mmm. €%. /^A '^tM: ^^yAMUL^i^J^k^L^^-y^l}^' ■v- PRESENTED TO THE LIBRARY OF PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY BY JVTps. Ale^^andeF Pfoudfit. BL 2790 .16 M3 1886 McClure, J. B. 1832-1895, Mistakes of Ingersoll j^-^ ■ T.-jd I cvLv'-'^'ia ' D :i^{; Mistakes OF INGERSOLL AND HIS ANSW^ERS COMPLETE. PART 1. MiSTiVKES OF InGERSOLL, AS SHOWN BY Judge Jere S. Black, Prof. Swing, J. Monro Gibson, D.D., W. H. Ryder, D. D., Rabbi Wise, Brooke Herford, D. D., and others. INCLUDING INGERSOLl's LECTURE, THE "MISTAKES OF MOSES." PART 2, Mistakes of Ingersoll, AS SHOWN BY Bishop Cheney, Chaplain McCabe, Rev.W. F. Crafts, Robert Collyer, D.D., Arthur Swazey, D.D., Fred. Perry Powers, and others. INCLUDING ALSO INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON "SKULLS," And His Funeral Oration at His Brother's Grave , WITH COMMENTS ON THE SAME BY Henry Ward Beecher and Hon. Isaac N. Arnold. PART 3. Ingersoll's New Departure. REPLIES TO HIS FAMOUS LECTURE, "WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED?" BY Prof. David S-wing. Bishop Fallows, Dr. H. W. Thomas, Prof. Curtis, Dr. Lorimer, Dr. Courtney and others. WITH THE LECTURE APPENDED. AND INGERSOLL'S ANSWERS TO Prof. Swing, Dr. Thomas, and others. PART 4. Ingersoll's Lecture ON WITH CRITICISMS. CHICAGO: RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 1886. Entered according to Act oi Congress, in tlie year 1882, By J. B. McClure & K. S. Rhodes, In the OfiBce of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. A religious faith at present so generally pervades the civilized world that it seems almost amazing that any one should dare speak as Mr. Ingersoll does in his several lec- tures about the Bible. It is this singularity, no doubt, rather than intrinsic worth, which gives any significance that may attach to his words. That the Bible is in the least endangered is out of the question. It is too late now for that. The words herein compiled from good and able men, who have made the great Book, in its early language, import and history, a careful study for long years, will show how futile are Mr. Ingersoll's efforts in parading what he calls the " Mistakes of Moses," etc. Indeed, it would seem that, possibly Mr. I. is guilty of a mistaken identity, for he is severely accused of false assertions and misrepresentations concerning the real Moses. This reminds us of a " mis- take" which was made on a certain occasion by the celebra- ted Archbishop of Dublin, the gifted author of the work so widely known, entitled "The Study of Words." He was not in robust health at the time, and for many years had been apprehensive of paralysis. At a dinner in Dublin,' given by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, his grace sat on the right of his hostess, the Duchess of Abercorn. Id the midst of the dinner the company was startled by seeing the (3) 4 PREFACE. Archbishop rise from his seat, and still more startled to hear him exclaim in a dismal and sepulchral tone, " It has cornel it has come!" " What has come, your Grace? " eagerly cried half a dozen voices from different parts of the table. " What I have been expecting for twenty years," solemnly answered the archbishop — " a stroke of paralysis. I have been pinching myself for the last twenty minutes, and find myself entirely without sensation." "Pardon me, my dear archbishop," said the duchess, looking up at him with a somewhat quizzical smile — " par- don me for contradicting you, but it is / that you have been pinching P^ Messrs. Gibson, Swing, Ryder and Herford, of Chicago, and Rabbi Wise, of Cincinnati, whose replies are herein given, are too well known as scholars and divines, to require any introduction to a reading public. Their words are wise and timely, and are put on record in this form to show the weakness of modern infidelity and the stability of Divine Truth. J. 6. McCluse. January 1st, 1886. PART I. PAOS Frof. Swing's Reply 7 The Lawyer vs. The Philosopher — IngersolPs Pro- fessional Proclivities in Making a Part Equal to the Whole 8 Seven Mistakes of Moses Left Out! — Injustice to Hebrew History 10 Swing Puts Himself in IngersolPs Place and At- tacks the Seventeenth Century — How it Works 13 IngersolPs [N^arrowness Shuts Out God, Heaven and Immortality — Infidel Dogmatism ... 15 In the World's Great Freedom of Choice, Ingersoll is Counted Out 18 Db. Ryder's Reply 21 IngersolPs Unfairness — Attributes to Moses State- • ments not in the Bible 22 His Temporary Insanity occasioned by Heavy Rains — Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge — Dam- aging Blunders — Ingersoll up the Wrong Moun- tain 24 Top-heavy — Too Broad a Structure reared on a Too Narrow Base 27 IngersolPs Inconsistency . , . , . 29 He Has No Poetry in His Soul ; ergo^ etc. . . 81 Additional Misrepresentations .... 32 Dr. Ryder Propounds a Question .... 84 ^5) CONTENTS. PAGE IngersoU Admits His Sad Need of Inspiration . 35 IngersolPs '* Religion of Humanity " All Right Ex- ce])t the Religion . . . . . .37 Dr. Ryder Tells a Little Story for the sake of Illus- tration 39 Db, Herford's Reply 41 The IngersoU Paradox 42 IngersolPs Exaggerations and False Assertions . 43 Dr. Herford's Story of Moses, with an Apt Illustra- tion— The Germinal Power of the Pentateuch . 46 The Mosaic Religion of Humanity , . .49 The Jewish Rabbi's Reply . . • . . 63 Dr. Gibson's Reply .61 IngersoU Betrays His Ignorance .... 62 Harmony of Science and Genesis , , . .63 The Harmony of Genesis and Science Not the Result of Guess-work, but of Inspiration . 67 ani r . .69 Katnre 70 Man 72 Woman 73 Mistakes Respecting Labor and Death Corrected . 75 The Deluge and its Difficulties — Not Universal — Ararat originally a District (alas ! IngersoU calls it a High Mountain) — Other Deluges . . 76 Faith in Jesus Christ the Essential Factor . . 80 Candor vb. Injustice — Dr. Gibson's Pointed Sum- mary ........ 81 What Distinguished Men Say of tjie Bible . 85-96 Ikgebsoll's Lecture, Entitled "The Mistakes of Moses," . . 97 Judge Jere S. Black's Reply .... 119-128 W. F. Crafts' Reply ...... Ingersollism Outlined — "Ten Points" instead of " Five " — Infi- del Protoplasm ...... First Point in the Ten — Sepulchral Hoots of the Ingersoll Owl — A Theological Rip Van Winkle .... Ingersoll Mistakes a Part for the Whole — Gross Misrepresenta- tions . . . . The Great Ingersoll Boomerang — How it Works — Further Mis- representations Examined . . Misrepresenting Bible Passages ..... Sun and Moon Standing Still ..... Hell . . The Present vs. the Future ..... Ingersoll's Horrible Estimate of Truth The Bible the Best of Books, and Christ the Best of Men -^ . Something New if True — Infidelity the Essential Factor in Pro- gressive Civilization — But Coleridge, Wm. H. Seward, Bis- marck, and other Great Statesman can not see it— Civilization goes onlj with Christianity .... Marvelous Power of Time and Circumstance — Tragic Efl"ect of Iso-thermal Lines — Peoria Mud Necessarily the Seventh Heaven as Ingersoll Sees it . Law is Ingersoll's God ..... Liberty and Infidelity — What De Tocqueville Says About it Woman— Ingersoll's Theory at Variance with Facts Ingersoll's Theory of Childhood— Some of His Little Stories— The Whole Subject Carefully Examined — Significant Incident in the Life of Abraham Lincoln .... Ingersoll Says Christianity Fetters Thought— The Bible and a Host of Distinguished Men Say Otherwise A Cloua of Witnesses ..... Jesus Christ ....... Amazing Ignorance of Infidels Concerning the Scriptures — Hume's Ignorance of the New Testament— Tom Paine With- out a Bible . . PAGE. 7 10 12 13 14 15 16 17 19 20 21 24 27 32 34 ■37 38 CONTENTS. Distributed Ignorance and Concentrated Hatred — Probable Cause of Ingersoll's Infidelity ..... 39 The Truth of the Whole Matter ..... 40 Chaplain McCajbe's Reply . . . . .43 The Famous Chaplain Has a Remarkable Dream — He Sees the Great City of Ingersollville— Whicli Ingersoll and the Infidel Host Enter — And are Shut in for Six Months — Remarkable Condition of Things Outside and Inside— Happiness and Misery— Ingersoll Finally Petitions for a Church and sends for a Lot of Preachers ..... 43 Dr. Swazey's Reply ...... 49 Momentary View of Col. Ingersoll Through the Doctor's Glass — The Bible on the Meridian — What the Doctor Sees in the Great Book ....... 49 Occultatiou of Ingersoll's Good Sense — General Survey of Deities- Scope of Divine Revelation ... 51 The Great Central Figure — Absolute Unity of the Bible System 53 The Bible Law of Development vs. Infidel Philosophy . 54 Common Sense View of the Subject — How it Eliminates Polyg- amy, Slavery, Etc. ...... 56 More Common Sense — The Great Ingersoll Orb Approaching the Nihilistic Belt— Nebulae ..... 58 Dr. CoiiLYER's Reply ...... 63 Dr. CoUyer Relates a Little Story — A Book that Cost Mr. Inger- soll the Governorship of Illinois — The Volume Philosophically Considered — Heavj'- Blows . . . . .63 Sparks Flying in all Directions — Singular Mental Phenomenon Occasioned by $25,000 a Year .... 64 The Clear Ring of Truth vs. the Dull Thud of the Baser Metal- Potency of Simple Statement — The Doctor's Objections to Ingersoll's Talk ...... 67 Putting the Fine Edge on Orthodoxy— Taking a Weld with Prof. Swing and Dr. Thomas — Borax and Bigotry . . 69 A Touching Illustration — Eloquence and Truth— Havelock's Saints ........ 73 Atheism — Not an Institution but a " Destitution I " — The True Life 74 Fred. Perry Powers' Reply .... 75 The Sinaitic Code— Solvent Powers of the Historic Method- Graphic Illustration of the Two Schools . . .75 CONTENTS. Divine Adjustment of tlie Moral Law — Progressive Eliminatiou of Polygamy, Slavery, Etc. — Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary 78 Purpose and Potency of the Mosaic Law ... 80 Excessive Wickedness and Proportionate Punishment — The Court of Heaven vs. the Court of Earth . . .82 Able Bodied Mendacity and Civilization — Love and Obedience 84 Mr. Powers' Pungent Peroration «... 85 Bishop Cheney's Keplt . . . . . .89 How the Question of Forgery Applies to the Five Books of Moses ........ 89 The " Common Ground " of the Contending Parties — Logical Position of Ezra . . . . . . .91 The Bishop Planting Signals on the Mountain Tops of History — Survey of the New Moses Air Line .... 92 Termination of the Great Air Line . . . . 95 Genealogical Reflections, . . . . . 96 Cutting the Gordian Knot . . . . . .97 The Bishop's Challenge — Moses and Ingersoll as Chronologists 99 Mud Calendars vs. Facts — Some Sad and Sorrowful Scientific Figuring in the Sand . . . . . .101 A Mistake of Ingersoll, Tom Paine & Co. Corrected — Conclusion 103 tNGERsOLL's Lecture ON Skulls and his Replies to Prof. Swing, Dr. Ryder, Dr. Herford, Dr. Collyer, and Other Critics, . . 107 Ingersoll at His Brother's Grave , . • 146 Colonel Ingersoll's Funeral Oration .... 147 Henry Ward Beecher's Comments on Mr. Ingersoll's Pailh, and Funeral Discourse ...... 148 Hon. Isaac N. Arnold's Comments on In^rersoll's Funeral Oration ..-...- 150 PART III. Reply of Pkofessor David Swing Col. Ingersoll's New Lecture under Prof. Swing's Stero- scope— He Finds it Witty, Powerful and Wortliy of "All Fair Rejoinder" Matthew's Gospel. ". The Colonel is Xot Sound in the Faith Christianity Philosophically Considered— It Must Not be Confounded with the Follies of Man The "Weak Points in Ingersoll's Lecture The Colonel's Cruel Advice, which He Himself Does Not Follow— A Solid Shot from Prof. Swing The Grand Architecture of Home— An Eloquent Per- oration I'age. 17 17 19 21 22 25 2d 28 31 Reply of Dr. H. W. Thomas Points Wherein the Doctor and the Colonel Agree and Differ— A Fair and Candid Rejoinder Ingersoll's New Departure— What the Doctor says About it The Teachings of Christ Emphasized— Character Rather Than Dogma •. '^5 31 33 CONTENTS. Page. Keply of Dr. Geohge C. Lorimer 39 The Scope of the Lecture, and Not the Lecturer, undei Consideration— The Issue— Faith and Works 30 Theology Progressive — Creeds, Faith, Etc 41 Ingersoll's Gospel under the Doctor's Microscope Shows a Fatal Contradiction— (iod Forgives, but "Bob" is for " Inexorable Justice -The Colonel, in Fact, an Extreme Calvinist 43 Ingersoll Does Xot Answer the Question, " What Shall We Do to Be Saved ? 44 Authenticity of the New Testament 45 The Gospel Plan of Salvation 47 The Vital Relation of Faith to the Soul— Its Elevating . and Saving Power When Fixed on Jesus Christ 50 Saved, ISTot for Faith's Sake, Nor Works' Sake, But for Christ's Sake 51 Infidelity L^nmasked 53 Reply of Professor Samuel Ives Curtis 55 A Little Story— Ingersoll "Innocent of Greek," and the Consequences 55 Ingersoll's Interpolations " Won't Do." •. . 56 Love and Obedience 58 Faith in Christ the Great Basis of Salvation 60 Reply of Dr. Frederick Couktxey 63 Preparatory Statement 63 Ingersoll's Alleged Interpolations 64 Clear, Pointed, and Pungent Answers to a Number of Ingersoll's Assertions 66 How Shall We Account for the Kingdom of Christ?. . . 70 Christ the Summit of Ilistorv — 72 CONTENTS. Page. The Facts of Faith— A Few Words About " Believing." 75 More About Faith 77 The Anathanasian Creed 8i John Stuart Mill at Variance with Ingersoll on the Human Will . 83 The Gospel of Good Cooking— Does " Bob " Under- stand It? 84 Reply of Bishop Fallows 87 The Bishop Believes the Colonel Is Making "True Progress " 87 The Facts in the Case- 88 How Celsus, the Ingersoll of the Second Century, Did a Great Work for the Church 91 Appended : Ingersoll's Lecture, " What Shall We Do to Be Saved?" 93 Ingersoll's Answer to Prof. Swing, Dr. Thomas, and Others 121 PAET IV. PAGE Simeon Gilbert's Reply H Heavy Cannonading Against the Ingersoll Citadel— The Learned Editor Parks His Artillery— Twenty-one Effective Shots ... ... 11 Col. Ingersoll Should Discriminate, and Be Fair . 17 Bishop Fallows' Reply '21 Col. Ingersoll at His Old Tricks— His Defense of Thomas Paine Only a New Cover Under Which he is Fio-htiiio- the Church ••••.... 21 What Messrs. Spencer, Mill, Tyndall, and Paine Say of the Divine Existence— Paine Believes in One God and Immortality ....... 23 Ingersoll's Defective Logic— The Church and Chris- tianity Not Identical— Dr. Draper's Explanation 25 The Important Factors in Paine's Life— The Bishop and Ingersoll Concerning the So-Called Church Persecutions •••..... 27 Ingersoll's Fatal Mistake — True Christianity Not Within Range of the Ingersoll Guns . . .28 CONTENTS. The Bishop's Closing Words — Peace, Prosperity, and Christianity Inseparable ...... 29 Professor Wilcox's Reply . . . . . 33 The Professor's Interview with Paine's Physician, Dr. Manly — Remorseful Death of the Great Infidel . 33 James Maclaughlin's Reply . . . . . 39 The Scotchman Looks the Lawyer Square in the Face — How They Manage Witnesses— Ingersoll and His Last Client, Thomas Paine ..... 39 Getting at the Facts — Interesting Incidents in Paine's Life . 40 Bancroft vs. Ingu^-soll — Additional Facts . . .41 The Reign of T<^,Tor — The Great Ingersoll Epoch — Voting for the i ig's Execution . . . .43 How Ingersoll W tes His Powder — Some of His Blunders — Paine loral Decline . . . .45 Charity vs. Slander ...... 46 The Scotchman Drav\ His Bible on the Colonel — A Heavy Shot Which Hits Between the Eyes . . 47 Ingersoll's Sophistries ...... 4S Is it True? Paine as a Philanthropist . . .50 John Calvin ....... 51 Centre Shots By a Scotch Rifleman . . . .53 Impotence of Infidelity ...... 54 Watson's Reply ........ 57 Paine's Popularity and Habits^A Curious Side-Light Thrown upon Him in "Men and Times of the Revo- lution," 57 CONTENTS. Dr. Blackburn's Reply 59 The Paine Factor in American Liberty Not as Potent as Ingersoll Imagines — Important and Interesting Facts 59 De. Hatfield's Reply 63 Wm. Carver's Letter to Thomas Paine and Dr. Hat- field's Comments ....... 63 Additional Facts Concerning the Great Infidel . . 64 What a Catholic Bishop says of Paine's Closing Hours 66 Dr. Goodwin's Reply 71 The Renowned Pastor of over a Thousand Church Mem- bers Rises in Defense of the Truth — The Ax Laid at the Root of the Ingersoll Tree — The Solemn Issue ......... 71 IngersoU's Sad Need of Spectacles at a Much Earlier Period in Life — What He Sees in the Historic Spec- trum— A Remarkable Phenomenon ... 73 Further Optical Illusions of the Eloquent Colonel — Why Paine Came to America .... 75 Paine and American Independence — The Cause of Liberty at White Heat before Mr. Paine gets Around — Interesting Facts ...... 76 Paine's Fractional Glory in the French Republic . 78 A Fair Test with Some Plain Philosophy ... 79 Jesus Christ and the Testimony — Paine's Confession 81 What the Testimony Demonstrates and its Significance 82 The Other Side — Gibbon, Hume, Voltaire & Co. — How the Apostles of Infidelity Look Under the Doctor's Electric Light ....... 84 CONTENTS. 87 88 89 91 92 The Divine Philosophy— The Way .... The Truth And the Life The Potency of Infidelity Two Pictures Christianity Not Responsible for the Wickedness of Christians — Lawlessness not the Law The Great Cloud of Witnesses .... The Fruits of Infidelity — The Blackest Page in Human History — The French Revolution Ingersollism Unveiled ....... Penumbra of He]l The Final Picture— An Endless Night of Tears Tallyrand's Advice to Ingersoll and His Friends Pere Hyacintiie's Reply 103 Ingersollism in Paris . . . . • . 103 Dying Words ......•• H^ Col. IncrersoU's Lecture on Thomas Paine; Delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago Jan. 29, 1880— Ver- batim Report . . . . . . . . !!'<' 03 95 97 98 99 100 101 ccyz-js^S^^^^ 7j^ PART I. Mistakes of Ingersoll AS SHOWN BT PROF. SWING. W. H. RYDER, D. D., BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D., RABBI WISE, And otusxs. PKOF. SWING'S REPLY, This discourse is not spoken regarding the man, Robert Gr. Ingersoll, but regarding the addresses which he is deliv- ering and is otherwise publishing. The man Ingersoll is said to be, in his private life, kind, neighborly, humane, and in many ways an example which might be imitated with great profit by thousands who represent themselves as holding the Pagan or the Christian religion. But, were this author and lecturer a mean, wicked man, I should still be bound to consider his thoughts apart from the thinker just as we deal with Bacon's ideas apart from his moral qualities, and the politics of Alexander Hamilton apart from ih» infirmities of his moral sentiments. The intelv i MISTAKES OF INGEJRSOLL, lect of such an individual as the one before ns is a thinking machine. It makes a survey of the religious landscape. Objects strike it that escape you and me. His eyes are not those of a preacher, not those of a bishop, nor those of an evangelist like Mr. Moody; not those of a moralist like Dymond or William Penn, nor those of Theodore Parker or Emerson, but they are a vision purely his own, and our task is limited to the inquiry what this peculiar sense dis- covers in our wide and varied world. The Lawyer vs. The Philosopher — Ingersoll's Professional Proclivities in Making a Part equal to the Whole ! We perceive at once that these addresses do not offer us any system of philosophy for woman, or child, or State, and therefore they cannot aspire to be any valuable Mentor to tell each young Telemachus how to live. They are the speeches of a lawyer retained by one client of a large case. Men trained in a profession come by degrees into the pro- fession's channel, and flow only in the one direction, and al- ways between the same banks. The master of a learned profession at last becomes its slave. He who follows faith- fully any calling wears at last a soul of that calling's shape. You remember the death scene of the poor old schoolmas- ter. He [had assembled the boys and girls in the winter mornings and had dismissed them winter evenings after sundown, and had done this for fifty long years. One win- ter Monday he did not appear. Death had struck his old and feeble pulse; but, dying, his mind followed its beauti- ful but narrow river-bed, and his last words were: "It is growing dark — the school is dismissed — let the girls pass out first." Yery rarely does the man in the pulpit, or at the bar, or in statesmanship, escape this molding hand of his pursuit. We are all clay in the hands of that potter PROF. SWING'S REPLY, 9 which is called a pursuit. A pursuit is seldom an ocean of water; it is more commonly a canal. But if there be a class of men more modified than others in language and forms of speech, the la^vyers compose such a class, for it is never their business to present both sides. It is their espe- cial duty so to arrange a part of the facts as that they shall seem to be the whole facts, and next to their power of pre- senting a cause must come their power to conceal all aspects unfavorable to their purpose. A philosopher must see and set forth at once both sides of all questions, but a lawyer must learn to see the one side of a case, for there is another man expressly employed to see the reverse of the shield. But few of us are philosophers. When we wish to exhibit something, we instantly cut off all light except that which will fall upon our goods. If we are to display only a yard of silk, we will veil the sun and move about to find the right position, and then light a little more gas, that the fields, and hills, and heavens may all withdraw, and permit us to see the fold of a bride's dress. Thus all the profes- sions, honored by being called learned, do more or less cut off the light from all things except the fabric that is being unfolded by their skillful fingers. Men of intense emotional power like Mr. Ingersoll, and men who, like him, have hearts as full of colors as a paint- er's shop, are wont, beyond common, to pour their passion upon one object rather than diffuse it all over the world. These can awaken, and entertain, and shake, and unsettle, but then, after all is over, we all must seek for final guides men who are calmer and who spread gentler tints with their brush. I am, therefore, of the opinion that none of us should follow anyone man, but rather all men; should seek that general impression, that wide-reaching common-sense, which knows little of ecstacy and little of despair. These Id MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. " Addresses " under notice are wonderful concentrations of wit, and fun, and tears, and logic, but concentrations upon minor points. They are severe upon a little group of men, upon literalists and old Popes, and old monks, but they do not weigh and measure fully the religion of such a being as Jesus Christ, nor touch the ideas and actions of the human race away £rom these fading forms of human nature. Seven Mistakes of Moses Left onti — Injastice to Hebrew History. These addresses do injustice to the Hebrew history. A lawyer has a right to be one-sided and narrow when he is presenting the cause of his client, but when he is addressing a public upon a religious, or political, or social question, narrowness in his discourse must be considered an infirmity, or else an act of injustice. These speeches betray either unconscious narrowness or willful injustice. But Mr. Inger- BoU is the embodiment of sincerity, according to those who enjoy his acquaintance, and therefore we must conclude that the cast of his mind is such that it is led hither and thither by that narrowness which belongs no more to a high Calvinist than to a high infidel. If the lecture upon "Moses" had been more thoughtful, it would have con- fessed that there were several forms of the man " Moses," — the historic " Moses," the Hebrew " Moses," and the Calvin- istic " Moses; " and then, after this concession, he might have assailed the " Calvinistic Moses." .... But if the addresses had been broad, and spoken for that larger audience called humanity, they would have asked ua to mark the mistakes of the Moses of Hebrew times and of common history. But they did not dream of this. Stand- ing in the presence of one of the grandest figures of Egyp- FROF. SWING'S REPLY. i\ dan and Hebrew antiquity, Mr. IngersoU failed to see this personage, and permitted nothing to come upon his field of vision except those sixteenth century theologians who dis- torted alike the mission of Moses and of Christ, and even of the Almighty. To set forth the mistakes of the historic "Moses" would not be any easy task. One doing this would be compelled to ask us to mark the blunders of a leader who planned freedom for slaves; who bore complain- ings from an ignorant people until he won the fame of unu- sual meekness, one who did in reality what infidels only have dreamed of doing — living and dying for the people; the mistakes of one whose ten laws are still the fundamental ideas of a State, of one who organized a nation which lived and flourished for 1,500 years; th^ mistakes of one who divested the idea of God of bestiality and began to clothe it with the notions of wisdom and justice, and even tenderness; the follies of one who established industry and education, and 2 higher form of religioD, and gave the nation holding Ihese virtues such an impulse that in the hour of dissolving it produced a Jesus Christ and the twelve Apostles; and thus did more in its death than Atheism could achieve in all the eons of geology. Seven mistakes of Moses left out! There is, it is true, a time and a place for irony, but after it has done its work amid the accidental of a time or a place, there remains yet much to be studied by the sober intellect and loved by the heart which really cares for the useful and the true. It is essentially a small matter that some poetic mind, some Froissart or some Herodotus, came along per- haps after the reigns of David and Solomon, and gathered up all the truths of old Hebrew tradition, and all the legends, too, and wove them together, for out of such entanglements the essential ideas generally rise up just as noble pine trees at last rise up above the brambles and thickets at their base, 12 MISTAKES OP INGERSOLL. and evermore stand in the full presence of rain, and air, and sun. Above the brambles and thorn of legend, at which the narrow eye may laugh, there rises up from the Mosaic soil a growth of moral truth that catches at last fall sun- shine and full breeze; a growth that will long make a good shadow for the graves of Christian and infidel beneath. The errors of legend are so unimportant that even a Divine Book may carry them. It will thus appear that the method of the addresses is very defective. It is not a wide survey of a two-thousand- year period in human civilization, a period when the He- brews were making imperishable the good of the Egyptians who were dying from vices and despotism, but is only the ramble of a satirist having a sharp eye for defects and a most ready tongue. All the by -gone periods may be passed over in two manners. "We may go forth for our laughter or for our pensiveness and wisdom. Juvenal saw old Rome full of dissolute men and women. Yirgil saw it full of litera- ture. Tacitus found it not destitute of patriots and heroes; and when Juvenal found the husbands all debauchees, and the wives aU hypocrites, there the most calm and elegant historians found the most excellent Agricola, and found a wife of spotless fame in the daughter Domitia. Thus in the very generations in which the lampoons of Juvenal found only vice, behold we see beauty and virtue in full bloom around the homes of Tacitus, and Agricola, and Pliny. Thus all the fields of human thought lie open to the invasion of those who wish to mock, and of those who wish to admire. And beyond doubt when Mr. IngersoU shall have uttered his last thought over the Mistakes of Moses, some other form of intellect could glean in the same field, and leave covered with the truths of Moses, a nobler and larger tablet. PROF. SWING'S REPLY. 18 Swing Pats Himself in Ingersoll's Place and Attacks lb* Seventeenth Century. — How it "Works! Permit me now, in imitation of the style of these addresses, to ask you to look at the seventeenth century: Why, it all drips in blood! Horror upon horrors! The King of Persia put to death some of the Royal family and put out the eyes of all the rest — even the eyes of infants. Eussia begins her cruel oppression of Poland. Prussia, the hope of Europe, is desolated by war, which never lifted its black cloud for thirty years. In this wretched century came the massacre of Prague and the forcible banishment of 30,000 Protestant families. Allowing five persons to a family, it will thus ap- pear that 160,000 were driven from their homes and country. Further south, in France, a few years before, 700,000 Pro- testants had been murdered in twenty -four hours. After- ward came the licentious court of Louis XIY. ; while over in England noble men and women were being beheaded or otherwise slain in dreadful numbers. The beautiful Queen Mary is beheaded just as the century begins, and Essex is beheaded in its full opening. And in its close France re- enters the scene, revokes the edict of Nantes, and sends into exile 800,000 of her best citizens. Thus dragged along the seventeenth century, as it would seem, bleeding, and weeping, and gasping in perpetual dying. What a picture! Amazing indeed, but narrow and false! I have been thinking only of the "mistakes " of a timo Just look at that century again with a wider survey and a happier heart, and lol we see in it a matchless line of immortal worthies. There flourished Gustavus, laying the foundations of our liberty; there lived Grotius, writing down the holiest principles of duty; there we see Galileo inventing the telescope, and beholding the starry sky; there 14 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. sits Kepler finding the highest laws of astronomy; near these are the French preachers, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Mas- silon, whose fame has not been equaled; there, too, Pascal and Corneille. But this is not all. It is not one-third the splendor of that one epoch, for, cross the Channel, and behold you meet Shakspeare, and Lord Bacon, and Milton, and Locke, and while these divine minds are composing their books, Cromwell is overthrowing despots, and a Eepublic springs up as by enchantment. Thus the seven- teenth century, which awhile ago seemed only a period that a kind heart might wish stricken from history, now comes back to us as the sublime dawn of poetry, and science, and eloquence, and liberty. The truth is we must move through the present and the past with both eyes wide open, and with a mind willing to know all and to draw a conclusion from the whole combined cloud of witnesses. The author of the addresses does not do this. He does not make a wide survey nor draw conclu- sions from widely scattered facts ; and hence, after he has spoken about the horrors of the Mosaic age, or of the church there remains that age or that church emptying rich treas- ures into the general civilization, purifying the barbarous ages, awaking the intellect, stimulating the arts, inspiring good works, elevating the life of the living, by uetting before man a God and a future existence. Our Christianity has a Hebrew origin. The sermon on the Mount was begun by Moses. The eloquence of Mr. Ingersoll is much Kke the art of Hogarth or John Leech, — an acute, and witty, and interest- ing art, but very limited in its range. Hogarth was with- out a rival in his ability to picture the " mistakes" of mar- riage, and of a " Rake's Progress," the peculiarity of " Beer Lane" and ^^ Gin Lane"; and his art was legitimate in its FROF. SWING'S REPLY. 15 field, bnt its field was narrow, and took no notice of the eternal beauty of things as painted by Kubens or E^phaei After Hogarth had said all he could see and believe about marriagerthere stood the holy relation in its historic great- ness, filling millions of homes with its peace and friend- ship, notwithstanding the mirth-provoking pencil. Thus the ideas of "Moses," and " Church," and "Heaven," and " God" lie before Mr. IngersoU to be pictured by his skill- ful derision, but after the artist has drawn his little Puritanic Hebrew and his absurd Heaven, and has painted his little gods, and has limned his own Papal Heaven and Hell, another scene opens and there untarnished are the deep things of right and wrong, the immortal hopes of man, and a Heavenly Father which cannot be placed upon a jester's John Leech found the weak points m all English high and low life. The fashions, and sports, and entertainments, and the current politics, underwent for a generation the tor- ture of his pictures, his sketches, his cartoons, but the moment the laugh had ended, the homes of England, the happy social life of rich and poor, the learning and wisdom of her statesmen were back in their place just as the sun is in his place after a noisy thunderstorm has passed by. Ingersoll's Narrowness Shuts out God. Heaven and Immor- tality — Infidel Dogmatism. This narrowness of survey which marks Mr. Ingersoll's estimate of the Hebrew period and of the human Church, follows him in his thoughts about another life and the exist- ence of God. He denies that any regard whatever should be paid to a second life. Heaven deserves no consider- ation at our hands. He says in his lecture on the Gods: "E^ason, observation and experience have taught us 2 16 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die." Such assertions as these no broadly-reachipg mind could make, for the broad mind, not knowing but that there may be a second life, having no positive information on that point, is bound to admit all that im certainty, and that hope is a most lawful element in that strange mingling which makes up the soul. As Mr. IngersoU does not know whence man came, so he knows not whither he goes, and therefore he must himself stand and permit others to stand in the presence of death as in the presence of a great mystery that, at least, should silence all dogmatism of priest or infidel. The logic of the addresses may be fitted for the common jury, but they are too rude for man who is weeping his way algng between birth and death. In some better hour the lawyer forgets his petit jury and addresses the human soul. On the title page of a recent volume he says in substance that: " The dream of immor- tal life has always existed in the heart of man, and will remain there in all its matchless charms, born not of any book or creed, but out of human affection;" and being not born of reason and sense, he can but reject its hope; he is personally above being molded in thought, or action, by such a fable of the heart. In calling such a dream a fable, he is guilty of that very dogmatism which he so hates in Calvin and Edwards, for if Calvin was too certain that he knew God's will, Mr. IngersoU is too certain that he knows God not to exist. It often happens that the dogmatism of the bigot must await its exact parallel in the dogmatism of the atheist. The ideas of a future life and a God are thus in these addresses rudely set aside as though this author had shown the real origin and destiny of the Uni- verse, and had found out the secret of the grave. FROF. SWING'S REPLY. 17 He wonld pay no attention to the idea of God. He would not be guilty of any worship in this life. He says: "If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to and independent of nature shall be demonstrated, there will be time enough to kneel. Until then let us stand erect." In such language we find only a perfect overthrow of the method of the human soul; for the soul has never dared wait for any such certainty in any of the paths before it. It has always been compelled to build up before itself the largest possible motives and hopes, and then live for them and abide the consequences. It is wonderful that a man who will pluck a violet and draw delight from its tender color and still more delicate perfume, will sternly command the human race not to hold in its hands any flower of im- mortality, lest by chance its leaves may at last wither. If this idea of a future life should at last fail, which seems im- possible, the human heart will be all the purer and happier from having held all through these years a lily so sweet and 80 white. Logic cannot make such short work of the religious sen- timents. Mr. Ingersoll says: " If you can ever find a God, just let me know, and I shall kneel. Until then I shall stand erect." What injustice to that delicate form of rea- son, which has moved the world for perhaps 10,000 years I We do not propose to find God or a future life. What the world has found long since is the deep hope in a God, and the measureless hope that the dying loved ones of this world will meet in a land that is better. Nobody has come to the human race to let it know that a God has been found, but many have come to it saying: "My dear children, let us trust that all this matchless universe came from a Creator, and that from him we also came." So many and so holy were these voices, and so responsive was the heart, that upon 18 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. this trust tlie living and the dying have knelt and have told their longings to the Invisible. The human race has not been haughty. It has been willing to kneel. Its heart hag never been stone, nor its knees brass. It has stood erect in battle where liberty was to be won ; it has been as erect as an infidel when a bosom was to be bared for arrows or bullets, or when the neck was to be unclothed for the fatal ax, but in moments of hope and longing it has bent willingly in hope and prayer. The advice of the Addresses not to kneel until you have reached and handled the Creator, is advice that civilization has always spurned, for it lias woven all its gorgeous fabrics out of delicate probabilities, — gossamer threads spun by the heart. Fame, and learning, and art, and happiness are all simple possibilities before each youth. He does not dare say, Make me sure of results, and I will gird myself for the present. He casts himself upon the bet- ter of two possibilities, and is borne along toward an un- known end. Thus has the human race dealt with the inti- mations of religion. It has cast itself upon the better hope, and, being at perfect liberty to espouse Atheism, has always repudiated it as being a paralysis of the soul, and a perfect reversal of the common logic of society. In the "World's Great Freedom of Choice, Ingersoll is Coun- ted out! The world has always been perfectly free to use the form of reasoning which Mr. Ingersoll suggests. No ^Yestmin- ster Assembly, no Calvin compelled the human family from Old Egypt to Greece to think the universe had a Creator. The world has always been free to suppose that such seasons as day and night and spring and summer, such creatures as the nightingale and man, such a star as the sun, all came from mud and water and fire, mingling of their FROF. SWING'S REPLY. 