Abbe Gautier, and brought them to his
uncle's sick chamber, who, being informed that they were
there, said: "Ah, well, give them my compliments and
my thanks." The abbe spoke some words to him, ex-
horting him to patience. The cure of Saint Sulplice
then came forward, having announced himself, and asked
of Voltaire, elevating his voice, if he acknowledged the
divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ. The sick man pushed
one of his hands against the cure's coif, shoving him
back, and cried, turning abruptly to the other side: "Let
me die in peace." The cure seemingly considered his
person soiled and his coif dishonored by the touch of a
philosopher. He made the nurse give him a little brush-
ing and went out with the Abbe Gautier. He expired,
says Wagnierre, on the 3oth of May, 1778, at about a
quarter past 1 1 at night, with the most perfect tranquil-
lity. A few moments before his last breath he took the
hand of Morand, his valet de chambre, who was watch-
ing by him, pressed it, and said: "Adieu, my dear Mor-
and, I am gone." These were his last words. Like a
peaceful river, with green and shaded banks, he flowed
without a murmur into the waveless sea, where life is
rest.
From this death, so simple and serene, so kind, so
philosophic and tender, so natural and peaceful; from
these words so utterly destitute of cant or dramatic
touch, all the frightful pictures, all the despairing utter-
ances have been drawn and made. From these materials,
and from these alone, or rather, in spite of these facts,
822 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
have been constructed by priests and clergymen and
their dupes all the shameless lies about the death of this
great and wonderful man. A man, compared with whom
all of his calumniators, dead and living, were, and are,
but dust and vermin. Let us be honest. Did all the
priests of Rome increase the mental wealth of man as
much as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as
great a work for the civilization of the world as Voltaire
or Diderot? Did all the ministers of Scotland add as
much to the sum of human knowledge as David Hume?
Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests,
bishops, cardinals and popes, from the day of Pentecost
to the last election, done as much for human liberty as
Thomas Paine? What would the world be if infidels
had never been? The infidels have been the brave and
thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers
and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the
generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and
prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud
victors on the battlefields of thought, the creditors of all
the years to be.
In those days the philosophers that is to say, the
thinkers were not buried in holy ground. It was feared
that their principles might contaminate the ashes of the
just. And they also feared that on the morning of the
resurrection they might, in a moment of confusion, slip
into heaven. Some were burned and their ashes scat-
tered; and the bodies of some were thrown naked to
beasts, and others buried in unholy earth. Voltaire knew
the history of Adrienne Le Couvreur, a beautiful actress,
denied burial. After all, we do feel an interest in what
is to become of our bodies. There is a modesty that be-
VOLTAIRE. 823
longs to death. Upon this subject Voltaire was infinitely
sensitive. It was that he might be buried that he went
through the farce of confession, of absolution, and of
the last sacrament. The priests knew that he was not
in earnest, and Voltaire knew that they would not allow
him to be buried in any of the cemeteries of Paris. His
death was kept a secret. The Abbe Mignot made ar-
rangements for the burial at Romilli-on-the-Seine, more
than 100 miles from Paris. Sunday evening, on the last
day of May, 1778, the body of Voltaire, clad in a dress-
ing gown, clothed to resemble an invalid, posed to sim-
ulate life, was placed in a carriage; at its side a servant,
whose business it was to keep it in position. To this
carriage were attached six horses, so that people might
think a great lord was going to his estates. Another
carriage followed in which were a grand-nephew and two
cousins ol Voltaire. All night they traveled, and on the
following day arrived at the court-yard of the abbey.
The ncecessary papers were shown, the mass was per-
formed in the presence of the body, and Voltaire found
burial. A few moments afterward the prior who "for
charity had given a little earth" received from his bishop
a menacing letter forbidding the burial of Voltaire. It
was too late. He could not then be removed, and he
was allowed to remain in peace until 1791.
Voltaire was dead. The foundations of State and
throne had been sapped. The people were becoming
acquainted with the real kings and with the actual priests.
Unknown men born in misery and want, men whose
fathers and mothers had been pavement for the rich,
were rising towards the light and their shadowy faces
were emerging from darkness. Labor and thought be-
824 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
came friends. That is, the gutter and the attic frater-
nized. The monsters of the night and the angels of dawn
the first thinking of revenge and the others dreaming
of equality, liberty and fraternity. For 400 years the
Bastile had been the outward symbol of oppression.
Within its walls the noblest had perished. It was a per-
petual threat. It was the last and often the first argu-
ment of king and priest. Its dungeons, damp and ray-
less, its massive towers, its secret cells, its instruments
of torture, denied the existence of God. In 1789, on
the 1 4th of July, the people, the multitude, frenzied by
suffering, stormed and captured the Bastile. The battle-
cry was, "Vive le Voltaire!"
In 1791 permission was given to place in the Pantheon
the ashes of Voltaire. He had been buried 110 miles
from Paris. Buried by stealth he was to be removed by
a nation. A funeral procession of a hundred miles; every
village with its flags and arches in his honor; all the peo-
ple anxious to honor the philosopher of France the
savior of Galas the destroyer of superstition! On reach-
ing Paris the great procession moved along the Rue St.
Antoine. Here it paused, and for one night upon the
ruins of the Bastile rested the body of Voltaire rested
in triumph, in glory rested on fallen wall and broken
arch, on crumbling stone still damp with tears, on rust-
ing chain, and bar and useless bolt above the dungeons
dark and deep, where light had faded from the lives of
men and hope had died in breaking hearts. The con-
queror resting upon the conquered. Throned upon the
Bastile, the fallen fortress of night, the body of Voltaire,
from whose brain had issued the dawn.
For a moment his ashes must 1 ave felt the Promethean
VOLTAIRE. 825
fire, and the old smile must have illumined once more
the face of the dead.
While the vast multitude were trembling with love and
awe, a priest was heard to cry, " God shall be avenged!"
The grave of Voltaire was violated. The cry of the
priest, " God shall be avenged! " had borne its fruit.
Priests, skulking in the shadows, with faces sinister .as
night-ghouls in the name of the gospel, desecrated the
grave. They carried away the body of Voltaire. The
tomb was empty. God was avenged! The tomb was
empty, but the world is filled with Voltaire's fame. Man
has conquered!
What cardinal, what bishop, what priest raised his
voice for the rights of men? What ecclesiastic, what
nobleman, took the side of the oppressed of the
peasant? Who denounced the frightful criminal code
the torture of suspected persons? What priest pleaded
for the liberty of the citizen? What bishop pitied the
victim of the rack? Is there the grave of a priest in
France on which a lover of liberty would now drop a
flower or a tear? Is there a tomb holding the ashes of a
s aint from which emerges one ray of light? If there be
tanother life, a day of judgment, no God can afford to
torture in another world a man who abolished torture in
his. If God be the keeper of an eternal penitentiary, s
He should not imprison there those who broke the chain
of slavery here. He cannot afford to make eternal con-
victs of Franklin, of Jefferson, of Paine, of Voltaire.
Voltaire was perfectly equipped for his work. A per-
fect master of the French language, knowing all its
moods, tenses, and declinations, in fact and in feeling,
playing upon it as skillfully as Paganini on his violin,
826 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
finding expression for every thought and fancy, writing
on the most serious subjects with the gayety of a harle-
quin, plucking jests from -the mouth of death, graceful as
the waving of willows, dealing in double meanings that
covered the asp with flowers and flattery, master of satire
and compliment, mingling them often in the same line,
always interested himself, therefore interesting others,
handling thoughts, questions, subjects, as a juggler does
balls, keeping them in the air with perfect ease, dressing
old words in new meanings, charming, grotesque,
pathetic, mingling mirth with tears, wit with wisdom,
and sometimes wickedness, logic, and laughter. With a
woman's instinct knowing the sensitive nerves just
where to touch hating arrogance of place, the stupidity
of the solemn, snatching masks from priest and king,
knowing the springs of action and ambition's ends, per-
fectly familiar with the great world, the intimate of
kings and their favorites, sympathizing with the oppressed
and imprisoned, with the unfortunate and poor, hating
tyranny, despising superstition, and loving liberty with
all his heart. Such was Voltaire, writing " Edipus " at
seventeen, "Irene" at eighty-three, and crowding be-
tween these two tragedies, the accomplishment of a
thousand lives.
INGERSOLL'S LECTURE
ON
MYTH AND MIRACLE
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: What, after all, is the
object of life? What is the highest possible aim? The
highest aim is to accomplish the only good. Happiness
is the only good of which man by any possibility can con-
ceive. The object of life is to increase human joy, and
that means intellectual and physical development. The
question, then, is: Shall we rely upon superstition or
upon growth? Is intellectual development the highway
of progress or must we depend on the pit of credulity?
Must we "rely on belief or credulity, or upon manly
virtues, courageous investigation, thought, and intellect-
ual development? For thousands of years men have been
talking about religious freedom. I am now contending
for the freedom of religion, not religious freedom for the
freedom which is the only real religion. Only a few years
ago our poor ancestors tried to account for what they
saw. Noticing the running river, the shining star, or the
837
828 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
painted flower, they put a spirit in the river, a spirit in
the star, and another in the flower. Something makes
this river run, something makes this star shine, some-
thing paints the bosom of that flower. They were all
spirits. That was the first religion of mankind fetich-
ism and in everything that lived, everything that pro-
duced an effect upon them, they said: "This is a spirit
that lives within." That is called the lowest phase of
religious thought, and yet it is quite the highest phase of
religious thought. One by one these little spirits died.
One by one nonentities took their places, and last of all
we have one infinite fetich that takes the place of all
others. Now, what makes the river run? We say the
attraction of gravitation, and we know no more about
that than we do about this fetich. What makes the tree
grow? The principle of life vital forces. These are
simply phrases, simply names of ignorance. Nobody
knows what makes the river run, what makes the trees
grow, why the flowers burst and bloom nobody knows
why the stars shine, and probably nobody ever will know.
There are two horizons that have never been passed by
man origin and destiny. All human knowledge is con-
fined to the diameter of that circle. All religions rest on
supposed facts beyond the circumference of the absolutely
known. What next? The next thing that came in the
world the next man was the mythmaker. He gave
to these little spirits human passions; he clothed ghosts
in flesh; he warmed that flesh with blood, and in that
blood he put desire motive. And the myths were born,
and were only produced through the fact of the impres-
sions that nature makes upon the brain of man. They
were every one a natural production, and let me say here,
MYTH AND MIRACLE. 82Q
to-night, that what men call monstrosities are only
natural productions. Every religion has grown just as
naturally as the grass; every one, as I said before, and it
cannot be said too often, has been naturally produced.
All the Christs, all the gods and goddesses, all the- furies
and fairies, all the mingling of the beastly and human,
were all produced by the impressions of nature upon the
brain of man by the rise of the sun, the silver dawn, the
golden sunset, the birth and death of day, the change of
seasons, the lightning, the storm, the beautiful bow-
all these produced within the brain of man all myths,
and they are all natural productions.
There have been certain myths universal among men.
Gardens of Eden have been absolutely universal the
golden age, which is absolutely the same thing. And
what was the golden age born of? Any old man in Bos-
ton will tell you that fifty years ago all people were
honest. Fifty years ago all people were sociable there
was no stuck-up aristocracy then. Neighbors were
neighbors. Merchants gave full weight. Everything was
full length; everything was a yard wide and all wool.
Now everybody swindles everybody else, and calls it
business. Go back fifty years and you will find an old man
who will tell you that there was a time when all were
honest. Go back another fifty years and you will find
another sage who will tell you the same story. Every
man looks back to his youth, to the golden age, and
what is true of the individual is true of the whole human
race. It has its infancy, its manhood, and, finally, will
have an old age. The garden of Eden is not back of us.
There are more honest men, good women, and obedient
children in the world to-day than ever before.
830 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
The myth of the Elysian fields universally born of
sunsets. When the golden clouds in the west turned to
amethyst, sapphire, and purple, the poor savage thought
it a vision of another land a land without care or grief
a world of perpetual joy. This myth was born of the
setting of the sun. A universal myth, all nations have
belived in floods. Savages found everywhere evidences
of the sea having been above the earth, and saw in the
shells souvenirs of the ocean's visit. It had left its cards
on the tops of mountains. The savage knew nothing
of the slow rise and sinking of the crust of the earth. He
did not dream of it. We now know that where the
mountains lift their granite foreheads to the sun, the bil-
lows once held sway, and that where the waves dash into
white caps of joy, the mountains will stand once more.
Everywhere the land is, the ocean will be; and where the
ocean is the land will be. The Hindoos believed in the
flood myth. Their hero, who lived almost entirely on
water, went to the Ganges to perform his ablutions, and,
taking up a little water in his hand, he saw a small fish
that prayed him to save it from the monster of the river,
and it would save him in turn from nis enemies. He did
so, and put it into different receptacles until it grew so
large that he let it loose in the sea; then it was large
enough to take care of itself. The fish told him that
there was going to be an immense flood, and told him to
gather all kinds of seed and take two of each kind of
animals of use to man, and he would come along with an
ark and take them all in. He told him to pick out seven
saints. And the fish towed the ark along tied to its
horns, and took them in and carried them to the top of
a mountain, where he hitched the ark to a tree. When
MYTH AND MIRACLE. 831
the waters receded, they came out and followed them
down until they reached the plain. There were the same
number eight in this ark as there were with Noah. I
find that the rnyth of the virgin mother is universal.
The virgin mother is the earth. I find also in countries
the idea of a trinity. In Egypt I find Isis, Osiris, and
Horus. This idea prevailed in Central America among
the Aztecs. We find the myth of the judgment almost
universal. I imagine men have seen so much injustice
hire that they naturally expect that there must be some
day of final judgment somewhere. Nearly every theist
is driven to the necessity of having another world in
which his god may correct the mistakes he has made in
this. We find on the walls of Egyptian temples pictures
of the judgment; the righteous all go on the righ hand,
and those unworthy on the left. The myth of the sun
god was universal. Agni was the sun god of the Hin-
doos. He was called the most generous of all gods, yet
he ate his own father and mother. Baldur was another
sun god; he was a sun myth. Hercules was a sun god,
and so was Samson. Jonah, too, was a sun god, and
was swallowed by a fish. So was Hercules, and a wonder-
ful thing is that they were swallowed in about the same
place, near Joppa. Where did the big fish go? When
the sun went down under the earth, it was thought to be
followed by the fish, which was said to swallow it, and
carry it safely through the under world. The sun thus
came to be represented as the body of a woman with the
tail of a fish, and so the mermaid was born. Another
strange thing is that all the sun gods were born near
Christmas. The myth of Red Riding Hood, was known
among the Aztecs. The myth of eucharist came from
832 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
the story of Ceres and Bacchus. When the cakes made
by the product of the field were eaten, it was the body of
Ceres, and when the wine was drank it was the blood of
Bacchus. From this idea the eucharist was born. There
is nothing original in Christianity. Holy water! Another
myth. The Hindoos imagined that the water had its
source in the throne of God. The Egyptians thought
the Nile sacred. Greece was settled by Egyptian
colonies, and they carried with them the water of the
Nile, and when any one died the water was sprinkled on
him. Finally Rome conquered Greece physically, but
Greece conquered Rome intellectually. This is the myth
of holy water, and with it grew up the idea of baptism,
and I presume that that is as old as water and dirt. The
cross is another universal symbol. There was once an
ancient people in Italy before the Romans, before the
Etruscans. They faded from the world, and history does
not even know the name of that nation. We find where
they buried the ashes of their dead, and we find chiseled,
hundreds of years before Christ, the cross, a symbol of
a hope of another life. We find the cross in Egypt, in
the cylinders from Babylon, and, more than that, we
find them in Central America. On the temples of the
Aztecs we find the cross, and on it a bleeding, dying god.
Our cross was built in the middle ages.
When Adam was very sick he sent Seth, his son, to
the garden of Eden. He told him he would have no
trouble in finding it; all he had to do was to follow the
tracks made by his mother and father when they left it.
He wanted a little balsam from the tree of life that he
might not die. Seth found there a cherub, with flaming
sword, who would not let him pass the door. He moved
MYTH AND MIRACLE. 833
his wings so that he could see in, and he saw the tree of
life, with its roots running down to hell, and among them
Cain, the murderer. The angel gave Seth three seeds,
and told him to put them in his father's mouth when he
was buried and to watch the effect. The result was that
these trees grew up one pine, one cedar, and one
cypress. Solomon cut down one of these trees to put in
the temple, but it grew through the roof and he threw it
into the pool of Bethesda. When the soldiers went for
a beam on which to crucify Christ they took this tree
and made a cross of it. Helen, the mother of Constant-
ine, went to Jerusalem to find this cross. She found the
two crosses, also, that the thieves were crucified on.
They could not tell which was which, so they called a
sick woman who touched them, and when she touched
the right one she was immediately made whole.
Such is myth and fable. The history of one religion is
substantially the history of all religions. In embryo
man lives all lives. The man of genius knows within
himself the history of the human race; he knows the
history of all religions. The man of imagination, of
genius, having seen a leaf and a drop of water, can con-
struct the forests, the rivers, and the seas. In his pres-
ence all the cataracts fall and foam, the mists rise, and
the clouds form and float. To really know one fact is to
known its kindred and its neighbors. Shakespeare, look-
ing at a coat of mail, instantly imagined the society, the
conditions that produced it, and what it, in its turn, pro-
duced. He saw the castle, the moat, the drawbridge,
the lady in the tower, and the knightly lover spurring
over the plain. He saw the bold baron and the rude
retainer, the trampled serfs, and all the glory and the
834 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
grief of feudal life. The man of imagination has lived the
life of all people, of all races. He has been a citizen of
Athens in the days of Pericles; listened to the eager elo-
quence of the great orator, and has sat upon the cliff, and
with the tragic poet heard "the multitudinous laughter of
the sea." He has seen Socrates thrust the spear of ques-
tion through the shield and heart of falsehood-r-was pres-
ent when the great man drank hemlock and met the night
of death tranquil as a star meets morning. He has fol-
lowed the peripatetic philosophers, and has been puzzled
by the sophists. He has watched Phidias, as he chiseled
shapeless stone to forms of love and awe. He has lived by
the slow Nile, amid the vast and monstrous. He knows
the very thought that wrought the form and features of the
Sphinx. He has heard great Memnon's morning song,
has laid him down with the embalmed dead, and felt
within their dust the expectation of another life, mingled
with cold and suffocating doubts the children born of
long delay. He has walked the ways of mighty Rome,
has seen the great Caesar with his legions in the field, has
stood with vast and motley throngs and watched the
triumphs given to victorious men, followed by uncrowned
kings, the captured hosts and all the spoils of ruthless
war. He has heard the shout that shook the Coliseum's
roofless walls when from the reeling gladiator's hand the
short sword fell, while from his bosom gushed the stream
of wasted life. He has lived the life of savage men-
has trod the forest's silent depths, and in the desperate
game of life or death has matched his thought against the
instinct of the beast. He has sat beneath the botree's
contemplative shade, rapt in Buddha's mighty thougat,
and he has dreamed all dreams that light, the alchemist,
MYTH AND MIRACLE. 835
hath wrought from dust and dew and stored within the
slumbrous poppy's subtle blood. He has knelt with awe
and dread at every prayer; has felt the consolation and
the shuddering fear; has seen all the devils; has mocked
and worshiped all the gods; enjoyed all heavens, and felt
the pangs of every hell. He has lived all lives, and
through his blood and brain have crept the shadow and
the chill of every death, and his soul, Mazeppa-like, has
been lashed naked to the wild horse of every fear and
love and hate. The imagination hath a stage within the
brain, whereon he sets all scenes that lie between the
morn of laughter and the night of tears, and where his
players body forth the false and true, the joys and griefs,
the careless shadows, and the tragic deeps of human life.
Through with the myth-makers, we now come to the
wonder-worker. There is this difference between the
miracle and the myth a myth is an idealism of a fact,
and a miracle is a counterfeit of a fact. There is some
difference between a myth and a miracle. There is the
difference that there is between fiction and falsehood and
poetry and perjury. Miracles are probably only in the
far past or the very remote future. The present is the
property of the natural. You say to a man: "The
dead were raised 4,000 years ago." He says, "Well,
that's reasonable." You say to him, "In 4,000,000
years we shall all be raised." He says, "That is what I
believe." Say to him, "A man was raised from the
dead this morning," and he will say, "What are you
giving us?" Miracles never convince at the time they
were said to have been performed.
John the Baptist was the forerunner of Christ. He
was cast into prison. When Christ heard of it He
836 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
" departed from that country." Afterward he returned
and heard that John had been beheaded, and he again
departed from that country. There is no possible rela-
tion between the miraculous and the moral. The mira-
cles of the middle ages are the children of superstition.
In the middle ages men told everything but the truth,
and believed everything but the facts. The middle ages
a trinity of ignorance, mendacity and insanity. There
is one thing about humanity. You see the faults of
others, but not your own. A Catholic in India sees a
Hindoo bowing before an idol and thinks it absurd.
Why does he not get him a plaster of paris virgin and
some beads and holy water? Why does the protestant
shut his eyes when he pra}s? The idea is a souvenir of
sun worship. It is the most natural worship in the
world. Religious dogmas have become absurd. The
doctrine of eternal torment to-day has become absurd,
low, grovelling, ignorant, barbaric, savage, devilish and
no gentleman would preach it.
Science, thou art the great magician! Thou alone per-
formest the true miracles. Thou alone workest the real
wonders. Fire is thy servant, lightning thy messenger.
The waves obey thee, and thou knowest the circuits of
the wind. Thou art the great philanthropist. Thou
hast freed the slave and civilized the master. Thou hast
taught man to chain, not his fellow-man, but the forces
of nature forces that have no backs to be scarred, no
limbs for chains to chill and eat forces that never
know fatigue, that shed no tears forces that have no
hearts to break. Thou gavest man the plow, the reaper
and the loom thou hast fed and clothed the world.
Thou art the great physician. Thy touch hath given
MYTH AND MIRACLE. 837
sight. Thou hast made the lame to leap, the dumb to
speak, and in the pallid cheek thy hand hath set the rose
of health. "Thou hast given thy beloved sleep" a
sleep that wraps in happy dreams the throbbing nerves
of pain. Thou art the perpetual providence of man-
preserver of life and love. Thou art the teacher of every
virtue, and the enemy of every vice. Thou has dis-
covered the true basis of morals the origin and office of
conscience and hast revealed the nature and measure of
obligation. Thou hast taught that love is justice in its
highest form, and that even self-love, guided by wisdom,
embraces with loving arms the human race. Thou hast
slain the monsters of the past. Thou hast discovered the
one inspired book. Thou hast read the records of the
rocks, written by wind and wave, by frost and flame
records that even priestcraft cannot change and in thy
wondrous scales thou hast weighed the atoms and the
stars. Thou art the founder of the only true religion.