19 own accord ; but the world has had no wide use for such conclusions. Of its own free choice, it has avoided Atheism, and has never made up anywhere a civilization without dis- carding the idea of waiting for a demonstration, and with- out espousing tlie idea tliat all noble society reposes upon lofty hopes. Out of beautiful possibilities the soul's gar- ments are woven. It thus appears that the Addresses are defective as guides for any man's life or death. They constitute a bill of ex- ceptions against certain hard rulings in some local and igno- rant courts, but as pleadings in the great tribunal where the whole human family stands assembled, to get the wisest decisions about duty and happiness, and the possibility of there being a God and a second life, the possible value of a hope for the dying— they each and all fall far short. They see only the religion of some fanatic, and think it the religion of Jesus or of mankind. They see a God damning honest men, and conclude that is what is meant by Jehovah. They see a II<.iaven with some little sect in the midst of it, and speak as though they were what is meant by the immortality of man. They note the follies of the Puritans and Papists, and infer that if there were no religion in the world, there would be no bad judgment or bad passions. They fail, too, to mark the delicacy of man's practical logic, which is not iron-like, waiting for the absolute end of all doubt, but which is bending and hopeful, and stands ready forever to found immense motives, and society, and church, and homes upon the greater and better of two probabilities that lie within this world of cloud. They assert the adequacy of earthly happi- ness as an end of being, and fail to mark that earthly hap- piness has always depended upon high morals, and father, and mothe», and child, and social life, and all mental de- velopment have found their full meaning, until a warm and aO MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. broad religion has shed its cheering light. The human race cannot find its supreme good in having a few acres of ground, and in seeing the grass grow, and in hearing the birds sing, lliese make some days delightful indeed, hut man, with his retinue of art, and statesmanship, and morals, and tempta- tions, and virtues, and jojs, and sorrows, and partings, and death, demands the assumption of a God, and the expecta- tions of a resurrection from the dust. Under such a temple as society, the foundation must be deep. To those who read or hear these addresses of Mr. Inger- soil, let me say : Hear them, read them if you wish, for they will show you what a sad caricature of Christianity was that which came down to us from the Dark Ages; but, having thus been taught hy an enemy, then dismiss the laughter, and look at religion in the widest forms of its doctrine and experience. We are now warned daily not to follow parti- sans in politics, because they will eclipse a country by a little chair in ofiice — they will make a village outweigh a continent. These addresses of a talented lawyer warn us equally against trusting the partisans in religion — the dira- eyed zeal which makes a Deity as small as their own hearts, a Bible as cold and as hard as adamant; but now, having been taught to shun partisans in politics and in Christi- anity, let us learn to resist one more form of partisan — the partisan of an atheism and a hopeless grave. Let us at times laugh with him, let us admire his acuteness, let us confess the honesty of his life, but for our guides or ideas in the world spiritual let us seek some mountain of thought where the snrvey is broader, and tenderer, and more just, from which height no good lies concealed; but looking from which we can see the great landscape of the soul, some of it bathed in light, some of it lying in shadow, but- all of it instructive an4 full of impressiveness, DB. RYDER'S REPLY, 9) DR RTDEE'S REPLY. In the commencement of this review of Mr. IngersolPfl lecture upon " The Mistakes of Moses," I wish two things distinctly understood: First, that my controversy is not with the man, hut with his address; and, second, that he has the same right to advocate his views as I have to advo- cate mine. On the question of religious liberty we are as one. Furthermore, I do not wonder that certain minds, having passed through peculiar experiences, become thoroughly disgusted with particular forms of theological thought. My only surprise is that more are not. Such material ideas of the Deity as are sometimes put forth in the name of Chris- tianity; such offensive literalizing as is sometimes applied to the future life, and such thoroughly untenable positions as are sometimes taken as to what the Scriptures actually are, has long been a fruitful cause of infidelity, and will continue to be so as long as they receive the indorsement of any brancli of tlie Christian Church. But intensity of conviction may degenerate into preju- dice, and this prejudice practically unfits one to discuss the subject to which it relates. From what the distinguished lecturer says of himself, of his determination in every ad- dress he makes, no matter what the topic, to denounce cer- tain views, and from the specimen of his work now brou^t 22 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. under review, I conclnde that Col. IngersoU occupies just this position. While, then, the right to speak one's honest thought is thus frankly conceded, and the provocation to employ strong language in reference to certain theological opinions is also conceded, it will be admitted by all candid minds that cer- tain subjects from their very nature, and from interest which they involve, are to be treated with seriousness and fairness. If not so treated, the influence of the discussion is almost certain to be. harmful. The lecture under notice, though nominally on the errors of a particular character in the Old Testament, is virtually an assault upon all revealed religion, and especially that contained in the Bible. IngersoU's Unfairness — Attributes to Moses Statements not in the Bible. Now, my first position is this: Whoever publicly attacks the sacred books of the Christian world, and attempts to destroy faith in them, should treat the subject fairly. I re- gret to say that the lecture does not seem to me so to treat its great theme, but is, on the contrary, a conspicuous illus- tration of prejudice and unfairness. I^o small portion of the lecture is unworthy a reply. There is nothing to reply to. Of fair argument there is a lamentable lack, — no incon- siderable portion of the time seems to have been spent in knocking over a man of straw of his own manufacture. If his lecture be regarded simply as an entertainment, it is a success, for the Colonel knows how to amuse an audience as well as the best; but if it were intended to be a fair and able discussion of an important subject, it is not simply a failure, but a failure so obvious as to leave no room for any other opinion. In proof of my statement that the lecture does not treat the topic wliich it professes to discuss fairly, I offer these specimens as evidence; DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 28 The first specimen is: Attributing to Moses language and statements not to be found in any of his writings. Speaking of Moses, he says: " The gentleman who wrote it (Genesis) begins by telling us that God made it (the world) out of nothing." And then he proceeds to ridicule the idea. But Moses says neither that nor anything like it. The lecturer thus misrepresents the very first sentence in the Pentateuch. What Moses says is, that '' In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." What he created them out of, or when "in the beginning" was, he does not say. The simple thought is that the heavens and the earth were not self-evolved, but were created by the Omnipotent Jehovah. " You recollect," he says, " that the gods came down and made love to the daughters of men," etc. Where does Moses say that? Plenty of that kind of talk is Grecian and Roman mythology, but what has that to do with " The Mistakes of Moses? " " They built a tower (Babel) to reach the heavens and climb into the abodes of the gods." Another of the Colonel's mistakes. The Tower of Babel was not built for any such purpose. From the frequent references of this kind to the gods in connection with the religion of Moses, it looks as if the lecturer was not aware that the Jews were not particularly in favor of idolatry. Again he says: " There is not one word in the Old Testament about woman except words of shame and humiliation. It did not take the pains to record the death of the mother of us all. I have no respect for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of man." It is true that Moses does not record the death " of the mother of us all; " but it is also true that the first account of the burial of any person in the book of Genesis is that of a woman, Sarah, the wife of Abraham. Moses simply U MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL aaysof Adam: "The father of us all," "And he died-/' and in a similar summary manner are all the other men dis- posed of; but when it comes to this woman Sarah, a special lot has to be purchased for her, and secured to the family, 80 that her remains might not be disturbed; and even now in remembrance of the cave of the field in which she was buried, a certain part of our modern cemeteries is called Machpelah. By the side of this fact how does the declara- tion look that " there is not one word in the Old Testament about women, except words of shame and humiliation?" Suppose I turn the tables upon the lecturer, and say, I have no respect for any book that does not treat man as the equal of woman. My words, if applied to the Bible, would be hardly less libelous than his. His Temporary Insanity Occasioned by Heavy Rains — Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge — Damaging Blunders — IngersoU up the Wrong Mountain. My second specification is that he not only makes Moses say what he does not say, but he frequently misrepresents what he does say. I name these particulars: First, in speak- ing of tlie flood, he gives the impression that, according to the Scriptural account, all the water that covered the earth and inundated it came out of the clouds in the form of rain. He says: "And then it began to rain, and it kept on rain- ing until the water went twenty-nine feet over the highest mountains. How deep were these waters? About five and a half miles. How long did it rain? Forty days. How much did it have to rain a day? About 800 feet." Now what are the facts ? In the verse which precedes the one which says, "And the rain was upon the eartli forty days and forty nights," we have this record, — Gen., vii., ii. — " In the 600th year of Noah's life, in the second month, the 17th day oi DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 25 the month, the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." Why did not the lecturer mention this statement of tlie *' breaking up of the fountains of the great deep," which is generally supposed to refer to the upheaval or subsidance of some large body or bodies of land, perhaps to portions of this western continent, and is considered to have been the principal cause of the deluge? Why omit the supposed principal cause of the deluge, unless it was his purpose to make out a case without regard to the facts? Furthermore, what authority has he for saying that the ark rested on the top of a mountain seventeen thousand feet high, and that the water upon the earth was " five and a half miles deep? " Has he committed the ignorant blunder of confounding Agri-Dagh with the hilly district to which the name was formerly applied ? The lofty peak that now bears the name of Ararat has no such designation in Bib- lical history, and it is the name given to it in compara- tively modern times. The Bible record is: *' Fifteen cubits upwards did the waters prevail." The Hebrew cubit is about twenty- two inches. If we may trust the conclusions of science, deluges have been no unusual events in the his- tory of this globe. Most of the land, if not all of it, no matter how high at present, has been at some time sub- merged. Whatever one may think about the accuracy of the narrative in reference to the building of the ark and the uses to which it was put, there is certainly no physical improbability in the statement that that part of the earth which was then above water was thoroughly inundated. Again, the gentleman makes merry over what he calls the " rib story," and imagines two persons before the bar of (lod, one believing the " rib story " and the other denying it. The believer of it is accepted by the Judge as belonging 2B Mistakes of ingersoll. in Heaven, and the denier of it as belonginor in Hell. And this lie puts before the public as Bible doctrine — as if any man of common sense, whether Jew or Gentile, ever defended so ridiculous a theorj. As a further specimen of this unfair- ness, I present you this: " Do you believe the real God — if there is one — ever killed a man for making hair oil? And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a receipt for making hair oil to grease Aaron's beard; and said if anybody made the same hair oil he would be killed." There could hardly be written a more complete misrepre- sentation and perfect caricature of the whole subject than this. The reference in Scripture is to an anointing oil, to be applied, not simply to the persons of the priests, but to the sacred vessels as well; and, thus anointed, they w^ere set apart for what they regarded as holy uses. But if this cus- tom which Mr. Ingersoll seeks to hold up to ridicule, was simply Jewish, there would be some show or plausibility for talking about it as he does; but he has not even that to jus- tify his attack. For this custom of using anointing oils in connection with religious services, and sacred persons, and utensils, was common among the idolatrous nations, and even conspicuous among the rites of the Romans. And even now one often meets with the spirit of the same cus- tom. I do not know whether the Colonel is a member of the Masonic fraternity, but he must have seen representa- tives of that ancient Order pour out anointing oil upon the corner-stone of some building which they were engaged in laying. Why not ridicule that, and why not also ridicule the beautiful custom of that Order of dropping upon the uncovered cofiin of a deceased member the little sprigs of evergreen that the brethren bear in their hands as they march around his open grave? It is easy to see that with reference to every such custom, however sacred, one who DR. BYDER'S REPLY, 21 takes the naked fact apart from its associations, may find abundant material for ridicule. But whether a fair-minded man will allow himself to treat any serious subject in that manner, is a question upon which there is no occasion that I should pronounce judgment. Mr. Ingersoll makes a sim- ilar blunder in what he says about the custom of sacrificing doves for tlie use of priests, since the practice did not exist among the Hebrews until hundreds of years after the event which he seeks to ridicule. Top-Heavy — Too Broad a Structure Reared on a Too Nar- ro"V7 Base. My third specification is, that he treats a particular inter- pretation of the Bible as tiie undisputed word of God. lie assumes that this or that is Bible doctrine because some- body may at some time have taught it, and then denounces the wliole Bible as unworthy the respect of mankind. This feature of the address runs through the whole of it. But, in this respect, candor compels me to say his method is that of Thomas Paine in his "Age of Reason," and of a certain class, but not the better class, of so-called infidel writers. Mr. Paine reproved the w orld for believing what he showed to be unreasonable doctrines, and called upon the people to throw away their Bibles for teaching such sentiments; but it was Mr. Paine, and not the Bible that was in fault, for the doctrines which he shed .so much ink to condemn are not tauo^ht in the Bible. Mr. Ins^ersoll's method is precisely the same. If he wishes to hold up to the contempt of mankind certain doctrines that some sect may have believed, or even does believe, let him announce his subject, keep to his text, and go ahead; but to go from place to place, exhorting the people everywhere to throw away their Bibles, under the pretense that these representa- 28 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. tionfl of his are the undisputed word of God, is simply an outrage upon the Christian public, and unworthy any man who claims to be fair-minded. Mr. Ingersoll's references to the clergy disappoint me. He speaks of them as if they were a set of fools, and does not add that they are all graduates of prisons, and a pack ot scoundrels generally. To which gentlemanly references we need only say, that in this slanderous speech he is guilty of the same offense against fairness and good breeding that is committed by any nominal Christian who, either through blindless or perversity, can see nothing good in the services of the distinguished infidels of history, and who, to preju- dice the public against them, resort to the mean subterfuge of misrepresenting their positions, and telling falsehoods about them. If any man, in an address before this com- munity, should treat the writings of Yoltaire as shabbily as Mr. Ingersoll has treated the writings of Moses, — and as to that, the entire Bible, — the Colonel would have to go out- side the Psalms of David to find imprecations to express his contempt. His references to Andover have, of course, nothing to do with " The Mistakes of Moses," but they relate to an important subject, and are a pertinent illustra- tion of the eminent unfairness of the general address. This is what he says: "They have in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, a kind of minister factory; and every Pro- fessor in that factory takes an oath in every five years that, so help him God, he will not during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he could easier keep. They believe the same creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now, when they send out a minister they brand him, as hardware from Birmingham and Sheffield. And every man who knows where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argu- ment of his creed, every book that he has read, and just DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 28 what be amounts to intellectually, and knows that he will shrink and shrivel and become more and more stupid day after day until he meets with death." My personal sympathy with the And over Theological School is not, as you may suppose, very deep and ardent. I respect the generosity and self-sacrifice of the five noble minds — one of whom was a woman — that founded the insti- tution in 1807, and the aid which it has given to liberal and exact scholarship. On the whole, I do not like the rule to which Mr. Ingersoll refers. Probably many of those in charge of the institution do not. I understand it to be a custom con- tingent upon certain endowments made long ago, and which is observed as a matter of form. But the rule is not fairly open to the objection that Mr. Ingersoll makes against it. First, it simply relates to the theological professors, and does not concern the students. Second, it compels no man to take it who does not wish to. The University says, in effect, we believe in certain doctrines; we desire the instruc- tion of this institution to be in accordance with these ideas. Can you conscientiously teach them? If so, we wish you; if not, we do not wish you. But if you come to us, you are not compelled to remain, but can go where you will, and when you will, and teach what you please; but so long as you remain in the service of this institution we expect you to carry out the purposes of its founders. What is there in this that is particularly narrow and dementing? But the Colonel repudiates his own positions. He says: " The com- mon school is the bread of life, but there should be nothing taught in the school except what somebody knows; any- thing else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation." Ingersoll's Inconsistency! But, let us inquire, who is to decide "what somebody knows? " Practically, the answer is, the people, or their 36 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. representatives, in school boards, committees, etc. They select the text-books, and they expect instructors whom they engage to follow them, for the text-books are assumed to embody what is true on the subjects to which they relate. What would the lecturer say of a teacher in one of our public schools who should to-day teach the rejected doctrine that the sun revolves about the earth? "What, but this: turn him out and put some one in his place who teaches the truth — which, being interpreted, means, teaches according to the authorized text-books. Why, on the very occasion of the lecture itself, after the Colonel liad denounced Andover for pledging loyalty to certain doctrines, and which act he characterizes as so harmful to freedom of thought, he him- self demands of the people whom he is addressing that they will never support a certain form of doctrine, nor give money to aid in building any church in which they are taught. His language is: "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." Mark you, not simply a pledge for five years, but they are never to change their views. My friends, is there no such thing as consistency in belief? Is one a bigot because he says. This is what I believe, and this, therefore, I defend? Are these men to be ridiculed and assailed, and only those who shirk such responsibility to be held up as patterns and guides? Brethren, I am not speaking of some sophomoric oration, but about the deliberate thought of a man who has made himself famous in this line of labor, and of whom our townsman who gracefully introduced him said, " a man who does his own thinking, and who thinks before he says." Now, of every such man it is safe to say, he knows that organization is essential to the welfare of society, and is perfectly consistent with liberty of thought. The free- thinkers of this country are organized as well as others; DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 81 •ind it is their right to be if they have anything to teach or defend. A Christian combination, against which some peo- ple hurl their anathemas, is simply the grouping togetlier of those who have a similar mind and purpose, the better to do this work which they have in common. Of course there has been in connection with some of these denominations a fearful amount of bigotry. When we come to that topic we are quite at home. Bigotry is no friend of ours: we owe him no service. The denomination which this church rep- resents has received from the dominant sects about us a pretty large share of persecution and abuse. But, for all that, we do not propose to follow the lecturer's example and call our brethren liard names, simply because they apply such epithets to us. He Has no Poetry in His Soul; Ergo, etc. My fourth specification is, that he misrepresents the wri- tings of Moses, tmd, as to that, the entire Bible, by treating its metaphoric language as literal statements. Think of a man, in this age of light, speaking of the pic- tured representation of the Old Testament in this way: "They believed that an angel could take a lever, raise a window, and let out the desired quantity of moisture. I find out in the Psalms that he bowed the heavens and came down." I wonder if the gentleman can see anything but mere literalism in this passage? "As the mountains round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about His people from henceforth, even forever." Like other nations, the Hebrews have their patriotic, descriptive, didactic, and lyrical poems in the same varieties as other nations; but with tliem, unlike other nations, whatever may be the form of their poetry, it always possesses the cliaracteristic of religion. Even their patriotic songs are a part of their religion. The Jews have taught the world its devotional poetr^r. If there is to b^ 3 32 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. found anywhere conceptions of the Deity and of the universe more remarkable for their sublimity and grandeur than are met with in the sacred books of the Jews, I know not where to look for them. Certainly when they are compared with the religious poems of other countries, most nearly contem- poraneous, as those of Horner and Hesiod, they are so vastly superior as to lead to the belief that, if the poets of idola trous Greece drew their inspiration from human genius and learning, those of Judea had a higher illumination, ' Additional Misrepresentations. My fifth specification is, that the representation given in the lecture of the Hebrews as a people, is almost wholly in- correct, both as to the work undertaken by them and the effect of that work upon mankind. We have no disposition to shut our eyes to the ignorance, cruelty and superstition of the Hebrew race in the early periods of their history. There was but little in them that gave the promise of a great nation when Moses led them out of Egypt. They were low in the scale of civilization. Many of the things done by them we cannot justify, and we are not required to do so. But what arrests our atten- tion is, that almost from the first they show a gradual im- provement in their condition, and finally reach that proud pre-eminence when Jerusalem became the Athens of its day. There are two points of view from which to judge of tlie early history of any people: one is, to compare it with that of contemporary nations, and the other is, to compare it with our own time. It is manifest that the former is the proper basis of judgment. Consider, then, as already inti- mated, who the people were tliat Moses thus led out of Egypt. Reflect tliat they were but children in intelligence, and that the higher forms of thought had but little influence over them; and that if they were held to the law of duty. DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 8S and organized into a nation, it must be bv such material forms and simple customs as they could comprehend. Re- flect, furthermore, that these people had been brought up in the midst of idolatry, and that in leaving Egypt they did not get away from its influences, but that, wherever they went, they were assailed by it; that idolatry was almost the universal form of worship, and that it was a mighty task to educate these people in the doctrine of the one only living and true God, and hold them to it. Reflect, furthermore, that to secure this end much might then be done which, under the circumstances, would be at least excusable, that should not be done now. Fairness requires that we con- sider whether the custom originated with the Jews them- selves, and what was its spirit and purpose. Prominent mention is made in the lecture of polygamy in connection with the Jews, and one would infer from what he says that the custom of plurality of wives originated with them, and that it was a *custom peculiar to them. This is his language: "Is there a woman liere who believes in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who believes in that infamy? You say 'no, we do not.' Then you are better than your God was 4,000 years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed in it, taught it, and upheld it." The facts appear to be these: Polygamy has existed from time immemorial. Even in the Homeric age of the Greeks it prevailed to some extent, and, though not known in republican Rome, it practically prevailed under the Empire, owing to the prevalence of divorce; but in what we call the Eastern nations the custom has been almost universal, being sanctioned by all religions, including that of Mohammedanism. In this regard the Hebrews, to a cer- tain extent, followed the prevalent custom viz: the law of Moses did not forbid it, but did contain many provisions against it,s worst abuses, and such as were intended t^ 84 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. restrict it within narrow limits; and, as the spirit of the Hebrew religion advanced the civilization of the nation, the practice more and more fell into disuse, until it finally died out; and in the glimpses of Jewish life which the IS'ew Testament gives us. there are no traces of it discernible. Since the Hebrew race the world over, for some 2,000 years, has as much as any other people discountenanced such practices, though still firmly believing in Moses as the prophet of God, it is clear that they do not consider polyg- amy any part of the Jewish system, but a custom permit- ted for a season because so universally practiced by the surrounding nations. Doctor Ryder Propounds a Question. But just here comes in a question of high importance. If there is nothing in Judaism to exalt woman — and every reference to her in their sacred books is one of " humiliation and shame " — how happens it tliat the Jews discarded the custom of polygamy some two thousand years ago, while the practice still prevails among the nations of the East, and notably in Mohammedanism, which, in so many respects, takes the external form of Judaism? The truth is, that great injustice has been done to the real religion of the Uebrews, by both Christians and unbelievers. We have judged it too exclusively by the Mosaic law, and the mere letter of it at that. Eeal Judaism is not the Old Testament, but that which has come out of it — the result of its growth, and the expansion of its inherent forces. Long before the advent of our Lord the Mosaic law had virtually given way to the Jewish religion, and it is that religion, the spirit of which in the beginning so largely came from the great law-giver himself that has had three thousand years of existence to certify its right to live, and which to-day assigns it a most honorable place among the religions of humanity. And in DB. RYDER'S REPLY. 85 dismissing tliis brancli of our subject, it seems pertinent to inquire, where did Moses obtain his religious ideas? The Egyptians had reached high advancement in the arts and sciences in the time of Moses, but their degradation in refer- ence to religion is unmistakable. It is said of Moses that he '* was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and deeds; " and he was no doubt greatly aided by what he had learned from them, but it seems too evident to admit of discussion that he did not get his religious ideas from that source. Whence came they? But, whatever may be our answer to this question, there" can be, it seems to me, but one opinion as to the respect due to the illustrious religious leader who has made upon the race so profound an impression for good. The five specifications now before you cover the evidence we ofier of the correctness of our general proposition, viz.: that the address upon " The Mistakes of Moses," is a con- spicuous illustration of prejudice and unfairness. Ingersoll Admits His Sad Need of Inspiration. Col. Ingersoll uses this language: " Nothing needs inspir- ation but a falsehood or a mistake. A fact never went into partnership with a miracle." " A fact will fit every other fact in the universe, and that is how you can tell whether or not it is a fact." Suppose we test this rule. How about good and evil, truth and error, the mysterious and the evi- dent, divine sovereignty and human freedom, heat and cold, art and asceticism, economy and benevolence, government and freedom, each of which is an undisputed fact, but each two facts that we thus group together no more fit each other than the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which, acting in opposite directions, hold the universe together? My friends, there is a recognizable distinction between the knowable and unknowable. But the line that separates the two ii* 38 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. not sharply defined. The border laud between them seems sometimes near and at other times very far away. The realm beyond the knowable is the realm of mystery, and out of it come some of the most potential forces that sway our lives. What we call the knowable is those thinijs that can be demonstrated — can be proved to be true by a prac- tical method. But consider how small a portion of our real life is covered by any such form of real evidence. For neither our affections, nor our tastes, nor our judgments, nor our beliefs, nor our ambitions, nor the higher expres- sions of our moral natures, can be thus demonstrated. They do not in any way depend upon the classification of facts in nature, but are cognizable by our consciousness, and are so widely operative in our daily life, that it almost seems as if what we call the knowable never touches us at all. Science has nothing to say about, or to do with, either morals, religion, benevolence, duty, or inspiration. The sources of life, the cause of thought, of affection, passion, hope, and love, are all incomprehensible to science, and will remain so till the end of time. " There is no science of the soul, any more than there is a prayer in mathematics. '' How utterly, then, does one misapprehend and misstate the real facts of human experience, who teaches that "nothing needs inspiration but a falsehood, or a mistake," and that one is to accept nothing as true which cannot be demonstrated. How much wiser and how much better are the words of St. Au- gustine, when he says: " God exists more truly than he can be thought of; He can be thought of more truly than he can be spoken of." For myself, I reverently believe that the Bible contains a revelation from God. 1 say contains a revelation from God, not that it is in itself such a revela- tion, for the Bible, as such, was not revealed. The inspira- tion that breathes through its pages is of some of the things written, but not of all; the inspiration is rather of the DR. RYDER'S REPLY. 87 thought, purpose, the leadings of God, than of the letter in which they are expressed. There is, to my mind, no appeal from the words of Christ once satisfied that he uttered the sayings which are attributed to Him in tlie Gospels, and they are, to me at least, infallibly true, and literally " the words of eternal life." iDgersoll's "Religion of Humanity" All Right Except the Religion. The influence of such an address is to completely destroy the religious faith which the people now have, and give them notliing in return. It is true Mr. Ingersoll commends to his hearers " the religion of humanity." But what does he mean by it? The answer is, he means simply Atheism, which is virtually the rejection of all religion, since it is the denial of the being of God himself. Now with God dethroned, the name religion has no further use. What, then, is the religion of humanity to those who deny the existence of God, and leave everything either to chance or in- exorable law ? One might infer from the assumption of these Atheistic teachers that free-thinkers are the only people who have any religion of humanity, or who practice it. The general impression made by the Colonel's lecture is that Christians are a bad lot — mean, hypocritical, demented kind of folks; and that bright and progressive people, such as " have brains " (though it does not require a large supply of that article to qualify one to ridicule another j^erson's religion) and " do their own thinking," reject all such absurdities as revealed religion, and are governed by some sort of a higher law. Now that this view of human nature, so complimentary and congenial, withal, is "quite taking" is very likely true. One likes to be patted on the back in this way, and be called "progressive," and not hide-bound like those ol to die. DU. llEHIWliD-^ REPLY. 4l DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. All through my life I have felt a very deep sympathy for those who have become alienated from Christianity by the irrational and unworthy things often taught in its name. It seems such a miserable, gratuitous loss, as if there was not enough to make even the purest faith often dim and doubtful without it being made more so by the follies of those who should strengthen men in it! But so it is. And of course one cannot expect men in that strong reaction to be very discriminating in what they attack. But there are limits! A man is not absolved from the duty of thinking and speaking fairly by having come to reject the popular opinions of society. Now it seems to me that this recent lecture of Col. Ingersol?s overpasses all just limits. I frankly own its brilliant eloquence, its irresistible humor and the passionate impulses of tender human sympathy which flash out in it. I can quite understand many being carried along by these. But afterward has to come the sober thinking and the honest questioning. What does it amount to? Are its positions true? Are its arguments fair? It seems to me that they are glaringly the opposite. The whole test that he applies to his subject is a mistake ; the way in which he applies it is not even moderately just ; its representations are one-sided ; its illustrations are carica- ture. And the worst of all is that there is no sign of any desire or attempt to be fair! 42 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, The Ingersoll Paradox. The first of Col. Ingersoll's mistakes, is in the whole point of view in which he places the Bible in order to make it the easier target for his wit. He starts by repudiating any idea of its having been written by God's inspiration; and yet all through talks as if God were responsible for it — as if God had said this and threatened that — and becomes quite heroic in his declaration that God may damn him, but he won't believe such things! When once inspiration is put aside, such declarations are mere clap-trap! When you look through all this, you find that in reality he simply regards the Bible as the work, the ideas of men. Yery well; then take it so, and judge it fairly in that light! ' If the book of Genesis is, as Col. Ingersoll believes, the writings and the ideas of ancient men, then do not attack it because the ideas are not those of men to-day. But that is what he is con- stantly doing. He is very fond of saying, "The question is not, is it inspired, but is it true?" That sounds very plaus- ible, but you know, as applied to any ancient book, it is simply nonsense. It is a test which yon don't apply to any other ancient book in the world. You do not try Homer's " Iliad " by the test of whether it is true. When a clay tablet is dug up at Nineveh, or a papyrus is found in some mummy-wrappings, you don't ask. Is it true? and if not, throw it away. The question about all such things is not, "Are they true?" but "Are they genuine relics and repre- sentations of the thouglit of the ancient world?" By-and- by indeed will come the question, how far any records or statements in such ancient writings can be taken to throw light on actual history — how far their statements are alle- gorical or poetical, or mere ancient tradition? Well and good. And by all means let those questions be applied to Genesis; apply them just as you would to any other ancient DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 43 writings; but in the name of common fairness don't pick it to pieces hj a minute verbal criticism, and a strained liber- ality which would only be justifiable on the ground of its being verbally inspired. That is a mistake which may be merely a mental confusion, but a graver one lies beyond. IngersoH'a Exaggerations and False Assertions. Mr. Ingersoll not only applies a kind of test to the book of Genesis which he would not think of applying to any other book, but he does not even apply his own test fairly. He stands upon the very letter, but he constantly misrep- resents and twists the letter. He exaggerates, makes things worse than they are; if he can make a bad meaning anyhow he does so. He says: "The gentleman that wrote Genesis begins by telling us that God made the universe out of nothing." It does not say so. It simply says; "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." A little further on he makes great fun of the grass being created on the second day, while the sun was not created till the third day, so that the grass was growing without having " ever been touched by a gleam of light." Yet right before him were these words, at the beginning of all : " And God said, let there be light, and there was light." Of course, the whole idea is that of the world's childhood, but why strain a point to make it ridiculous? It is a far worse perversion where he says: "You will find by reading the second chap- ter that God tried to palm off on Adam a beast as his help- meet." Now there is absolutely no justification for such a representation. The whole thing is a gratuitious invention of his own. These are small verbal matters, but they show the utter unscrupulousness with which those ancient tradi- tions are exaggerated and distorted to make better point for his ridicule. And then, even in larger things, he cannot be decently 44 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. fair, though the explaining truth may lie on the very sur- face. He quotes the first part of the coin maud against mak- ing any graven image, and then goes off into one of its tirades about that being a law which was "the death of all art " among the Jews. Not a word about the closing part of the command — really the essence of it: " Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them! " Why, even if it were as he implies, tliat Moses utterly prohibited all the art of sculpture, the making of idols being merely one part, still, which was of most importance to the world — that the Jews should have cultivated art a little more, or that they should, even at the cost of art altogether, be kept from idolatry? But then Mr. Ingersoll is not even true in his fact. The command was only understood as a command against idol- making, not against other forms of sculpture, and the best proof of this is that they did have other forms of sculpture even in Moses' time, and later had art of no ignoble kind. Even therein the wilderness we read how the sacred ark was by Moses' command shadowed over by the images of two cherubim, with outstretched wings made of pure gold, and the candlestick was made with branches which were shaped like almonds, alternately a bud and a flower. And later, when Solomon built the temple, we not only read of two similar cherubim, but of colossal size, extending their wings over the shrine, but also that '^ he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved figures of clierubim and palm- trees and open flowers; " while in his own pnlace we read of sculptured pillars, with po*mrgranate capitals, and images of oxen and lions, round the great brazen "laver." Or, take his representation of Christians thinking of Heaven as a place where their happiness will be enhanced by seeing the tortures of the damned. Here he rises to the height of his most fiery indignation. And it is a horrible idea. But then, who holds it — who preaches it? It is aD DR. HERFORirs REPLY. 46 idea of Heaven that was prevalent among one sect of Cliris- tians a century ago. But even they have not preached it for a century. And yet he says, without a word of limitSr- tion, " This is the Christian view of Heaven," and makes a powerful appeal to his hearers not to give a " dollar to any man to preach that falsehood." Why, there is not a church in all the land where he could find a man preaching that to give his dollar to; no, not even if the person were only a stump politician, turned preacher in the slack season be- tween campaigns. And the same of his representation of the attitude of Christianity toward those who do not believe in the early traditions of Genesis. He represents Christianity as teach- ing that any man who does not believe the " rib story " will go to Hell, however good he was in other respects. Is that an honest representation? Why, even if all orthodoxy preached that, orthodoxy is not all of Christianity. Has Col. Ingersoll ever heard of Channing and Parker and Starr King? Are the bodies of the Unitarian church, the Uiii- versalists, the Christians, the Quakers, not worth a passing word? Did he not know when he put that champion joke about the " rib story " that he was representing as the teach- ing of the churches what many entire churches, and the best men in all churches, never have held, nor preached, nor countenanced in any way? Yet he comes rampaging into the field, with a whoop and a yell, brandishing his shillelah, defying Christianity, calling ministers "owls " and " idiots," and swooping round as if he were the first who had found out a little common sense about the Bible! But after all, the real matter at issue is not as to this or that exaggerated or unfair criticism of the Old Testament, but has it any real, substantial worth? It has. It gives us the origin of the world's noblest religious faith; it shows us the purest laith of to-day in its first roots in the far-ofi" ancient world; 46 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. and 80 I think it strengthens our conviction that that faith is not a temporary or isolated thing that may be mistaken, but part of that long development of man which surelT corresponds to the truth and fact of the universe. Dr. Herford's Story of Moses, with an Apt Illustration — The Germinal Povsrer of the Pentateuch. When I hear people treating the Pentateuch as something they would like to see done away, I cannot help wishing that it could be dug up afresh in these days of curious research into the past. Why, suppose that the Jews had no such books; and had not known anything of their origin except a vague tradition of some sort of migration under one Moses, and curiously fitting to this the Egyptian tradi- tion— which is, you know, that some thirteen hundred years before Christ a great multitude of people had gone out of Egypt led by an Egyptian priest, who taught them many things contrary to the Egyptian religion, and afterward changed his name to Moses. Well, supposing then these books of the Pentateuch should be discovered somewhere — why, the world would go wild over them. What would it matter whether it could be settled that Moses did or did not write them — or that pcssibly they were really not writ- ten till centuries after, and only preserved what was believed about him at that later date — still the fact would remain that they take us by traditions, at any rate, so much further back into the past, and show us there one of the very noblest stories of the world; — for that is what the storv of Moses is. Take off all the discount you will for exaggeration — I dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated — suppose the idea of his having been led by God speaking to him to have been only his own intense consciousness of what was best, ascribed to God; suppose the idea of his having been helped by miracles to have been only his own reverent DR. HEPFORD'S REPLY. 