Thou art the very Christ, the only savior of mankind!
Theology has always been in the way of the advance
of the human race. There is this difference between
science and theology science is modest and merciful,
while theology is arrogant and cruel. The hope of
science is the perfection of the human race. The hope
of theology is the salvation of a few and the damnation
of almost everybody. As I told you in the first place, I
believe in the religion of freedom. O liberty! thou art
the god of my idolatry. Thou art the only deity that
hates the bended knee. In thy vast and unwalled temple,
beneath the roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminous
with suns, thy worshipers stand erect. They do not bow
or cringe or crawl or bend their foreheads to the earth.
838 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Thy dust hast never borne the impress of lips. Upon
thy sacred altars mothers do not sacrifice their babes,
nor men their rights. Thou askest naught from man
except the things that good men hate, the whip, the
chain, the dungeon key. Thou hast no kings, no popes,
no priests to stand between their fellow-men and thee.
Thou hast no monks, no nuns, who, in the name of duty,
murder joy. Thou carest not for forms nor mumbled
prayers. At thy sacred shrine hypocrisy does not bow,
fear does not crouch, virtue does not tremble, supersti-
tion's feeble tapers do not burn, but reason holds aloft
her inextinguishable torch, while on the ever-broadening
brow of science falls the ever coming morning of the ever
better day.
INGERSOLL
ON
THE CHINESE GOD.
Messrs. Wright, Dickey, O'Conner and Murch, of the
select committee on the causes of the .present depression
of labor, presented the majority special report upon Chi-
nese immigration.
These gentlemen are in great fear for the future of our
most holy and perfectly authenticated religion, and have,
like faithful watchmen from the walls and towers of Zion,
hastened to give the alarm. They have informed Con-
gress that " Joss has his temple of worship in the Chi-
nese quarters, in San Francisco. Within the walls of a
dilapidated structure is exposed to the view of the faith-
ful the god of the Chinaman, and here are his altars of
worship. Here he tears up his pieces of paper; here he
offers up his prayers; here he receives his religious conso-
lations, and here is his road to the celestial land.-" That
"Joss is located in a long, narrow room, in a building in
a back alley, upon a kind of altar; " that " he is a wooden
839
840 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
image, looking a% much like an alligator as like a human
being; " that the Chinese " think there is such a place as
heaven;" that " all classes of Chinamen worship idols; "
that "the temple is open every day at all hours; " that
"the Chinese have no Sunday; " that this heathen god
has "huge jaws, a big red tongue, large white teeth, a
half-dozen arms, and big, fiery eyeballs. About him are
placed offerings of meat, and other eatables a sacrifi-
cial offering. "
No wonder that these members of the committee were
shocked at such a god, knowing as they did that the
only true God was correctly described by the inspired
lunatic of Patmos in the following words:
"And there sat in the midst of the seven golden
candlesticks one like unto the son of man, clothed with
a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with
a golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like
wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of
fire; and his feet like unto fine brass as if they burned in
a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters.
And he had in his right hand seven stars; and out of his
mouth went a sharp, two-edged sword; and his counte-
nance was as the sun shining in his strength."
Certainly, a large mouth, filled with white teeth, is
preferable to one used as the scabbard of a sharp, two-
edged sword. Why should these gentlemen object to a
god with big fiery eyeballs, when their own Deity has
eyes like a flame of fire?
Is it not a little late in the day to object to people be-
cause they sacrifice meat and other eatables to their god?
We all know that for thousands of years the "real"
God was exceedingly fond of roasted meat; that He loved
THE CHINESE GOD. 84!
the savor of burning flesh, and delighted in the perfume
of fresh, warm blood.
The following account of the manner in which the
"living God" desired that His people should sacrifice
tends to show the degradation and religious blindness of
the Chinese :
"Aaron therefore went unto the altar and slew the
calf of the sin-offering which was for himself. And the
sons of Aaron brought the blood unto him. And he
dipped his fingers in the blood and put it upon the horns
of the altar, and poured out the blood at the bottom of
the altar; but the fat and the kidneys and the caul above
the liver of the sin-offering he burnt upon the altar, as
the Lord commanded Moses, and the flesh and the hide
he burnt with fire without the camp. And he slew the
burnt offering. And Aaron's sons presented unto him the
blood which he sprinkled round about the altar. *
And he brought the meat offering and took a handful
thereof and burnt upon the altar. * * * He slew
also the bullock and the ram for a sacrifice of peace offer-
ing, which was for the people. And Aaron's sons pre-
sented unto him the blood which he sprinkled upon the
altar, round about, and the fat of the bullock and of the
ram, the rump and that which covereth the inwards, and
the kidneys, and the caul above the liver, and they put
the fat upon the breasts and he burnt the fat upon the
altar. And the breasts and the right shoulder Aaron
waved for a wave-offering before the Lord, as Moses had
commanded."
If the Chinese only did something like this, we would
know that they worshiped the " living " God. The idea
that the supreme head of the ' ' American system of
842 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
religion" can be placated with a little meat and "ordi-
nary eatables," is simply preposterous. He has always
asked for blood, and has always asserted that without
the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
The world is also informed by these gentlemen that
"the idolatry of the Chinese produces a demoralizing
effect upon our American youth by bringing sacred things
into disrespect, and making religion a theme of disgust
and contempt."
In San Francisco there are some three hundred thou-
sand people. Is it possible that a few Chinese can
bring "our holy religion" into disgust and contempt?
In that city there are fifty times as many churches as
joss-houses. Scores of sermons are uttered every week;
religious books and papers are plentiful as leaves in au-
tumn, and somewhat dryer; thousands of bibles are with-
in the reach of all. And there, too, is the example of a
Christian city.
Why should we send missionaries to China if we can-
not convert the heathen when they come here? When
missionaries go to a foreign land, the poor, benighted
people have to take their word for the blessings showered
upon a Christian people ; but when the heathen come here,
they can see for themselves. What was simply a story
becomes a demonstrated fact. They come in contact
with people who love their enemies. They see that in a
Christian land men tell the truth; that they will not take
advantage of strangers; that they are just and patient;
kind and tender; and have no prejudice on account of
color, race, or religion; that they look upon mankind as
brethren; that they speak of God as a universal Father,
and are willing to work, and even to suffer, for the good,
THE CHINESE GOD. 843
not only of their own countrymen, but of the heathen as
well. All this the Chinese see and know, and why they
still cling to the religion of their country is to me a
matter of amazement.
We all know that the disciples of Jesus do unto others
as they would that others should do unto them, and that
those of Confucius do not unto others anything that they
would not that others should do unto them. Surely,
such peoples ought to live together in perfect peace.
Rising with the subject, growing heated with a kind of
holy indignation, these Christian representatives of a
Christian people most solemnly declare that anyone
who is really endowed with a correct knowledge
of our religious system which acknowledges the
existence of a living God and an accountability to Him,
and a future state of reward and punishment, who feels
that he has an apology for this abominable pagan wor-
ship, is not a fit person to be ranked as a good citizen of
the American union. It is absurd to make any apology
for its toleration. It must be abolished, and the sooner
the decree goes forth by the power of this government,
the better it will be for the interests of this land.
I take this the earliest opportunity to inform these
gentlemen composing a majority of the committee that
we have in the United States no " religious system; ''
that this is a secular government. That it has no relig-
ious creed; that it does not believe nor disbelieve in a
future state of reward and punishment; that it neither
affirms nor denies the existence of a "living God; " and
that the only god, so far as this government is concerned,
is the legally expressed will of a majority of the people.
Under our flag the Chinese have the same right to wor-
844 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
ship a wooden god that you have to worship any other.
The constitution protects equally the church of Jehovah
and the house of Joss. Whatever their relative positions
may be in heaven, they stand upon a perfect equality in
the United States. This government is an infidel govern-
ment. We have a constitution with man put in and God
left out; and it is the glory of this country that we have
such a constitution.
It may be surprising to you that I have an apology for
pagan worship, yet I have. And it is the same one that
I have for the writers of this report. I account for both
by the word superstition. Why should we object to their
worshiping God as they please? If the worship is im-
proper, the protestation should come not from a com-
mittee of congress, but from God himself. If He is satis-
fied, that is sufficient.
Our religion can only be brought into contempt by the
actions of those who profess to be governed by its teach-
ings. This report will do more in that direction than
millions of Chinese could do by burning pieces of paper
before a wooden image. If you wish to impress the Chi-
nese with the value of your religion, of what you are
pleased to call "the American system," show them that
Christians are better than heathens. Prove to them that
what you are pleased to call the "" living God " teaches
higher and holier things, a grander and purer code of
morals, than can be found upon pagan pages. Excel
these wretches in industry, in honesty, in reverence for
parents, in cleanliness, in frugality, and above all by ad-
vocating the absolute liberty of human thought.
Do not trample upon these people because they have
a different conception of things about which even this
committee knows nothing.
THE CHINESE GOD. 845
Give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a
god after their own fashion, and let them describe him
as they will. Would you be willing to have them remain,
if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had pretended
to have seen God, and had written of Him as follows:
" There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out
of his mouth; coals were kindled by it, * * * and
he rode upon a cherub and did fly?" Why should you
object to these people on account of their religion? Your
objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. Of
that spirit the inquisition was born. That spirit lighted
the fagot, made the thumbscrew, put chains upon the
limbs, and lashes upon the backs of men. The same
spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnaped human
beings; sold babes, and justified all the horrors of slavery.
Congress has nothing to do with the religion of the
people. Its members are not responsible to God for the
opinions of their constituents, and it may tend to the
happiness of the constituents for me to state that they
are in no way responsible for the religion of the members.
Religion is an individual not a national matter, and
where the nation interferes with the right of conscience,
the liberties of the people are devoured by the monster,
superstition.
If you wish to drive out the Chinese, do not make a
pretext of religion. Do not pretend that you are trying
to do God a favor. Injustice in His name is doubly
detestable. The assassin cannot sanctify his dagger by
falling on his knees, and it does not help a falsehood if it
be uttered as a prayer. Religion, used to intensify the
hatred of men toward men, under the pretense of pleas-
ing God, has cursed this world.
846 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
A portion of this most remarkable report is intensely
religious. There is in it almost the odor of sanctity; and
when reading it, one is impressed with the living piety of
its authors. But on the twenty-fifth page, there are a
few passages that must pain the hearts of true believers.
Leaving their religious views, the members immediately
betake themselves to philosophy and prediction. Listen:
44 The Chinese race and the American citizen, whether
native-born or who is eligible to our naturalization laws
and becomes a citizen, are in a state of antagonism.
They cannot, nor will not, ever meet upon common
ground and occupy together the same so-called level.
This is impossible. The pagan and the Christian travel
different paths. This one believes in a living God; that
one in the type of monsters and worship of wood and
stone. Thus in the religion of the two races pf men, they
are as wide apart as the poles of the two hemispheres.
They cannot now, nor never [sic] will, approach the
same religious altar. The Christian will not recede to
barbarism, nor will the Chinese advance to the enlight-
ened belt [wherever it is] of civilization. * * He
cannot be converted to those modern ideas of religious
worship which have been accepted by Europe, and which
crown the American system. "
Christians used to believe that through their religion
all the nations of the earth were finally to be blest. In
accordance with that belief missionaries have been sent
to every land, and untold wealth has been expended for
what has been called the spread of the gospel.
I am almost sure that I have read somewhere that
1 ' Christ died for all men, " and that ' ' God is no respecter
of persons." It was once taught that it was the duty of
THE CHINESE GOD. 847
Christians to tell to all people the " tidings of great joy.'