47 impression, ascribing every trouble that came on Egypt, and every favoring circumstance to bis own people, to some purposed and direct help from God ; all that does not touch the essence of the story of Moses! There it stands — how those Hebrews through many generations had sunk into the Pariah and Helot class of that great rich Egyptian civiliz- ation; and how at last this Moses rose up, to rally them to a mighty effort to get right away into some other land. He had been somehow brought up among the Egyptians, trained in the sacred city, educated among the priests — an adopted son of Pharaoh's daughter — but he had given it all up, identified himself with his down-trodden people, and at last won for them the liberty to go! And they went out — out into the great desert waste. What does it matter that the tradition of their numbers got perhaps enormously exagger- ated? If there were only a hundredth part — thirty thousand instead of three millions in all — there were quite enough to task their leader's fortitude to its utmost; and through those books we have at least very living glimpses of him, in his efforts to keep them from grumbling and getting disheart- ened; in his efforts to keep them true to his simple teach- ing of the one Almighty God; in his lonely hours when he was listening for the eternal word, and shaping his best thoughts which he believed came to him from God, into laws for his people. And there is the great fact, you know — however he did it — he did guide and lead them through that long migration, and at last brought them to the land from which their fathers had gone out long before, and bade them go in and possess it! And that multitude whom he led out of Egypt a race of slaves, servile with long oppression, at every difficulty talking of going back, he had in that forty years knit into a brave, hardy, fierce race — who did go in and possess the land and became the progenitors of one of the world's noblest races. That is the story of Moses 4 48 MISTAKES OF JNGERSOLL. — just the barest skeleton of it — taking one, the largest, most unmistakable features; and I say again there is no finer story in history. And what will you say of a man who will make fun of it? "Why, what would you think of a man who would go around the country, making fierce fun of Abraham Lincoln, holding up his gaunt, lank figure to ridicule, burlesquing his speeches, denouncing as lies some of those quaint little anecdotes, and holding him upas a fool and an idiot? And yet that glorious work that makes Lincoln's name dear — not to Americans only but to the lovers of freedom and of man in every nation — that work of his was only the modern counterpart of what Moses did in the morning of the world ! But the Pentateuch is most valuable, not for the light it throws upon the origin of a people, but for the light it throws upon the origin of ideas. In the teachings of Moses, in the religion of that little migrating tribe, by-and-by fighting for its foothold in Palestine, we have the begin - ings of those thoughts from which have sprung the three greatest, most living religiona of the world — Judaism, Christianity and Mahommedanism. Granted, the begin- nings are only rude, is that any reason for making fun of them? What would you think of a man who should take one of those rude urns that they dig out of the mound build- er's graves and put it side by side with some beautiful porce- lain of to-day, and scoff and sneer at those early dwellers on the earth because the best decoration they could make was a few rude scratches in the clay with their flint-knives? Already, even so far off, the idea of one Almighty God, that which the priests of Egypt held as a sacred mystery — if they did hold it — that leader of the Hebrews taught his people as the truth for all, and the truth to be kept ever- more before them. Already, too, in the old world, where every race shaped out its thought of God in some idol form, DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 49 that leader was giving them as the second of his great com- mands that thej should make no idol images at all to wor- ship. Already, too, they had that idea of a God of Right- eousness ! True, their idea of righteousness was not yet very high, but the best they knew they ascribed to God. Where in all the ancient world will you find such a description of Deity as that which Moses brought with him out of the soli- tudes of Sinai? — "The Lord; the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long suflfering and abundant in goodness and truth; keeping mercy for thousands, bearing with iniquity, transgression and sin, but that will by no means clear the guilty." The Mosaic Religion of Humanity. ^NTor is this divine side of that old Hebrew religion all. Mr. Ingersoll is very strong on the religion of humanity. Indeed, that is the only real religion, he says. Well, where did the religion of humanity begin? "Why, it began there — among those same old Hebrews. The religion of a truer thought of God and of a better thought of man went to- gether even in their beginnings, as they did afterward when they both reached their culmination together in Christ, with His great teaching of love to God and love to man. Mr. Ingersoll, however, has nothing but the bitterest contempt for the morality of the Pentateuch, because it is behind the morality, of to-day! " See, you are better than your God," he cries ; " for four thousand years ago He be- lieved in polygamy, and you don't ! " The truth of which simply is that four thousand years ago polygamy existed among the Jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even their prophets do not come to the idea of its being wrong. But what is there to be indignant about in that? Simply men — whom Mr. Ingersoll regards, in other lectures, as having come up from the brutes — had then got only so far so MISTAKES OF IXGERSOLL. in their ideas of marriage. But if their religion is a good one, what do you expect to find it doing? Altogether al- tering, even so early, the marriage relation, or purifying and elevating it? Surely this is all we can look for, and this we find. I know that Mr. Ingersoll says : " There is not one word about woman in the Old Testament, except the words of shame and humiliation." "Well, though he says he has read the Bible over again this year, I can only conclude he has read it very hurriedly and slightly, for not only are there such passages as that of Naomi and Kuth, the Shunamite woman, Hannah, the mother of Samuel, and that most beautiful picture at the close of the book of Prov- erbs of a good wife, but I think that throughout woman is spoken of in the Bible, not as the slave, but as the compan- ion and the helpmate. The "wise-hearted women" share the work of making that goodliest of the tents which was in the desert wanderings to be the tabernacle ; Miriam, the sister of Moses, holds the place of a prophetess, and other prophet- esses we read of; and the whole law of marriage in the Penta- teuch, with its stern punishment of deatli for adultery, either on the part of man as well as woman, shows the process of elevation towards that higher law of one wife and one husband which had become universal by the time of Christ. Or take the slavery question again. Slavery was univer- sal in the ancient world. Men had not come anywhere to a sense of any inherent wrongfulness in' it for a thousand years or two after the time of Moses. But mark where this finer humanity of the Mosaic religion comes in; it al- ready brings glimpses of the idea of an inalienable right to liberty — though not a perfect sight of it. The law of the Pentateuch abounds with laws about the relation of master and slave, which, as compared with what we know of slavery, e. g.y among the Greeks and Romans a thousand years later, were simply a marvel of noble humanized thought. DR. HERFORD'S REPLY. 51 And then as to the general tone and character of that Mosaic law. Mr. Ingersoll pooh-poohs the Ten Command- ments as merelj what men knew before; knew all along. But such a law as this: " Thou shalt not have in thj bag divers weights, a great and a small; but thou shalt have a perfect and just weight — a perfect and just measure shalt thou have — for all that do such things, and all that do un- rigliteously, are an abomination unto the Lord thy God;" and this: " If a man shall steal an ox or a sheep he shall restore five oxen for an ox and four sheep for a sheep; " and this: "Ye shall have one manner of law, as well for the stranger as for one of your own country, for I am the Lord your God; " and this: "Thou shalt not oppress an hired servant that is poor and needy — whether he be of thy breth- ren, or of the strangers that are in the land; at his day thou shalt give him his hire; neither shall the sun go down upon it, for he is poor and setteth his heart upon it.'* There is a good deal of the religion of humanity about these, isn't there? And other laws come in here and there with such a kind consideration for poverty and need. When a man har- vested he must not reap the corners of his field, nor gather up the gleanings, and if he forgot a sheaf and left it in the field he must not go again and fetch it. " Thou shalt leave them for the poor and the stranger." And this: " When a man hath taken a new wife he shall not go out to war, neither shall he be charged with any business; but he shall be free at home one year and shall cheer up his wife whom he hath taken." And even in regard to war — in which cer- tainly they were fierce enough — what a gleam of kindness comes in in that command that when they were besieging a city they must not cut down the fruit trees about it for their war purposes, but only trees that they knew were not for fruit. Why, I might go on for an hour quoting these 52 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. more merciful laws and showing you the large, grand thoughts of duty that pervade that whole system which the Jews believed had been given to them by Moses. But there is nothing really to fear. For the moment many may be led to throw the Bible away, and to give up religion as the weak nonsense he so scornfully proclaims it. Religion will abide in the lieart of man. And the Bible will stand because in it we have the accumulated utterance of religion in its best beginnings and along its noblest line of development. THE JEWISH RABBI'S REPLY. 53 THE JEWISH RABBrS REPLY. We need not pray for Col. Robert IngersolPs soul, for he says lie has none; and in this instance we are bound to be- lieve him, as he is judge, jury and witness in the case; and there may be men without souls, as there are some without conscience, others without reason, and quite a number with- out ])rinciple. The first man of wdiom the Bible says that he prayed, was Abraham. He prayed for Abimelech. But Col. Ingersoll, we suspect, is not smitten with that disease. He prayed for the wicked people of Sodom and Gomorrah, to which class belongs no American citizen, of course, as " Mitchell's Geography" substantially proves. Jacob prayed when his brother Esau approached him with an armed force; and the Colonel has come to us unarmed, and without any force except a few harmless agents of the Boston Lecture Bureau, who take the money, show the show, and depart in peace. Moses prayed for his sister Miriam when she was leprous, but Mr. Ingersoll is no woman, and his excellent exterior betokens no leprosy. Joshua prayed to make the sun and moon stand still, but Mr. Ingersoll is neither the greater nor the lesser light, and to the best of our knowledge Dobody wants him to stand still at any place. Speaking of imagination, it reminds me that Col. Inger- soll said he could not imagine the existence of a God. Im- agine God I Any professor of philosophy would faint if he was told that illogical expression. How can God be im- 51 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. agined? Perhaps one of Mr. IngersolPs manufactured gods could be imagined in a disorderly imagination, as only phys- ical objects of nature or combinations thereof could be im- agined— nothing else. "What kind of a god would that be which could be* submitted to the imagination of a man with- out a soul? It must be the miniature or pocket edition of an idol, made by man, such as Col. Ingersoll purchases and exhibits to amuse tall babies. It must be that sort of far- cical gods which he describes in his burlesques. He is not the first quack who would not take his own medicines, although he is certainly among reasoners the first who would imagine Deity, for none tries to imagine that which reason only can grasp; none will permit himself to be led astray by imagination where pure reflection only can reach the aim. The perversion of ideas springs from a mistake about Moses. A god or gods have been fabricated at the expense of Moses, until each little priest had his own snug little god that could be used as the Crusader's emblem or the license of the auto-da-fe, to massacre and glut in human gore, or the frail woman's last resort of love to make honest men out of rogues, pure souls out of the dregs of hell. The god or gods variously depicted, miscellaneously described, and promiscuously applied become objects of imagination, hence also of the farce. The mistake is that Moses was charged with all the follies of theological jugglers and sophistical bummers. The God whom Moses taught is emphatically the God whom no man can see and live, — the Great I Am, who is the I, the Ego, the Subject of the Universe, the law, the life, the love and the intellect of the cosmos, the Eternal Jehovah, essence itself, and the absolute substance, in whom all things are as all objects of a man's tender love are in his soul, of whom all things came and into whom all return. This is not a God fabricated by man, hence He could not THE JEWISH RABBVS REFLT. 55 be imagined by man, as no man can imagine a being supe- rior to himself. This is the God taught by Moses; the other gods may be subjected to farce and ribaldry, while the true Deity is too sublime even for the pyrotechnical displays of Mr. IngersolFs disentangled humor. It is a mistake about Moses which feeds his boiler to tweedle the rusted think- apparatus of twaddlers. The God of Moses is too great for Mr. Ingersoll; he only deals in gods which can be imag- ined, and in speaking of mistakes of Moses he reverently passes by the God of Moses. The man is not as bad as his reputation. I maintain that Col. Robert Ingersoll is not half as bad as his reputation. The man was persecuted by his country- men, was defeated in his political aspirations by church- members, and thinks the Presbyterians have done it. He is a man of prominent talents, belonging to the better class; all on account of the Presbyterians, he was teased, perse- cuted, and wounded in his pride, and so he became a public lecturer. But business is business; if one wants to make money he must know how. He could imagine that people go to the circus to see the clown, to the theater to laugh over the comedian. People want fun to be amused, alcohol to force the blood to the brain, to fill up the vacuum. He could see that earnest men who reason on principles would not take with the masses. Aware of his own talents as a humorist and an orator, of the scarcity of humorists in this country, and the plenitude of slang, low comedy, and uncul- tivated taste, he could only choose the career which he did choose — a career of ribaldry, to laugh over everything holy, to sneer alike at human follies, frailties, virtue and piety ; and as a business man he has chosen well — he makes plenty of money and hurts nobody. A moral eflfect he will never have upon anybody, because there is no moral force in his burlesque. He is no Thomas Paine, Thomas Jefferson, no 56 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. Voltaire, Strauss, Feuerbach, or even a Heinrich Heine, because he lacks the research, the erudition, the systematical learning, and the moral backbone of either of them. He will not set Rome on fire in order to sing from his balcony the destruction of Troy; he lacks the fire and the torch. It is all pyrotechnical ribaldry, which sweeps away many a con- sumptive superstition and laughs many a prejudice out of existence; but truth takes care of itself. Let the man alone; he is better than his reputation. You think, perhaps, I ought to be very angry, because the gentleman spoke of the mistakes of Moses, and ridiculed the great lawgiver of the Jews. Let me tell you first, any- thing over which you laugh leaves no particular impression behind. That which goes not though the avenues of reason or the depth of the moral sentiment in a short time proves efiectless. Scorn is a terrible weapon to achieve moment- ary success, but it is worse than worthless after a second sober thought or a healthy action of the feelings. Then let me say, the theology of Moses is certainly beyond the reach of Col. Ingersoll, for he is no reasoner; he can spit, but he could not think with philosophical minds. He never studied through or even read any of the philosophical systems of Germany, England, or France; nor has he the ability to do it. He is no naturalist of any description, has never troubled himself about any specialty thereof, and so he talks about matters and things in general as is the American custom, what the Germans call Wurst-philosophie^ good enough as jokes or for beer-house reasonings. When he speaks of the infinite he becomes too ludicrous for any- thing, especially for men of thought to make anything out of it. He will not upset the theology of Moses. The law of Moses is also secured against the Colonel's possible attacks. He will commence no trouble with his Blackstone or Hugo Grotius, or the other writers on law THE JEWISH Is'AfiBVS REPLY. 67 who maiTitaiu that all law rests upon the ATosaic legisla- tion. Thirty-tive hundred years of history, and the common consent of the civilized world at this end of the nineteenth century, are a little too much for any man to upset. He says he could write a better Decalogue than Moses did, but that is said only — he is not going to do it; he will not even add a category of law to the ten. Well, then, if he is not the man to attack successfully the theology or jurisprudence of Moses, I have no cause to ob- ject to his lectures. lie ridicules Bible stories, but that concerns literalists only, not us. If all the stories of the Pentateuch be ridiculed, denied, or otherwise disposed of, it does not change an iota in the jurisprudence or theology of Moses. Let the literalists take up that part; it does not concern us so very much. Here, again, is a point which makes me feel bad and badly disposed to the eloquent humorist. Why does he continu- ally repeat that which others have said often before him; why does he not hit upon something original? He re- liearses old rags in new shoddy, and that is unworthy of a man who has any pride about him. He does sometimes worse than that; he ignores his opponents, which no honest man must do. He speaks a long yarn about the history of creation, always assuming an air of originality, without having the honesty of mentioning even Dr. eJ. W. Dawson's work, " The Origin of the World," which upsets his whole twaddle. It is dishonest to make people believe that a thing siiid is indisputable, when it has been completely upset. He appeals to the apotheosis of labor to impeach Moses, because it said \\\ the Genesis that God cursed man. " In the sweat of thy hruw shalt thou eat bread;" and labor is a blessing to man. Did all Socialists clap hands? If not, 58 MISTAKES OF INGEHSOLL. some mast have thought this is the langnnge of a dema- gogue, who is either a hypocrite or a self-deluded man. La- bor and hard labor are two different things, and the " sweat of thy brow " points to hard labor, which rests like a curse upon the poor man, and is the severest punishment imposed on the criminal condemned to hard labor. He talks about the creation of woman like an ignorant man who has not the remotest idea of the difficulties among biologists, considering the differentiation of man and the origin of sexes. So he talks about the littleness of the ark and smites Charles Darwin in the face, instead of saying this proves Darwin's theory on the origin of species. lie scoffs at the God who destroyed His own children and undertakes to teach the Colonel of Peoria how he should educate his. It all depends upon what kind of children one wishes to bring up. Usually every parent brings up his own kind. God wanted them to bring up God-like children, and when they would not do it, he got them out of the way in preference to destroying human freedom or perpetuating wickedness. If it is only to bring up such children as Eob- ert Ingersoll, of Peoria, 111., no such stringency is necessary. Musquashes grow spontaneously in abundance. Then he speaks about 600 pigeons a day for three priests, and does not know that there were no pigeons in the wilderness, and the Mosaic sacrificial polity was not introduced till Joshua had taken the Land of Canaan, and then there were more priests than there are to-day humorists in America, for Joshua gave them quite a number of cities, and I would not be astonished if those American humorists could eat more pigeons than they can do good in this world. But what is the use to speak of the mistakes of Moses! Speak of the mistakes about Moses. Did Moses write the Genesis? Says Col. Ingersoll, "I do not know;" and he does not know a great many other things. Did Moses write THE JEWISH RAnnrS REPLY. 59 the historical portions of the Pentateuch? Says the Illinois Colonel again, " I do not know." If he has written all that, did the translators and commentators which the Colonel read represent correctly the ideas of Moses? " Do n't know," says the Colonel. If those writers do represent the matter correctly, have those points which the Colonel ridicules never been discussed and refuted? " Do n't know," says the Colonel; and decent men must not curse; still they are permitted to say, "Why do you talk of matters of which you know so preciously little? That is all excusable, however, in this case. The humorous and eloquent gentleman is out on a lecture tour, and wants to succeed. This can be done by reckless ribaldry only. It makes no difference whether Hell or gods. Devil or Moses, Pope or Presbyterian church — anything that will pay must be pressed into the service. The Colonel's field is small; lie has no great choice of sub- jects, and he must take the first best to ridicule it and make it pay. lie has that particular talent, and could noA do the same work in another field. He cannot criticise Aristotle and Emanuel Kant and make it pay, because he cannot read them. He cannot ridicule Carlyle or Stuart Mill, because he cannot understand them. So he picks up some small stories which the children know, and dishes them up in his own humoristic way for the amusement of big babies. The man understands his business to the T. I tell you, he is not as bad as his reputation. I beg a thou- sand pardons of Col. Robert Ingei'soll if I have wronged him. I did not mean to make fun of him any way. ^X jjCrongeet of which is Gen. vii. 19: "And the waters prevailed ex- ceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered." Now remember that this is the account of an eye-witness, vividly describing just what he saw, water on every side, water all aronnd, nothing but water — even the mountains to the farthest verge of the horizon covered over with water. "When, in the book of Job, we read of the lightning flashing over the whole heaven, the meaning surely can not be that a lightning flash starts at a certain degree of latitude and longitude, and makes a journey right round the world to the point where it started. " The whole heavens " is evidently bounded by the horizon. The third reason which has led people to sup- pose the whole earth was covered with water, is found in the tradition that the ark rested on Mount Ararat. The tradition, we say, for that is all the authority there is for the idea. In Gen. vii. 4, we are told that the ark rested on the mountains or highlands of " Ararat." The word "Ararat " only occurs other two times in the Bible, and in neither place does it refer to what was only long afterward called Mt. Ararat. In Old Testament times Ararat was not a mountain at all, but a district, on some of the highlands of which the ark rested. A moment's thought will show that it could not be on the top of Ararat. It would require one of the hardiest mountaineers to perform such a feat as the climbing of Ararat. It would be the most inconvenieift place you could think of for the ark to rest on. When you look fairly at these three arguments that are urged in sup- port of a universal deluge, you will find that none of them really demand it. On the other hand, there are things that seem to point the other way. In the eleventh verse of the seventh chap- ter we are told that " in the second month, the seventeenth 78 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. day of the month, were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened." There is no indication thei-e of the sudden creation of such a body of water as would cover the earth to the depth of 30,000 feet above the old sea-level. The causes that are as- signed are just such as could be most readily and naturally used. It may be worth while to notice here in passing, an attempt which has been made recently to cast ridicule upon the story of the flood, by representing the Bible as if it attributed the deluge to nothing else than a long, heavy rain, whereas the first importance is given to an entirely different cause: "the fountains of the great deep were bro- ken up." Tliat is just what would appear to one who was describing such a scene as we imagine this to be. Suppose there had been some great submergence of the land there, as has taken place in other parts of the world. There would be a rushing up of water from below, from " the fountains of the great deep.'' Again, in the first verse of the eighth chapter, natural agency is made use of : " God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters assuaged." There is no reason why we should suppose a greater miracle performed than was necessary. Still further ; turn to the tenth verse of the ninth chapter, where God says: "I establish my covenant with you, and with every living creature that is with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth." What were those beasts of the earth thus distinguished from those going out of the ark? Probably they were those that came from the area of land not covered by the flood. Then again, attention is called to the purpose of the flood, which was simply to destroy the race of men, and it is not to be supposed they had traveled a great distance by this time from their original place of abode. The extent of the flood need not have been any greater than was necessary to submerge that area. DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 7« Further, when we take this view, not only do geological and other difficulties disappear, but there is decided confir- mation from , modern scientific research. There is no evi- dence in geology that there was in any period of the earth's history, a flood great enough to overtop the Rocky Moun- tains, but there are evidences of floods as great as this one must have been, for the purpose of destroying the race. I do not know how it is in the immediate region where the flood is supposed to have been. I do not know whether geologists have explored it sufficiently; but this is certain, that there are evidences of similar floods in other parts of the world. Some of our own geologists have discovered evidences of them in this very neighborhood. You have not to go very far from Chicago to find such traces of sudden, powerful, and transient diluvial action. Then, finally, this view of the deluge removes, of course, all difficulty about the number of animals in the ark, because all that was necessary was, that the species more nearly connected with man, those found in the region that was submerged, should be represented in the ark. But after all, the question of extent is of quite minor importance so long as it is conceded that it was universal in the sense of destroying all but the family of Noah. The reality of the judgment is the great thing, and of this we have abundant confirmation from tradition. We find legends of a flood everywhere- We find them among the Semitic and Aryan and Turanian races. We find them east and west, and north and south; in savage nations and civilized nations; on continents and in islands; in the old world and in the new. And if Egypt is a solitary exception, which is very doubtful, but if it is, the exception is accounted for by the simple fact that in that country they have floods every year. Here again, as in the traditions of the Fall, there is difterence enough to show which is the original and true, 80 MISTAKES OF IN^^RSOLL. Other traditions of the flood ape polytheistic, whereas here wo have the one living and true God. Those are full of mythological elements, whereas here is a plain narrative, with the impressive scene vividly, but quite simply, depicted. In heathen traditions, too, you find many grotesque items and exaggerations, as for instance, when the ark is described as three-fourths of a mile long, and drops of rain the size of a bull's head ; and, generally speaking, a conspicuous ab- sence of that moral purpose which is so impressive and all- pervading in the narrative before us. Faith in Jesus Christ the Essential Factor. . . . There are those in our day who find a stumbling- block at the very threshold of the Christian life, in the fancy, that what is required of them in order to salvation, is the cred- iting of all the details of a long history extending from the first man to the last man, from Adam to the consummation of all things; and long accustomed to that sceptical attitude of mind which questions all things, they think it would take them a life- time (as indeed it would) to verify every statement that is made from Genesis to Revelation, and clear them from all possible objections,; and so they do not venture at all. But remember, it is never said: " Believe everything that is in the Bible and you will be saved." Ah, there have been many who believed everything in the Bible, who never thought of questioning a sentence in it, who will find themselves none the better for their easy acquiescence in the statements of a book which they had been taught to accept as inspired. There is no such word written as, " Believe the Bible and you will be saved." No. It ^*s " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved." Do not trouble yourselves in the fii-st instance about questions connected with the book of Genesis, or difficulties 8ugg*^sted by the book of Revelation. Let the wars of the DR. GIBSON S REPLY. 81 Jews alone in the meantime, and dismiss Jonah from your mind. Look to Jesus; get acquainted with Him; listen to Ills word; believe in Ilim; trust Him; obey Him. That is all that is asked of you in the first instance. After you have believed on Christ and taken Him as your Saviour^ your Master, your Model, you will not be slow to find out that " all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine and for reproof, and for correction, and for instruction in righteousness." You may never have all your difficulties solved, or all your objections met; but though difficulties may still remain, and interrogation points be scattered here and there over the wide Bible-field, you will be sure of your foundation ; you will feel that your feet are planted on the " Eock of Ages," even on Him of whom God, by the mouth of the prophet Isaiah, said: " Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation, a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner-stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste." Candor v. Injustice — Dr. Gibson's Pointed Summary. The prevailing feeling among intelligent readers of the Bible in reference to the profane and coarse assaults made on it by Mr. Kobert Ingersoll, is that few people are so ignorant as to be imposed upon by his vulgar witticisms. But, inasmuch as there are not a few who accept without inquiry his account of what is in the Bible, it may be well to give a few illustrations of his un scrupulousness in put- ting "mistakes" into the Bible which he either knows or ought to know, are not there. He asserts positively that Moses must have understood by firmament something solid, though every one who has studied the subject knows, and the tact has been published again and again, that the Hebrew word means something 82 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. exceedingly attenuated, being the very best word in the language to designate the atmosphere; while the mistake found in the English word ^'firmament," is due to the sci- ence of Alexandria, where in the third century before Christ, the ^' expanse " of Moses was translated " stereoma" (tirmament) to suit the advanced astronomy of the time. When, in speaking of the vegetation of the third day, he says, " Kot a blade of grass had even been touched by a single gleam of light," is he dealing fairly with a narrative that makes light its first creation? When he accuses Moses of compressing the astronomy of the universe into five words, is he dealing fairly with a narrative that does not profess to give any astronomy at all, but, after a general reference to the heavens and the earth as created in the beginning, restricts itself to the earth and its "environment?" Any intelligent person can see that this is the reason why sun, moon and stars are referred to only in their relations to the earth. When he represents the first and second chapters of Gen- esis as a varying repetition of the same story, is it fair to withhold all reference to the different purport and object of the two narratives, which fully and satisfactorily explains the variation? Is it fair to speak of the deluge to represent it as ascribed to nothing but rain, when the Bible expressly says, "AH the fountains of the great deep were broken up," evidently pointing to such a subsidence of the land as is familiar to any one acquainted with geology. Is it fair to make the Bible responsible for the Armenian tradition that the ark rested on the top of Mount Ararat, 17,000 feet high, when the Bible nowhere, from Genesis to Revelation, makes any such statement? The district of Ararat on the mountains or highlands of which the ark rested is not the " Agri-Dagh" to which the name Ararat DR. GIBSON'S REPLY. 83 has in modern times been given; and Mr. Ingersoll's ignorant mistake about it is ot the same kind as that of the bumpkin who should inquire for the Coliseum in Rome, N. v., or seek the tomb of Leonidas in Sparta, Wisconsin. It will be at once seen tliat with this childlike ignorance is connected the Ingersoll nonsense that the water was five and a half miles deep. So says the ignorant critic, while the simple and reasonable statement of the Bible is: ^'Fifteen cubits upwards did the water prevail." As for the submersion of even the hills to the utmost verge of the horizon, the subsidence of the land was quite sufficient to accomplish it without resorting to the supposition of any unreasonable quantity of water. Is it fair, when Mr. Ingersoll wishes to render ridiculous the rate of increase among the Israelites in Egypt, to rep- resent the length of their stay there as 215 years, when Moses says (Exodus, xii., 40): " Now the sojourning of the children of Israel who dwelt in Egypt was 430 years." The only other place in the Pentateuch where the length of their stay is referred to is in the prediction concerning it in Genesis xv., where it is put in round numbers at 400 years. To do Mr. Ingersoll justice, it is admitted that certain theologians, on the strength of one or two passages in the New Testament and some genealogical difficulties, have favored shortening the period, but the subject was not the mistakes of Moses, but of theologians; and again we ask. Was it fair, without a word of apology or explanation, to deduct more than two centuries from the time Moses gives, and then make all his coarse, not to say indecent, ridicule turn on the shortness of the time? One hardly knows how to characterize the infamy of such a passage as that about the bird-eating priests during the time of rapid increase, in view of the fact that there were 'io prh^MP at all, and no such rule as he refers to during the b4 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. entire 430 years! The consecration of Aaron, the first priest, did not take place till after the Law was given at Sinai, and the ordinance relating to the offering of the pigeons was still later. These are mere specimens of the mistakes and misrepresentations which form the warp and woof of this lecture. fTHAT DISTlSCtUlSHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 8i WHAT DISTDsTGUrSHED MEN SAT OF THE BIBLE. 80IBNTI8T8. IfiTK ^and old book of God still stands, and this old earth, the more its leaves are turned over and pondered, the more it will sustain and illustrate the sacred word. — Professor Dana, Infidelity has, from time, erected her imposing ramparts, and opened lire upon Christianity from a thousand batter- ies. But the moment the rays of truth were concentrated upon their ramparts they melted away. The last clouds of ignorance are })assing, and the thiinders of infidelity are dying upon the ear. The union and harmony of Christian- ity and science is a sure token that the flood of unbelief and ignorance shall never more go over the world. — Professor Hitchcock. At.t. human discoveries seem to be made only for the pur- pose of confirming, more and more strongly, the truths contained in the sacred Scriptures. — Sw John Herschel. The Bible furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the thoughts that overwhelm us when contemplating the stellar universe. — O. M. Mitchell. In my investigation of natural science, I have always fbnB/ ^hbX whenever I can meet with anything in the Bible, 86 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. OD any subject, it always affords me a fine platform on which to stand. — Lieutenant Maury If the God of love is most appropriately worshiped in the Christian temple, the God of nature may be equally honored in the temple of science. Even from its lofty minarets, the philosopher may summon the faithful to prayer ; and the priest and the sage exchange altars without the compromise of faith or knowledge. — Sir David Brews- ter. A nation's intellectual progress has always followed — not preceded — some moral impulse. The history of the fine arts shows that some form of religion gave them their earliest impulse. There has never been a great genius but has been inspired in some sense by religion. The thoughts of the intellect are lofty in proportion as the sentiments of the heart are profound. If we begin the attempt to improve men with the intellect we end where we begun. Education will not remove corruption. It may guide vice as in ancient Rome and Athens, but will not uproot it. A godless edu- cation has no power to purify. Instruction in morality also has failed to regenerate. No man does his duty simply because he knows it unless he loves it ; nor are political and social changes effective. Social evil has its root in the indi^ddual heart, and cannot be removed except by influ- ences operating within it. This fountain of man's corrup- tion must be purified to corrupt social vice. — Prof. SeeVye STATESMEN. There is a book worth "all other books which were ever printed. — Patrick Henry. The Bible is the best book in the world. — John Adams. WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 87 So great is my veneration for the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country, and rtispectable members of society. — John Quincy Ad- ams. It is impossible to govern the world without God. He must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge hi« obligation. — General George Washington. Pointing to the family Bible on the stand, during his last illness, Andrew Jackson said to his friend: "That book, sir, is the rock on which our republic rests." I DEEM the present occasion sufficiently important and solemn to justify me in expressing to my fellow citizens a profound reverence for the Christian religion, and a thorough conviction that sound morals, religious liberty, and a just sense of religious responsibility, are essentially connected with all true and lasting happiness. — General Harrison'^s Inaugural Address. As to Jesus of Kazareth, my opinion of whom you par- ticularly desire, I think the system of morals, and His relig- ion, as He left them to us, is the best the world ever saw, or is likely to see. — Benjamin Franklin. Do you think that your pen, or the pen of any'other man, can unchristianize the mass of our citizens? Or have you hopes of corrupting a few of them to assist you in so bad a cause?- -Samuel Adams'^ Letter to Thomas Faine. Christianity is the only true and perfect religion, and that in proportion as mankind adopt its principles and obey its precepts, they will be wise and happy. And a better knowl- edge of this religion is to be acquired by reading the Bible t}\an in any other way. — Benjamin Rush. S8 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. When that illustrious man, Chief Justice Joj, was dying, he was asked if he had any farewell address to leave his children; he replied, "They have the Bible." I ALWAYS have had, and always shall have, a profound re- gard for Christianity, the religion of my fathers, and for its rites, its usages, and observances. — Henry Clay. A FEW days before his death, " the foremost man of all his times," drew up and signed this declaration of his relig- ious faith: " Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief. Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the vastness of the universe, in comparison with the insignifi- cance of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in me, but my heart has always assured and reassured me that the gospel of Jesus Christ must be a divine reality. The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. This belief enters into the very depth of my conscience." — Daniel Webster. " Hold fast to the Bible as the sheet anchor of our liber- erties ; write its precepts on your hearts, and practice them in your lives. To the infl-uence of this book we are indebted for the progress made in true civilization, and to this we must look as our guide in the future. — U. S. Grant. Philosophy has sometimes forgotten God ; as great people never did. The skepticism of the last century could not uproot Christianity, because it lived in the hearts of the millions. Do you think that infidelity is spreading? Chris- tianity never lived in the hearts of so many millions as at this moment. The forms under which it is professed may decay, for tliey, like all that is the work of man's hands, are subject to the changes and chances of mortal being; but the spirit of truth is incorruptible; it may be developed, illus- trated and applied; it can never die; it never can decline. WHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 89 No truth can perish. No truth can pass away. The flame is undying, though generations disappear. Wherever mor- tal truth has started into being humanity claims and guards the bequest. Each generation gathers together the imper- ishable children of the past, and increases them by the new sons of the light, alike radiant with immortality. — Ban- croft. GREAT THINKERS. It is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. — Goethe, I ACCOUNT the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. — /Sir Isaac Newton. To give a man a full knowledge of true morality, I should need to send him to no other book than the New Testament. — John Locke, I KNOW the Bible is inspired, because it finds me at greater depths of my being than any other book. — Cole- ridge. A NOBLE book! All men's book. It is our first state- ment of the never-ending problem of man's destiny and God's way with men on earth. — Carlyle. I must confess the majesty of the Scriptures strikes me with astonishment. — Rousseau. "There is not a boy nor a girl, all Christendom through, but their lot is made better by this great book. — Theodore Parker. Take the gospel away, and what a mockery is human philosophy! I once met a thoughtful scholar who told me 90 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. that for years he had read every book which assailed the reliorion of Jesus Christ. lie said that he should have become an iniidel if it had not been for three things: " First, I am a man. I am going somewhere. I am to- night a day nearer the ^rave than last night. I have read all that they can tell me. There is not one solitary ray of light upon the darkness. They shall not take away the only guide and leave me stone blind. " Secondly, I had a mother. I saw her go down into the dark valley where I am going, and she leaned upon an un- seen arm as calmly as a child goes to sleep upon the breast of a mother. I know that was not a dream. " Thirdly," he said with tears in his eyes, " I have three motherless daughters. They have no protector but myself. I would rather kill them than leave them in this sinful world if you could blot out from it all the teachings of the Gospel." — Bishop Whipple. When Daniel Webster was in his best moral state, and when he was in the prime of his manhood, he was one day dining with a company of literary gentlemen in the city of Boston. The company was composed of clergymen, law- yers, physicians, statesmen, merchants, and almost all classes of literary persons. During the dinner conversa- tion incidentally turned upon the subject of Christianity. Mr. Webster, as the occasion was in honor of him, was expected to take a leading part in the conversation, and he frankly stated as his religious sentiments his belief in the divinity of Christ, and his dependence upon the atonement of the Savior. A minister of very considerable literary reputation sat almost opposite him at the table, and he looked at him and said: "Mr. Webster, can you compre- hend how Jesus Christ could be both God and man? " Mr. Webster, with one of those looks which no man can imitate, WHAT DISTINGUISHED AfEW SA Y OF THE BIBLE. 91 fixed his eyes upon him, and promptly and emphatically said: "No, sir, I cannot comprehend it; and I would be ashamed to acknowledge him as my Savior if 1 could com- prehend it. If I could comprehend him, he could be no greater than myself, and such is my conviction of accounta- bility to God, such is my sense of sinfulness before him, and such is my knowledge of my own incapacity to recover myself, that I feel 1 need a superhuman Savior." — Bishop Janes. What can be more foolish than to think that all this rare fabric of Heaven and earth could come by chance, when all the skill of art is not able to make an oyster? — JereTuy Taylor. It would not be worth while to live if we were to die entirely. That which alleviates labor and sanctifies toil is to have before us the vision of a better world through the darkness of this life. That world is to me more real than the chimera which we devour, and which we call life. It is forever before my eyes. It is the supreme certainty of my Reason, as it is the supreme consolation of my soul. — Vic- tor Hugo, Once, had I been called upon to create the earth, I should have done as the many would now. I should have laid it out in pleasure-grounds, and given man Milton's occupation of tending flowers. But I am now satisfied with this wild earth, its awful mountains and depths, steeps and torrents. I am not sorry to learn that God's end is a virtue far higher than I should have prescribed. — Charming. To do good to men is the great work of life; to make them true Christians is the greatest good we can do them. Every investigation brings us round to this point. Begin 92 MISTAKES Of INGEKSOLL. here and you are like one who strikes water from a rock on tlie summit of the mountains; it flows down all the inter- vening tracts to the very base. If we could make each man love his neighbor, we should make a happy world. The true method is to begin with ourselves and so extend the circle around us. It should be perpetually in our minds. — J. W. Alexander. From philosophy, from poeti:y and from art, is heard the acknowledgment that there is no repose for the rational spirit but in moral truth. The testimony that the whole ^^eation groaneth and travaileth in pain, together, is as loud and convincing from the domain of letters, as it i? from the cursed and thistle-bearing ground. From tLe immortal longing and dissatisfaction of Plato, down to the wild and passionate restlessness of Byron and Shelley, the evidence is decisive that a spiritual and religious element must enter into the education of man in order to inward harmony and rest. — Dr. Shedd. " The mother of a family was married to an infidel, who made a jest of religion in the presence of his own children; yet she succeeded in bringing them all up in the fear of the Lord. I one day asked her how she preserved them from the influence of a father whose sentiments vrjre so openly opposed to her own. This was her answer: 'Because to Ine authority of a father I did not oppose the authority ji a motlier, but that of God. From their earliest years my children have always seen the Bible upon my table. This holy book has constituted the whole of their religious instruction. I was silent that I might allow it to speak. Did they propose a question, did they commit any fault, did they perform any good action, I opened the Bible, and the Bible answered, reproved or encouraged them. The fTHAT DISTINGUISHED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 93 constant reading of the Scriptures has alone wrought the prodigy which surprises you.' ''—Adolphe Monod. I PREACHED on Sunday in the parlors at Long Branch. The war was over, and Admiral Farragut and his family were spending the summer at the Branch. Sitting on the portico of the hotel Monday morning, he said to me, «' Would you like to know how I was enabled to serve my country? It was all owing to a resolution I formed when I was ten years of age. My father was sent down to New Orleans with the little navy we then had, to look after the treason of Burr. I accompanied him as cabin-boy. I had some qualities that I thought made a man of me. I could swear like an old salt; could drink a stiff glass of grog as if I had doubled Cape Horn, and could smoke like a loco- motive. I was great at cards and fond of gaming in every shape. At the close of the dinner one day, my father turned every body out of the cabin, locked the door, and said to me: " * David, what do you mean to be? ' " < I mean to follow the sea.' «* Follow the sea! Yes, be a poor, miserable drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and die in some fever hospital, in a foreign clime.' " ' No,' I said, ' I'll tread the quarter-deck and command as you do.' "^No, David; no boy ever trod the quarter-deck with Buch principles as you have, and such habits as you exhibit. You'll have to change your whole course of life if you ever become a man.' « My father left me and went on deck. I was stunned by the rebuke and overwhelmed with mortification. ' A poor, miserable, drunken sailor before the mast, kicked and cuffed about the world, and to die in some fever hospital! 94 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. Tliat's my fate, is it? I'll change my life, and change it at once. I will never utter another oath, I will never drink another drop of intoxicating liquors, I will never gamble.' And, as God is my witness, I have kept those three vows to this hour. Shortly after, I became a Christian. That act settled my temporal, as it settled my eternal destiny." — Anon. A Bible well worn in that part which contains the Ser- mon on the Mount is the book which our age most needs. There the Will of the Father, those laws which save souls or damn them lie in perfect plainness. No commentary can throw light upon them, no science or learning can take their light away. They are a part of the universe, only more imperishable than the stars. Christ died for man be- cause man would not respect these laws of the kingdom. Having died for sinners. He now invites them to come into these laws of the Father. Do not mistake the invitation. — David Swing. You never can get at the literal limitation of living facts. They disguise themselves by the very strength of their life; get told again and again in different ways by all manner of people; the literalness of them is turned topsy-turvy, inside out, over and over again; then the fools come and read them wrong side upwards, or else say there never was a fact at all. Nothing delights a true blockhead so much as to prove a neg- ative,— to show that everybody has been wrong. Fancy the delicious sehsation to an empty-headed creature of fancying for a moment that he has emptied everybody else's head as well as his own ! nay, that for once, his own hollow bottle of a head has had the best of other bottles, and has \iQ&n. first empty, — first to- know nothing. — Ruskin. It is not so wretched to be blind as it is not to be capable of enduring blindness. Let me be the most feeble creature WHAT DISTimOlSUED MEN SAY OF THE BIBLE. 95 alive as long as tbat feebleness serves to invigorate the en- ergies of my rational and immortal spirit; so long as m that obscurity in which I am enveloped the light of the d.v.ne presence'more clearly shines; and indeed, m -7 ^hndi^ss I enioy in no inconsiderable degree the favor of the Deity, who regards me with more tenderness and compassion in proportion as I am able to beho.ld nothing but Himself. For the divine law not only shields me from injury, but a - most renders me too sacred to attack, as from the overshad^ owing of those heavenly wings which seem to have occasioned this ohsauritj.— Milton. A PRINCE said to Kabbi- Gamaliel: "Tour God is a thief; he surprised Adam in his sleep, and stole a rib from him" The Kabbi's daughter overheard this speech, and whispered a word or two in her father's ear a.k.ng us permission to answer this singular opinion herself He Lve his consent. The girl stepped forward, and feign.ng Lror and dismay, threw her arms aloft in ^^?V^^';f'on^^^ cried out, " My liege, my liege, justice! revenge! Wha has happened?" asked the prince. "A wicked heft has taken ^p^ace," she replied. "A robber has -ept -cretly into our house, carried away a silver goblet, and left a golden one in its stead." "What ^\^'P"f ' . *'"^^^ ' exclaimed the prince. "Would that such robberies were of mo"e frequent occurrence!" " Behold, then, sir the kind of thief our Creator was; he Btole a rib h-om Adam, and gave him a beautiful wife instead." "Well said! avowed the ^rmce.-Tahmtd Sanhednm. Once there was a Judge who had a colored man The colored man was very godly, and the J-^^ge used U, have him to drive him around in his circuit. The ^-^f^'f^ often to talk with him, and the colored man would tell 1^ Judge about his religious experience, and about his battle* 96 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. and conflicts. One day the Judge said to him: "Sambo, how is it that jou Christians are always talking about the conflicts you have with Satan? I am better off than you are. I don't have any troubles or conflicts, and yet I am an infidel and you are a Christian — always in a muss; — how's that, Sambo?" This floored the colored man for awhile. He did n't know how to meet the old infidel's argument. So he shook his head sorrowfully and said: "I dunno, Massa, I dunno." The Judge always carried a gun along with him for hunting. Pretty soon they came to a lot of ducks. The Judge took his gun and blazed away at them, and wounded one and killed another. The Judge said quickly: *^ You jump in. Sambo, and get that wounded duck before he gets off," and did not pay any attention to the dead one. In went Sambo for the wounded duck, and came out refiecting. The colored man then thought he had an illustration. He said to the Judge: "Ihab 'im now, Massa; I'se able to show you how de Christian hab greater conflict dan de infi- del. Do n't you know de moment you wounded dat ar duck, how anxious you was to get 'im out, and you did n't care for de dead, but jus' lef ' him alone? " " Yes," said the Judge. " Well," said Sambo, " ye see as how dat are dead duck 's a sure thing. I 'se wounded, and I tries to get away from the debbil. It takes trouble to cotch me. But, Massa, you are a dead ducJc — dar's no squabble for you ; de debbil have you sure!" So the devil has no conflict with the infidel. — D L, Moody. COL. MOBEMT a, INGEBSOLL, 116 'MISTAKES OF MOSBS.'* 97 INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON Fhe Mistakes of Moses." Now and then 8ome one asks me why I am endeavoring to mterfere with the religious faith of others, and why I try to take from the world the consolation naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire. And I an- swer, I want to do what little I can to make my country truly free. I want to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people. 1 want it so that we can differ upon all those questions, and yet grasp each other's hands in genuine friendship. I want in the first place to free the clergy. I am a great, friend of theirs, but they don't seem to have found it out gener- ally, I want it 80 that every minister will be not a parrot, not an owl sit- ting upon a dead limb of the tree of knowledge and hooting the hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years. But I want it so that each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I want to make his congregation grand enough so that they will not only allow him to think, but will de- mand that he shall think, and give to them the honest truth of his thought. As it is now, ministers are employed like attorneys — for the plaintiff or the defendant If a few people know of a young man in the neighborhood maybe who has not a good constitution — he may not be healthy enough to be wicked — a young man who has shown no decided talent — it occurs to them to make him a minister. They contribute and send him to some school. If it turns out that that young man has more of the man in him than they thought, and he changes his opinion, every one who contributed will feel himself individually swindled — and they will follow that young man to the grave with the poisoned shafts of mal- ice and slander. I want it so that every one will be free — so that a pulpit will not be a piUory. They have in Massachusetts, at a place called Andov«K, 98 MISTAKES OF IKGERSOLL. a kind of minister- factory; and every professor in that factory lakes an oath once in every five years — that is as long as an oath will la^st — that not only has he not during the last five years^ but so help him God, he will not during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he could easier keep. Since the foundation of that insti- tution there has not been one case of perjury. They believe the same creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now when they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from Sheffield and Birmingham. And every man who knows where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argument of his creed, eveiy book that he reads, and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and shrivel, and become solemnly stupid day after day until he meets with death. It is all wrong; it is cruel. Those men should be allowed to grow. They should have the air of liberty and the sunshine of thought. I want to free the schools of our country. I want it so that when a professor in a college finds some fact inconsistent with Moses, he will not hide the fact, that it will not be the worse for him for having discovered the fact. I wish to see an eternal divorce and separation between church and schools. The common school is the bread of life; but there should be nothing taught in the schools except what somebody knows; and any- thing else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation. I want its professors so that they will tell everything they find; that they will be free to investigate in every direction, and will not be trammeled by the superstitions of our day. What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics, Presbyter- ian botany, Catholic astronomy or Baptist biology? What has any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any science ? Nothing but to hinder, delay or embarrass. I want, then, to free the schools; and I want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to pretend he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or his grandmother a Catholic; 80 that he can go through a campaign, and when he gets through will find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his knees. I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to make laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has brains enough to prophesy the destiny of the American Republic, no matter what his opinions may be upon any religious subject. Suppose we are in a storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, and it is necessary that some one should reef the topsail, and a man pre- sents himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out his opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do with it? Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, and from what little experience 1 have had of Washington, very little to ''MISTAKES OF MOSM:* »9 do with any kind of religion whatever. Now I hope, this afternoon, this magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are Baptists or Methodists, and remember that they are men and women. These are the highest titles humanity can bear — man and woman; and every title you add belittles them. Man is the highest; woman is the highest. Let us remember that we are simply human beings, with interests in common. And let us remember that our views depend largely upon the country in which we happen to live. Suppose we were bom in Turkey most of ua would have been Mohammedans; and when we read in the book that when Mohammed visited heaven he became acquainted with an angel named Gabriel, who was so broad between his eyes that it would take a smart camel three hundred days to make the journey, we probably would have believed it. If we did not, people would say: "That young man is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the fabric of our religion. What do you propose to give us instead of that angel? We cannot afford to trade off an angel of that size for nothing." Or if we had been bom in India, we would have believed in a god with three heads. Now we be- lieve in three gods with one head. And so we might make a tour of the world and see that every superstition that could be imagined by the brain of man has been in some place held to be sacred. Now some one says, ** The religion of my father and mother is good enough for me." Suppose we all said that, where would be the progress of the world? We would have the rudest and most barbaric religion — religion which no one could believe. I do not believe that it is showinsf real respect to our parents to believe something simply because they did. Every good father and every good mother wish their children to find out more than they knew; every good father wants his son to overcome some obstacle that he could not grapple with; and if you wish to reflect credit on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they did, because you live in a better time. Every nation has had what you call a sacred record, and the older the more sacred, the more contradictory and the more inspired is the record. We, of course, are not an exception, and I propose to talk a little about what is called the Pentateuch, a book, or a collection of books, said to have been written by Moses. And right here in the commencement let me say that Moses never wrote one word of the Pentateuch — not one word was written until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. But as the general opinion is that Moses wrote these books, I have entitled this lecture the "The Mistakes of Moses." For the sake of this lecture, we will admit that he wrote it Nearly every maker of religion has commenced by making the world; and it is one of the safest things to do, because no one can contradict as having been present, and it gives free scope to the imagination. These 100 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLt. books, in times when there was a vast difference between the edncat4^ his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette. Ri-ht here it is only proper that I should warn you of the cpnsequencet of laughing at any stoiyin the holy Bible. When you come to die, yoi« laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. As you look back upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked and rumed. and no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted-all that may be forgiven you; but if you recollect that you have lau-hed at God's book you will see through the shadows of death, thelecring looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. Letmeshow you how it will be: For instance, it is ihe day of judgment. When the man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross- examining, he says to his soul: " Where are you from? \f^J\^'^ the world." ''Yes, sir. AVhat kind of a man were you? Well I don't like to talk about myself." " Bat you have t^. Whnt kind of a man were you? " '* Well, I was a good fellow; I loved my wife, 1 loved my children. My home was my heaven; my fireside wbs my paradise and to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of those 1 love, that to me waa a perpetual joy. 1 never gave one of them a 104 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. •olitary moment of pain. I don't owe a dollar in the world, and I lefl enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door of the house I loved. That is the kind of a man I am." " Did you belong to any church?" '* I did not. They were too narrow forme. They were always expectino: to be happy simply because somebody eW. was to be damned." " Well, did you believe that rib story?" " What rib- story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business? No, 1 did not. To tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swallow." "To hell with him! Next. Where are you from?" "I'm from the world, too." "Do you belong; to any church?" " Yes, sir. and to the Young Men's Christian Association." "What is your business?" " Cashier in a bank." " Did you ever run oflF with any of the money?" " I don'tlike to tell, sir." "Well, but you have to." " Yes, sir; I did." "What kind of a bank did you have?" "A savings bank." "How much did you run off with?" " One hundred thousand dollars." " Did you take anything else along with you ?" "Yes, sir." "What?" "1 took my neighbor's wife." " Did you have a wife and children of your own?" "Yes, sir." " And you deserted them?" "Oh, yes; bu such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of them." " Have you heard of them since?" " No, sir." " Did you believe that rib story?" " Ah, bless your soul, yes! I believe all of it, sir; I often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the Bible, so that I could show what my faith could do." " You believed it, did you?" "Yes, with all my heart." "Give him a harp." I simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these sto- ries. Of all the authors in the world God hates a critic the worst. Hav- ing got this woman done he brought her to the man, and they started housekeeping, and a few minutes afterward a snake came through a crack in the fence and commenced to talk with her on the subject of fruit. She was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she did not know whether snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about the apples or not. Well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those apples and laid it all on his wife; and there is where the mistake was made. God ought to have rubbed him out once. He might have kno\vn that no good could come of starting the world with a man like that. They were turned out. Then the trouble commenced, and people got worse and worse. God, you must recollect, was holding the reins of government, but he did nothing for them. He allowed them to live six hundred and sixty-nine years without knowing their A. B. C. He never started a school, not even a Sunday school. He didn't even keep His own boys at home. And the world got worse every day, and finally he concluded to drown them. Yet that same god has the impudence to tell me how to '-MISTAKES OF MOSES." *« raise my own children, w nat wouk j economy ? God found tmed hia babes giving y^^.^^^J^'^^^ He sjid "T^" ^'"^'^ ^'^'"" r '^ T'a few" And^He 'Sedlf^f^w by Ihe name of Koab. body, 1 would have drowned h.m l^^^'^ '^ ^^ y„ ^ build a boat. :zfb:^"tirnr:- ^^^^^ - -^ -^. Sie feet '>i.^^'^ -/^-^^'^^LT ryXlnteTorTit dow twenty-two inches square. If Moah naa any uu j^ "- t'if tbe :r taS::i^" btrL^r^rd r s if ti^: ?:;brnotdrtbTrbinb:^m:rb\r roL say tbat tbe aood ^L\\T:iersa,.thatitwasparUal^ my^tben d.^^^^^^^^^^^ tber^L sr^rr:.:::bruld be'very unple^a^ant in an .. un.es. %rn t^hJ »ir^:t tbe a.., God shut tbe door ^d Noab -t^sr^f-nt^^^ff:^^^^^ Cbimbora.0, then as now. lifted it. bead above "^« ;'-f^' ^f ^'^^'^^^^^ "- there - tbe^dor^ -^ M^^e^^^^^^^^^^^ rd"rbrnow\:dte. rw^d^werethese watersV Aboutfiveand nalTmiles How long did it rain? Forty days. IIow much did it tavf to ain a day? About eight hundred feet. How is that for damp- have to »'"* ^^y ' ^ 1 ^i„dows of the heavens were open. It I iOd MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. no rodder, no sail, nobody on the ontside at all. The window wai ihni» and there was no door, except the one that shut on the outside. Who ran this ark — who took care of it ? Finally it came down on Mount Ararat, a peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with about three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the ani- mals from the tropics a chance. Then Noah opened the window and got a breath of fresh air, and he let out all the animals; and then Noah took a drink, and God made a bargain with him that He would not drown us any more, and He put a rainbow in the clouds and said: " When I see that I will recollect that I have promised not to drown you.*' Because if it was not for that He is apt to drown us at any moment. Now can anybody believe that that is the origin of the rainbow? Are you not all familiar with the natural causes which bring those beautiful arches before our eyes? Then the people started out again, and they were as bad as before. Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first place? He knew he would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his family. Then another thing, why did He want to drown the animals? What had they done? What crime had they committed? It is very hard to answer these questions — that is, for a man who has only been bom once. After a while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, and the gods heard about it and said: "Let's go down and see what man is up to." They came, and found things a great deal worse than they thought, and thereupon they confounded the language to prevent them succeeding, so that the fellow up above could not shout down '* mortar " or " brick " to the one below, and they had to give it up. Is it possible that any one believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of languages in the world? Do you know that language is born of human erperience, and is a physical science? Do you know that every word has been suggested in someway by the feelings or observations of man — that there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and others as wild as the beasts? Do you know that language is dying and being bom continually — that every language has its cemetery and cradle, its bud and blossom, and withered leaf? Man has loved, enjoyed and suf- fered, and language is simply the expression he gives those experiences. Then the world began to divide, and the Jewish nation was started. Now 1 want to say that at one time your ancestors, like mine, were bar- barians. If the Jewish people had to write these books now they would be civilized books, and 1 do not hold them responsible for what their ancestora did. We find the Jewish people first in Canaan, and there were seventy of them, counting Joseph and his children already in Kgypt. Tliey hved two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went down into Egypt and •tayed there two hundred and fifteen years; they were four hundred and miSTARKS OF MOSES." 107 ihirfy yean in' Canaan and Egypt. How many did they have when they went to Egypt? Seventy. How many were they at the end of two hundred and fifteen years? Three millions. That is a good many. We had at the time of the Revolution in this country three mil- lions of people. Since that time there have been four doubles, until we have forty-eight millions to-day. How many would the Jews number at the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years ? Call it eight doubles and we have forty thousand. But instead of forty thousa^nd they ha/^ three millions. How do I know they had three millions? Because they had six hundred thousand men of war. For every honest voter in iho State of Illinois there will be five other people, and there are always more voters than men of war. They must have had at the lowest possible esti- mate three millions of people. Is that true? Is there a minister in the city of Chicago ^that will certify to his own idiocy by claiming that they could have increased to three millions by that time ? If there is, let him fay so. Do not let him talk about the civilizing influence of a lie. When they got into the desert they took a census to see how many first- . bom children there were. They found they had twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three first bom males. It is reasonable to sup- pose there was about the same number of first born girls, or forty-five thousand first bom cl ildren. There must have been about as many mothers as first-born children. Dividing three millions by forty- five thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in Israel had to have on the average sixty-eight children apiece. Some stories are too thin. This is too thick. Now, we know that among three million people there will be about three hundred births a day; and according to the Old Testa- ment, whenever a child was bom the mother had to make a sacrifice — a ain-ofiering for the crime of having been a mother. If there is in this uni - verse anything that is infinitely pure, it is a mother with her child in her arms. Every woman had to have a sacrifice of a couple of doves, a couple of pigeons, and the priests had to eat those pigeons in the most holy place. At that time there were at least three hundred births a day, and the priests had to cook and eat those pigeons in the most holy place; and at that time there were only three priests. Two hundred birds apiece per day! I look upon them as the champion bird-eaters of the world. Then where were these Jews? They were upon the desert of Sinai; and Sahara compared to that is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava, torn by storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon and changed to stone. Such was the desert of Sinai. The whole suppUes of the world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert of Sinai for forty years. It would cost one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt Chriitendom. And jet there they wen 108 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. with'flocks and herds — so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and fifty thousand first- bom lambs at one time. It would require millions of acres to support those flocks, and yet there was no blade of grass, and there is no account of it raining baled hay. They sacrificed one hundred and fifty thousand lambs, and the blood had all to be sprinkled on the altar within two hours, and there were only three priests. They would have to sprinkle the blood of twelve hundred and fifty lambs per minute. Then all the people gathered in front of the tabernacle eighteen feet deep. Three millions of people would make a column six miles long. Some reverend gentlemen say they were ninety feet deep. Well, that would make a column of over a mile. Where were these people going? They were going to the Holy Land. How large was it? Twelve thousand square miles — one-fifth the size of niiriois — a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. There never was a land agent in the city of Chicago that would not have blushed with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and honey. Do you believe that God Almighty ever went into partner^ip with hornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the Jews: " I will eend hornets before you, to drive out the Canaanites." How would a hornet know a Canaanite? Is it possible that God inspired the hornets —that he granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? I am willing to admit that nothing in the world would be better calculated to make a man leave his native country than a few hornets attending strictly to business. God said "Kill the Canaanites slowly." Why? " Lest the beasts of the field increase upon you." How many Jews were there? , Three millions. Going to a country, how large? Twelve thou- sand square miles. But were there nations already in this Holy Land ? Yes, there were seven nations "mightier than the Jews." Say there would be twenty-onemilHons when they got there, or twenty- four millions with themselves. Yet they were told to kill them slowly, lest the beasts of the field increase upon them. Is there a man in Chicago that believes thatl Then what does he teach it to little children for? Let him tell the truth. So the same God went into partnership with snakes. The children of Israel lived on manna— one account says all the time, and another only a little while. That is the reason there is a chance for commentaries, and you can exercise faith. If the book was reasonable everybody could get to heaven in a moment. But whenever it looks as if it could not be that way and you believe, you are almost a saint, and when you know it is not that way and believe you are a saint. He fed them on manna. Now manna is very peculiar stuff. It would melt in the sun, and yet Miey used to cook it by seething and baking. I would ip soon think of ** MIS TAKES OF MOSES.** 100 fryingr snow or boiling icicles. But this manna had other peculiar qual- ities. It shrank to an omer. no matter how much they gathered, and swelled up to an omer, no matter how little they gathered. What a magnificent thing manna would be for the currency, shrinking and swel- ling according to the volume of business! There was not a change in the bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that God could just as well give them three square meals a day. They remembered about the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks and the onions of Egypt, and they said: " Our souls abhoreth tliis light bread." Then this God got mad — you know cooks are always touchy — and thereupon He sent snakes to bit-e the men, women and ciiildren. He also sent them quails in wrath and anger, and while they had the flesh between their teeth, He struck thousands of them dead. He always acted in that way, all of a sudden. People had no chance to explain — no chance to move for a new trial — nothing. I want to know if it is reasonable he should kill people for aslring for one change of diet in forty years. Suppose you had been boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a solitary thing on her table but hash, and one morning you said: *' My soul abhor- eth hash. " What would you say if she let a basketful of rattlesnakes upon you? Now is it possible for people to believe this? The Bible says that their clothes did not wax old, they did not get shiny at the knees or elbows; and their shoes did not wear out. They grew right along with them. The little boy starting out with his first pants grew up and his pants grew with him. Some commentators have insisted that angels attended to their wardrobes. I never could believe it. Just think of one angel hunting another and saying: ** There goes another button." I cannot believe it. There must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. Do you believe the real God — if there is one — ever killed a man for making hair-oil? And yet you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for making hair-oil to grease Aaron's beard; and said if anybody made the same hair- oil he should be killed. And He gave him a formula for making ointment, and He said if anybody made ointment like that be should be killed. 1 think that is carrying patent-laws to excess. There must be some mistake about it. I cannot imagine the infinite Creator of all the shining worlds giving a recipe for hair-oil. Do you believe that the real God came down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for making a tabernacle — patterns for tongs, for snuffers, and such things? Do you believe that God came down on that mountain and told Moses how to cut a coat, and how it should be trimmed? What would an infi- nite God care on which side he cut the breast, what color the fringe was, or how the buttons were placed ? Do you believe God told Moms ^ 110 MISTAKES OF INGLIiSOLL. make curtains ^ fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the des- ert? How di(i they weave it? Did He tell him to make things of gold, silver and precious stones, when they hadn't them? Is it possible that God told them not to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting the trees? You see all these things were written hundreds of years after- wards, and the pr "jsts, in order to collect the tithes, dated the laws back. They did not saj , " This is our law," but, " Thus said God to Moses in the wilderness." Now, can you believe that? Imagine a scene: The eternal God tells Moses, " Here is the way 1 want you to consecrate my priests. Catch a sheep and cut his throat." I never could understand why God wanted a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean trick; perhaps it was because his priests were fond of mutton. He tells Moses further to take some of the blood and put it on his right thumb, a little on his right ear, and a little on his right big toe? Do you believe God ever gave such instructions for the consecration of His priests ? If you should see the South Sea Islanders ^^oing through such a perform- ance you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it had to be done m order to consecrate a man to the service of the infinite God? Supposing the blood got on the left toe? Then we find in his book how God went to work to make the Egyp- tians let the Israelites go. Suppose we wish to make a treaty with th,' mikado of Japan, and Mr. Hayes sent a commissioner there; and suppose he should employ Hermann, the wonderful German, to go along with him; and when they came in the presence of the mikado Hermann threw down an umbrella, which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner said: " That is my certificate." You would say the countrj' is disgraced. You would say the president of a republic like this disgraces himself with jugglery. Yet we are told God sent Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, and when they got there Moses threw down a stick which turned into a snake. That God is a juggler — he is the infinite prestidigitator. Is that possible? Was that really a snake, or was it the appearance of a snake? If it was the appearance of a snake, it was a fraud. Then the necroman- cers of Egypt were sent for, and they tlirew down sticks, which turned into snakes, but those were not so large as Moses' snakes, which swal- lowed them. I maintain that it is just as hard to make small snakes as it is to make large ones; the only difference is that to make large snakes either larger sticks or more practice is required. Do you believe that God rained hail on the innocent cattle, killing them in the highways and in the field? Why should he inflict punishment on cattle for something their owners had done? I could never have any respect for a God that would so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply on vx»unt of the crime of its owner. Is it possible that God worked mira- ^'MISTAKES OF MOSESr 111 cles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong? Why dM he not tell Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand ? Why did he not tell him, " Your government is founded on slavery, and it will go down, and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of man y(»ur temples, your altars, and your fanes? " Why did he not speak about the infamy of slavery ? Because he believed in the infamy of slavery himself. Can we believe that God will allow a man to give his wife the right of divorce- ment and make the mother of his children a wanderer and a vagrant. There is not one word about woman in the Old Testament except the word of shame and humiliation. The God of the Bible does not think woman is as good as man. She was never worth mentioning. It did not take the pains to recount the death of the mother of us all. I have no respect for any book that does not treat woman as the equal of ma». And if there is any God in this universe who thinks more of me than he thinks of my wife, he is not well acquainted with both of us. And yet they say that that was done on account of the hardness of their hearts; an4 that was done in a community where the law was so fierce that it stoned a man to death for picking up sticks on Sunday. Would it not have be«n better to stone to death every man who abused his wife and allowed them to pick up sticks on account of the hardness of their hearts? If God wanted to take those Jews from Egypt to the land of Canaan, why didn't He do it instantly? If He was going to do a miracle, why didn't He do one worth talking about? After God had killed all the first-bom in Egypt, after he had killed all the cattle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to flight nix hun- dred thousand men. And because this God overwhelmed the E^jyptian army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly callmg the attention of the Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharaoh and hi« hosts. Did he help much with their six hundred thousand men ? We find by the records of the day that the Egyptian standing anny at that time was never more than one hundred thousand men. Must we believe all these stories in order to get to Heaven when we die ? Must we judge of a >Tian 'a character by the number of stories he believes ? Are we to get to Hewven by creed or by deed? That is the question. Shall we reason, or shaJl we simply believe ? Ah, but they say the Bible is not inspired about t^xiose Little things. The Bible says the rabbit and the hare chew the cud. But they do not. They have a tremulous motion of the lip. But the B^mg that made them says they chew the cud. The Bible, therefore, is not inspired in natural history. Is it inspired in its astrology? No. "Well, what is it inspired in? In its law? Thousands of people say that ir it had not been for the ten commandments we would not have known p*Ky better than to rob and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potat^*^. 