I have never believed these things myself, but have always
contended that an honest merchant was the best mission-
ary. Commerce makes friends, religion makes enemies;
the one enriches, and the other impoverishes; the one
thrives best where the truth is told, the otherwhere false-
hoods are believed. For myself, I have but little confi-
dence in any business, or enterprise, or investment, that
promises dividends only after the death of the stock-
holders.
But I am astonished that four Christian statesmen,
four members of Congress in the last quarter of the
nineteenth century, who seriously object to people on
account of their religious convictions, should still assert
that the very religion in which they believe and the only
religion established by the living God-head of the Ameri-
can system is not adapted to the spiritual needs of one-
third of the human race. It is amazing that these four
gentlemen have, in the defense of the Christian religion,
announced the discovery that it is wholly inadequate for
the civilization of mankind; that the light of the cross
can never penetrate the darkness of China; "that all
the labors of the missionary, the example of the good,
the exalted character of our civilization, make no im-
pression upon the pagan life of the Chinese; " and that
even the report of this committee will not tend to elevate,
refine and Christianize the yellow heathen of the Pacific
coast. In the name of religion these gentlemen have
denied its power and mocked at the enthusiasm of its
founder. Worse than this, they have predicted for the
Chinese a future of ignorance and idolatry in this world,
and, if the " American system " of religion is true, hell-
fire in the next.
848 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
For the benefit of these four philosophers and prophets,
I will, give a few extracts from the writings of Confucius
that will in my judgment, compare favorably with the
best passages of their report:
" My doctrine is that man must be true to the princi-
ples of his nature, and the benevolent exercises of them
toward others.
"With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and
with my bended arm for a pillow, I still have joy.
" Riches and honor acquired by injustice are to me but
floating clouds.
" The man who, in view of gain, thinks of righteous-
ness; who, in view of danger, forgets life, and who re-
members an old agreement, however far back it extends,
such a man may be reckoned a complete man.
" Recompense injury with justice, and kindness with
kindness."
There is one word which may serve as rule of practice
for all one's life. Reciprocity is that word.
When the ancestors of the four Christian Congress-
men were barbarians, when they lived in caves, gnawed
bones, and worshiped dried snakes, the infamous Chi-
nese were reading these sublime sentences of Confucius.
When the forefathers of these Christian statesmen were
hunting toads to get the jewels out of their heads to be
used as charms, the wretched Chinese were calculating
eclipses and measuring the circumference of the earth.
When the progenitors of these representatives of the
"American system of religion" were burning women
charged with nursing devils, these people, " incapable of
being influenced by the exalted character of our civiliza-
tion," were building asylums for the insane.
THE CHINESE GOD. 849
Neither should it be forgotten that, for thousands of
years, the Chinese have honestly practiced the great princi-
ple known as civil service reform a something that even
the administration of Mr. Hayes has reached only through
the proxy of promise.
If we wish to prevent the immigration of the Chinese,
let us reform our treaties with the vast empire from
whence they came. For thousands of years the Chinese
secluded themselves from the rest of the world. They
did not deem the Christian nations fit to associate with.
We forced ourselves upon them. We called, not with
cards, but with cannon. The English battered down the
door in the names of Opium and Christ. This infamy
was regarded as another triumph for the gospel. At last,
in self-defense, the Chinese allowed Christians to touch
their shores. Their wise men, their philosophers pro-
tested, and prophesied that time would show that Christ-
ians could not be trusted. This report proves that the
wise men were not only philosophers, but prophets.
Treat China as you would England. Keep a treaty
while it is in force. Change it if you will, according to
the laws of nations, but on no account excuse a breach
of national faith by pretending that we are dishonest for
God's sake.
INGERSOLL'S LETTER.
IS SUICIDE A SIN?
(COLONEL INGERSOLL'S FIRST LETTER )
I do not know whether self-killing is on the increase or
not. If it is, then there must be, on the average, more
trouble, more sorrow, more failure, and, consequently,
more people are driven to despair. In civilized life there
is a great struggle, great competition, and many fall. To
fail in a great city is like being wrecked at sea. In the
country a man has friends. He can get a little credit, a
little help, but in the city it is different. The man is lost
in the multitude. In the roar of the streets his cry is not
heard. Death becomes his only friend. Death promises
release from want, from hunger and pain, and so the
poor wretch lays down his burden, dashes it from his
shoulders and falls asleep.
To me all this seems very natural. The wonder is that so
many endure and suffer to the natural end, that so many
nurse the spark of life in huts and prisons, keep it and
850
IS SUICIDE A SIN? 851
guard it through years of misery and want; support it by
beggary; by eating the crust found in the gutter, and to
whom it only gives days of weariness and nights of fear
and dread. Why should the man, sitting amid the wreck
of all he had, the loved ones dead, friends lost, seek to
lengthen, to preserve his life? What can the future have
for him?
Under many circumstances a man has the right to kill
himself. When life is of no value to him, when he can
be of no real assistance to others, why should a man con-
tinue? When he is of no benefit, when he is a burden to
those he loves, why should he remain? The old idea was
that * ' God " made us and placed us here for a purpose, and
that it was our duty to remain until He called us. The
world is outgrowing this absurdity. What pleasure can
it give 4< God" to see a man devoured by a cancer? To
see the quivering flesh slowly eaten? To see the nerves
throbbing with pain? Is this a festival for "God"?
Why should the poor wretch stay and suffer? A little
morphine would give him sleep the agony would be for-
gotten and he would pass unconsciously from happy
dreams to painless death.
If "God" determines all births and deaths, of what
use is medicine, and why should doctors defy, with pills
and powders, the decrees of " God" ? No one, except a
few insane, act now according to this childish supersti-
tion. Why should a man, surrounded by flames, in the
midst of a burning building, from which there is no
escape, hesitate to put a bullet through his brain or a
dagger in his heart? Would it give " God " pleasure to
see him burn? When did the man lose the right of
self-defense?
852 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
So, when a man has committed some awful crime, why
should he stay and ruin his family and friends? Why
should he add to the injury? Why should he live, filling
his days and nights, and the days and 'nights of others,
with grief and pain, with agony and tears?
Why should a man sentenced to imprisonment for life
hesitate to still his heart? The grave is better than the
cell. Sleep is sweeter than the ache of toil. The dead
have no masters.
So the poor girl, betrayed and deserted, the door of
home closed against her, the faces of friends averted, no
hand that will help, no eye that will soften with pity, the
future an abyss filled with monstrous shapes of dread and
fear, her mind racked by fragments of thoughts like
clouds broken by storm, pursued, surrounded by the ser-
pents of remorse, flying from horrors too great to bear,
rushes with joy through the welcome door of death.
Undoubtedly there are many cases of perfectly justifia-
ble suicide cases in which not to end life would be a
mistake, sometimes almost a crime.
As to the necessity of death, each must decide for him-
self. And if a man honestly decides that death is best
best for him and others and acts upon the decision,
why should he be blamed?
Certainly the man who kills himself is not a physical
coward. He may have lacked moral courage, but not
physical. It may be said that some men fight duels be-
cause they are afraid to decline. They are between two
fires the chance of death and the certainty of dishonor,
and they take the chance of death. So the Christian
martyrs were, according to their belief, between two fires
the flames of the fagot that could burn but for a few
IS SUICIDE A SIN? 853
moments and the fires of God, that were eternal. And
they chose the flames of the fagot.
Men who fear death to that degree that they will bear
all the pains and pangs that nerves can feel rather than
die, cannot afford to call the suicide a coward. It does
not seem to me that Brutus was a coward or that Seneca
was. Surely Antony had nothing left to live for. Cato
was not a craven. He acted on his judgment. So with
hundreds of others who felt that they had reached the
end that the journey was done, the voyage was over,
and, so feeling, stopped. It seems certain that the man
who commits suicide, who "does the thing that stops
all other deeds, that shackles accident and bolts up
change," is not lacking in physical courage.
If men had the courage they would not linger in prisons,
in almshouses, in hospitals, they would not bear the
pangs of incurable disease, the stains of dishonor, they
would not live in filth and want, in poverty and hunger,
neither would they wear the chain of slavery. All this
can be accounted for only by the fear of death or "of
something after."
Seneca, knowing that Nero intended to take his life,
had no fear. He knew that he could defeat the Emperor.
He knew that " at the bottom of every river, in the coil
of every rope, on the point of every dagger, Liberty sat
and smiled." He knew that it was his own fault if he
allowed himself to be tortured to death by his enemy.
He said, "There is this blessing, that while life has but
one entrance, it has exits innumerable, and as I choose
the house in which I live, the ship in which I will sail, so
will I choose the time and manner of my death."
To me this is not cowardly, but manly and noble.
854 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Under the Roman law persons found guilty of certain
offenses were not only destroyed, but their blood was pol-
luted, and their children became outcasts. If, however,
they died before conviction, their children were saved.
Many committed suicide to save their babes. Certainly
they were not cowards. Although guilty of great crimes,
they had enough of honor, of manhood, left to save
their innocent children. This was not cowardice.
Without doubt many suicides are caused by insanity.
Men lose their property. The fear of the future over-
powers them. Things lose proportion, they lose poise
and balance, and in a flash, a gleam of frenzy, kill them-
selves. The disappointed in love, broken in heart the
light fading from their lives seek the refuge of death.
Those who take their lives in painful, barbarous ways
who mangle their throats with broken glass, dash
themselves from towers and roofs, take poisons that tor-
ture like the rack such persons must be insane. But
those who take- v ,tbe facts into account, who weigh the
arguments for and against, and who decide that death is
best the only good and then resort to reasonable
means, may be, so far as I can see, in full possession of
their minds.
Life is not the same to all to some a blessing, to
some a curse, to some not much in any way. Some
leave it with unspeakable regret, some with the keenest
joy, and some with indifference.
Religion, or the decadence of religion, has a bearing
upon the number of suicides. The fear of "God," of
judgment, of eternal pain will stay the hand, and people
so believing will suffer here until relieved by natural
death. A belief in the eternal agony beyond the grave
IS SUICIDE A SIN? 855
will cause such believers to suffer the pangs of this life.
When there is no fear of the future, when death is be-
lieved to be a dreamless sleep, men have less hesitation
about ending their lives. On the other hand, orthodox
religion has driven millions to insanity. It has caused
parents to murder their children and many thousands to
destroy themselves and others.
It seems probable that all real, genuine orthodox
believers who kill themselves must be insane, and to such
a degree that their belief is forgotten. " God " and hell
are out of their minds.
I am satisfied that many who commit suicide are in-
sane, many are in the twilight or dusk of insanity, and
many are perfectly sane.
The law we have in this State making it a crime to
attempt suicide is cruel and absurd and calculated to in-
crease the number of successful suicides. When a man
has suffered so much, when he has been so persecuted
and pursued by disaster that he seeks the rest and sleep
of death, why should the State add to the sufferings of
that man? A man seeking death, knowing that he will
be punished if he fails, will take extra pains and precau-
tions to make death certain.
This law was born of superstition, passed by thought-
lessness and enforced by ignorance and cruelty.
When the house of life becomes a prison, when the
horizon has shrunk and narrowed to a cell, and when the
convict longs for the liberty of death, why should the
effort to escape be regarded as a crime?
Of course, I regard life from a natural point of view.
I do not take gods, heavens or hells into account. My
horizon is the known, and my estimate of life is based
856 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
upon what I know of life here in this world. People
should not suffer for the sake of supernatural beings or
for other worlds or the hopes and fears of some future
state. Our joys, our sufferings and our duties are here.