112 Mistakes of ingersoll. hoed them all summer, and dug them in the fall; and suppose a man had Bat upon the fence all the time and watched him ; do you l3elieve it would be necessary for that man to read the ten commandments to find out who, in his judgment, had a right to take those potatoes? 7\11 laws against larceny have been made by industry to protect the fruits of its labor. Why is there a law against murder? Simply because a large majority of people object to being murdered. That is ail. And all these laws were in force thousands of years before that time. One of the commandments said they should not make any graven images, and that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has ever enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and any commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. But they say the Bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as you do. God always knew it, and if you can't civilize a nation witiiOut a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with? Why did God allow hundreds of ihousands and billions of billions to go down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally m- spired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this thing, be- cause I am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon this ques- tion—whether the Bible is true or not. I say it is not; and upon that I am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who believes in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who believes m that in- famy? You say: "No, we do not." Then you are better than your God was four thousand years ago. Four tliousand years ago he believe d in it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infa- my of infamies. It robs our language of every sweet and tender word in it. It takes the fireside away forever. It takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred. I was in Utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain where God used to talk bo Brigham Young. He never said anything to me. I said it was just as reasonable that God in the nineteenth century should talk to a polygamist in Utah as it was that four thousand years ago, on Mount Sinai, he talked lo Moses upon that hellish and damnable question. I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man anr^ the one man loves the one woman. 1 guess it is not inspired on the polygamy question. Maybe it is inspired about religious liberty. God gays that if anybody diilers with you about religion, "kill him." He told His peculiar people, " If any one teaches a different religion, kill himl " He did not say, " Try and convince him that be is wrong, " but ^'MISTAKES OF MOSES." 113 "kill him!" He did not say, "I am in the miracle business, and I will convince him;" but " kill him." He said to every husband, "If your wife, that you love as you love your own soul, says, 'let us go and worship other gods,' then 'thy hand shall be first upon her and she shall be stoned with stones until she dies. ' " Well, now, I hate a God of that kind, and I cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from Him. A God tells a man to kill his wife simply because she differs with him on religion! If the real God were to tell me to kill my wife, I would not do it. If you had lived in Palestine at that time, and your wife — the mother of 70ur children— had woke up at night and said: " I am tired of Jehovah. He is always turning up that board-bill. He is always telHng about whipping the Egyptians. He is always killing somebody. I am tired of Him. Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in beauty ; it has covered the earth with green and flowers; by its divine light I finst saw your face; its light has enabled me to look into the eyes of my beautiful babe. Let us worship the sun, father and mother of light and love and joy." Then wlat would it be your duty to do— kill her? Do you be- lieve any real god ever did that? Your hand should be first upon her, and when you took up some ragged rock and hurled it against the white bosom fdled with love for you, and saw running away the red current of her sweet life, then you would look up to heaven and receive the con- gratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandments you had to obey. I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious liberty. Let me ask you right here: Suppose, as a matter of fact, God gave those laws to the Jews and told them " whenever a man preaches a different religion, kill him," and suppose that afterwards the same God took upon himself flesh, and came to the world and taught and preached a different re- ligion, and the Jews crucified him— did he not reap exactly what he sowed ? May be this book is inspired about war. God told the Israelites to overrun that country, and kill every man, woman and child for defending their native land. Kill the old men ? Yes. Kill the women? Certainly. And the little dimpled babes in the cradle, that smile and coo in the face of murder— dash out their brains; that is the will of God. Will you tell me that any god ever commanded such infamy? Kill the men and the women, and the young men and the babes! "What shall we do with the maidens?" '• Give them to the rabble murderers!" Do you believe that God ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that shed their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the brutal feet of lust? If there is any God. I pray him to write in the book of eternal remembrance opposite to my name, that I denied that lie. Whenever a woman reads a Bible und (.onifs to that passage, she ought 8 114 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. to throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. Do you tell me that any decent god would do that? What would the devil have done under the same circwmstances? Just think of it; and yet that is the God that we want to get into the Constitution. That is the God we teach our children about, so tha> ^^^y will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! That monster — that fi I guess the Bible is not inspired about relig- ious liberty, nor about w~dr. Then, if it is not inspired about these things, maybe it is inspired about slavery. God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the heathen roundabout and they should be servants for them. What is a "ser- vant? " If they struck a " servant " and he died immediately, punish- ment was to follow; but if the injured man should linger a while, there was no punishment, because the servant represented their money! Do you believe that it is right — that God made one man to work for anothei and to receive pay in rations ? Do you believe God said that a whip od the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? Is it possible that the real God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? What more does he say? When the time of a married slave expired, he could not take his wife and children with him. Then if the slave did not wish to desert his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and became his master's property forever. Do you beheve that God ever turned the dimpled cheeks of Kttle children into iron chains to hold a man in slave- ry ? Do you know that a God like that would not make a respectable devU? I want none of his mercy. I want no part and no lot in the heaven of such a God. I will go to [perdition, where there is human sympathy. The only voice we have ever had from either of those other worlds came from hell. There was a rich man who prayed his brothers to attend to Lazarus so that they might *' not come to this place." That is the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across the river having any sympathy. And I would rather be in heU, asking for water, tlian m heaven denying that petition. Well, what is this book inspired about? Where does the inspiration come from? Why was it that so many ani- mals were killed ? It was simply to make atonement for man — that is all . They killed something that had not committed a crime, in order that the one who had committed the crime might be acquitted. Based upon that idea is the atonement of the Christian reHgion, That is the reason I attack this book — because it is the basis of another infamy, viz : that one man can be good for another, or that one man can sin for another. I deny it. You have got to be good for yourself ; you have got to sin for yourself. The trouble about the atonement is, that it saves the wrong man. For instance, I kill some one. He is a good man. He loves his ifife and childien and tries to make them happy; but he is not a Chris- ''MISTAKES OF MOSES.'' US kian, and he goes to hell. Just as soon as I am convicted and cannot get a pardon I get religion, and I go to heaven. The hand of mercy cannot reach down through the shadows of hell to my victim. There is no atonement for the saint — only for the sinner and the crim- mal. The atonement saves the vsTong man. I have said that I would never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine. I did not care what I started out on. I was always going to attack this doctrine. And in my conclusion I want to draw you a few pictures of the Christian heaven. But before I do that I want to say the rest I have to say about Moses. I want you to understand that the Bible was never printed until 1488. I want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript, in possession of those who could change it if they wished; and they did change it, because no two ever agreed. Much of it was in the waste bas- ket of credulity, in the open mouth of tradition, and in the dull ear of memory. I want you also to know that the Jews themselves never agreed as to what books were inspired, and that there were a lot of books written that were not incorporated in the Old Testament, I want you to know that two or three years before Christ, the Hebrew manuscript was trans- lated into Greek, and that the original from which the translation was made has never been seen since. Some Latin Bibles were found in Africa but no two agreed; and then they translated the Septuagint into the lan- guages of Europe, and no two agreed. Henry VIII. took a little time between murdering his wives to see that the Word of God was translated correctly. You must recollect that we are indebted to murderers for our Bibles and our creeds. Constantine, who helped on the good work in its early stage, murdered his wife and child, mingling their blood with the blood of the Savior. The Bible that Henry VIII. got up did not suit, and then his daughter, fihe murderess of Mary, Queen of Scotts, got up another edition, which also Jid not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot. King James, prepared the edition which we now have. There are at least one hundred thousand jrrors in the Old Testament, but everybody sees that it is not enough to invalidate its claim to infallibility. But these errors are gradually being (ixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs instead of "ravens," md Samson's three hundred foxes will be three hundred "sheaves" already bound, which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat. I want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the ftime the Bible was composed, and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant m their day and generation — that they were isolated by bigotry and wick- edness from the rest of the world. I want you to know that there are fourteen hundred millions of people in the world; and that with all the Calk and work of the societies, only one hundred and twenty miliions hava 116 MISTAKES OF IXGERSOLL. got Bibles. 1 want 3'ou to understand that not one person in one hundred in this world ever read the Bible, and no two ever understood it alike who did read it, and that no one person probably ever understood it aright. 1 want you to understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated his brother— there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the sword. I want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with the sword, and that the religion of Jesus Christ was established by mur- derers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the church carried the black flag. Then talk about the civilizing influence of thie religion ! Now, I want to give an idea or two in regaird to the Christian's heaven. Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to heaven, caiing nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. "If I can only get my little soul in! " I have always noticed that the peopl* who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved Here is what we are taught by the church to-day. We are taught by ii that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that tlie husband can be happy ther* with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life ia hell. But they say, " We don't believe m fire. What we believe in now b remorse." What will you have remorse 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? Do n't you see what an infinitely mean belief that is ? 1 tell you to-day that, no matter in what 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 paii; of hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose nakedness you have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire will cool up a little. According to this Christian doctrine, when you are in heaven you won't care how mean you were once. What must be the social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never would have been there if he had not got scared? What must be the social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had not pitied him he ought to have been damned ? Is it a compliment to an infi- nite God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned the minute He 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 ? For instanoe: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a ** MISTAKES OF MOSES.'' lit Bplendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got about him splendid children, whom he has loved and cared for with all his heart. Out he did not happen to believe in this Bible; he did not believe in the Pentateuch. He did not believe that because some child- ren made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God sent two bears and tore the little darhngs to pieces. He had a tender heart, and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody frag- ments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of grief; he thought about their wails and lamentations, and could not believe that God was such an infinite monster. That was all he thought, but he went to Hell. Then, there is another man who made a hell on earth for his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum, and his children were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants in the world. But just between the last sin and the last breath, this fellow got religion, and he never did another thing except to take his medicine. He never did a solitaiy human being a favor, and he died and went to heaven. Do n't you think he would be astonished to see that other man in hell, and say to himself, " Is it possible that such a splendid character should bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at lasthas brought me next to God?" Or, let OB put another ease. You were once alone m the desert— no provisions, no water, no hope. Just when your life was at its lowest ebb, a man appeared, gave you water and food and brought you safely out. How you would bless that man. Time rolls on. You die and go to heaven; and one day you see through the black night of hell, the friend who saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool his parched lips. He cries to you, " Remember what I did in the desert— give me to drink." How mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and be unable to relieve him. But this is the Christian heaven. We sit by the fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney-everybody happy, and the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window, and out on the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast freezing. How happy it makes a fireside, that beautiful contrast. And we say " Ciod is good," and there we sit, and she sits and moans, not one night but for- ever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives and chilcben, every- body eating, happy and deUghted, and Famine comes and pushes out it« shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, imi)lores us for a ciiist. Hon* that would increase the appetite! And yet 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 con- tribute another dollar to build another church, in which is taught such infamous Ues. 1 want every one of you to say that you never will, direct- 118 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. ly or indirectly, ^ve a dollar to any irian to preach that falsehood. It has done harm enough. It has covered the world with blood. It has filled the asylums for the insane. It tias cast a shadow in the heart, in the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman. I say let us rid the heavens of this monster, and writ« upon the dome '* Liberty, love and law." No matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do exactly what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact thought in our brains. Hather than have this Chrifttianity true, I would rather all the gods would destroy themselves this morning. I would rather the whole universe would go to nothing, if snch a thing were possible, this instant. Rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the eternal abyss of pain, I would seethe utter und eternal destruction of this universe. 1 would rather see the shining fabric of our universe crumble to unmeaning chao&, and take itself where oblivion broods and memory forgets. I would rather the blind Samson of some imprisoned force, re- leased by thoughtless chance, should so rack and strain this world that man in stress and straint, in astonishment and fear, should suddenly fall back to savagery and barbarity. I would rather that this thrilled and thrilling globe, shorn of all life, should in its cycles rub the wheel, the parent si.ar, on which the light should fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death, than to have this infamous doctrine of eternal punish- ment true; rather than have this infamous selfishness of a heaven for a few and a hell for the many established as the word of God! One world at a time is my doctrine. Let us make some one happy here. Happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more decent actions you do, the larger your income will be. Let every man try to make his wife happy, his children happy. Let every man try to make every day a joy, and God cannot afford to damn such a man. 1 cannot help God; I cannot injure God. I can help people; I can injure people. Consequently humanity is the only real religion. I cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four linea from Robert Bums: " To make a happy fireside clime To weans and wife— That's the true pathos and subllm* Of homan life." JERB S. BLAOK'8 REPLY. V^ JUDGE JERE S. BLACK'S REPLY TO COL. USTGi^^RSOLL. This is no person.'^l wrangle with Mr. Ingersoll. He has said nothing ofiensive about me. His indignation at finding himself confronted, not by a professional theologian, but bj a layman who applied the judicial test to his assertions, was natural and expressed with tolerable moderation. On the other hand, I tried, and I think I tried successfully, to confine myself rigidly to the square issue between us. A just or even an intelligent criticism could not be made without some reference to his mental peculiarities, which, with habits of shallow thinking and rash talking, made him an utterly incompetent judge of the subject he pretended to argue. But I found the proofs of this within the four corners of his own paper. There, also, I learned that he was without any acknowledged standard of right or wrong. It was legitimate to notice that, because it ac- counted satisfactorily for his other utterances. Neither is there any question of partisan politics be- tween us. I have certain political convictions, which you may call prejudices if you will But whether they are well or ill-founded, they have no manner of just connec- 120 MISTAKES OF TNGER80LL. tion with the subject matter o^ Mr. IiigersolPs diatribe against Christianity. - 1 believe, and have often expressed the belief, that re- ligion and politics cannot be mingled together without en- dangering both. The most perfect system of human gov- ernment that ever was invented by the wit of man, and the holiest religion that God has revealed to His creatures, when united together, form a monstrous compound highly injurious to the best interests of the human race. Such a union is pronounced by Christ and His apostles to be impure, and the fathers of this Republic so shaped their fundamental law as to make it a wall of perfect partition between them. Without such complete separation there can be no security for either civil liberty or the rights of conscience in matters of religion. The worst form of this adulterous connection is not assumed when a legal union is formed between Church and State. It is when a popular party in a free government undertakes to mingle its coarse interests and its vulgar passions with the religious senti- ments of the people. That is what pollutes and falsities both. The history of the world, and especially that of our own country, has been written in vain if this be not the lesson it teaches. These convictions not only disarm me of the power to repel Mr. IngersoU's assaults by apolitical argu- ment, but force me to admit for the pu^'poses of this case that he is right on all the points of that kind which he chooses to lug in. lean &q th.iil^ argumenti gratia^ without affecting the real question in controversy. He thought he was striking a powerful blow at the Al- mighty when he showed that the Jewish Constitution con- tained a provision which conflicted with the platform of the Abolitionists. They had determined and resolved that JERE S. BLACK'S REPLY. 121 under all circumstances, at ail times, and everywhere, the toleration of slavery or servitude for life was a crime. By this and by other means not now to be described they got money, power, and great personal consequence for them- selves and their fellows. Mr. Ingersoll could trust them to unite with him in howling down Christianity or anything else that dimin- ished the profits of their business. Directly before him he had the successful example of Demetrius, the silver- smith, who raised a tremendous uproar against the Gospel of Christ b}^ simply bellowing out : " Great is Diana of the Ephesians." '' Sirs, you know that by this craft we have our wealth." I could only protest that these appeals to the interest and passions of a political party were unfair. Diana of the Ephesians and Yankee Abolitionism may both have been great, and they were great in the sense of being pop- ular, but that does not prove that the Gospel of God is a pernicious imposture. The Jewish Constitution, which tolerated the enslavement of savages in Judea, and the resolves of the Abolition caucus, which condemned it in America, might both be riglit, since the two systems were not to be judged by one another; each should be consid- ered with, proper reference to circumstances widely diifer- ent. But the suggestion that the infallible God might be believed to have proceeded on just grounds without im- j)ugning the righteousness of the Abolitionists met with no favor. The practiced demagog cannot forego the tricks of his trade, and so he makes the panegyric of his political fac- tion an excuse for casting contempt in the face of his Maker and for insulting the faith and reason of all who be- lieve in Christ. The barest thought that the Judge of all 132 MISTAKES OF INOBR80LL. the earth did right fills him with runcor, which he pours out over page after page and then repeats it again and again : Unpacks his heart with words, And falls to cursing like a verj drab— A scullion — I have said thus much about the slavery point, not as an answer to Mr. IngersoU, but because I will not have it understood, if I can help it, that I permitted or provoked the introduction of partisan politics into the discussion of a religious subject. These furious outbreaks of intemperate abuse upon God, His laws and institutions, do not disturb any one's intel- lectual belief or at all diminish the awful reverence which a Christian feels for the supreme object of his adoration. Mr. IngersoU thinks he is raising a storm on the ocean of thought; he is not producing a ripple. He is merely doing the part of a common scold, to whom the idle listen for the sport of the thing, while others, taking counsel of their outraged feelings, think him a nuisance that ought to be abated. This is, perhaps, not so very easy to do. A woman, for such an offense, could be ducked, under the rule of the ancient law, but when a communis vixatrix of the male gender vexes the peace of the neighborhood in this way the remedy is difficult and doubtful. To learn how gratuitous these anilities are — how he scolds for the mere sake of scolding — look at his fanfar- onade on polygamy. By the unaided influence of the Church alone this vice has been extirpated completely and perfectly. In Christian countries the universal rule is that one man shall be the husband of one wife and no more; and it is neither the rule nor the practice anywhere else on the face of the globe. Now, a person who has or- J ERE S. BLACK'S REPLY. 123 dinary sense must see that the moral merit of Christ's Gospel in this respect is directly proportioned to the mag- nitude of the evil, from which it has relieved human society. But Mr. Ingersoll tries to blacken the character of the Christian religion by railing at the bad practice which it has opposed and destroyed. If he had flung out at mono- gamous marriage, which Christianity upholds, his act, though unjust, might have had an apparent object not alto- gether preposterous. Indeed, monogamy is as open to mere vulgar vituperation as polygamy. When an unclean mind exerts itself to imagine what may take place it is as easy to talk about brutality and the animal degradation of woman in one case as another. To the beastly all things are beastly. In point of fact the great body of unbelievers have de- nounced the Christian institution of marriage with espe- cial bitterness. To tie one man and one woman together by a bond which nothing but death can dissolve is, in their opinion, not only unjust and immoral, but a base and brutal tyranny which imjDoses a degrading restraint upon the natural rights of men and women to love and cohabit with whom they please. This is a prime and prominent part of the atheistic theory, everywhere advocated by its regular organs and its greatest disciples. In France, where their societies are compact and powerful, they define their creed substantially thus: 1. There is no God. 2. Religion is a lie. 3. Property is theft. 4. Love must be free. 5. Marriage is slavery. 6. Children belong to the State and not to anybody in particular. This is "the gospel of dirt." I don't say that Mr. In-- gersoll swallows it whole. He believes, or at least he practices, the Christian doctrine on the subjects of mar- 124 MISTAKE.-i OF INOERSOLL. I'iage, paternity, and property, not because he is bound by the Divine commandment, but because he feels like it. Others, rejecting as he does the ''golden metewand of the law," have an equal right to take their own feelings as the measure of righteousness. So one set of atheists curses marriage and another blackguards polygamy, and they are both right if there be no God above all and over all. My principal object is to show that Ingersoll's "circu- lar abuse " amounts to absolutely nothing. A regular reply would prove that in every line of his last article he has either falsified history or applied to it an erroneous interpretation. But I am tempted not to quit without giving a sample of his efforts at scientific reasoning. If he does not deny the existence of a God, his occupa- tion is gone. The object, therefore, of his highest ambi- tion ever since he took the stump against Christianity has been and is to annihilate the evidence which shows that the world has a Maker and a Moral Governor. This being his great central point on which all other points must turn, he has. of course, laid himself out to his ve'ry best for it. Let us see what he has achieved. I thought I was giving a true and accurate account of his theory when I said that he regarded the universe as natural; that ''it came into being of its own accord " ; that " it made its own laws at the start, and afterward improved itself considerably by spontaneous evolution." But he denies that this is a true exposition of his views,jand he exercises his conceded right to define them again more sharply than he did before. Now he says that the uni- verse did not come into being at all; it always was; nor aid it make its own laws, for it has no laws. If the material universe existed, just as it is now, from all unbegun eternity, there is, to be sure, not much chance J ERE 6'. BLACK'S REPLY. 12:, for a creature to have done any work; if itb haruionv i< preserved and the uniformity of its action maintained without any rule or regulation prescribed by a super ioi* power, then there is and has been no need of a lawgiver; God is, therefore, so useless a being that He must be the- oretically blotted out of existence. For the proposition that the universe always was (with- out a creator) and will be forever (without a ]ireserver) he offers only one proof, to- wit, that it is according to /m idea. This he considers potent enough to overrule all the evidence, direct and circumstantial, by which his "idea" is opposed. All testimony borne by the common sense of mankind, all the deductions of reason, all philos- ophy, and all faith in Holy Writ, must be swept aside, so that his idea may have free course to run and be glorified. But this ascription of supreme authority to an idea, mere- ly because it happens to be his idea, will hardly be con- curred in. The assertion of it, indeed, proves nothing except that his bump of self-esteem is in a state of chronic inflammation. He starts another idea, which has the same special merit of being his own, namely: that the material universe is not governed by laws. The planets move at the rate and in orbits which can be calculated with absolute certainty; the earth revolves on its axis with such perfect regularity that the very second of time at which the sun will rise at a particular place can be predicted a thousand years be- forehand; chemical substances combine always in exactly the same relative proportions; in the animal and vegetable worlds like produces like; in all organized beings certain causes are known to produce certain effects favorable or unfavorable to light and health. Mr. IngersolPs idea is that these are not the results of 126 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. law or any sort of intelligent pre-arrangement; but they are phenomena which happen^ and the world is by mere acci- dent prevented from tailing into chaos. In his wisdom he decides " as matter of fact " that there is no rule back of the phenomenon which a controlling power compels the subject-matter to obey; it merely happens, but it happens so uniformly that it creates the idea of law in our minds, which is, however, a mere delusion. If Galileo and New- ton and Kepler and all the other philosophers, great and small, have been seduced into the weak belief that the ma- terial universe is under'the reign of law, it is rare good fortune for us iu these latter days to have found a superior personage who, by merely turning the Drum- mond light of his intellect on the subject, at once exposes the blunders of the ignorant living and " the barbarous dead." Let no man misunderstana or misrepresent Mr. Inger- soll. It is not in irony or to point a scurrile jest that he denies the operation of natural laws upon matter. He is in serious earnest, and if he does not actually believe what he says, his simulation of sincerity is very perfect. To make himself clear he takes a simple case. Water, he says, always runs down hill, not because there is a law be hind it — law does not cause the phenomenon, but the phe- nomenon causes the idea of law to exist in our minds — but that idea is on this side of the fact. It follows that Newton must have been grossly mistaken when he said that the falling of water and other bodies toward the center of the earth was caused by the law of gravitation. Mr. Ingersoll supposes that he is imputing an absurdity to me when he says, '' Mr, Black probably thinks the dif- ference in the weight of rocks and clouds is produced by law," Undoubtedly I do, I learned in my infancy (and J ERE 8. BLACK'S REPLY. 127 I have "kept the credulity of the cradle ") that this dif- ference is caused by that same law of gravitation operating according to rules which are perfectly understood by all tolerably well-informed men. I will go further and con- fess that I think it a most beneficent law which prevents the rocks from flying about through the air and the clouds from becoming immovably fixed in the earth. Our great Creator ought to be adored and thanked for making such an arrangement. But this only proves to Mr. IngersoU that I am a believer in '' the monstrous and miraculous, the impossible and immoral." Mr. IngersoU is much accused of plagiarism. Whether that be true or not of his declamatory spouting, this no- tion that the material world is not governed by law is without doubt original. It never entered any human head before — and I think that in all future time it will find no lodgment in the mind of any reasonable being. Another way he has of reaching the athiestic conclu- sion. I do not say that I know what he wants to be at. But as well as I can understand him, he asserts that the universe could not have had a design because we cannot trace back the designer to his own origin ; the world was not made because we cannot tell who made the maker. The mechanism of a watch is so curious that " it must," says he, " have had a maker, but he adds the watchmaker himself is more wonderfully made than the watch, and hence he infers that he also must have had a maker, since the necessity of a Creator increases with the wonder of the creature. He is unquestionably, though perhaps un- consciously, right in this. It makes a demonstration as complete as mathematics that man was created by "some pre-existent and self-conscious being of power and wisdom to us unconceivable," = $8 MISTAKES OF INGER80LL. But instead of accepting this plain, palpable, and neces- sary consequence of his own logic, he turns his back upon the conclusion, and begins to maunder over his own ina- bility to understand how a designer could be without an anterior design, and telling how hard it is for him to see the plan or design in earthquakes and pestilences; and how the justice of God is not visible to him in the history of the world. This silly trash he thinks sufficient to repel the irresist- ible proofs of a Creator which he himself has adduced, and which by all fair and unperverted minds are received as coiM^lusive. J. S. Black. "^^^c^ ^^ PART II. Mistakes of Ingersoll AS SHOWN BY W. F. CRAFTS, CHAPLAIN McCABE, ARTHUR SWAZEY, D. D. ROBERT COLLYER, D. D. F. P. POWERS, BISHOP CHENEY, And others, also including. Ingersoll's Lecture in full on " Skulls," and his re- plies TO Prof. Swing, W. II. Ryder, Brooke Heeford, and other critics. W. F. CRAFTS' KEPLY. Ingersomsm Outlined-" Ten Points" instead of "Five "-Infidel Protoplasm. " I WAR with principles, not with men "—the motto of Webster in political debates— should be the law in all con- flicts of ideas, especially in the realm of religion. It is not of the person, Mr. Ingersoll, that I speak, but rather of the principles of which he is the most popular spokes- man, and which make up that shallowest, but loudest^ Jericho book of infidelity's bitter waters which begins in a few tears of pretended martyrdom to love of truth ; spat- ters the mud of epithets upon Christians, while condemn- ing that very vice in a part of the Church in less advanced 7 ages ; babbles shallowly along its little channel about law as an almighty executive, as if the rails that give direction to a train took the place of the engine that draws it: winds very crookedly through the Old Testament, avoiding every passage except those few that can be used for ridicule; plows still more crookedly through church history, shun- ning every part except the unchristian swamps of bigotry and superstition; keeps up the same snaky crookedness in its passage through religion of to-day, hurrying noisily among only the few rocky and marshy places, where it can find the reptiles of superstition and error; passes with great dash of spray along the audacious theory that Christian civilization is the result of anti-Christian forces; plunges with loud roar of waters down its claim that infidelity is the only liberator of man, woman, and child; and still flow- ing within its narrow little channel babbles of itself as an emancipated ocean of untrammeled thought. These characteristics of the brook are the ten points of Ingersollism. I have read and re-read, carefully, the nine published lectures of Mr. Ingersoli on religious themes, besides hearing the one entitled " Skulls," and every one of them has something on each of these ten points of his fixed and unchanging creed, and not one or all has anything beyond these ten " doctrines " — for he often uses the words, '' That is my doctrine." While attacking creeds of the Church he holds and urges all to believe his own unformu- lated but distinct creed, offering in place of the '' five points of Calvinism " the ten points of Ingersollism, the latter occurring as regularly in every one of his lectures in this age as the former did a century ago in the sermons of Cal- vinists, which he ridicules for their sameness. What is this frightful monster that we call " a creed?" Simply a statement of what one believes. Every man, unless he is an idiot, has a creed in which he agrees witk somebody. The only question is to Und by " reason, observation, and experience,' which is the best. It would hardly be considered bigotry for a scientist to believe a few things as a creed of fixed scientific truths which no progress can ever erase, for instance, the rotund- ity and revolution of the earth, the attraction of the planets upon each other, and scores of other things which every scientist has held for many years unchanged, and is sure are unchangeable because proved conclusively. There are some certainties in the science of religion, such as are referred to in the Apostles' Creed, which may, without any greater bigotry, be considered as proved and established. The Christian Church of to-day does not generally insist upon anything further than these few concrete facts of the Apostles' Creed ^' as essentials " in Christian belief When Evangelical churches shout their watchword, '' In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty ; in all things, charity," it it^ as if a company of scientists should say, " On proved facts we will all agree, but in the realms of hypothesis and opinion, we will agree to disagree." But the special point we wish to notice is, that Mr. Ingersoll attacks creed with creed. He is as bigoted a par- tisan of his own creed as ever called hard names. The very heart of his creed seems to be the belief that his mission is to destroy the creed of everybody else. It is a suggestive fact tliat the naturally-gifted mind oi Mr. Ingersoll, who declares that godless and soulless mate- rialism is the emancipator and inspirer of thought, should be able, in all the years which these ten lectures represent, to produce but ten ideas, the same ten ideas which maile up his earliest lecture, years ago, appearing successively in each of the succeeding lectures, including that of to-day, there being no change save in the cap and bells of his jokes. Reading these ten ideas over and over for as many iO MISTAKES OF INQEBSOLL. hours in going through these lectures, brought back a ludicrous scene in our college burial of mathematics when fifteen notes of PlejePs hymn were played dolefully over and over again for nearly an hour, as marching music. In reading these lectures, which are but ten combinations and permutations of ten ideas, one is reminded also of the lecturer's own illustration of the boarding house keeper, who, for years, had no change of diet from hash, for every lecture is the same hash of ten ideas, changed only in the name and in the order of putting in the ten elements. ARTICLE I, First Point in the Ten — Sepulchral Hoots of the Ingersoll Owl — A Theological Rip Van Winkle. As in the beet hash of New England the blood red beet predominates and gives color to the whole, so the principal element in these lectures against Christianity is the blood of past persecutions by a corrupt part of the Church, for which true Christianity has no more responsibility than a loyal colonel in our war of 1776, or 1861, for the robberies and crimes of camp-followers or traitors. In every published lecture on religion, Mr. Ingersoll deliberately cites the acts .of the Benedict Arnolds of the Christian army as repre- senting the Washingtons and Grants. He describes past counterfeits of religion as specimens of its accepted cur- rency. It is as if one should attack present astronomers by relating ridiculous stories of the old astrologers, or assail present physicians by quoting the strange practices of the ancient alchemists. In one lecture — a fair representative of all in this respect — I found that in forty-three pages only two did not con- tain these stale references to past persecutions, except a few pages given to the trial of Professor Swing, which were e(juallj stale as assailing cliiefly abandoned features of W. F. GRAFTS' BE PLY. 11 human Calvinism. Past errors and follies of the human Calvinism, human CatJiolicism, and heathen religions are constantly spoken of as if vital elements of Christianity. Mr. Ingersoll ought to have a hymn to sing at the open- ing and close of his lectures, made on the pattern of that one whose first verse is: Go on, go on, go on, go on, Go on, go on, go on, Go on, go on, go on, go on, Go on, go on, go