The law of New York about the attempt to commit
suicide and the law as to divorce are about equal. Both
are idiotic. Law cannot prevent suicide. Those who
have lost all fear of death, care nothing for law and its
penalties. Death is liberty, absolute and eternal.
We should remember that nothing happens but the
natural. Back of every suicide and every attempt to
commit suicide is the natural and efficient cause. Nothing
happens by chance. In this world the facts touch each
other. There is no space between no room for chance.
Given a certain heart and brain, certain conditions, and
suicide is the necessary result. If we wish to prevent
suicide we must change conditions. We must, by educa-
tion, by invention, by art, by civilization, add to the
value of the average life. We must cultivate the brain
and heart do away with false pride and false modesty.
We must become generous enough to help our fellows
without degrading them. We must make industry
useful work of all kinds honorable. We must mingle a
little affection with our charity a little fellowship. We
should allow those who have sinned to really reform.
We should not think only of what the wicked have done,
but we should think of what we have wanted to do.
People do not hate the sick. Why should they despise
the mentally weak the diseased in brain?
Our actions are the fruit, the result, of circumstances
of conditions and we do as we must. This great truth
should fill the heart with pity for the failures of our race.
IS SUICIDE A SIN? 857
Sometimes I have wondered that Christians denounce
the suicide; that in old times they buried him where the
roads crossed, and drove a stake through his body. They
took his property from his children and gave it to the
State.
If Christians would only think, they would see tha
orthodox religion rests upon suicide that man was re-
deemed by suicide, and that without suicide the whole
world would have been lost.
If Christ were God, then he had the power to protect
himself from the Jews without hurting them. But instead
of using his power he allowed them to take his life.
If a strong man should allow a few little children to
hack him to death with knives when he could easily have
brushed them aside, would we not say that he committed
suicide?
There is no escape. If Christ were, in fact, God and
allowed the Jews to kill Him, then He consented to His
own death refused, though perfectly able, to defend and
protect Himself, and was, in fact, a suicide.
We cannot reform the world by law or by superstition.
As long as there shall be pain and failure, want and
sorrow, agony and crime, men and women will untie
life's knot and seeks the peace of death.
To the hopelessly imprisoned to the dishonored and
despised to those who have failed, who have no future,
no hope to the abandoned, the broken-hearted, to those
who are only remnants and fragments of men and women
how consoling, how enchanting is the thought of death!
And even to the most fortunate death at last is a wel-
come deliverer. Death is as natural and as merciful as
life. When we have journeyed long when we are weary
858 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
when we wish for the twilight, for the dusk, for the
cool kisses of the night when the senses are dull when
the pulse is faint and low when the mists gather on the
mirror of memory when the past is almost forgotten,
the present hardly perceived when the future has but
empty hands death is as welcome as a strain of music.
After all, death is not so terrible as joyless life. Next
to eternal happiness is to sleep in the soft clasp of the
cool earth, disturbed by no dream, by no thought, by no
pain, by no fear, unconscious of all and forever.
The wonder is that so many live, that in spite of rags
and want, in spite of tenement and gutter, of filth and
pain, they limp and stagger and crawl beneath their
burdens to the natural end. The wonder is that so few
of the miserable are brave enough to die that so many
are terrified by the " something after death " by the
specters and phantoms of superstition.
Most people are in love with life. How they cling to
it in the arctic snows how they struggle in the waves
and currents of the sea how they linger in famine how
they fight disaster and despair! On the crumbling edge
of death they keep the flag flying and go down]at last full
of hope and courage.
But many have not such natures. They cannot bear
defeat. They are disheartened by disaster. They lie
down on the field of conflict and give the earth their
blood.
They are our unfortunate brothers and sisters. We
should not curse or blame we should pity. On their
pallid faces our tears should fall.
One of the best men I ever knew, with an affectionate
wife, a charming and loving daughter, committed suicide.
IS SUICIDE A SIN. 859
He was a man of generous impulses. His heart was
loving and tender. He was conscientious, and so sensi-
tive that he blamed himself for having done what at the
time he thought wise and best. He was the victim of his
virtues. Let us be merciful in our judgments.
All we can say is that the good and the bad, the loving
and the malignant, the conscientious and the vicious, the
educated and the ignorant, actuated by many motives,
urged and pushed by circumstances and conditions
sometimes in the calm of judgment, sometimes in pas-
sion's storm and stress, sometimes in whirl and tempest
of insanity raise their hands against themselves and
desperately put out the light of life.
Those who attempt suicide should not be punished. If
they are insane they should, if possible be restored to
reason; if sane, they should be reasoned with, calmed
and assisted.
INGEKSOLL'S LETTER
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE,
Colonel Ingersoll's Eloquent Reply - to
His Critics.
In the article written by me about suicide the ground
was taken that " under many circumstances a man has
the right to kill himself."
This has been attacked with great fury by clergymen,
editors and the writers of letters. These people con-
tend that the right of self-destruction does not and can
not exist. They insist that life is the gift of God, and
that He only has the right to end the days of men; that
it is our duty to bear the sorrows that He sends with
grateful patience. Some have denounced suicide as the
worst of crimes worse than the murder of another.
The first question, then, is:
Has a man under any circumstances the right to kill
himself?
A man is being slowly devoured by a cancer his agony
is intense his suffering all that nerves can feel. His life
860
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 86 1
is slowly being taken. Is this the work of the good God?
Did the compassionate God create the cancer so that it
might feed on the quivering flesh of this victim?
This man, suffering agonies beyond the imagination to
Conceive, is of no use to himself. His life is but a suc-
cession of pangs. He is of no use to his wife, his chil-
dren, his friends or society. Day after day he is rendered
unconscious by drugs that numb the nerves and put the
brain to sleep.
Has he the right to render himself unconscious? Is it
proper for him to take refuge in sleep?
If there be a good God I cannot believe that He takes
pleasure in the sufferings of men that He gloats over
the agonies of His children. If there be a good God,
He will, to the extent of His power, lessen the evils of
life.
So I insist that the man being eaten by the cancer a
burden to himself and others, useless in every way has
the right to end his pain and pass through happy sleep
to dreamless rest.
But those who have answered me would say to this
man: " It is your duty to be devoured. The good God
wishes you to suffer. Your life is the gift of God. You
hold it in trust, and you have no right to end it. The
cancer is the creation of God and it is .your duty to fur-
nish it with food . "
Take another case: A man is on a burning ship; the
crew and the rest of the passengers have escaped gone
in the lifeboats and he is left alone. In the wide hori-
zon there is no sail, no sign of help. He cannot swim.
If he leaps into the sea he drowns, if he remains on the ship
he burns. In any event he can live but a few moments.
862 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Those who have answered me, those who insist that
under no circumstances a man has the right to take his
life, would say to this man -on the deck, " Remain where
you are. It is the desire of your loving, heavenly father
that you be clothed in flame that you slowly roast-
that your eyes be scorched to blindness and that you die
insane with pain. Your life is not your own, only the
agony is yours. "
I would say to this man: " Do as you wish. If you
prefer drowning to burning, leap into the sea. Between
inevitable evils you have the right of choice. You can
help no one, not even God, by allowing yourself to be
burned, and you can injure no one, not even God, by
choosing the easier death."
Let us suppose another case.
A man has been captured by savages in central Africa.
He is about to be tortured to death. His captors are
going to thrust splinters of pine into his flesh and then
set them on fire. He watches them as they make the
preparations. He knows what they are about to do and
what he is about to suffer. There is no hope of rescue,
of help. He has a vial of poison. He knows that he
can take it and in one moment pass beyond their power,
leaving to them only the dead body.
Is this man under obligation to keep his life because
God gave it until the savages by torture take it? Are
the savages the agents of the good God? Are they the
servants of the infinite? Is it the duty of this man to
allow them to wrap his body in a garment of flame? Has
he no right to defend himself? Is it the will of God that he
die by torture? What would any man of ordinary intelli-
gence do in a case like this? Is there room for discussion?
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 863
If the man took the poison, shortened his life a few
moments, escaped the tortures of the savages, is it possi-
ble that he would in another world be tortured forever by
an infinite savage?
Suppose another case. In the good old days, when
the inquisition flourished, when men loved their enemies
and murdered their friends, many frightful and ingenious
ways were devised to touch the nerves of pain.
Those who loved God, who had been ''born twice,"
would take a fellow-man who had been convicted of
"heresy," lay him upon the floor of a dungeon, secure
his arms and legs with chains, fasten him to the earth so
that he could not move, put an iron vessel, the opening
downward, on his stomach, place in the vessel several
rats, then tie it securely to his body. Then these wor-
shipers of God would wait until the rats, seeking food
and liberty, would gnaw through the body of the victim.
Now, if a man about to be subjected to this torture
had within his hand a dagger, would it excite the wrath
of the "good God," if with one quick stroke he found
the protection of death?
To this question there can be but one answer.
In the cases I have supposed it seems to me that each
person would have the right to destroy himself. It does
not seem possible that the man was under obligation to
be devoured by a cancer; to remain upon the ship and
perish in flame; to throw away the poison and be tortured
to death by savages; to drop the dagger and endure the
" mercies" of the church.
If, in the cases I have supposed, men would have the
right to take their lives, then I was right when I said
that ' ' under many circumstances a man has a right to
kill himself."
864 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
Second, I denied that persons who killed themselves
were physical cowards. They may lack moral courage;
they may exaggerate their misfortunes, lose the sense of
proportion, but the man who plunges the dagger in his
heart, who sends the bullet through his brain, who leaps
from some roof and dashes himself against the stones
beneath, is not and cannot be a physical coward.
The basis of cowardice is the fear of injury or the fear of
death, and when that fear is not only gone, but in its place
is the desire to die, no matter by what means, it is im-
possible that cowardice should exist. The suicide wants
the very thing that a coward fears. He seeks the very
thing that cowardice endeavors to escape.
So the man, forced to a choice of evils, choosing the
less is not a coward, but a reasonable man.
It must be admitted that the suicide is honest with
himself. He is to bear the injury, if it be one. Certainly
there is no hypocrisy, and just as certainly there is no
physical cowardice.
Is the man who takes morphine rather than be eaten
to death by a cancer a coward?
Is the man who leaps into the sea rather than be
burned a coward? Is the man that takes poison rather
than be tortured to death by savages or " Christians " a
coward?
Third, I also took the position that some suicides
were sane; that they acted on their best judgment, and
that they were in full possession of their minds.
Now, if, under some circumstances, a man has the
right to take his life, and if, under such circumstances,
he does take his life, then it cannot be said that he was
insane.
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 865
Most of the persons who have tried to answer me have
taken the ground that suicide is not only a crime, but
some of them have said that it is the greatest of crimes.
Now, if it be a crime, then the suicide must have been
sane. So all persons who denounce the suicide as a
criminal admit that he was sane. Under the law, an
insane person is incapable of committing a crime. All
the clergymen who have answered me, and who have
passionately asserted that suicide is a crime, have by
that assertion admitted that those who killed themselves
were sane.
They agree with me, and not only admit, but assert
that "some who have committed suicide were sane and
in the full possession of their minds."
It seems to me that these three propositions have been
demonstrated to be true: First, that under some cir-
cumstances a man has the right to take his life; second,
that the man who commits suicide is not a physical
coward; and, third, that some who have committed suicide
were at the time sane and in full possession of their
minds .
Fourth, I insisted, and still insist, that suicide was
and is the foundation of the Christian religion.
I still insist that if Christ were God He had the power
to protect Himself without injuring His assailants that
having that power it was His duty to use it, and that
failing to use it He consented to His own death and was
guilty of suicide.
To this the clergy answer that it was self-sacrifice for
the redemption of man, that He made an atonement for
the sins of believers. These ideas about redemption and
atonement are born of a belief in the "fall of man," on
866 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
account of the sins of our " first parents," and of the
declaration that " without the shedding of blood there is
no remission of sin." The foundation has crumbled. No
intelligent person now believes in the l ( fall of man "-
that our first parents were perfect, and that their descend-
ants grew worse and worse, at least until the coming of
Christ.
Intelligent men now believe that ages and ages before
the dawn of history man was a poor, naked, cruel, ignor-
ant and degraded savage, whose language consisted of a
few sounds of terror, of hatred and delight; that he
devoured his fellow-man, having all the vices, but not all
the virtues of the beasts; that the journey from the den
to the home, the palace, has been long and painful,
through many centuries of suffering, of cruelty and war;
through many ages of discovery, invention, self-sacrifice
and thought.
Redemption and atonement are left without a fact on
which to rest. The idea that an infinite God, creator of
all worlds, came to this grain of sand, learred the trade
of a carpenter, discussed with Pharisees and scribes, and
allowed a few infuriated Hebrews to put Him to death
that He might atone for the sins of men and redeem a
few believers from the consequences of His own wrath,
can find no lodgement in a good and natural brain.
In no mythology can anything more monstrously un-
believable be found.
But if Christ were a man and attacked the religion of
His times because it was cruel and absured; if He endeav-
ored to found a religion of kindness, of good deeds, to
take the place of heartlessness and ceremony, and if,
rather than to deny what He believed to be right and
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 867
true, He suffered death, then He was a noble man a
benefactor of His race. But if He were God there was
no need of this. The Jews did not wish to kill God. If
He had only made himself known, all knees would have
touched the ground. If He were God it required no
heroism to die. He knew that what we call death is but
the opening of the gates of eternal life. If He were
God, there was no self-sacrifice. He had no need to
suffer pain. He could have changed the crucifixion to a
joy-
Even the editors of religious weeklies see that there is
no escape from these conclusions from these arguments
and so, instead of attacking the arguments, they attack
the man who makes them.
Fifth, I denounced the law of New York that makes
an attempt to commit suicide a crime.
It seems to me that one who has suffered so much
that he passionately longs for death should be pitied, in-
stead of punished helped rather than imprisoned.
A despairing woman who had vainly sought for leave
to toil, a woman without home, without friends, without
bread, with clasped hands, with tear-filled eyes, with
broken words of prayer, in the darkness of night leaps
from the dock, hoping, longing for the tearless sleep of
death. She is rescued by a kind, courageous man,
handed over to the authorities, indicted, tried, convicted
clothed in a convict's garb and locked in a felon's cell.
To me this law seems barbarous and absurd, a law
that only savages would enforce.
Sixth, in this discussion a curious thing has happened.
For several centuries the clergy have declared that while
infidelity is a very good thing to live by, it is a bad
868 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
support, a wretched consolation, in the hour of death.
They have, in spite of the truth, declared that all the
great unbelievers died trembling with fear, asking God
for mercy, surrounded by fiends, in the torments of
despair. Think of the thousands and thousands of clergy-
men who have described the last agonies of Voltaire,
who died as peacefully as a happy child smilingly passes
from play to slumber; the final anguish of Hume, who
fell into his last sleep as serenely, as a river, running be-
tween green and shaded banks, reaches the sea; the
despair of Thomas Paine, one of the bravest, one of the
noblest men, who met the night of death untroubled as a
star that meets the morning.
At the same time these ministers admitted that the
average murderer could meet death on the scaffold with
perfect serenity, and could smilingly ask the people who
had gathered to see him killed meet him in heaven.
But the honest man who had expressed his honest
thoughts against the creed of the church in power could
not die in peace. God would see to it that his last mo-
ments should be filled with the insanity of fear that
with his last breath he should utter the shriek of remorse,
the cry for pardon.
This has all changed, and now the clergy, in their
sermons answering me, declare that the atheists, the
free-thinkers, have no fear of death that to avoid some
little annoyance, a passing inconvenience, they gladly
and cheerfully put out the light of life. It is now said
that infidels believe that death is the end that it is a
dreamless sleep that it is without pain that therefore
they have no fear, care nothing for gods or heavens or
hells, nothing for the threats of the pulpit, nothing for
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 869
the day of judgment, and that when life becomes a
burden they carelessly throw it down.
The infidels are so afraid of death that they commit
suicide.
This certainly is a great change, and I congratulate my-
self on having forced the clergy to contradict themselves.
Seventh, the clergy take the position that the athe-
ist, the unbeliever, has no standard of morality that he
can have no real conception of right and wrong. They
are of the opinion that it is impossible for one to be
moral or good unless he believes in some being far above
himself.
In this connection we might ask how God can be
moral or good unless he believes in some being superior
to himself.
What is morality? It is the best thing to do under the
circumstances. What is the best thing to do under the
circumstances? That which will increase the sum of
human happiness or lessen it the least. Happiness, in
its highest, noblest form, is the only good; that which
increases or preserves or creates happiness is moral
that which decreases it, or puts it in peril, is immoral.
It is not hard for an atheist for an unbeliever to
keep his hands out of the fire. He knows that burning
his hands will not increase his well-being, and he is
moral enough to keep them out of the flames.
So it may be said that each man acts according to his
intelligence so far as what he considers his own good is
concerned. Sometimes he is swayed by passion, by
prejudice, by ignorance, but when he is really intelligent,
master of himself, he does what he believes is best for
him. If he is intelligent enough he knows that what is
8/o INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
really good for him is good for others for all the world.
It is impossible for me to see why any belief in the
supernatural is necessary to have a keen perception of
right and wrong. Every man who has the capacity to
suffer and enjoy, and has imagination enough to give the
same capacity to others, has within himself the natural
basis of all morality. The idea of morality was born
here, in this world, of the experience, the intelligence of
mankind. Morality is not of supernatural origin. It did
not fall from the clouds, and it needs no belief in the
supernatural, no supernatural promises or threats, no
supernatural heavens or hells to give it force and life.
Subjects who are governed by the threats and promises
of a king are merely slaves. They are not governed by
the ideal, by noble views of right and wrong. They are
obedient cowards, controlled by fear, or beggars governed
by rewards, by alms.
Right and wrong exist in the nature of things. Murder
was just as criminal before as after the promulgation of
the ten commandments.
Eighth, many of the clergy, some editors and some
writers of letters who have answered me have said that
suicide is the worst of crimes, that a man had better
murder somebody else than himself. One clergyman
gives as a reason for this statement that the suicide dies
in an act of sin, and therefore he had better kill another
person. Probably he would commit a less crime if he
would murder his wife or mother.
I do not see that it is any worse to die than to live in
sin. To say that it is not as 'wicked to murder another
as yourself seems absurd. The man about to kill him-
self wishes to die. Why is it better for him to kill
lother man, who wishes to live?
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 8/1
To my mind it seems clear that you had better injure
yourself than another. Better be a spendthrift than a
thief. Better throw away your own money than steal
the money of another. Better kill yourself if you wish to
die than murder one whose life is full of joy.
The clergy tell us that God is everywhere, and that it
is one of the greatest possible crimes to rush into His
presence. It is wonderful how much they know about
God and how little about their fellow-men. Wonderful
the amount of their information about other worlds and
how limited their knowledge is of this.
There may or may not be an infinite being. I neither
affirm nor deny. I am honest enough to say that I do
not know. I am candid enough to admit that the ques-
tion is beyond the limitations of my mind. Yet I think
I know as much on that subject as any human being
knows or ever knew, and that is nothing.
I do not say that there is not another world, another
life; neither do I say that there is. I say that I do not
know. It seems to me that every sane and honest man
must say the same. But if there is an infinitely good
God and another world, then the infinitely good God will
be just as good to us in that world as He is in this. If
this infinitely good God loves His children in this world,
He will love them in another. If He loves a man when
he is alive, He will not hate him the instant he is dead.
If we are the children of an infinitely wise and power-
ful God, He knew exactlv what we would do the
temptations that we could and could not withstand
knew exactly the effect that everything would have upon
us, knew under what circumstances we would take our
lives and produced such circumstances himself. It is
872 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
perfectly apparent that there are many people incapable
by nature of bearing the burdens of life, incapable of
preserving their mental poise in stress and strain of dis-
aster, disease and loss, and who by failure, by misfortune
and want, are driven to despair and insanity, in whose
darkened minds there comes like a flash of lightning in
the night, the thought of death, a thought so strong, so
vivid, that all fear is lost, all ties broken, all duties, all
obligations, all hopes forgotten, and naught remains ex-
cept a fierce and wild desire to die. Thousands and
thousands become moody, melancholy, brood upon loss
of money, of position, of friends, until reason abdicates,
and frenzy takes possession of the s"oul. If there be an
infinitely wise and powerful God, all this was known to
Him from the beginning, and He so created things, estab-
lished relations, put in operation causes and effects that
all that has happened was the necessary result of his own
acts.
Ninth, nearly all who have tried to answer what I
said have been exceeding careful to misquote me, and
then answer something that I never uttered. They have
declared that I have advised people who were in trouble,
somewhat annoyed, to kill themselves; that I have told
men who have lost their money, who had failed in busi-
ness, who were not good in health, to kill themselves at
once, without taking into consideration any duty that
they owed to wives, children, friends, or society.
No man has a right to leave his wife to fight the battle
alone if he is able to help. No man has a right to desert
his children if he can possibly be of use. As long as he
can add to the comfort of those he loves, as long as he
can stand between wife and misery, between child and
8/3
want, as long as he can be of use, it is his duty to re-
main.
1 believe in the cheerful view, in looking at the sunny
side of things, in bearing with fortitude the evils of life,
in struggling against adversity, in finding the fuel of
laughter even in disaster, in having confidence in to-
ne orrow, in finding the pearl of joy among the flints and
shards, and in changing by the alchemy of patience even
evil things to good. I believe in the gospel of cheerful-
ness, of courage and good-nature.
Of the future I have no fear. My fate is the fate of
the world, of all that live. My anxieties are about this
life, this world. About the phantoms called gods and
their impossible hells, I have no care, no fear.
The existence of God I neither affirm nor deny. I
wait. The immortality of the soul I neither affirm nor
deny. I hope, hope for all of the children of men. I
have never denied the existence of another world, nor
the immortality of the soul. For many years I have said
that the idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed
and flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves
of hope and fear beating against the shores and rocks of
time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of any
creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affec-
tion, and it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the
mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
kisses the lips of death.
What I deny is the immortality of pain, the eternity
of torture.
After, all the instinct of self-preservation is strong.
People do not kill themselves on the advice of friends or
enemies. All wish to be happy, to enjoy life; all wish
874 INGERSOLL'S LECTURES.
for food and roof and raiment, for friends, and as long
as life gives joy the idea of self-destruction never enters
the human mind.
The oppressors, the tyrants, those who trample on the
rights of others, the robbers of the poor, those who put
wages below the living point, the ministers who make
people insane by preaching the dogma of eternal pain;
these are the .men who drive the weak, the suffering and
the helpless down to death.