on, with forty-two verses more of the same, substituting " past persecutions," instead of '^ go on," which is too progressive for a '•• go-back " lecture. Mr. Ingersoll is a Rip Yan Winkle in theology, who seems to have slept ever since the days of persecution. He is a Sancho Panza who assails imaginary foes of his own making, and thinks he has captured the golden helmet of Christianity when he has only secured the abandoned brass kettle of old traditions and discarded superstitions. He is a Falstaff killing the dead Percy of past follies. His lectures bustle with the antiquated and misused words "priests," " dark ages," " witches," " fagots," " religious wars," '' church fathers," " damned infants," '' martyrs," " gods," etc., as if he were speaking in a heathen land, and also in some dead century. And he uses the past tense so exclusively in his " progressive " lectures that one would suppose English as well as Hebrew had no present tense. It must have been Mr. Ingersoll, in his boyhood, that came from his first hunt crying', " I 've shot a cherub," having mistaken an owl for a cherub, because of the wretched pictures of tke latter on the old grave stones. Mr. Ingersoll logically destroys some Church owl of the dark ages, and because it corresponds with his own carica- ture of the Church thinks he has dethroned Christianity la MISTAKM8 OF IN^lSniiOLL itself. Like Poe's '• raven '• who had but one word, '^ Never- more," Mr. Ingersoll is continually crying in the ears of the present that worn-out strain about abuses which we all condemn, '' Galileo-Servetus, Galileo-Servetus." This ten-idea champion of popular materialism, while talking of progress and condemning those who hold fast to things of the past, is nevertheless so largely devoted to showing his carefully preserved martyr-mummies from the long-past ages of persecution, that we find Mark Twain's question constantly arising at each new charge against Christianity: "Is he— is he dead?" and we are also tempted to cry out for a " fresh corpse " in place of these very dry and dead mummies of past abuses. To paraphrase the lecturer's own words, we want one pres- ent fact. We pass our hats through the lectures in vain for some present facts against pure Christianity, which he assumes to assail and overthrow. There is far more excuse for Thomas Paine, in an age when the old Calvinistic errors were largely held, and for Yoltaire, surrounded by the superstitions of Pomanism, misunderstanding Christianity, than for this modern lecturer, who very well knows that the caricatures which he represents as Christianity are very old pictures of its ancient camp-followers. ARTICLE II. Ingersoll Mistakes a Part for the Whole — Gross Misrepresen- tations. Article Second of Ingersoliism, like unto the first, but with present instead of past tense, is about as follows: Christianity to-day is proved to be false by the present errors and abuses that are found in some of the churches. Romish superstitions and the errors of those who have grossly misinterpreted the Bible as a support of slavery, polygamy, etc., are continually used by this champion of r. F, OHAFm REPLY, n " liberty of thought," and " charity '' and " brotherhood,'' as representing true Christianity to-day, which is quite as honorable as if a man should attack the principles of med- icine by citing the tricks of quacks. An examination of the hull of the Great Eastern found adhering to the iron- plates of the bottom an enormous multitude of mussels, whose weight is estimated at three hundred tons. The great ship has been carrying on her hull a burden equal to full cargoes for six or eight sailing ships. Suppose I should show you a few of those barnacles as specimens of what the Great Eastern is made of, and then denounce its builders as fools? Mr. Ingersoll is constantly confounding barnacles of some -^ church " with Christian- ity. Suppose I should take the belts and whips of torture that are used by Romanists in Mexico and show them in lectures as specimens of the barbarism of Congregational- ists and Methodists? It is certainly most palpable unfair- ness for Mr. Ingersoll to use the word ''gods'' indiscrimi- nately of heathen and Christian objects of worship, and to employ the words, " The Church," as if there were no false or true, past or present in connection with it, and as if its meaning were as much a unit as " The Moon." So also he unfairly classes all ministers as "priests." It would be quite as fair to speak of all " medicine men," past and present, savage and civilized, under the words, " The Doctors." AMTICLE III, The Great Ingersoll Boomerang — How it Works — Further Mis- representations Carefully Examined. Far less prominent, but ever present, is the third element in IngersoUism — an oft-recurring moan — " Infidels to-day are martyrs at whom men cast epithets, but not ballots." The defeated infidel politician appears as regulaiiy and 14 MISTAKES OF INQMBSOLL. revengefully in every lecture (indirectly, of course) as the misanthropic Byron shows himself in each of his poems as tlie real hero under the various names of " Childe Harold " "Don Juan," "Corsair," etc. He who cries out against the past for calling infidels by hard names hurls in the more kindly present more anathemas than any other Pope. " You are an infidel." " You're a bigot ! Arn't you ashamed to be calling names, you old hypocrite?" In this debate of Mr. Ingersoll's bigotry with the big- otry of the past, a printer might fitly misprint the "pros and cons," " pigs and cows." It is like the English lady who criticised an American friend for saying, at a mistake in croquet, " What a horrid scratch," and when asked what would have been better, replied, " You might have said, 'What a beastly fluke.' " It is not strange that the people will not elect to represent them in politics, one who so audaciously misrepresents them, as does Mr. Ingersoll in nearly every attempt to declare the belief of Christians. Misrepresenting Bible Passages. Dr. Kyder, Prof. Swing, and Dr. Herford, have abund- antly shown his numerous and inexcusable misrepresenta- tions of Bible passages, to which may be added another more atrocious, if possible, the implication that the perse- cutions of Saul of Tarsus, and the adulteries of Solomon, are a part of the Christian system, and also that Jephthah really killed his daughter as a sacrifice, which the Bible does not declare, nor any Christian believe, and the mis- interpretation of the passage about women keeping silence in the churches, which the Christian Church of to-day con- eiders of only temporary force, a command to Corinth, and not to Christendom, no more binding upon us than Paul's request that Timothy should bring his cloak that was left W. F, GRAFTS' REPLY. 15 at Troaa. It is a kindred misrepresentation to say the assertion that those who tortured the martyrs were the same ones who made the Bible — an assertion which liis- tory clearly refutes, as the Old Testament was ar- ranged in its present form 388 B. C, and the New Testament was collected as it is at present before the days of persecution by the church began. It is also a misrepresentation, not only of the Bible, out of the common principles of interpretation in every department of literature, to intimate that an explanation of passages as poetic and figurative, is unfair and begging the question. Suppose we should put a literal interpreta- tion upon the tropical figures of Mr. IngersolPs eloquence, and when he speaks of the sun's rays " as arrows from the quiver of the sun," declare him an ignorant idolater, who thinks the sun an intelligent being who has caught the passion for archery. Sun and Moon Standing Still, It is equally absurd for him to interpret the poem about the sun and moon standing still by the rules of prose. Mr. Ingersoll also says, poetically: ' "Think of that wonderful chemistry by which bread was changed into the divine tragedy of Hamlet." Suppose we should interpret that sentence as fact rather than figure, and say that Mr. Inger- soll believes that by the combination of certain liquids and solids in the chemist's retort this marvelous literary pro- duction was created! It would be quite as reasonable as to insist upon absolute literalness in the bold figures of Oriental eloquence and poetry. Mr. Ingersoll also misrepresents the Christian's Sunday in the home, speaking of it as " a day too good for a child to be happy in," saying: " The idea, that any God would hate to hear a child laugh." We all know (?) that in the 16 MISTAKES OF INQER80LL. Christian homes of to-day the smiles and laughter of childhood are strictly forbidden, and any one who smiles in church is carried out by the police (?). HeU. Especially does Mr. Ingersoll continually and grossly misrepresent Christianity in regard to the conditions by which men are believed to bring themselves to Hell. Hear him: " It is infinitely absurd to suppose that a God would address a communication to intelligent beings, and yet make it a crime, to be punished in eternal flames, for them to use their intelligence for the purpose of understanding His communication. Neither can they show why any one should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting honestly in accordance with reason; and yet a doc- trine with every possible argument against it has been, and still is, believed and defended by the entire orthodox world. If I should say ninety-nine in a hundred go down to Hell, I should have the support of the entire orthodox world. You can see for yourselves the justice of damn- ing a man if his parents happened to baptize him in the wrong way. Think of a God who will damn his children for the expression of an honest thought!" Few, if any, intelligent Christians teach that a man must accept their denominational creed in all its details in order to be saved, as the careless critics of Christianity so often assert, but rather all evangelical Christians repeat the J^ew Testament conditions of salvation, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved," and declare nega- tively, not as has been said by Mr. Ingersoll, said by infidels, that all who do not believe will not be saved, but rather in the words of Martin Luther, " IS'o man shall die in his sins, except him who, through disbelief, thrusts from him the forgiveness of sin, which'^in the name of Jesus is W. F. GRAFTS' REPLY. IT offered him." It is the firm of Ignorance and Bigotry that declare that evangehcal Christianity teaches that a man can not be saved who does not believe in its statement of the Trinity and its interpretations of the Bible. He also utterly misrepresents the Christian conception of saving faith as ignoring reason and action, both of which it includes, and as resting chiefly on a book or a creed as its end, rather than on the person, Christ. Every church teaches that intelligent faith and faithfulness toward Christ (not creeds in detail) is the condition of salvation. "Faith," says Bishop Wightman, "believes on competent testi- mony what it could not otherwise know." Or, as Dr. Arnold says: '* Faith is reason leaning on God." Reason is the foundation of belief. The Present vs. the Future. Another of the almost countless misrepresentations of religion b}^ Mr. Ingersoll, is the frequent statement that Christianity is wholly devoted to the future, and ignor'^s man's present needs, which reminds us that it was Thomas Paine (?) and not the Bible that said, " Pure religion and unde- filed before God the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." And you have all observed that the organized societies and benevolences, by which orphans, and the aged, and the helpless, are aided in asy- lums and refuges, were not (?) established by this Chris- tianity which " ignores man's present needs, and devotes itself exclusively to the future." Christian ministers never preach on combining works with faith, or showing charac- ter by conduct, or loving their neighbors as themselves. Mr. Ingersoll declares that a little restitution is better than a great deal of repentance, and we have noticed that when Ingersoll has delivered a lecture or two in our large cities. 18 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. those among his hearers who have defrauded others have^ at once, begun the work of restitution ( ?) bj sending back the money thej had stolen from employers, creditors and customers. (?) Mr. Moody, who preaches repentance as well as restitution, of course (?) has no such results follow- ing his work, as he proclaims the Christianity whose entire interest is in the future life. (?) You smile at this practical test of Mr. Ingersoll's theory, in view of the fact that we have no record of a single instance where one of his lectures has led to the restitution of stolen property; while such cases are constantly occurring in connection with the work of Mr. Moody and other Christians. Several very notable ones have come under ray own immediate notice. It is an equally astounding, barefaced misrepresentation, or to put it in fewer letters, false, when ho states that all of the orthodox religion of the day is Calvinistic. Part of the so-called Calvinistic churches are not Calvinistic in the usual sense of the word, and we had fondly dreamed that there was such a body of Christians as Methodists who are distinctly anti-Calvinistic, and hold the first place in num- bers among Protestant Churches in America. It is also a misrepresentation to say, " Whoever thinks he has found it all out, he is orthodox," for every orthodox pulpit constantly preaches the duty of growth, intellectual and spiritual. Mr. Ingersoll declares that Protestants to- day would persecute, as in the past, if they had the power, a statement in which he assumes tlie role of the prophet, and shows the profundity of his insight into the spirit of Christianity to-day, which binds up the broken-hearted and ministers to the troubled and sorrowing. It is cunning sophistry to say that every one is opposed to the union of Church and state, 'because they know that the Church could not be trusted with power, a statement which obtains its force by suppressing the very important fact that the W. F. GRAFTS' REPLY. 19 Church when united with political power draws into itself unprincipled politicians, and becomes entirely a different body through the opportunities it ofilirs to selfishness and ambition. It is also a misrepresentation to say that " Prot- estants stand up for Protestant persecutors of the past," for all Protestant churches of to-day condemn the burning of Servetus and such acts as much as any one. It is also a misrepresentation by holding back half tho truth to tell us of that base or mistaken element of the Church that made the rack and not of that other noble element of the Church that was upon the rack, for the martyrs were sel- dom if ever infidels. IngersoU's Horrible Estimate of Truth. Mr. Ingersoll, in his recent lecture on " Skulls," twice said that truth was not worth a little suffering, that one had better lie or recant than suffer a little pain, or lose a drop of blood. He would '^ turn Judas Iscariot to his own soul " to save a thumb. This significant item as to his whole estimate of truth helps us to account for the whole- sale manufacture of falsehoods in his lectures. Mr. IngersoU's most gross misrepresentation is the habitual custom of telling only one side of a fact, quoting difficult Bible passages but never sublime ones, bad cus- toms of the Church but never good ones, defects in Chris- tians but never excellences. When Mr. Ingersoll speaks of '' a lawyer whipping his child for holding back part of the truth," he describes his own partisan and one-sided method, as Professor Swing has shown, attacking Christian- ity as the hired attorney of infidelity, or the hired cam- paigner of the anti-Christian party who is to present only one side. This, too, from a man who claims that infidelity unfetters thought and broadens mind. 20 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. The Bible the Best of Books, and Christ the Best of Men. Mr. Ingersoll also misrepresents the differences among the various forms of Christianity. All men of broad scholarship of the last and best century who have written on religion, both skeptics and Christians, agree on two tl^ngs — the Bible as the best of books, and Christ as the best of men. So much at least may be said to be indorsed by all scholarship, and when *a man rests down upon these two truths as proved and established, and follows them out into the truths to which they lead, he will not be likely to go far astray, for if Christ is confessedly the greatest and best of men, the "Teacher sent from God," then His teachings are to be accepted, and those teachings are the foundations of all essential Christianity; and if the Bible is the best of books, the moral and spiritual guide of man, then its teachings are to be carefully read and deeply regarded, and all who take this book as life's guide book will be led into all truths of Christianity that are funda- mental and important. All Christians, Romanists and Protestants, agree that Christ is the living embodiment and pattern of Christian manhood, and that the Bible, at least, contains the " Word of God." All evangelical Christians agree on that broad and simple platform of the Apostles Creed, and declare not '"many," but one way to Heaven, and that not by " believing an incomprehensible creed," but by faith and faithfulness of intellect, will, heart and life, toward the person, Jesus Christ. Two quotations fairly represent all the evangelical churches on this matter. Bishop Whipple, an Episcopalian, recently remarked, "• As the grave grows nearer, my theology is growing strangely simple, and it begins and ends with Christ, as the only refuge for the ]ost," Dr. Alexander, of Princeton, a Presbyterian, when W. F. GRAFTS' REPLf. 31 dyiflg said; ^'All my theology is reduced to this narrow compass, 'Jesus Christ came into the world to save sin- ners.''' Mr. Ingersoll, misrepresents the most familiar facts when he says, '' Just in proportion as the human race has advanced, the church has lost power, ^lere is no exception to this rule.^' It is a fact so familiar that every intelligent child knows it, that Christianity was never so powerful in the world, as to-day— never had so many fol- lowers. By the multiplied agencies of church work, s!x thousand are converted per day— two Pentecosts every twenty-four hours. Mr" Ingersoll misrepresents not only the Bible and church history, by leaving out all that would not help his theories, and stating one half the truth, but he also mis- represents the Declaration of Independence as " retiring God from politics," as if the words were not there, "the station to which the laws of nature, and nature's God entitle them," " All men are endowed by their Creator with cer- tain 'iuahenable rights "—" and for the support of this declaration, and in a firm reliance upon Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor." It is surely infinitely absurd to expect a man broadly and truly to represent us in politics, who so inexcusably and grossly misrepresents us in religion. ARTICLE IV. Something New if True-Infidelity the Essential Factor in Pro- gressive Oivilization-But Coleridge, Wm. H. Seward, Bismarck, and other great Statesmen can not see it- Civilization goes only with Christianity. The fourth article in Ingersollism is as follows: '^ The civilization of this country is not the child of faith, but of unbelief— the result of free thought. But for the efforts of a few brave infidels, the church would have takea the 22 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. world back to the midnight of barbarism/' How ignorant we have all been! Luther, who led Europe out of the Dark Ages, was not, it seems, a child of faith, but of free thought (?) and Paul also, who brought civilization into barbarous Europe, peopled with savage tribes, as described by Julius Caesar in his Commentaries. The transformation of savage Gaul and Britain into civilized France and England was accomplished by the efforts of ^' unbelief." (?) Long ago, Christianity had a contest with Atheism, Pan- theism, and Culture, as to which was the best civilizer. Christianity selected Europe, and gave the other three con- testants Asia, with several centuries the start. Atheism, or Buddhism, which ignores all spiritual things and devotes itself to the present life, has operated for thousands of years in India. Pantheism, or Brahminism, made its experiment in the same country; and Culture obtained exclusive control of China, ruling both church and state. As a result, in accordance with Mr. Ingersoll's theory, these elements of Ingersollism have developed a lofty civiliza- tion (?) in China and India, given education to woman, torn away the veil of her slavish seclusion, made her the equal of man, treated female infants as honorably as the boys, developed a high morality in the community, and supplied the world with its standard literature, its foremost science, and its chief inventions.(?) On the other hand, Christianity came into barbarous Europe a dozen centuries later, caused the degradation and enslavement of women and children, (?) repressed scientific investigation, (?) prevented invention, (?) checked thought, (?) and thus hin- dered literary activity, and, by the barbarism of the Bible, " brought bondage to man, woman, and child '' in body and brain. (?) If the facts do not correspond to these legitimate deductions from Mr. Ingersoll's theories as to the effect of. W. F. V HAFT IS' REPLT, 23 atheistic culture, on the one hand, and Christianity, on the other, upon national life, so much the worse for the facts. Mr. Ingersoll says much against the wars of Christian nations. He forgets that peace societies and arbitration were never known outside of Christianity, and that wars in Christian lands are the gradually disappearing remains of previous barbarism. He talks of science and invention as opening up this era! How does it happen that all this is in Christian rather than In heathen lands? He talks of charity and benevolence of infidels! "Why is it that all benevolent societies are Christian, and that Thomas Paine halls can not be supported ? He talks of liberty of speech and thought and government! Why is it that such liberty is only found in Christian countries? He has much to say of the barbarous age of dug-outs, tom-toms, and wooden plows! Has he not seen in the World's Expositions these very things as representing nations to-day, that have not risen from their primitive degradation and ignorance because Christianity has not yet reached them? As to the relation of the Bible to civilization, Samuel Taylor Coleridge declares that " for more than a thousand years the Bible, collectively taken, has gone hand in band with civilization, science, law, in short, with moral and intellectual cultivation, always supporting, and often lead- ing the way." William H. Seward says, '^The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible." Bismarck utters a similar sentiment, as quoted in his recent biography: "How, without faith in a revealed religion, in a God who wills what is good, in a Supreme Judge, and a future life, men can live together harmoniously — ^ach doing his duty and letting every one else to do his — I o not understand." Similar sentiments are uttered by 84 MISTAKES OF IN0ER80LL. the leading statesmen of all lands, the unanimous verdict of statesmanship being that civilization can not be carried tbrward without Christianity. ARTICLE F. Marvelous Power of Time and Circumstance — Tragic Ufifect oi Iso>thermal Lines — Peoria Mud Necessarily the Seventh Heaven as IngersoU Sees it. The fifth article of Ingersollism is, that gods and men are but evolutions of matter and circumstance, the difier- ence between heathen gods and the Christian's God being the result of a difierence in their worshippers, and the dif- ference in men being the result of varying soils and sur- roundings. He says : " Nogodwaseverin advance of the nation that created him^" In answer to this last statement, which is true, of course, of all imaginary deities, but not of tlie One True God, it is only necessary to ask any candid and intelligent man to read the description of God given in the Bible, where both Testaments declare Him to be "merciful and gracious, long suifering and abundant in goodness and truth, but will by no means spare the guilty," and then say whether this God is nothing more than the reflec- tion of the stiff-necked and perverse people wlio held to this conception of Deity. The fact is, God as described in the Bible is infinitely loftier and purer than the Jewish people, or any people of any age. It is still more absurd, if pos- sible, for Mr. IngersoU to assert that '' men are but the creatures of their surroundings, made what they are wholly by material causes, such as soil and climate." It is one of the characteristic contradictions of history, such as are found so frequently in Mr. IngersolPs lectures, when he asserts that great minds have never been found except in the " lands of respectable winters," with the intimation that no great achievements in art or literature are possible in warnj W. F. GRAFTS' REPLY. 25 Oriental lands. As if Babylon, and Nineveh and Egypt ^H not been in early ages the nniversities of the world^ C^rlylluTt b ve been vfry much deceived when he declared Job of the Oriental land of Uz to be the greates poet the world has 1-wn. Mohammed of those warm lands - Irtainlv great, even though wrong, and scores ot other.. r;TyL'inen't, ..ight be mentioned, altl^ough, of cou^^^^^^ it'is ^ident that greatness of men or P-Pl-;^J;P; ^ lands is rather in spite of circumstances than by the.r help^ Mr Inc^ersoU in his lecture on " xMan, Woman, and ChM "spiking of one of these warm countries as the rep- Ohild, spearang u You mio-ht go there with five resentative of all, says. lou mi^"'' o ^, ■,_„..,„ thousand Congregational preachers, hve thousand deacons teTousandVofessors in -'^^ges, five thousand of he solid men of Boston and their wives settle 1 «™ ^'; ^^^ you will see the second generation ndmgupon a mule bare Vl,.o shoes, a grapevine whip, with a -s^er «nd-^^^^^ arm -oing to a cock fight on Sunday. Such . the influence ""limatf." But like most of Mr. I-gersoll's theories, ^h. one is unfortunately the direct opposite o* facts, ihe Sandwich Islands have all these disadvantages of climate, S fifty years ago were plunged in the deepest barbarism, with all L vicl of savage hfe; but ^--^^:^fj'^ informed persons know, they are as tr-l^ -vihzed a an^ land with industries, education, protection of lite ana proper; equal to what is found in our own favored" try And this is all due, as King Kalikua said in New York to the Christianizing of his people Indeed Mr Ir^ersoll contradicts his own theory as to the depen no of the individual upon surroundings m his lectures on HumUdt and Paine, both of whom he -preseiits as becoming great in spite of surroundings that would nau. luvTiave fed in the opj.osite direction, thus involuntan Tecogntzing something in man deeper than mere physical evolution. 26 MISTAKES OF JNGERSOLL. Tlie whole absurd theory of individuals and nations being wholly dependent upon soil, and climate, and surroundings for their character, is fairly represented in the following incident: " Pa," said a little six-year old, " what makes me grow ?" " Wliy, the bread and potato I feed you with." " Does potatoes make our pig grow, too?" " Yes." " Then, what makes him be a pig and me be a boy?" That boy's simple question explodes all the theories oi evolution. ARTICLE VI, Law is Ingersoll's God. The sixth article of Ingersollism is, *' I believe in law, the Almighty maker of Heaven and earth." One might as well say that the United States Constitution made our country, or try to rule the land by laws without enforcers. That the universe is governed according to a system of law is recognized by Christians as much as by any one, and the laws of the Bible are not new arbitrary enactments, but recognitions and proclamations of that part of the law-sys- tem of the universe that relates to religion and morality. Laws of spirit are as eternal as laws of matter. ]^aturaJ science proclaims the latter, religious science the former. ARTICLE VIL Liberty and Infidelity — What De Tocqueville Says About it. The seventh article is made up of the following statements: " All religions are inconsistent with mental freedom. The doubter, the investigator, the infidel, have been the saviours of liberty." Mr. Ingersoll, when talking of liberty contradicts what he himself has said of law, and fails to remind his hearers W. F. CRAFTS' REPLY. 27 and readers that the circle of law bounds on every side the privileges of liberty, that one has liberty only within the range of propriety, and that all beyond that is license. He also forgets the very evident fact that the prevailing ideas of personal liberty in the world are due to the general dissem- ination, by Christianity, of the truth that a man is a soul as well as a body. Wherever men are regarded as mere phys- ical beings, with no life deeper than the bodily life, the stronger will enslave the weaker — woman, child and captive. When the idea that each man is an immortal soul takes hold upon man, with it there comes the idea of individual rights. If Ingersollism should ever persuade a civilized people that man has no soul, this form of bondage of the weaker to the stronger will be resumed, l^ot soil, but soul, is the secret of liberty. Even Mr. Frothingham recently declared that the Bible is a democratic book, and that we get out of it our ideas of equality. He remembered what Mr. Ingersoll seems to for- get, that all through the Bible, the idea of personal and relig- ious liberty is found, especially in those words of the Ap<3stles to the rulers who attempted to tyrannize over their con- sciences, " We ought to obey God rather than man,'' U'hich has fitly been termed the concisest of all statement?^ of the principles of ]>ersonal liberty. We may show this relation of religion to liberty in the words of the greatest modeni writer upon such questions, De Tocqueville, who says, " Bible Christianity is the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims.'' ARTICLE VIII. Woman — Ingersoll's Theory at Variance wUh Facts. The eighth article of Ingersollism, is in regard to woman, and is as follows: "As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her rights, she will be the slave of man. 28 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. The Bible was not written by a woman. Within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her.'' You have all doubtless observed that in heathen coun- tries, where the Bible has not jet come with its enslaving (?) influence woman has (?) liberty and honor, and educa- tion, and opportunities of public activity and benevolence (?), but in Christian lands she is veiled, degraded, shut out of sight and restrained from education ( ?). I liave always observed, as a pastor, that it ' is the religious, and church- going husbands that tyrannize over their wives as "bosses," and deny them their liberties of conscience, and other rights. (?) You smile at the absurd statement, knowing that the " heathen at home," who as husbands are harsh and brutal to the wives they have promised to cherish, are frequently ardent believers in Ingersollism, and seldom in any way connected with even nominal Christianity, while every school boy is familiar with the fact that woman, in all except Christian lands, is hardly better than a slave, nota- bly so, in that land where Ingersollism under the name of Buddhism has the controlling influence. Mr. Ingersoll utters many true sentiments about the family, but all of these he learned of Christianity, not from China, or Egypt. ARTICLE IX. IngersoU's Theory of Childhood — Some of His Little Stories — The Whole Subject Carefully Examined — Significant Incident in the Life of Abraham Lincoln. The ninth article of Ingersollism is a theory of child- nood which attacks the principles of sound government and health even more than religion: " Do not have it in your mind that you must govern them ; that they (children) must obey. Let your children eat what they desire. They know what they wish to eat. Let them begin at which end of the dinner they please." W. F. CRAFTS' REPLY. 29 Such a theory is worthy of nothing more Uian tlie smile with which you hear it. It is all answered in the following representative fact of childhood: A little bit of a girl wanted more and more buttered toast, till she was told that too much would make her sick. Looking wistfully at the dish for a moment, she thought she saw a way out of her difficulty, and exclaimed, '' Well, give me annuzer piece, and send for the doctor!'' Mr. Ingersoll, in connection with his theory of child- hood, often refers to the fact, that he leaves his pocket- book around where his children can help themselves to whatever they wish, and urges the same course upon all parents. It is said that one of the lecturer's admirers, being convinced that this was the correct theory, determined to give up punishing his child, and try the new plan. Accord- ingly, he said to his boy, "John, I am convinced I have been taking the wrong course to try to make you a better boy. I am going to trust you more, and give up whip- pings. I am going away for a few days, and I have left my pocket-book in the top drawer of the bureau. Help yourself to money whenever you need it." After a few days the father returned to his home, late at night. As he opened the door he stumbled over a large canoe in the entry, and was then attacked by a large bull-dog that liis boy had bought. Entering the boy's room, he found it hung round with guns, and fishing poles, and daggers, with another canoe, and several small dogs — his pocket-book lying empty on the top of the bureau. He is now less enthusi- astic in regard to Ingersoll's knowledge of domestic gov^ ernment. The leading point which Mr. Ingersoll endeavors to make in connection with his lecture on Thomas Paine is that the Bible shocks a child, and, therefore, can't be true. You have all observed how much children are shocked as 30 MISTAKES OF JNQEE80LL they gather about the mother's knees in the twilight, and hear her tell the stories of Jesus, and Joseph, and Moses, and Samuel, and Daniel (?). As to the relation of the Bible to childhood and home life, let me quote the opinion of several eminent men, mostly skeptics, for whom even Mr. Ingersoll cherishes the highest regard: Thomas Jefferson, speaking of the Bible and home life, says: "I have always said, and always will say, that the studious perusal of the sacred volume will make better citizens, better fathers, and better husbands." John Quincy Adams says: " So great is my veneration for the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country and respectable members of society." Theodore Parker says: " There is not a boy on the hills of l^ew England, not a girl born in the filthiest cellar which disgraces a capital in Europe, and cries to God against the barbarism of modern civilization; not a boy nor a girl all Christendom through, but their lot is made better by that great book." Diderot, the French philosopher and skeptic, was wont to make this confession: "No better lessons than those of the Bible can I teach mv child." 1/ Huxley, in an address upon education, says: "I have always been strongly in favor of secular education, in the sense of education without theology; but 1 must confess I have been no less seriously perplexed to know by what practical measures the religious feeling, which is the essen- tial basis of conduct, was to be kept up, in the present utterly chaotic state of opinion on these matters, without the use of the Bible. The pagan moralists lack life and color, and even the noble stoic, Marcus Aurelius, is too high and refined for an ordinary child. Take the Bible as a W. F. GRAFTS' REPLY, 31 whole> make the severest deductions which fair criticism can dictate, and there still remains in this old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty and grandeur. By the study of what other book could children be so humanized? If Bible reading is not accompanied by constraint and solem- nity, I do not believe there is anything in which children take more pleasure." What would " shock the mind of a child " would be to hear Mr. Ingersoll excuse them for telling a lie, in order to escape a whipping. What would shock a child would be to hear Mr. Ingersoll uttering profanity What would shock the mind of a child would be to hear Mr. Ingersoll telling to a crowded aud smile of approval the story of a boy's oath. ence with a Speaking of swearing reminds me of that incident of Abraham Lincoln, whom Mr. Ingersoll calls " the grandest man ever President of the United States," who said to a person sent to him by one of the Senators, and who, in conversation, uttered an oath, " I thought the Sen- ator had sent me a gentleman; I see I was mistaken. There is the door, and I bid you good-day." 1 hold in my hand the last report of the Kew York Society for the Pre- vention of Cruelty to Children. Of course, the bruised and beaten little ones, here described, were the victims of cruelty in Christian homes (?). Their fathers and mothers had taken too much religion (?), had become bruitalized by reading the Bible ( ?), and hence abused the children by their own fireside until the law was compelled to interfere for their defense ( ?). 32 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. In my work as a member of the Citizen's League for the suppression of the sale of liquors to minors, I have noticed that this supreme cruelty to children — selling them in their immature years the liquors that make them self-destroyers, violators of the public peace, and candidates for drunkards' graves — is perpetrated by Christian men, not by the infidels who applaud so lustily at Mr. Ingersoll's lectures (?). Here I am reminded of the published report, which seems well authenticated, that Mr. Ingersoll in his childhood lived in one of those exceptional homes where nominal Christianity was combined with harshness, cruelty and bigotry. If so, this would be some slight excuse for his present conduct, were it not for the fact that maturer years have given him abundant opportunity to see the bright and sunny side of Christian gentleness in other homes. And there are no true homes that do not owe their existence to the influence of Christianity upon the family relation. Having myself made childhood a special study for several ^'^ears, I find that the degree of recognition given to the opinions and importance of childhood in various ages and countries, is exactly in proportion to the degree of Chris- tianity there, children being scarcely noticed in heathen lands, either in poetry, or history, or ethics, while the Bible religion has always given childhood an exceedingly prom- inent place. All the attention given to the education and development of the little ones is but the starlight that shines down upon us from the manger of the God-child. AMTICJLE A. Ingersoll Says Christianity Fetters Thought— The Bible and a Host of Distingxiished Men Say Otherwise. The tenth article of Ingersoilism is the frequent asser- tion that Christianity fetters thought, while infidelity emancipates it, in such passages as these; '' lu all agebj W. F. CRAFTS' REPLY. 3,S reason has been regarded as the enemy of religion.'' "The guds dreaded education and knowledge then (in the time ol the Garden of Eden) just as they do now." "For ages a deadly conflict has been wag(id by a few brave men ol thought and genius, on the one side, and the great, ignorant, religious mass, on the other. The few have said: ' Think.' The many have said: ' BeHeve.' '' In order to ascertain what freedom and power of thought materialism had given to the mind of Mr. Ingersoll, 1 made special examination of the logic in the lecture on " The Gods," and found there, in a very short time, one or more specimens of all the fallacies laid down in the text- books of logic. " Waiter," said John Kandolph, at a cer- tain hotel, " if this is coffee, bring me tea; .if this is tea. bring me coffee." And so we say, if this is the " power o* thought," give us weakness. Instead of the Bible forbidding us to think, as Inger- soUism so often declares, it is full of ringing appeals to "reason," "think," "consider," "ponder." "prove all things." Prov. 26 : 16 : " The sluggard is wiser in his own conceit than seveo men that can render 2i reason.'" Eccl. 7 : 25 : "I applied mine heart to know, and to search, and tc seek out wisdom, and the reason of things, and to know the wickedness of folly, even of foolishness and madness." Isa. 1:18: "Come now and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow ; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool." Matt. 22 : 42 : " What think ye of Christ ?" Acts 17 : 2 : " Paul, as his manner was, went in unto them, and three Sabbath days reasoned with them out of the Scriptures." Acts 18:4: "He reasoned in the synagogue every Sabbath, and per- suaded the Jews and the Greeks." Acts 18 : 19 : " And he came to Ephesus, and left them there ; but he himself entered into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews." Acts 24 : 25 : " And as he reasoned of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come, Felix trembled," 34 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. Rom. 12:1: " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable eervice." Phil. 4:8: 'Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatso- ever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, aod if there be any praise, thi?ik on these things.'" 1 Thess. 5: 21 : " Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." Let us look into biography, and make a practical test of this theor}^ that the Bible fetters thought. If so, those who believe and love it will not be strong and leading thinkers. Let us apply the test in the ranks of science. A Cloud of Witnesses. Professor Benjamin Pierce, of Harvard College, has recently completed a very remarkable course of lectures at the Lowell Institute, Boston, on "Ideality in Science." Professor Pierce, who is now in his seventieth year, is, perhaps, the most eminent mathematical scholar in this country, and the author of some of the most jDrofound investigations and sj)eculations that have been made in the realm of astronomical science. This man of mighty thought must have been emancipated and inspired by infidelity ( ?). This scholar, whose mind may be supposed to feed on fact, holds an unquestioning faith in a personal God and the immortal life. The late Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Institute, was one of the broadest and best of scientific thinkers because infidelity gave him freedom of thought (?). !N"o, he was a sweet-spirited Christian in his daily life. Sir David Brewster, another eminent scientist, said of his Christian experience: " I have had this light for many years, and oh! how bright it is to mc." Professor Silliman, who is unsurpassed in his scientific W. F, CRAFTS' REPLY. 35 department, must also be classed under the head of " the ignorant religious mass," for he was another of the very many Christian scientists, whom the world has ignorantly(?) supposed a thinker, in spite of Mr. Ingersoll's theory of faith as being a mental bondage. He says: " I can truly declare that, in the study and exhibition of science to my pupils and fellow men, I have never forgotten to give all honor and glory to the infinite Creator — happy if I might be the honored interpreter of a portion of his works, and of the beautiful structure and beneficent laws discovered therein by the labors of many illustrious predecessors." We might add scores of others in each department of sci- ence, who have found no discord between the Word and world of God. Who are the four greatest thinkers in the realm of states- manship of this century? Daniel Webster, Gladstone, Thiers, and Bismarck. All of them, of course, are enabled to be thus broad and prominent as national thinkers by the power of infidelity (?). Xo, each one of them is most posi- tive in his Christian belief. Webster declares the grandest thought which ever entered his mind was that of " personal accountability to God." Gladstone gives much of time and attention to religious writing. Thiers says, in his last days: "I often invoke that God in whom I am happy to believe, who is denied by fools and ignorant people, but in whom the enlightened man finds his consolation and hope." Bismarck is called, in derision, " the God-fearing man,-^ in reference to his well-known religious principles. (Busch's Bismarck, p. 200). We might add to these Charles Sumner, who called Christianity the " true religion " and " our faith," and whose speeches constantly recognize God and Christianity. 36 MISTAKES OF INOBRtiOLL. Who are the leading literary characters of the century ? Yictor Hugo, what of him ? Did you ever read his chapter on prayer in Les Miserables, and his grand tribute to immortality, uttered as a rebuke to a company of French physicians, a few years ago? Moore — have you read his ''' Paradise and the Peri," the Gospel of repentance, and do you know him as the author of the hymn, " Come, ye Dis- consolate?" Walter Scott — have you read his translation of "Dies Irae," uttered so devoutly in his last days: " Oh ! in that clay, that dreadful day, When Heaven and earth shall pass away. Be Thou, oh Christ, the sinner's stay, When Heaven and earth shall pass away." Aad Shakspeare, whom Mr. Ingersoli accounts one of the grandest of human minds, was great enough to believe in the Bible. And so Thackeray, AVhittier, Dickens, Gold- smith, Longfellow, and Irving were intellectual believers in Christianity. The following men, also lacking the freedom and power of thought that comes by materialism (?) became mentally so weak (?) that they declared, in varying terms, after read- ing largely in all departments of literature, that tlie Bible is the best book in the world: Sir Walter Scott, Sir Wil- liam Jones, George GilfiUan, Milton, Pollok, Coleridge, Collins, Bacon, John Adams, IN^apoleon, James Freeman Clarke, Lange, Kitto, Pobertson. And Channing put the Gospels where these others place the whole Bible — above all other literature. The following persons strongly commend the Bible as a whole: Dr. Samuel Johnson, Carlyle, Dryden, Young, Cowper, Locke, Newton, Seward, Dawson, Franklin, John Quincy Adams, Bellows, Bartol, Theodore Parker, Rous- seau, Guizot, Bunsen, Story, Webster, Diderot, Matthev Arnold, and Huxley. W. F. CRAFTS' REPLY. 37 The following persons among many others declare that they found in the Bible, not fetters for thought, but their strongest inspiration to thought : Daniel Webster, Fisher A^mes, Mitchell, the Astronomer, Raskin and Goethe. It is evident that very many others might truly have said the same, including Theodore Parker and Mr. Froth- ingham and other skeptics, whose writings show plainly that they owe their beauties of style to a familiarity with the Bible. Jesus Christ. With these great men who have commended the Bible should be mentioned one who is confessed by Christians and skeptics the greatest and best of men, Jesus Christ, who used the Psalms as His prayer and hymn book, and always spoke of the whole Old Testament as the Eternal Law Book of humanity. There is not time, nor is it necessary now to answer in detail all the hard questions that can be asked about single Bible passages. But these great men and Christ saw all these points of difficulty, and yet accepted the Bible as the pre-eminent book, commending it to the perusal of all as the source of the mind's grandest inspira- tions. Side by side with these scores of the world's fore- most men who declare the Bible the best of books, or strongly commend it, or point to it as the source of their grandest thoughts, put the opinion of that more learned (?), more profound (?), more unprejudiced (?) scholar and phi- losopher. Colonel Ingersoll, who stands almost alone among educated men in strongly condemnini; the Bible, which his bigotry prints with a small " b *' in spite of the rules of grammar, and describes it as about the worst book of the world, in these words among others: "If men will read the Bible as they read other books, they will be amazed that they ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom to be the author of such ignorance and of such 38 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. atrocity. The Bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. All the philosophy of the Bible would not make one scene in Hamlet. I could write a better book than the Bible, which is full of barbarism." Amazing Ignorance of Infidels Concerning the Scriptnres — Hume's Ignorance of the New Testament — Tom Paine Without a Bible. " But some one asks, Are there not other eminent men who have despised and condemned the Bible ? Most cer- tainly, as there are those who have entered their protest against almost any and everything mentionable. It is, nevertheless, worthy of note that, in most instances, those who have sought the more resolutely to defame the Holy Scriptures are those who are comparatively unacquainted with them. David Hume, distinguished both as essayist and historian, standing among the most noted of modem skeptical philosophers, was a resolute objector of the Bible, but was notoriously ignorant of its contents. Dr. Johnson, in conversation with several literary friends, once observed, in his usual, direct, and unequivocal manner, that no hon- est man could be a deist, because no man coald be so after a fair examination of the truths of Christianity. When the name of Hume was mentioned to him as an exception to his remark, he replied: ' ITo, sir; Hume once owned to a clergyman in the bishopric of Durham, that he had never read even the l^ew Testament with attention.' ""^ Let us cross-question another important witness as to his knowledge of the book against which he offers testimony. We ask Thomas Paine as to his familiarity with the Bible, which he so bitterly condemns, and he replies, '' I keep no Bible." I hold in my hand a sermon preached in Hew * From *' What Noted Men Think of the Bible.'* W. F. CRAFTS' REPLY. 80 York City, by Eev. W. F. Hatfield, in reply to Mr. Inger- soU's lecture on Thomas Paine, in wliich reply, with abund- ant facts, such as would convince a court, it is shown con- clusively that Thomas Paine was vicious and corrupt in life, and miserable and remorseful in death. As to the value of Yoltaire's testimony against Christianity, Carlyle declares it worthless on the ground of lack of knowledge on the sub- ject of which he testifies. He says: " It is a serious ground of offense against Yoltaire that he intermeddled in religion without being himself, in any measure, religious; that, in a word, he ardently, and with long-continued effort, warred against Christianity, without understanding, beyond the mere superfices, what Christianity was." There are also a class of specialists who are quoted against khe Bible, and who manifest a hostility to it, whose testi- fnony is of little value because of the narrow range in which they have studied, making them authorities only in their special department. Halley, the astronomer, once avowed his skepticism in presence of Sir Isaac Newton. The venerable man replied: " Sir, you have never studied these subjects and I have. Do not disgrace yourself as a philosopher by presuming to judge on questions you have never examined." Distributed Ignorance and Concentrated Hatred — Probable Cause of IngersoU's Infidelity- The largest proportion of skeptics, however, are mere sophomores, spoiled with a little learning which is only " distributed ignorance," well represented by a precocious boy of fourteen, whom I found writing an essay on " Mat- rimony," and who left it during my caU to argue in favor of Ingersollism and against the Bible (of which he knew as little as of matrimony), which he admitted he had never read, as do nearly all skeptics when questioned on this 4C^ MISTAKES OF IN0ER80LL. martt^r The bitterness of the opposition to Christianity of Mr. JLiigersoll and other infidels is explained by the Earl of Rochester, who was converted from infidelity and said, in explanation of his former course and that of others: '' A bad heart, a bad heart is the great objection against the Holy Book." " The fool hath said in his heart " (not his head) " there is no God." The bad heart is father to the infidel thought. It is like the case of the old woman who broke her looking-glass because it showed the wrinkles creeping into her fading face. Men strive to break the Bible glass that shows the wrinkles and defects of character. The whole appearance and tone and spirit of Mr. Ingersoll in his lectures is suggestive of this heart hatred against the book which he attacks, " kicks," " hates," not with the calmness of logic, but with the bitterness of a heart-hos- tility. Those infidels who have faithfully examined tha Bible have usually been convinced of its truth and con- verted to Christianity. Among them, such distinguished names as Lord Lyttleton, Gilbert West, Soame Jenyus, Bishop Thompson, and at least a score of notable cases in connection with Mr. Moody's revival meetings in England. "What comparison, let us ask, will the number of cele- brated skeptics, even when the best possible showing is made, hold with the distinguished men who have ranked the sacred volume above all others? Remember that your mother's love for the Bible and your own early reverence for it, have the indorsement of the grandest and profound- est minds which have been known and honored among humanity." The Truth of the Whole Matter. But salvation is not by belief in a book, or a creed, or a Church, but by belief in the person of Jesus Christ. Mr. Ingersoll skips this hard problem, " What think ye of H . A'. (J HAFTS' HE PLY. 41 Christ?" ilu hardly j'eferd to this citadel of Christiauity rialf a dozen times in all his lectures, making his attacks chiefly on human outposts and then claiming to have over- borne the citadel of Christianity. Even Strauss, Kenan, Rousseau, Theodore Parker, Napoleon, and Richter — none of them experimental Christians — unite as a jury in the verdict expressed by Richter in regard to Christ, " He is the purest among the mighty, the mightiest among the pure." We have, then, two facts as a sure anchorage of our Christianity to-day. All scholarly skepticism agrees with Christianity that the Bible is the best of books and that Christ is the best of men. Re who thus accepts the Bible and Christ can not logically or consistently stop short of a Christian life, following Christ as his pattern, and walking by the Bible as his rule. We may differ about creeds, and Church forms, and Bible interpretation, but he who has faith and faithfulness toward the person, Jesus Christ shall be saved. Let us then devoutly utter the creed of Daniel Webster, as inscribed by his own request on his tombstone at Marshfield: *' LOED, I BELIEVE, HELP THOU MINE UNBELIEF. PHILOSOPHICAL ARGUIMENT ESPECIALLY THAT DRAWN FROM THE VASTNESS OF THE UNIVERSE IN COM- PARISON WITH THE APPARENT INSIGNIFICANCE OF THIS GLOBE, I [AS SOMETIMES SHAKEN MY REASON FOR THE FAITH THAT IS IN ME; BUT MY HEART HAS ASSURED ME THAT THE GOSPEL OF .JESUS CHRIST MUST BE A DIVINE REALITY. THE SERIMON ON THE MOUNT CAN NOT BE A ^MERELY HUMAN PRODUCTION. THIS BELIEF ENTERS INTO THE VERY DEPTH OF MY CONSCIENCE. THE WHOLE HISTORY OF MAN PROVES IT." ^^.-^^^-/L^ CHAFLAIN McGABE'8 REPLY, 4a CHAPL.AIK M'CABE'S REPL.Y, The Famous Chaplain has a Remarkable Dream— He Sees the Great City of Ingcrsollville — Which Ingersoll and the Infidel Host Enter— And are Ghnt in for Six Months— Remarkable Condition of Things Outcido and Inside— Happiness and Mis- ery—Ingersoll Finally Petitions for a Church and sends for a Lot of Preachers. I had a dream which was not all a dream. I thought I was on a long journey through a beautiful country, when suddenly I came to a great city with walls fifteen feet high. At the gate stood a sentinel, whose shining armor reflected back the rays of the morning sun. As I was about to salute him and pass into the city, he stopped rae and said: ^vDo you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?" I answered: " Yes, with all my heart." '^ Then," said he, '' you can not enter here. No man or woman who acknowledges that name can pass in here Stand aside!" said he, " they are coming." I looked down the road, and saw a vast, multitude approaching. It was led by a miUtary officer. " Who is that?" I asked of the sentinel. " That," he replied, " is the great Colonel Robert I , the founder of the City of Ingersollville." " Who is he?" I ventured to inquire. " He is a great and mighty warrior, who fought in many bloody battles for the Union during the great war." I felt ashamed of my ignorance of history, and stood silently watching the procession. I had heard of a Colonel U Ml ST A KES OF INOERSOLL. I , .X- * * ^ -)f ^ but, of course, this could not be the man. The procession came near enough for me to recognize some of the faces. I noted two infidel editors of national celebrity, followed hj great wai^ons containing steam presses. There were also five members of Congress. All the noted infidels and scoffers of the country seemed to be there. Most of them passed in unchallenged by the sentinel, but at last a meek-looking individual with a white necktie approached, and he was stopped. I saw at a glance it was a well-known " liberal " preacher of J^ew York. '' Do you believe in the Lord Jesus?" said the sentinel. "!N"ot much!" said the doctor. Everybody laughed, and he was allowed to pass in. There were artists there, with glorious pictures; singers, with ravishing voices; tragedians and comedians, whose names have a ^7orld-wide fame. Then came another division of the infidel host — saloon- keepers by thousands, proprietors of gambling hells, brothels, and theatres. Still another division swept by: burglars, thieves, thugs, incendiaries, highwaymen, murderers — all — all marching in. My vision grew keener. 1 beheld, and lo! Satan him- self brought up the rear. High afloat above the mass was a banner on which was inscribed: - What has Christianity done for the country?" and another on which was inscribed: '-Down with the churches! Away with Christianity — it interferes with our happiness!" And then came a murmur of voices, that grew louder and louder until a shout went up like the roar of Niagara: "Away with Him! Crucify Him, crucify Him!" I felt no desire now to enter Ingersollville. As the last of the procession entered, a few men and women, with broad-brimmed hats and plain bonnets, made OHAFLAn\' McCABJU'S HE' PLY. 45 their appearance, and wanted to go in as missionaries, but they were turned rudely away. A zealous young Metho- dist exhorter, with a Bible under his arm, asked permission to enter, but the sentinel swore at him awfully. Then I thought I saw Brother Moody applying for admission, but he was refused. I could not help smiling to hear Moody say, as he turned sadly away: "Well! they let me live and work in Chicago; it is very strange they won't let me into Ingersollville." The sentinel went inside the gate and shut it with a bang; and I thought, as soon as it was closed, a mighty angel came down with a great iron bar, and barred the gate on the outside, and wrote upon it in letters of fire, " Doomed to live together six months." Then he went away^ and all was silent, except the noise of the revelry and shouting that came from within the city walls. I went away, and as I journeyed through the land I could not believe my eyes. Peace and plenty smiled everywhere. The jails were all empty, the penitentiaries were without occupants. The police of great cities were idle. Judges sat in court-rooms with nothing to do. Business was brisk. Many great buildings, formerly crowded with criminals, were turned into manufacturing establishments. Just about this time the President of the United States called for a Day of Thanksgiving. I attended services in a Presby- terian Church. The preacher dwelt upon the changed con- dition of affairs. As he went on, and depicted the great prosperity that had come to the country, and gave reasons for devout thanksgiving, I saw one old deacon clap his handkerchief over his mouth to keep from shouting right out. An ancient spinster, who never did like the " noisy " Methodists — a regular old blue-stocking Presbyterian — couldn't hold in. She expressed the thought of every heart by sboutinir with all her mi^ht, "Glory to God for Inger- 46 MIfiTAKES OF INQER80LI. sollville!" A youug tlieological student lifted up his hand and devoutly added, " Esto perpetual Everybody smiled. The country was almost delirious with joy. Great pro- cessions of children swept along the highways, singing, *' We'll not give up the Bible, God's blessed Word of Truth." Vast assemblies of reformed inebriates, with their wives and children, gathered in the open air. No building would hold them. I thought I was in one meeting where Bishop Simpson made an address, and as he closed it a mighty shout went up till the earth rang again . O, it was won- derful ! and then we all stood up and sang with tears of joy, " All hail the power of Jesus' name I Let angels prostrate fall ; Bring forth the royal diadem, And crown him Lord of all." The six months had well-nigh gone. I made my way back again to the gate of Ingersollville. A dreadful silence reigned over the city, broken only by the sharp crack of a revolver now and then. I saw a man trying to get in at the gate, and I said to him, " My friend, where are you from?'* " I live in Chicago,'' said he, " and they've taxed us to death there; and I've heard of this city, and I want to go in to buy some real estate in this new and growing place." He failed utterly to remove the bar, but by some means he got a ladder about twelve feet long, and with its aid, he climbed up upon the wall. With an eye to business, he shouted to the first person he saw: " Hallo, there ! — what's the price of real estate in Inger- sollville ?" "Nothing !" shouted a voice; "you can have aU you want if you'll just take it and pay the taxes." " What made your taxes so high?" said the Chicago man. I noted the answer carefully; I shall never forget it. CHAPLAIN McGABE'S REPLY. 47 u ^e've had to build forty new jails and fourteen peni- tentiaries— a lunatic asylum and an orphan asylum in every ward ; we've had to disband the public schools, and it takes all the city revenue to keep up the police force." "Where's my old friend, I ?" said the Chicago man. " O, he is goin^ about to-day with a subscription paper to build a church. They have gotten up a petition to send out for a lot of preachers to come and hold revival services. If we can only get them over the wall, we hope there's a future for Ingersollville yet." The six months ended. Instead of opening the door, however, a tunnel was dug under the wall big enough for one person to crawl through at a time. First came two bankrupt editors, followed by Colonel I himself; and then the whole population crawled through. Then I thought, somehow, great crowds of Christians surrounded the city. There was Moody, and Hammond, and Earle, and hundreds of Methodist preachers and exhorters, and they struck up, singing together, " Come, ye sinners, poor and needy." A needier crowd never was seen on earth before. I conversed with some of the inhabitants of the aban- doned city, and asked a few of them this question: " Do you believe in Hell?" I can not record the answers ; they were terribly orthodox. One old man said, " I've been there on probation for six months, and I don't want to join." I knew by that he was an old Methodist backslider. The sequel of it all was a great revival, that gathered in a mighty harvest from the ruined City of Ingersollville. tPhotograpfTed by Mosher.J DIL SWAZETS REPLY. 4» DR. SWAZEY'S REPI^Y. Momentary View of Ool. Ingersoll Through the Doctor's Glass — The Bible on the Meridian — What the Doctar Sees in the Great Book. The genial, eloquent, sensational, unfair, evasive Colonel Ingersoll has come and gone. ]Siobody has been alarmed. But out of 400,000 people a large audience was found to laugh with him at Moses and the Bible. He eschewed argument altogether. He did not attempt to instruct any- body. He had only a campaign speech to make against — God. This article is simply an invitation to any fair- minded doubter to consider tlie reasonableness of a laugh at the Christian's Bible. Is this book a bad book, or a silly book, just fit for jeer and sarcasm ? Take a common- sense view. In order to do so, it i.< necessary to take a common-place view, to bring to the foreground that which all assailants like to leave in the background, namely, that the Bible teaches by commandment and i^recept only that which is pure and good. Relating to man's duty to himself, it teaches personal purity, sexual and otherwise; temperance in meats, drinks, opinions and ambition, responsibleness for inclinations, thoughts and actions; a paramount love for the truth; courage and hopefulness in all lawful purposes; self-im- provement, and a cheerful enjoyment of the good things of life. Relating to man's duty to others, the Bible teaches honesty between man and man; restitution when wrong has been done, wittingly or unwittingly; tlie damuableness 4 50 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. of adultery, seduction, and everything that violates the purity of a family or a person; the forgiveness of injuries; a charitable view of human actions, including patience and forbearance, mercy; the duty of life-long usefulness, kind- ness and helpfulness; a genial temper in social and business life; obedience to magistrates; and a multitude of minor virtues. Ilelating to the moral order of things, the Bible teaches that wrong-doing is unavoidably the way of sorrow, and right-doing the way of happiness. These teachings, given not in bald outline, but in fresh and animated pictures and discourses, make up the ethical system of the Bible from the first lesson of the antediluvian age to the last words of the book, which are against whore- mongers, and fill makers and lovers of a lie, and in praise of all who are just and good. And, still further, in no instance is there left on record an immoral precept, or one which impurity, or injustice, or dishonesty, or unkindness, or selfishness in any form are proposed. There is no mis- take in that direction. Still further, we challenge any assailant to name a virtue, acknowledged to be such by the mass of mankind, which is wanting in the catalogue of Bible virtues. The ethical system is as complete as it is pure, as comprehensive as it is sound and true, absolutely covering the whole area of man's duty to himself and to his fellow-man; a system sounding all depths, touching the most delicate fibres of life, and without a flaw or an omis- sion. Its precepts and laws come in their own order, but they all appear in the record first or last. The Buddhistic " decalogue " seems to. have been in advance of the Mosaic in this — that it had two commandments wanting in the lat- ter— '"Thou shalt not lie," " Tiiou shalt not get drunk." But these commandments, although not in our own deca- logue, are written over and over again in the Old Testament as well as the New. And yet once more the moral require- im. SWAZEY\S REPLY. 51 meDts of the Bible, are as clear of puerilities as they are of impurity or oblique vision. The Buddhistic decalogue steps right down to a moral weakness of which the Bible is never guilty. '' Thou shalt not visit dances nor theatrical representations.'* " Thou shalt not use ornaments nor per- fumery in dress." Occultation of Ingersoll's Good Sense — General Survey of Deities — Scope of Divine Revelation. Now the common-sense question occurs whetner a book containing such a system, always teaching men what is good and" pure, always warning him against evil, and encouraging him to be a strong, sound, pure, complete man in everything, is worthy of sneers, ribaldry and irrever- ence, even though it were full of unbelievable fables and fantastic ideas of immortality. In what spirit can a com- pany of people shout their applause when a book whose lines of thought are always leading a man above himself is made the target of sarcasm and ridicule, and the cry is almost in so many words, " Down with the Bible!" Let us go a little beyond the strictly ethical. The general ideas of our Bible about God commend themselves to the best wisdom of mankind. We make no reference now to any sect of theologies, but to the theological atmosphere both of the Old and New Testaments, namely, that God is, and being the Creator, the life and force of all things, in other words, as our Bible has it, the Living God, superin- tends all human affairs. As a Creator He has not forirotten His w^ork; as a Father He is always mindful of His off- springs; and caring for man is leading him on by a great hope to a great inheritance; that His face is against evil doing, that He smiles on all who strive to be just and good, and that in sorrow and want and temptation He folds to His great heart a righteous and even a repentant man; and 52 MISTAKES OF INGERt^OLL. as the shuttle goes back and forth, knitting into each other the soiled and blood-stained threads, He is weaving there- from a garment of light for mankind; that superstition, despotism, slavery and war are only other names for His patience, while man is learning the great lesson. This is the Bible interpretation of the incomprehensible Cause and Spirit of the universe, that He is alive, and the Father and Friend of man now, and will have some more for him after the years have rolled by. Suppose, now, it be all untrue, is there not something in this dream or conceit that should bring a sigh rather than a sneer from the heart of the unbeliever? The god of Brahmanism is an abstraction without attributes, the great nothing of the universe. Atuch the same is true of Budd- hism, only in another way. It has law and virtue, but no God of love, and asks no trust or faith. The same is true in the unchanging round which knows no spirit above and no hope below, taught by Confucius to his disciples. The religion of the Persians presented a god who had a devil- god for a yokefellow, keeping up the eternal and never-to- be-ended quarrel of good and evil. Our Bible begins with the idea that God is one God, the only and the Supreme, and ends with this one God sending angels down to say to the weary world, '' Peace on earth good will to men/* Away beyond all the faiths and all the Bibles held sacred by mankind, ours alone declares that man is not an orphan, that good and evil are not eternal antagonisms, in other words, that the Great Supreme is our Father in Heaven. True or false, wisdom has taught nothing more inspiriting or helpful to man. Neither imagination nor credulity has else- where painted a vision so attractive, or out of the '' silences " and " eternities,'- and mysteries, whispered so good a word in the ears of mortals. This idea of lordship and father- hood is not incidental. It runs through every narration, DR. SWAZEY'S REPLY. 53 is implied in every precept, and re-afiirmed in every prom- ise. And even if it be beyond proof it makes the whole Bible at least a golden dream. Suppose now one does not take as absolutely and histor- ically true the story of Adam's rib and the woman, or of tlie fish swallowing a man and throwing him unhurt on the shol-e, does not the high moral tone of every command and every precept everywhere illumined by [this pure and golden dream, entitle this book to the reverence of man- kind? And. especially since by the common consent the idea of virtue in our Bible goes beyond the many excellent things of Confucius, Zoroaster and the other sacred writers of other religions, and its idea of the " living God " sur- passes in purity and attractiveness, and in consolation and hope, all other religions, is not this purest blossom of the instinct, if you please to call it so, of duty and f^^ith, of inestimable value as the guide and hope of man, even though it were overlaid with ten-fold more difficulties than the most ingenious scoffer can present? Or, if it is not reliable as a guide, is it not worthy of reverence as the proude&t achievement of the hungry mind of man? The Great Central Figure — Absolute Unity of the Bible System. Still further, this Bible has for its central, or rather ter- minal, figure a name so remarkable that none but the obscene and profane use it lightly, a nian so remarkable chat whatever the skeptic may say of Moses or Paul, his tongue would refuse its office should he attempt to catalogue the mistakes of Jesus of ]Siazareth. Yoltaire, Diderot, Bolingbroke, Strauss, Eenan, all speak reverently of this One Man of history. And yet the wh:le New Testament is built up on the sayings and doings oi uas Man. And not the New Testament only. The Jewish scriptures, full of errors or not, were full of the ideas of a Messiah, from 54 MISTAKES OF IN&EBSOLL. Moses to Malachi. And this marvelous man claimed that He was that Messiah. So that the Old Testament, as well, is a record of various forms pointing to this Man. I raise here no question of the truth of prophecy; I simply affirm that this Man, whose j)urity and wisdom are so singularly impressive, claimed to he the fulfillment of those old writings, identified Himself with Moses and David and Isaiah, and sanctified the great current of thought which from the mouths of these men flowed along the shores of that elder world. So that to revile the old Bible of the Jews is to revile Him. There is no scholar, orthodox or liberal, believing or skeptical, who docs not identify the phenomenon of Christianity with the phenomenon of Judaism. Out of the soil of Judaic history sprung this purer growth — Jesus and the things He taught. I suggest, therefore, that before one joins in the laugh against a religion which was foimded long anterior to any other historical records than its own, he pause a little, remembering that this remarkable Man, who has not yet become antiquated, quoted those old books as His Bible, and doubtless had a tolerable understanding of their mean- ing and worth. And, perhaps, if He whose sermon on the mount is yet as fresh in the nineteenth century as though it were uttered to-day, found a vein of precious ore in those books, those same veins may be yet visible in our time. The Bible Law of Development vs. Infidel Philosophy. I have given, you will perceive, room for a large amount of the unaccountable and incredible in a Bible worthy of reverence. In fact, there is no occasion, except in the peculiarity of some men's minds, to allow so much. There is a passage in the Bible that is descriptive of the kingdom of Heaven, and reads thus: " First the blade and then the DR. B.WAZEY'8 REPLY. 55 ear, and after that the full corn in the ear." The Bible here gives the key to itself. It is a statement of the law of development, intellectual and moral. An observation of the Bible from the standpoint of this law discovers an answer to the objections that are just now brought against our sacred Book. Col. Ingersoll and men of his style of criticism (and, I am sorry to say, some preachers, also,) quote a verse from Genesis precisely as though the same words, or the same event, were found in the Gospels. They judge an act or a usage recorded in the Pentateuch precisely as though it were found in the Acts of the Apos- tles. They make no allowance for the stage of human progress. They would teach a child surveying before he had learned the multiplication table. Thev talk about '' skulls '' as indicating progress, but God must needs put the same ideas into a skull of the Lauren tian period that He does into a skull of to-day. Otherwise, God is worthy of hate. They would preach the doctrine of equality on the deck of a man-of-war. They utterly ignore the drill that men and nations need in coming up to their majority. They would suffer the rabble in a court-room to vote down the decision of a judge on the bench. The men who are historically connected with God's order of thino:s must dis- pense with the great schoolmaster — experience. Ideas must spring forth complete, like Minerva. Eafters and dome must touch the skies the same day the foundation stones were laid. Those are the ideas with which a certain class of critics approach the Old Testament. If a people are not ripe for a commonwealth, and God gives them a king, God is all wrong. If a people are become a great military camp and Moses proclaims martial law, Moses and his God are monsters of cruelty. If there are no jails, no way of disposing of prisoners of war, and a gentle servi- tude is the substitute, God is a great slave-driver. If men's 66 MI8TAKEIS OF JNGEBtiOIX. lusts are so greedy that even the best of them want more wives than one, the patience of God with the slow growth of moral ideas is translated as the establishment of polyg- amy. If a people are so vile and filthy that the beasts 'are clean and modest in comparison, and God sends an army to wipe them out of being, we are pointed to the white faces of women and children lifted on the crests of the divine wrath! Common Sense View of the Subject — How it Eliminates Poly- gamy, Slavery, etc. Common sense, in asking whether the Bible is worthy of confidence would ask whether, as matter of fact, the moral instruction of any period of Bible record was not fully up to the capacity of that period to receive it? It would ask another question — namely, whether a divine tuition is dif- ferent from any other, except that it is more skillful? — whether, in fact, the critics who compare an old order o< things with the highest state of moral development are not demanding that the people under God's training shall be a miraculous people, throwing off prejudices as they do a Winter garment, bearino fruit without any intermediate period of growth and blossom, and, in general terms, upset- ting the every day laws of progress. It is this idealism — than which nothing is more irrational — which creates a large share of the moral difficulties of the Old Testa- ment. It is the insane or reckless, the idiotic or perverse tenacity with which men demand that the divine teaching must not suit itself to the time in which it was given, but must always be up to the ripest periods of ])rogress, that gives any opportunity for the objugations of men who " can write a better Bible " themselves than ours. The two great charges brought against the Bible are polygamy and slavery. Now, admit that in all stages, JJB. SWAZEY^S REPLY, 57 from the chimpanzee up to Darwin, they are wrong (which is by no means clear), are these charges true? The fact that poljgam;^ and slavery existed among the people wlio were under drill does not prove it. The fact that there were laws regulating either of these practices docs not prove it. A law regulating the social evil does not prove that the sovereign people who make the laws approve the social evil, but only that, if men and women will go wrong, society must put up some defenses against corruption. Common sense inquires whether statutory allowance is an indorsement. And if that Eemarkablo Man, commenting on the divorce laws of Moses, said that Moses gave those laws because the people could not bear any better laws, common sense inquires if the same may not be true of other recognized usages which are below the ideal of an advanced age. And when one rails at the Bible for its ill-treatment of women, the railing is simply gratuitous. I have read the Old Testament more or less carefully for many years, but I do not, at this writing, remember a single word that dis- honors woman as woman. I have read only a little of Brahminical writings, but I remember a sentence or two about women. "A woman is never fit for independence;" " Women have no business with the text of the Yeda. * * ^ Sinful women must be as foul as falsehood itself. This is fixed law." Whether in the last quotation it is meant that there is no purification for a bad woman, or what else, I do not know; but I do not recall anything like it in the Old Testament. Educated common sense knows that women among the Hebrews occupied a vastly higher level than the women of all other nations. It is simply notorious, that with all the lapses from virtue, the Hebrew women were as white as snow compared with the women of the Gentile world, and honor goes always hand in hand with virtiift 58 MISTAkES OF INGBRSOLL, More Common Sense — The Great Ingersoll Orb Approaching the NihiUstic Belt — Nebulae. Common sense demands that in judgment of the moral worth of the Bible, it be taken as a whole. The theory of all who receive the Old and New Testaments is that they belong together, are so to be interpreted; that one is the beginning, and the other the conclusion, of the one Bible. The one begins in the " Laurentian period," so to speak, and follows man up from a wild nomad to wealth and empire, and the decay of empire; the moral and the civil law blend- ing and running along together for hundreds of years, then separating by the simple explosion of the civil powers. The other takes him after the wounds caused by the explo- sion have partly healed, and puts forth mox^al ideas unen- cumbered by any considerations of the state. The former gave moral laws to the Jew; the latter 'moral laws to the man; everything from first to last going on as nat- urally as the building of a city, or the growth of a tree. And common sense should inquire how it happens, that, while the great army of scholars who have studied these systems, believers and skeptics alike, have been filled with admiration, a man rises up now and then to vituperate the logic of events and malign the great God because He has not chosen to plant a tree with the branches in the ground and the roots in the air. Common sense naturally asks what the meaning of this bitter outbreak may be. "We have no right to men's motives. But this is a phenomenon, the cause of which we have a right to ask, as we would ask the cause of a fall- ing meteor. The Bible is a law and order book. It teaches that one must look out how he pulls up even the tares. Are we in our historic orbit passing a belt of niliilism, a time when assassination is reform, and a bad shot at a poor JJR. ISWAZET'S REPLY. 69 czar, inheriting semi-barbarism and striving with all his might to get rid of the inheritance, is to be lamented ? You may be told that it is the horrid theology of the Bible which provokes assault. Common sense remarks that, horrid as its theology may be, its sterner features are just like the theology of nature, namely, a demand for obedience to law and " the survival of the fittest." It is nature put into language, the operation of moral causes foretold — that is all. If you want a government more just than one which judges a man according to his deeds, good or bad, and takes into account his knowledge and oppor- tunities, why, the thing to do is to rail at nature, at cause and efiect, at seed-time and harvest. For while on the better side the Bible theology is more beneficent than nature, on the hard side it is simply unmitigated natural law. Do the theologians preach that good men will be damned ? Then . rail at the theologians, and not at the Bible. In closing this short article, as an addendum, let me ask a question or two for the benefit of all who have a bad opinion of the Bible, as a woman's book or a slave's book. 1. Forget the harem of Solomon, and say why Judaism was a house of refuge for thousands of Boman and Greek women, many of them of noble birth, for a century pre- ceding the Christian era ? 2. In the same line, squarely, has, or has not, the mod- ern estate of woman been the fruit of Christian (including Judaic) teaching? 3. Did not the Bible first mitigate and finally destroy slavery in the Boman empire ? 4. Did not the Bible destroy slavery in England and America? Charge all the slave-driving you will to Chris- tian men, and give any unbeliever' all he claims, and then firo down to a last analvsis. 60 JitlSTAKES OF JNGEmOLL. 5. Are not republican institutions, including (as the old republics did notj democratic ideas, directly and palpably the fruit of the teachings of that remarkable Man (whom the French infidels called the Great Democrat); whose Bible was the Old Testament, and who told His followers bow to amend and finish it by a book called the New Test- ament ? In whatever way these questions may be answered, the man who essays to answer them will find that it is not so easy to eliminate the genius of Moses and Jesus from the genius of the world's movement toward virtue, equality and liberty. Tell the Priniee that this ( a costly copy of the Bible ) is the secret of England's greatness. — Queen Victoria. I HAVE always said and always will say, that the studious perusal of the Sacred Volume will make better citizens, better fathers and better husbands. — Thomas Jefferson. The Bible is equally adapted to the wants and infirmi- ties of every human being. No other book ever addressed itself so authoritatively and so pathetically to the judgment and moral sense of mankind. — ChxinGellor James Kent. Christ proved that He was the Son of the Eternal by His disregard of time. All His doctrines signify only, and the same thing, eternity. — Napoleon Bonaparte. I HAVE read the Bible morning, noon and night, and have ever since been the happier and better man for such reading. — Edward Burke. I DO not believe human society, including not merely a few persons in any state, but whole masses of men, ever has attained, or ever can attain, a high state of intelli- gence, virtue, security, liberty, or happiness without the Holy Scriptures. — William H. Seward. [Photographed by .Mclaader.j DB. OOLLTER^a REPLY. DR. COLLTEB'S BEPLY. Dr. Oollyer Relates a Little Story — A Book that cost Mr. Ingersoll the Governorship of Illinois — The Volume Philosophically Considered — Heavy Blows. I HAVE been told a gentleman went to see Mr. Ing-ersoll once, when he lived in Peoria, and finding a fine copy of Yoltaire in his library, said, " Pray, Sir, what did this cost you?" " I believe it cost me the governorship of the State of Illinois," was the swift and pregnant answer. 