It will not do to say that "God" has appointed a
time for each to die. Of this there is, and there can be,
no evidence. There is no evidence that any god takes
any interest in the affairs of men that any sides with
the right or helps the weak, protects the innocent or
rescues the oppressed. Even the clergy admit that their
God, through all ages, has allowed his friends, his wor-
shipers, to be imprisoned, tortured and murdered by His
enemies. Such is the protection of God. Billions of
prayers have been uttered; has one been answered? Who
sends plague, pestilence and famine? Who bids the
earthquake devour and the volcano to overwhelm?
Tenth, again I say that it is wonderful to me that
so many men, so many women endure and carry their
burdens to the natural end; that so many, in spite of
"age, ache and penury," guard with trembling hands
the spark of life; that prisoners for life toil and suffer to
the last; that the helpless wretches in poor-houses and
asylums cling to life; that the exiles in Siberia, loaded
with chains, sca/red ivith the knout, live on; that the
incurables, whose every breath is a pang, and for whom
the future has only pain, should fear the merciful touch
and clasp of death.
THE RIGHT TO ONE'S LIFE. 8/5
It is but a few steps at most from the cradle to the
grave; a short journey. The suicide hastens, shortens
the path, loses the afternoon, the twilight, the dusk of
life's day; loses what he does not want, what he cannot
bear. In the tempest of despair, in the blind fury of
madness or in the calm of thought and choice the
beleaguered soul finds the serenity of death.
Let us leave the dead where nature leaves them. We
know nothing of any realm that lies beyond the horizon
of the known, beyond the end of life. Let us be honest
with ourselves and others. Let us pity the suffering,
the despairing, the men and women hunted and pursued
by grief and shame, by misery and want, by chance and
fate until their only friend is death.
FOR THE DEAF.
THE AUDIPHONE
An Instrument that Enables Deaf Persons to Hear Or-
dinary Conversation Readily through the itif cllnm
of the Xetli, and Many of those Born Deaf and
Dumb to Hear and Learn to Speak.
INVENTEB BY RICHARD S. RHODES, CHICAGO.
Medal Awarded at the World's Columbian Expo-
sition, Chicago,
The Audiphone is a new instrument made of a peculiar composi-
tion, ppsessing the property of gathering the faintest sounds (some-
what similar to a telephone diaphragm), and conveying them to the
auditory nerve, through the medium of the teeth. The external tar
has nothing whatever to do in hearing with this wonderful instru-
ment.
Thousands are in use by those who would not do without them for
any consideration. It has enabled doctors and lawyers to resume
practice, teachers to resume teaching, mothers to hear the voices of
their children, thousands to hear their minister, attend concerts and
theatres, and engage in general conversation. Music is heard per-
fectly with it when without it not a note could be distinguished. It is
convenient to carry and to use. Ordinary conversation can be heard
with ease. In most cases deafness is not detected.
Full instructions will be sent with each instrument. The Audi-
phone is patented throughout the civilized world.
Conversational, small size, - - $3 oo
Conversational, medium size, 3 oo
Concert size, - - - - 5 oo
Trial instruments, good and serviceable, - - i 50
The Audiphone will be sent to any address, on receipt of price, by
RHODES & M C CLURE PUBLISHING CO,,
-ugpaa.ts fox t3a.e "World.,
93 ^RTaelLixLetoa. St.,
TEACHING THE DEAF TO
SPEAK.
THE TEETH THE BEST MEDIUM AND THE AUDIPHONE THE
BEST INSTRUMENT FOR CONVEYING SOUNDS TO
THE DEAF, AND IN TEACHING THE PARTLY
DEAF AND DUMB TO SPEAK.
ADDRESS DELIVERED BY R. S. RHODES, OF
CHICAGO, BEFORE THE FOURTEENTH CONVENTION
OF AMERICAN TEACHERS OF THE DEAF, AT
FLINT, MICHIGAN.
MR. PRESIDENT AND LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:
I would like to relate some of the causes which led to
my presence with you to-day.
About sixteen years ago I devised this instrument, the
audiphone, which greatly assisted me in hearing, and
discovered that many who had not learned to speak were
not so deaf as myself. I reasoned that an instrument in
the hands of one who had not learned to speak would
act the same as when in the hands of one who had
learned to speak, and that the mere fact of one not being
able to speak would in no wise affect the action of the
instrument. To ascertain if or not my simple reasoning
was correct, I borrowed a deaf-mute, a boy about twelve
years old, and took him to my farm. We arrived there
in the evening, and during the evening I experimented to
17
1 8 THE AUDIPHONE.
see if he could distinguish some of the vowel sounds, My
experiments in this direction were quite satisfactory.
Early in the morning I provided him with an audiphone
and took him by the hand for a walk about the farm.
We soon came across a flock of turkeys. We approached
closely, the boy with his audiphone adjusted to his teeth,
and when the gobbler spoke in his peculiar voice, the boy
was convulsed with laughter, and jumping for joy con-
tinued to follow the fowl with his audiphone properly
adjusted, and at every remark of the gobbler the boy was
delighted. I was myself delighted, and began to think
my reasoning was correct.
We next visited the barn. I led him into a stall beside
a horse munching his oats, and to my delight he could
hear the grinding of the horse's teeth when the audiphone
was adjusted, and neither of us could without. In the
stable yard was a cow lowing for its calf, which he plainly
showed he could hear, and when I led him to the cow-
barn where the calf was confined, he could hear it reply
to the cow, and by signs showed that he understood their
language, and that he knew the one was calling for the
other. We then visited the pig-sty where the porkers
poked their noses near to us. He could hear them with
the audiphone adjusted, and enjoyed their talk, and
understood that they wanted more to eat. I gave him
some corn to throw over to them, and he signed that that
was what they wanted, and that now they were satisfied.
He soon, however, broke away from me and pursued the
gobbler and manifested more satisfaction in listening to
its voice than to mine, and the vowel sounds as com-
pared to it were of slight importance to him, and for the
three days he was at my farm that poor turkey gobbler
had but little rest.*
HEARING THROUGH THE TEETH. 1 9
With these and other experiments I was satisfied that
he could hear, and that there were many like him; so I
took my grip and audiphones and visited most of the
institutions for the deaf in this country. In all institu-
tions I found many who could hear well, and presented
the instrument with which this hearing could be improved
and brought within the scope of the human voice. But
at one institution I was astonished; I found a bright girl
with perfect hearing being educated to the sign language.
She could repeat words after me parrot-like, but had no
knowledge of their value in sentences. I inquired why
she was in the institution for the deaf, and by examining
the records we learned she was the child of deaf-mute
parents, and had been brought up by them in the country,
and although her hearing was perfect, she had not heard
spoken language enough to acquire it, and I was informed
by the superintendent of the institution that she pre-
ferred signs to speech. I was astonished that a child
with no knowledge of the value of speech should be per-
mitted to elect to be educated by signs instead of speech,
ind to be so educated in a state institution. This cir-
cumstance convinced me more than ever that there was
a great work to be done in redeeming the partly deaf
children from the slavery of silence, and I was more
firmly resolved than ever that I would devote the re-
mainder of my life to this cause.
I have had learned scientists tell me that I could not
hear through my teeth. It would take more scientists
than ever were born to convince me that I did not hear
Ay sainted mother's and beloved father's dying voice
with this instrument, when I could not have heard it
without.
2O THE AUDIPHONE.
It would take more scientists than ever were born to
convince me that I did not hear the voice of the Rev.
James B. McClure, one who has been dear to me for the
last twenty years, and accompanied rne on most of my
visits to institutions spoken of above, and who has en-
couraged me in my labors for the deaf all these years, say,
as I held his hand on his dying bed only Monday last,
and took my final leave from him (and let me say, I
know of no cause but this that would have induced me
to leave him then), " Go to Flint; do all the good you
can. God bless your labors for the deaf! We shall
never meet again on earth. Meet me above. Good-by!"
And, Mr. President, when I am laid at rest, it will be
with gratitude to you and with greater resignation for the
active part you have taken in the interest of these partly
deaf children in having a section for aural work admitted
to this national convention, for in this act you have con-
tributed to placing this work on a firm foundation, which
is sure to result in the greatest good to this class.
You have heard our friend, the inventor of the tele-
phone, say that in his experiments for a device to im-
prove the hearing of the deaf, (as he was not qualified
by deafness,) he did not succeed, but invented the tele-
phone instead, which has lined his pocket with gold.
From what I know of the gentleman, I believe he would
willingly part with all the gold he has received for the
use of this wonderful invention, had he succeeded in his
efforts in devising an instrument which would have
emancipated even twenty per cent, of the deaf in the in-
stitutions from the slavery of silence. I have often
wished that he might have invented the audiphone and
HEARING THROUGH THE TEETH. 21
received as much benefit by its use as I, for then he
would have used the gold he derives from the telephone
in carrying the boon to the deaf; but when I consider
that in wishing this I must wish him deaf, and as it would
not be right for me to wish him this great affliction, there-
fore since I am deaf, and I invented the audiphone, I
would rather wish that I might have invented the tele-
phone also; in which case I assure the deaf that I would
have used my gold as freely in their behalf as would he.
[The speaker then explained the use of the audiometer
in measuring the degree of hearing one may possess.
Then, at his request, a gentleman from the audience, a
superintendent of one of our large institutions, took a
position about five feet from the speaker, and was asked
to speak loud enough for Mr. Rhodes to hear when he did
not have the audiphone in use, and by shouting at the top
of his voice, Mr. Rhodes was able to hear only two or
three "o" sounds, but could not distinguish a word.
With the audiphone adjusted to his teeth, still looking
away from the speaker, he was able to understand ordinary
tones, and repeated sentences after him; and, when look-
ing at him and using his eye and audiphone, the speaker
lowering his voice nearly as much as possible and
yet articulating, Mr. Rhodes distinctly heard every
word and repeated sentences after him, thus showing the
value of the audiphone and eye combined, although Mr.
Rhodes had never received instructions in lip reading.
The gentleman stated that he had tested Mr. Rhodes'
hearing with the audiometer when he was at his institu-
tion in 1894, and found he possessed seven per cent, in
his left ear and nothing in his right.]
PUBLISHED BY
RHODES & McCLURE PUBLISHING CO.,
93 WASHINGTON ST., CHICAGO.
All handsomely bound in the best English and American cloths, with full Silver-
embossed side and back stamp; uniform in style of binding. Together making
a handsome library, or, separately, making handsome center-table volumes.
PRICE, $1.00 EACH. SENT POST-PAID.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN'S STORIES AND SPEECHES; in one
volume, complete. New (1897) edition, handsomely illustrated;
containing the many witty, pointed and unequaled stories as told
by Mr. Lincoln, including Early life stories, Professional life
stories, Whife House and War stories; also presenting the full
text of the popular Speeches of Mr. Lincoln on the great ques-
tions of the age, including his "First Political Speech," "Rail-
Splitting Speech," " Great Debate with Douglas," and his Won-
derful Speech at Gettysburg, etc., etc.; and including his two
great Inaugurals, \\ii\\ many grand illustrations. An instructive
and valuable book; 477 pages.
MOODY'S ANECDOTES; 210 pages, exclusive of
engravings. Containing several hundred interesting
stories, told by the great evangelist, D. L. Moody,
in h ; s wonderful work in Europe and America
Hundreds of thousands of copies have been sold.
Illustrated with excellent engravings of Messrs.
Moody, Sankey, Whittle and Bliss, and thiny-two
full-pnge engravings from Gustave Dore, making
an artistic and handsome volume. " A book of an-
ecdotes which have thrilled hundreds of thou-
sands." Pittsburg Banner.
MOODY'S GOSPEL SERMONS. As delivered by the great Evangel-
ist, Dwight Lyman Moody, in his revival work in Gre ,t Britain
and America. Together with a biography of Mr. Moody and his
co-laborer, Ira David Sankey. Including, also, a short history of the
Great Revival. Each sermon is illustrated with a handsome, full-page
engraving from Gustave Dore. The book also contains an engraving of
D. L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey, Mr. Moody Preaching in the Royal Opera
House, Haymarket, London, Chicago Tabernacle (erected for Mr.
Moody's services) and "I Am the Way." A handsome and attractive vol-
ume of 443 p-ges.
MOODY'S LATEST SERMONS. As delivered by the great Evangel-
ist, Dwight Lyman Moody. Handsomely illustrated with twenty-
four full-page engravings from Gustave Dore. 335 pages.
MOODY'S CHILD STORIES. As related by Dwight Lyman Moody
in his revival work. Handsomely illustrated with sixteen full-page
engravings from Gustave Dore and 106 illustrations from J. Stuart
Littlejohn. A book adapted to children, but interesting to adults. A
handsome volume, Should be in everv family. 237 pages.
Standard Publications, $1 each, bound in Cloth.
EVILS OF THE CITIES: By T. DeWitt Talmage, D. D.; 530 pages.
The author, in company with the pi\ per detectives, visited many of
the most vile and wicked places in New York City and Brooklyn, osten-
sibly looking for a thief, but in reality taking notes for a series of
discourses published in this volume, which contains a full and graphic
de^C' iption of what he saw and the lessons drawn therefrom. The Doctor
has al^o extei ded his observations to the "Summer Resorts," "Watering
Places," Races, etc., etc., all of which are popularized from his standpoint
in this volume. Handsomely illustrated and decidedly interesting.
TALMAGE IN THE HOLY LAND: 322 pages. The
Palestine Sermons of T. DeWitt Talmage, delivered during
his tour of the Holy Land. Including graphic descriptions
of Sacred Places, Vivid Delineations of Gospel Truths,
interesting local reminiscences, etc., etc., by his visit to the
many places made sacred by the personal presence of Jesus
and the great pens of Biblical characters and writers.
Copiously illustrated.
SIN: A series of popular discourses delivered by T. DeWitt
Talmage, D. D., and illustrated with 136 engravings by
H. De Lay; 411 pages.
XT cN BILL'S POPULAR SERMONS: 373 pages. Delivered in Lon-
1 1 con and America by the Rev. John McNeill, one of the ablest and
most p< pular of living divines, and known on both continents as " TKE
SCOTCH SPURGEON" of Europe, of \\hom D. L. Moody has said: " He is
the greatest preacher in the world." A most clear, vivid, earnest and
life-like presentation of Gospel Truth; sincerely and decidedly spiritual.
A most edifying, instructive and entertaining volume for young and old.
EDISON AND HIS INVENTIONS: 278 pages. Containing
full illustrated explanations of the new and wonderful Pho-
nograph, Telephone, Electric Light, and all his principal
inventions, in Edison's own language, generally, including
many incidents, anecdotes and interesting particulars connect-
ed with the earlier and later life of the world-renowned
inventor, trgether with a full Electrical Dictionary, explain-
ing all of the new electrical terms; making a very entertain-
ing and valuable book of the life and works of Edison.
Profusely illustrated.
GEMS OF TRUTH AND BEAUTY. A choice selection
of wise, eloquent extracts from Talmage, Beecher, Moody
Spurgeon, Guthrie and Parker, forming a volume that
keenly interests. A good gift and center table book-
300 pages, Illustrated.
Standard Publications, $1 each, bound in Cloth.
TEN YEARS A COW BOY. A full and vivid de-
scription of frontier life, including romance, advent-
ure and all the varied experiences incident to a life
on the plains as cow boy, stock owner, rancher, etc.,
together with articles on cattle and sheep raising,
how to make money, description of the plains, etc.,
etc. Illustrated with 100 full-page engravings, and
contains reading matter 471 pages.
WILD LIFE IN THE FAR WEST. By C. H. Simpson, a resident
detective, living in this country. Giving a full and graphic account
of his thrilling adventures among the Indians and outlaws of Mon-
tanaincluding hunting, hair-breadth escapes, captivity, punishment and
difficulties of all kinds met with in this wild and lawless country. Illus-
trated by 30 full page engravings, by G. S. Littlejohn, and contains read-
ing matter 264 pages.
A YANKEE'S ADVENTURES IN SOUTH AFRICA. (In the dia-
mond country.) By C. H. Simpson. Giving the varied experiences,
adventures, dangers and narrow escapes of a Yankee seeking his
fortune in this wild country, which by undaunted courage, perseverance,
suffering, fighting and adventures of various sorts is requited at last by
the ownership of the largest diamond taken out of the Kimberly mines
up to that time, and with the heart and hand of the fairest daughter of a
diamond kin^. Containing 30 full-page illustrations by H. DeLay and
reading matter 220 pages.
WIT. Contains sketches from Mark Twain, witticisms
from F. H. Carruth, Donglas Jerrold, M. Quad, Op e
Reid, Mrs. Partington, Eli Perkins, O'Malley, Bill
Nye, Artemus Ward, Abe Lincoln, Burdette, Daniel
Webster, Victor Hugo, Brother Gardner, Clinton
Scollard, Tom Hood, L. R. Catlin, Josh. Billings,
Chauncey Depew and all humorous writers of mod-
ern times. Illustrated with 75 full page engravings,
by H. DeLay, and contains reading matter 407 pages.
BENONI AND SERAPTA. A Story of the Time of the Great Con-
stantine, Founder of the Christian Faith. By Douglas Vernon. A
religious novel showing a Parsee's constancy and faith through
many persecutions, trials and difficulties, placed in his way by priests,
nobles and queens of his time and his final triumph over all obstacles.
Being an interesting novel, intended to show the state of the religious
feelings and unscrupulous intrigues of those professing religion at the
time of the foundation of the Christian faith. Illustrated with 33 full-
page engravings, by H. DeLay, and contains reading matter 389 pages.
s
Standard Publications, $1 each, bound in Cloth.
SAM JONES' GOSPEL SERMONS: 346 pages,
exclusive of engravings. Sam Jones is pronounced
"one of the most sensational preachers in the world,
and yet among the most effective." His sermons are
characterized by clearness, point and great common
sense, including "hits" that ring like guns. Printed
in large type, and illustrated with engravings of Sam
Jones and Sam Small, and with nineteen full-page
engravings from Gustave Dore.
AM JONES' LATEST SERMONS. The favor with which Sam
Jones' Gospel Sermc ns has been received by the public has induced
us to issue this book of his Latest Sermons. Each rermon is illustrated
with a full-page illustration from Gustave Dore's Bible Gallery. The
book is bound unifoimly with his Gorpel Sermons, and contains, besides
illustrations, reading matter. of 350 pages.
SAM JONES' ANECDOTES; 300 pages. An exceedingly interesting
and entertaining volume, containing the many telling and effective
stories told by Mr. Jones in his sermons. They strike in all directions
and always impart good moral lessons that can not be misunderstood.
Adapted for the young and old. A book which everybody can enjoy.
MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL; and his Answers
complete; n._wly revised popular (1897) edition;
illustrated, 482 pages. Containing the full
replies of Prof. Swing, Judge Black, J. Munro
Gibson, D. D., Chaplain n McCabe, Bishop
Cheney, Dr. Thomas, Dr. Maclauglan, Dr.
Goodwin and other eminent scholars to Inger.
soil's Lectures on the "Mistakes of Moses,'-
Skulls," "What Shall We Do to be Saved?" and " Thomas Paine,"
to which are appended in full these Ingersoll lectures and his replies A'
fair presentation of the full discussion.
GREAT SPEECHES OF COL. R. G. INGERSOLL; complete;
newly revised (1897) edition; 409 pages. Containing the many
eloquent, timely, practical speeches of this most gifted o.ator and states-
man, including his recent matchless "Eulogy on Abraham Lincoln,"
" Speech on the Declaration of Independence," "To the Farmers on
Farming," Funeral Oration at his Brother's Grave, etc., etc. Fully
and handsomely illustrated.
WIT, WISDOM AND ELOQUENCE OF COL. R. G. INGERSOLL;
newly revised popular (1897) edition, illustrated; 336 pages. Con-
taining the remarkable Witticisms, terse, pungent ?nd sarcastic sayings,
and eloquent extracts on popular themes, from Ingersoll's Speeches; a
very entertaining volume.
'THE FIRST MORTGAGE; 310 pages. A truthful, instructive, pleis-
1 ing and poetical presentation of Biblical stories, history and gospel
truth; fully and handsomely illustrated from the world-renowned artist,
Gustave Dore, by E. U. Cook, the whole forming an exceedingly inter-
esting and entertaining poetical Bible. One of the handsomest volumes
ever issued in Chicago.
Standard Publications, $1.00 each, Cloth-bound.
MELODIES FOR THE LITTLE ONES
AT HOME. 320 pages. " This hand-
somely illustrated book has ben com-
piled and arranged by one who is best
able to tell what is good for the instruc-
tion and amusement of the children"
A MOTHER. Many of the rhymes are
original, but a large number are old
favorites that will interest the old folk
as reminiscences of their childhood
days. The illustrations are numerous
and include illustrations from GUSTAVE
DORE of nearly every story in the Bible
interesting to children.
They are idols of home and of households;
They are Angels of God in disguise.
His sunlight still sleeps in their tresses;
His glory still gleams in their eyes.
GEMS OF POETRY. 407 pages. Finely illustrated. Contains a very
choice and varied selection of our most popular, beautiful and time-
honored poems, written by the poets of all ages and climes. A
magnificent gift book for a friend; a splendid book for the holidays; ap-
propriate for a birthday or wedding present; a fine center-table book, in-
teresting to all.
COL. R. G. INGERSOLL'S LECTURES COMPLETE. 426 pages.
Including his ''Answers to the Clergy," his lectures on "Gods,"
"Ghosts," "Hell," "Individuality," "Humboldt," "Which
Way," "The Great Infidels," "Talmagian Theology," "At a Child's
Grave," " Ingersoll's Oration at His Brother's Grave," " Mistakes of
Moses," "Skulls and Replies," and "What Shall We Do to Be Saved?"
COL. R. G. INGERSOLL'S LATEST LECTURES. 450 pages. In-
cluding his lectures on "Thomas Paine," "Liberty of Man, Woman
and Child," "Orthodoxy," "Blasphemy," "Some Reasons Why,"
"Intellectual Development," " Human Rights," " Talmagian Theology,"
"Religious Intolerance," "Hereafter," "Review of His Reviewers,"
"How the Gods Grow," "The Religion of Our Day," " Heretics and
Heresies," "TheBible," "Voltaire," " Myth and Miracle." Including,
also, Ingersoll's letters on "The Chinese God," "Is Suicide a Sin ?"
"The Right to One's Life."
Price, sent by mail, post-paid, bound in cloth with silver trimmings. $i oo
ADDRESS
RHODES & M'CLURE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
93 WASHINGTON ST., CHICAGO
GENERAL LIBRARY
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY
RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED
This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the
date to which renewed.
Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.
130ct'54BP
NOV 13 1954 ^'
1
1954 fll
JUL2 1955
SEP 61951
LU REC , D
':
L.CI
OCT8 195C;
21-100m-l, '54 (1887sl6) 476
81960
J
1 1 1982
YC 30135
--\
U.C. BERKELEY LIBRARIES