1 can not but recall the incident as he stands in the light of his lec- ture. He seems to be saying, " it is my turn now, and I will do what I can to square the account. I will dethrone your God to-day amid peals of laughter; blow His being down the wind on the wings of my epigrams. I have those about me who will send my words flying all over the state. I will start a crusade which will shut up your churches some day, silence your immemorial prayers, slay all the hopes that would strive after something more than this momentary gleam between the eternities, make of no account the grand deep truth that ' life struck sharp on death makes awful lightning,' and so dwarf our human kind that when we get man where we want him he shall never again be able to look over the low billows of his green graves, and end the fight by making my own creed good once, for all that Man, God's last work, who seemed so fair. Such splendid purpose in his eyes. Who rolled the psalms in winlry skies, Who built him fanes for fruitless prayer, 64 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. Wlio trusted God was love indeed, And love, creation's final law ; Though nature red, in tooth and claw, Wiih raven, shrieked against his creed ; Who loved, who suffered countless ills, Who battled for the true and just. Is blown about the desert dust, And sealed within the iron hills." Now, since we first knew Mr. Ingersoll by report, there has been a time when those who can only ])elieve in God as a rather helpless little brother, by no means able to take care of Himself, and in themselves as big brothers, who are bound to stand up for Him, might have felt there was grave danger in such a sight as we have witnessed — of a vast array of men and women, some of them it is fair to believe of a thoughtful turn, assembled to hear the last and best word which can be said why God should be dethroned, and His presence and providence numbered among the things that seemed true enough once, but pass away inevit- ably in the process through which we arise from " our dead selves to higher things." Sparks Flying in all Directions — Sing^ar Mental Phenomenon Occasioned by $25,000 a Year. He wa? clothed once in a fine austerity; went on his lonely way quite content, to give gra've and serious reasons for rejecting what so many of us hold dearer than our life, and was faithful to his instinct and insight, though such ovations as were ever given him — as Dr. Dyer used to say of the old abolitionists — might take the form mainly of rotten eggs. I know of more than one man, who, in those days, nourished a deep and most tender regard for him, and found something noble in the stand he made for the best a man can do and be, who has to abide so utterly alone. But Mr. Ingersoll, roystering around as the popular advocate of DR. GOLLYEWS REPLY. 65 atheism, at $25,000 a year, a.s the common report goes, is quite another sort of a man. No doubt the laborer is worthy of his hire. Those who run the thing may be trusted to see to that, and a good many of us who stand on the other side may not be much better, according to the old proverb that it is " money makes the mare go." Still, as this always turns the fine edge of our endeavor, and makes us weak for good when we make it at all a matter of barter and sale, so it must be with Mr. Inger- soll, making him weak for what I can not but believe to be evil. He is no more in such a case than the second batch of reformers in the old times, who argued lustily for a reformation, while still they grew rich on the Church lands. No more than your Archbishop, in the Church of England, arguing on the godliness of tythes and priestly authority. So Mr. Ingersoll, in motley, trying to laugh the deepest and most sacred convictions of men down the wind under the guise of girding at the Pentateuch (for we must thank him, I say again, for the frankness with which he tells us this is his ultimate aim), is a very differ- ent man to the quiet, manful fellow we used to hear of in Peoria long ago, who won such regard from those who could at all understand him. The man in the ring, whose sole business it is to make you laugh, makes no converts even to rough riding. And so there is ground for neither hope nor fear, as we stand on that side or this, about the advance of atheism, so long as this remains as the best method of its choicest champions. It may make headway with such men as "Voltaire had to handle, and in such times; but this serious and deep hearted race of ours never did take to this kind of thing, and never will. It is only as the crackling of the thorns under a pot. Nor can this bitter and relentless spirit toward those who differ help the advocates of atheism any more than it doet; 5 66 MISTAKES OF INGER80LL. the advocates of the faith. Robert Southey says, in a letter to Sharon Turner, touching the contentions of his time between the sects, " When I hear the dissenters talk about Churchmen, I feel like a very high Churchman myself; but when I hear Churchmen talk about dissenters, I feel that I am a dissenter, too." It was but the bias of a nature, in which the balances were still true, in favor of the side which was dealt with most unfairly. The plea in the mind of one who could look on both sides with a calm concern, that the result of fighting over the lamp should not be to put out the light, or of contending over the nature and properties of the spring to soil the water so that no one could drink at it, be he ever so athirst. Lord Bacon says, " there is a superstition in avoiding superstition, when those think they do best who go farthest; but care should be taken that the good should not be purged away with the bad, which commonly happens when this is the method.'' So I think it must be with such violent and utter denunciation as this, which lies within the spirit of Mr. Ingersoll's address. It has pleased a very bright and able man in our ranks to fall into accord with him in many things he has to say, and to show how we also hold this ground. I may be old-fashioned, and unfit for a fair judgment, but I am very much of Southey's mind, and when I hear orthodoxy denounced in such a spirit, I say I agree with Mr. Ingersoll nowhere. Here is bigotry of a new shape, denouncing bigots; and I sway to the other side for very charity, and the desire that the most good pos- sible should be found in any evil, and especially that one should think as well as possible of those who can not see as we do, but are still of as fine and clear a grain, and show as noble a soul of self-sacrifice — that uttermost and inner- \nost proof a man can give that he believes he is right. DB. aOLL YER8 RE PL 7. 67 The Clear Ring of Truth vs. the Dull Thud of the Baser Metal — Potency of Simple Statement — The Doctor's Objections to IngersoU's Talk. Now, a man who seeks and loves the truth, must be esteemed in every human society; but so far as my own observation goes, the most of our fights and contentions carried on in sucli a spirit as this I am trying to touch, end in vast clouds of dust and smoke, in which the clear, shining sun of the truth turns blood-red to our human vision. And those who, even with the best intentions, are forever going about, as we say, with a chip on their shoul- der, are likely in the end to be voted a common nuisance. The truth must be told, no matter who gets hurt; the truth, or even semblance of the truth, which smites the man who tells it, and moves his heart so that he has to cry " Woe is me if I preach not this Gospel !" But the truth still comes to us through clear and simple statements which tell their own storj-, rather than through denial, denuncia- tion, satire, slang, and appeals to the top-gallery. So Channing thought, and the result is, that his best sermons are simply statements of the truth as it had come home to his own heart and mind. So Parker thought and reading his life again, just now, I find there is nothing the man longed for so much as that he might be quiet, and just let the truth dome itself in his great fine heart and brain, while he regrets bitterly the evil times that compelled him to take to other methods; and the best work he ever did for the deep, still truth, are statements. So John Wesley thought, when once he struck his shining path from earth to heaven, and his sermons from 1740 to 1780, are simply statements of the ever-growing and ever-brightening truth God is revealing to man. And so even Calvin thought, and his earliest and best utterances are still statements, grim, hard, iron-clinched, but all the same the stern and 68 MISTAKES OF INGER80LL. inexorable affirmation, made good for all time, that neither priest nor Pope can play fast and loose with the Most High God. Always you find the greatest and best men w^hen they themselves are at their best making statements, exactly as Jesus does in the sermon on the mount. Saying what is in them simply and sincerely, feeling sure, as Coleridge says, that "no authority can ever prevail in opposition to the truth." So Columbus holds himself before the Council of Salamanca, when a new world is in debate. So Stejjhen- 8on holds himself before the House of Lords, when he has to answer for his locomotive. So Xewton affirms his dis- covery of the law of gravitation ; and Harvey, that of the circulation of the blood. That is the law of all truth-tell- ing in its noblest and best shape, and then the contention, if there is one, is simply the hiss, as Stebbins, of California, said once, when he was speaking in defence of the Chinese, "is simply the liiss the white-hot truth makes when it strikes the black waters of hell.'' Here, then, is ray radical objection to Mr. Ingersoll's talk, apart from his final aim. It is conceived and done in a narrow and most bigoted spirit, by one who claims, above all thinirs in the world, to be free from big'otry. The men of whom he speaks so unworthily are, take them by and large, worthy men. The things in the five books of Moses, so called, on which the fathers based their creeds, are rapidly passing into worthier meanings; and the day is not far distant when the old belief will have rotted down, and be as when an old tree rots, to become the nursing mother of a bed of violets. ]N"o man believes in such things any more, who has read and thought to any purpose; and the man who has not done this, had far better believe in the six days' work and one day's rest, rib, serpent, fall, flood, ark, manna, and all the rest of those wonders, than. in Mr. Ingersoll's enormous and most fatal negation of God, DR. GOLLY EM'S REPLY. 6& Putting the Fine Edge on Orthodoxy — Taking a Weld with Prof. Swing and Dr. Thomas — Borax and Bigotry. Nor is that bad and bitter spirit in orthodoxy now which once found utterance in fire and the axe, as it did in far more ruthless ways in atheism wlien the goddess of Kea- son was the divinity of France. Ortliodoxy, in a free-spoken land like ours, is very civil, indeed, and timid, as I think, almost to a fault, showing just the spirit which is no^ sure the ground may not slip from under it any moment; and so far as its finest leaders go edging away from the rocking base, as fast and as far the people for whom those men have to care will follow. J^othing could be more gentle than the way orthodoxy used Brother Swing. lie was no more orthodox than you are. He might not think so, but that's the truth, patent to the whole world. Yet the church to which he was preaching, and the old standbys, as we call them, said, " This is what we are here for, and have laid out our money and time for, and, if you go back far enough, it is what our fathers shed their blood for. Dr. Swing must be true to his ancient vows, or leave." If Mr. Ingersoll should ever lay out his money, and those of his mind put theirs to it, to build a great hall in Washington or Chicago for the pi-opagation of atheism, and employ a man to preach to them, and then if this man should depart as far backward from their way of thinking as Brother Swing departed forward from that of the Presbyterians, they will be much more catholic and inclusive than I think they are if they use that man as gently. I do not mention this for proof of my word that ortho- doxy is getting to be very civil — indeed, gentle, timid, and even w^anting in a proper courage to take care of its own household, if we are to judge from the half-and-half meas- ures they are taking with Mr. Talmadge, in Brooklyn, and the way in which they let him smite them o\\ the mouth. 70 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. Orthodoxy has exchanged the old fetters of iron for silken bands with an elastic base. Brother Thomas, my dear and good friend, has no right to preach in a Methodist pulpit, and in the days I remember, would not have preached in one to this time. There must be a certain concert of opin- ion, capable of being brought within fair lines, or nobody would organize or hold anything. This, is the secret of our most happy relation through all these years in this church. We hold together through a large, free, common opinion about certain grand verities. I should injure my own nature if I went over those lines. Yet men are continually going over them in the orthodox churches. But they bear and forbear, scold a little, fret a good deal, and trust the brother may see things different presently or depart in peace, and then, when there is no help for it, they lift him very gently out of the fold. jSTor is the scorn Mr. Ingersoll pours out on these ancient books befitting any man who could feel his way to their heart, apart from any theory of inspiration or the use made of them to hinder human progress. It is the spirit of the Caliph he shows, who, when the question came up w^hat should be done with a superb library, said, "Burn it; what- ever is against the Koran ought to be burnt, and whatever agrees with the Koran is not needed." With some such narrow vision he would judge these venerable monuments of the most ancient time; make an end of them to human credence; get them branded for worthless in the interests of human reason; and order himself toward them as if an iconoclast, looking over the treasures of the Louvre, should note only what is grotesque or painful, while he missed what is most beautiful and entrancing, tumble the whole into a heap, and burn it into ashes and lime. Men have misused these books, there can be no doubt of that, and turned some parts of them into bane, which, well used. DR. GOLLY ERti REPLY. 71 might bring blessing. So they tell me, there is no place that can match Peoria in its power to turn good grain into whisky; therefore, shovel Peoria into the river, and leave the smiling prairies where the grain grows, a waste. Nothing in the world shows a man s limitations so fatally as the play of this power which can not or will not distin- guish between the use and the abuse of things, or will over- look the abiding good because of the transient evil. We tolerate it easily in the child who turns in wrath on the chair against which he has bruised himself; we look twice at the man who does this, and then draw our own conclu- sion. I have been told, on good authority, that Mr. Inger- soll, in his childhood and his early youth, did get badly bruised against these books. Well, the books have to take it now; but is this the sign of a large and a gracious mind? One would think he might have gotten over it before this, and come to understand them better than mere instruments of hurt. I can agree in nothing touching the Bible and the soul's life with the man who tells me his aim is to damage or destroy the faith of man in God, to the best of his ability; but if this was out of the way, one might not object to his antagonism to the misuse of Moses by those who think they do God service. Still, in any case, I find too much beauty in the books to allow me to touch them with irreverent hands. They are simply above ^iH stand- ards of value, with which I measure other books outside the Scriptures, in the revelation they make to me of the way men felt their way toward a sure faith in God in those old times, and so grew, in many instances, to be very noble and good at last, and, as I have said, of the way in which they tried to account for this wonderful and mysterious universe in which they found themselves when they had "learned the use of I and me, and said ' I am not what I see, and other than the things I touch.' " Nor would T lose one of 72 MISTAKES OF INGEH80LL. the wonders. They all tell us something we want to know about the working of the human mind. That is a very poor and rude matter I treasure in my study; a broken vase of gray clay, with a few fishbone marks on it; but if there w^as not another of them in the world I • would not exchange it for the Portland vase, for this reason: That on a day, so remote I can not strike it, some poor savage made that vase in my little town, to hold the dust of some one dear to him, put those marks on it for a token of what was in his mind, and then made a little vault and hid it away until the sun of this century should shine on it, and when I hold that vase, I find a trace of the man who had else been lost. There is the faint beat of a human heart lingering in the clay, and a dim remembrance of tears, and the marks, and as if they should open my grave two thousand years from now, and find the white cross still fresli on my coffin, and say, "Tender, loving hands laid that there, let us deal with it tenderly.'' These rude and half-shapen things in the old books are the clue to the man who made them, and how he felt, and what he thought. I would not spare the least letter out of them, but would scan them in all reverence, let who will scorn them. They all belong to our human history, and it is only their mis- fortune they have ever been misused. They are included in the saying of the great and wise German, that the Bible begins nobly with Paradise, the symbol of Faith, and con- cludes with the eternal kingdom ; and with the grand, sweet word of Thomas Carlyle: " In the poorest cottage there is one book wherein, for thousands of years, the spirit of man has found light and nourishment, and an interpreting response to whatever is deepest in him. The Book wherein to this day the eye that will look well, the mystery of existence reflects itself, and if not> to the satisfying of the outward sense, yet to the opening of the inward sense, which is the far grander result." DR. VOLLYEWS REPLY, 78 A Touching Illustration — Eloquence and Truth — Havelock's Saints. Of the doctrine advanced by Mr. Ingersoll, and his pur- pose to have done with the God Jesus believed in, and show reason why we should have done with Ilim, there is nothing to say if I have not said it steadily these many years. A remark of Charles Hare strikes me forcibly as I read the few words that ai*e .said on this matter, in the address, "There is no being eloquent for atheism. In that exhausted receiver the mind can not use its wings — the clearest proof that it is out of its element." For when I consider how eloquent Mr. Ingersoll has been at times, and the moving cause of it, I can see that he also must answer to this law. He never said grander words than those about our boys, their mighty heart, and utter self-sacrifice, for the noblest ends. But there never was anything done since the world stood, in which the presence of God could be traced, and his power felt more clearly, nor did ever men make such sacrifice with a devouter sense that God was within it all, than those most worthy his grand and touch- ing eulogium. " Call out Havelock's saints,'' Sir Arclii- bald Campbell shouted, when hope was almost dead in the great Sepoy rebellion in India. Something must be done, and done on the swift instant, or there would be more woful work among the women and children. Call out Havelock's saints, tliey are sure to be ready, and they are never (h'unk. They were of the sort that carry a Bible in their knapsack, and turn to chapter and verse, and sing psalms from old Kouse's version to Dundee and Elgin, and the Martyrs, and nourish their hearts on stories of the way stout battles were fought and n^rand martvrdoms endured for God amons- the moors. Call out Havelock's saints, they are always ready, and never get drunk, and they do fight like the very angels. They were but the brothers of the great, simple 74 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. souls wlio fought at Ball's Bluff, and in scores of battles beside, while mothers and sisters did the praying for the moment, for they had no time except just to look up and hear that voice in the heart saj, " Steady, my boy, steady, you are of a grand stock, you must tell a grand story. And they told it, and at the heart of it all was God, and a new life for the nation, and in time a new civilization that shall shed its blessing on the whole waiting world. Atheism — Not an Institution but a "Destitution!" — The True Ijife. I have no stones to throw at atheism any more than I have stones to throw at blindness. It can never be more than a very sore and sad limitation, not an institution, but a destitution. This Anglo-Saxon nature is not good soil for it: no arguments can make it take hold and grow in us any more than arguments can make roses take hold and grow on Aberdeen granite. Kor have I any exhortation save this: That as we stand as pioneers of the noblest and fairest faith we can reach, a faith which thi'ovvs no strands to stay itself on the fall, or the flood, or the manna, or the sun, standing still, or any of these old wonders, but just fronts the light and drinks it in, we shall grow ever more worthy to prove God's presence in the world, by revealing it in our life, and in the work he has given us to do. There is no argument like that which lies within a sweet and true life which looks to God forever for its inspiration and its joy. Let us be right worthy of our faith. Then shall this Western Goth, So fiercely practical, so keen of eye. Find out some day that nothing pays but God. Served whether in the smoke of battle field, In work obscure done honestly — or vote For truth unpopular — or faith maintained. To ruinous convictions — or good deeds, Wrought for good's sake, heedless of heaven or helL FRED. FEBUT POWERS' REPLY. 75 FRED. PERRY POWERS' REPLY. The Sinaitic Code — Solvent Powers of the Historic Method — Graphic Illustration of the Two Schools. Christianity, like a fortress on an open plain, is liable to attack from opposite directions. But it is well for the at- tacking parties to remember that columns of argument do not, like columns of soldiers, co-operate when moving in opposite directions. Christianity is not to be disposed of by proving that at the same timo it is and is not a certain thing. The " historic method," like every new journal, seems "to meet a long-felt want." It has been clutched greed- ily and employed in every conceivable shape. It proves not only that whatever is is right, but that whatever was was right, and whatever will be will be right. It has been car- ried to a point where it undermines personal responsibility, and with it Mr. Herbert Spencer, in the conclusion of his Sociology, enjoins the reformer and the philanthropist from activity. It eliminates ethical considerations from the mind of the historian. It closes the eyes of society to the vices of its members, and it lays its hand upon the mouth of the judge before whom stands a man who, as the result of antecedents, and in the natural effort to harmonize himself with his environment, has committed murder. ^ow, it is a little singular that this invaluable historic method should be a legitimate weapon against the church, but an illegitimate weapon for the church. If the church is to be allowed to use this weapon freely it will have uo 76 MTSTAKES OF TNGEHSOLL. difficulty in making a perfect defense for itself, its predeces- sor and all of its members, no matter how wild or wicked. The historic method is a solvent in which the inqui- sition disappears, and which at once removes those spots on the robe of religious history, the wars and massacres of the Israelites. I have no disposition to make any such exten- sive use of the historic method as this. But all matters of history are to be studied as historical, not as contempora- neous. And it is in the last degree uncandid for the oppo- nents of Christianity to make the extremest use of the his- toric method when it suits their purpose, and then, in dealing with religious history, eliminate ordinary historic perspective. In this latter particular the enemies of the church are not alone. The Keformation brought in a re- vival of Judaism, and a large section of Protestant Chris- tianity resolutely closes its eyes to the fact that the Mosaic dispensation was given several thousand years ago, and to a race wholly difierent in its position Irom any now existing. The Mosaic dispensation is not the only thing treated in this way. The directions given by St. Paul to a particular church at a particular date are constantly appealed to in the churches as universal law, applicable to all churches and throughout all ages. If a picture with a man iu the foreground and an elephant in the background were shown to two savages, one of whom knew something about ele- phants, and the other of whom did not, the former would insist upon it that the artist was a ignoramus for painting an elejihant smaller than a man, and the other would con- clude that man was a larger animal than an elephant, be- cause lie ap^jeared so in the picture. The former repre- sents a school of atheists who attack the ethics of the Sina- itic code, and the latter represents a school of devout be- lievers who, receiving the Sinai tic code as a matter of rev- elation, feel compelled to defend it as the truth and noth- FRED. PEHHY POWERS' ItEPLY.^ 77 ing but the truth, and the truth for ail times and all places. It is worth while to remember at the very outset what both parties to the war waged over the ernics of the Pentateuch seem disposed to ignore, that what are now denounced as the errors of the Sinaitic code were pointed out more than eighteen hundred years ago by tne nighest authority rec- ognized by the Christian world. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus Christ used the fol- lowing language: Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a toeth. But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil ; but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other, also.— Matt, v., 38, 39. The lex talionis^ here repudiated, was not a rabbinical interpolation; it was an integral maxim of the Sinaitic code, as the following words, coming shortly after the Deca- logue, show : And if any mischief follows, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye,toothfor tooth, hand for haul, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. — Exodus xxi., 23-25. Free divorce was another Sinaitic error, so called, and in pointing it out Christ gave us the key to the whole Mosaic dispensation, as the following passage shows: The Pharisees also came unto Him, tempting Him, and saying unto Him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause ? And He answered and said unto them. Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, for this cause sliall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh ? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What, therefore, God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. They say unto Him, Why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement, and t© put her away ? He saith unto them, Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, suffered you to put away your wives ; but from the beginning it was not so. And I say unto you. Whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornica- tion, and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso man-i- eth her which he put away doth commit adultery. — Matt, xix., 3-9. •78 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. Divine Adjustment of the Moral Law — Progressive Elimination of Polygamy, Slavery, Etc. — Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary. The "hardness of heart'' referred to is evidently the dullness of the intellectual and moral sense that character- ized the almost savage slaves of the Egyptians when they came up out of Egypt. Instead of imposing on them an ethical system perfectly complete and perfectly unintelligi- ble to them in their degraded condition, Moses, under di- rection of divine wisdom, gave them a moral law which they could understand, and which would develop in them a capacity for something purer and higher. Polygamy was tolerated, not because it was the ideal system; not because the deity of the Hebrews could devise no other, but because polygamy is the natural intermedi- ate station between promiscuity and monogamy. God chose to make a civilized people out of the Jews, not by His creative fiat, but by operating through natural laws of sociology. In due time, when men were prepared for it, the law of permanent and monogamous marriage was pro- mulgated, but it was in advance of public sentiment, as is shown by the fact that when Christ, in the passage above quoted, forbade free divorce, and proclaimed the sanctity of the marital relation, the disciples suggested that if that was the law it was better not to marry. So slavery was tolerated under the Mosaic law. But ser- vitude for a short term of years was substituted for per- manent and hereditary servitude, and the law threw some protection about the person of the slave. The Mosaic dis- pensation is not responsible for a defense of slavery. It tolerated an intermediate state between barbarism and civ- ilization. A fact of vast importance to notice is that this Mosaic system contained within itself the seeds which, when FRED, PERRY POWERS' REPLY. 79 humanity had outgrown the old dispensation, wonld mature into a new dispensation so far in advance of human attain- ments, that after nearly nineteen centuries the human race has not begun to catch upon it. Christ expounded the Old Testament references to Himself, beginning with Moses. When Sinai had reduced society to order, and stamped out paganism, then Calvary came and appealed to all that was highest and purest in man. Even- at this late day there are not many souls that really comprehend the full meaning of Calvary and whose lives give evidence of that fact. When any considerable portion of the human race has received all that Calvary can confer, a new dispensation may be expected. In this sense the Mosaic dispensation was perfect and complete. As j)romulgated on Mount Sinai, it was adapted only to a certain low condition of mankind. But it contained a vital principle, which enabled it to expand as fast as civilization advanced. Starting with the Decalogue, it developed the penitential psalms and the noble exhorta- tions of the prophets, and finally the Beatitudes. Begin- ning with a catalogue of penalties, it in course of time developed sorrow for sin, and at last that love to God which withholds from sin. This system of religion has developed faster than civilization has advanced. The Israelites at the foot of Mount Sinai probably knew something of the wrong- fulness of murder, theft and adultery. But, to-day, in spite of great moral advances — to-day, nineteen centuries after Christ — how much does the human race really know about " hungering and thirsting after righteousness? " Let the foolish declaration that we have outgrown Christianity come from those who have been filled, and who still want something more. The Decalogue is by no means the complete moral code that it is often represented to be, and it would be singularly 80 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. ^ out of place in a Christian church were it not that, even to-day, and in the United States, there are many persons incapable of comprehending the Beatitudes which compre- hend all there is in the Decalogue, and vastly more. The seventh commandment does not apply to crimes, both participants in which are unmarried, and the Mosaic law treated the seduction of an unbetrothed bondmaid as a trivial offense, sufficiently atoned for by the sacrifice of a ram. The seduction of a free maid, if she was not be- trothed, was atoned for by marriage. It was on account of the "hardness of their hearts," their infancy in ethics, that this easy-going statute regarding the sexes was enacted. But Christ said : Ye have heard that it was said of them of old time, " Thou shalt not commit adultery;" but I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in* his heart.— Matt, v., 27, 28. The Decalogue said, ''Thou shalt not kill," but Jesus Christ added to this as follows : Whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in dan ger of the judgment. — Matt, v., 22. The Decalogue forbade the bearing of false witness; it was silent as to ordinary mendacity. In the New Testa- ment this law is extended to cover all untruthfulness. Purpose and Potency of the Mosaic Iianr. The purpose of the Mosaic law was to start the Israelites on the path of spiritual enlightenment. It was a provi- sional system, superseded at the right time by Christianity. The sacrifices were fines imposed on the guilty. They were also daily reminded of the existence of God, and the blood pouring from the altar taught the serious nature and fatal consequeoces of sin as nothing else would. Of course, to a set of modern sophists, who' deny the existence of sin. FRED. PERRY POWERS' REPLY, 81 the sacrifices are simply meaningless, revolving spectacles; but the man who hasn't studied the subject enough to understand the meaning of the Hebrew sacrifices is estopped from discussing them in public. The barbarities of the Mosaic system form a pet subject of denunciation by gentlemen who have a repugnance to study, coupled with a mania for delivering lectures, when the latter can be done at a pecuniary ijrofit. If a man thinks it just as well to worship tlie sun or a bull as to worship Jehovah, of course he will regard the penalties denounced against idolatry as tyrannical and barbarous. But no man, unless he has a purpose to accomplish thereby, can shut his eyes to the barrier that idolatry places in the way of mental or moral progress, or both. The interests of the human race demanded that pagauisni should be roofed out somewhere, if not everywhere. The promise to Abra- ham, that in his seed should all the nations of the earth be blessed, has been fulfilled, but that has been accomplished only by the most rigorous hostility to paganism among the Jews. In spite of all the stern laws of Moses, Israel again and again relapsed into paganism; yet it was an absolute necessity that if what we now know as civilization was ever to come, paganism must in some corner of tho world be stamped out, and the way prepared for Christianity. To teach the Israelites what a moral contagion was idolatry, they had to be taught that it was a physical contagion, contaminating everything connected with the idolator. Had not this been done, the Israelites would have remained, like all the rest oi' the world, immersed in the unsj^eakably unclean worship of Baal and Astarte and Moloch. Cost what it might, the ravages of the pestilence had to be checked somewhere, § 88 MISTAKES OF INOER80LL. Excessive Wickedness and Proportionate Punishment — The Court of Heaven vs. the Court of Earth. Of course, the wars of the Israelites and the annihilation of certain tribes are held to be horrible cruelties by the sophists of the present day. But we are distinctly told that it was for their extraordinary wickedness that these tribes were exterminated. We are again and again told that it was for the wickedness of the Amalekites that their destruction was commanded. We get some glimpses of the unmentionable vileness of some of these Canaanitish tribes. The fact was that they were ulcers on the body of the human race which had to be cut out. Possibly the innocent suffered with the guilty, and possibly there were no innocent except the infants, whom it would have been no mercy to save after their unclean parents were destroyed. It is probable that the moral taint had so rooted itself in the physical system that, had the children been spared, they would have inevitably developed into adults as nnclean as their parents. The passages sometimes quoted to show that Jehovah was vindicative, are passages aimed at sin. The most ample amnesty to the repentant is prom- ised from one end of Genesis to the other end of Eevelation. The people who denounce the divine government, as mani- fest in the Old Testament, either deny that there is any such thing as sin, or, which is often the case, they have admirable reasons for being angry because sin is punished. The gentlemen who denounce the destruction of Sodom are necessarily apologists for the Sodomists. When malignancy is charged against Jehovah it is im- portant to remember that the presence of five righteous persons would have saved Sodom. There was only one righteous person, an4 not only was he enabled to escape but he secured immunity for his family. Nineveh was FRED. PERRY POWERS' REPLY. 83 spared because the people repented. The Israelites were delivered from their enemies when thej forsook their sins. On the other hand i^athan's rebuke to David is a matter of record, and Solomon's licentiousness was punished bj the revolt of Jeroboam and tlie teti tribes. Tae statement that Jehovah disregarded distinctions of riglit and wrong, or treated the innocent and gniltj alike, or took pleasure in the death even of the wicked is false, and known to be so by the persons who make it. The very sentiment of hu- manity which prompts certain persons to denounce the di- vine government of the Jews is found only where Chris- tianity, the legitimate successor of Judaism, prevails. What arc denounced as massacres committed by the Israelites were judicial executions i^erformed under the or- ders of the only court in the universe which has perfect in- formation of the cases tried before it, and which is per- fectly free from weaknesses. To object to the judgment one must cither show that the condemned were inn'ocent, which at this late day can not be shown, or one must show that the crimes were less heinous than the court held them to be, which is to become an apologist for crimes of every character, some of which are not even to be named. It is also to be remembered that the divine government is the creator of society, instead of the creature of society, as is human government. The former is, therefore, not to be judged precisely as the latter is, even though abstract justice is the same in Heaven that it is on earth. The charge of vindictiveness is absolutely without foundation; and, by the way, of all the nations known to the Jews the one we might suppose them most hostile to is the Egypt- ian, for it was in Egypt that the Israelites were enslaved and maltreated. Yet the divine com.mand, coming from. Hoses, was that the Israelites should in no case oppress the Egyptians, and the reason was that they were once so- 84 MISTAKES OF TNGEESOLL. journars in the land of Egypt, the very reason we might suppose why they should be especially bitter toward the Egyptians. Able Bodied Mendacity and Civilization— Love and Obedience. There is a good deal of dense ignorance or able-bodied mendacity in circulation regarding the ethics of the New Testament. Jesus Christ and His apostles uj)held neither political nor domestic despotism. But it is a fact which lecturers should understand that civil order is the first stop toward civilization. Despotism is more conducive to civilization than anarchy is. Furthermore, when Paul wrote his epistles the Roman officials suspected all Chris- tians of being hostile to the government, and it was espe- cially necessary that the Eoman power should understand by the loyalty of the Christians that He whom they called their king was a spiritual sovereign, and not a rival of the emperor. What Paul at a particular time wrote to a particular church is by no means necessarily a universal law. What is particularly to be noted is that the exhortations to obe- dience on the part of the citizen, the wife, the child and the servant are coupled with and conditioned on exhorta- tions to the ruler, the husband, the parent and the master, which certain uncandid and irrational persons, some of whom are inside the church and some of whom are outside jf it, are careful to ignore. In Ephesians v. 22, Paul com- mands wives to submit themselves to their husbands, but in the twenty-fifth verse husbands are commanded to love their wives as Christ loves His church. Now, if the hus- band fulfills his part of the mutual obligation, the wife's submission will not be of a very mental character. In Ephesians vi. 1, children are commanded to obey their par- ents, but in the fourth verse fathers are commanded not FRED. PERRY POWERS' REPLY, 85 to provoke their children to wrath, but to bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. In the next verse servants are commanded to obey their masters, but in the ninth verse we read, " And, je masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, knowing that your Master also is in Heaven; neither is there respect of person with Him/' In Hebrews xiii. 17, we read, " Obey them that have the rule over you, and submit yourselves; for they watch for your souls as they that must give account." The command to obey rules is conditioned on the dis- charge of their duties by the rulers. Now, in omitting one half of each double command, and on the strength of the other half arraigning Christianity as the ally of domestic and political tyranny, modern "free thought "is accomplishing a great work, is it not? The distinguishing characteristic of " free thought " seems to be that it is thought freed from all subservience to facts. Mr. Powers' Pungent Peroration. Theology has made many shipwrecks by an excess of a priori reasoning, and by reasoning deductively when the means of reasoning inductively exist. But what is termed materialism is habitually doing the same thing, if it can make a point against Christianity by so doing. The ene- mies of Calvinism have denounced it because it promoted immorality. Yet a severer code of morals would be diffi- cult to find than that maintained by the English Puritans^ the Scotch Covenanters, and the French Huguenots, all Cal- \^inists. Would it not be just as rational to judge Calvinism by its fruits as to judge its fruits by Calvinism? When man has argued from the ^N'ew Testament that Christianity must be the ally of despotism, and then looks about him and sees that civil liberty is not known outside of Christian lands, and has its fullest development in Eng- 86 MISTAKES OF INCfERSOLL. land and America, where Christianity in its simplest forms prevail, and where there are the fewest barriers between the human soul and the Kew Testament itself; when he has argued from the Kew Testament to show that Chris- tianity is inimical to the best interests of womanhood, and then looks around and sees womanhood honored only in Christian countries, constantly employed by and honored in the church, must it not occur to him with painful force that he is a good deal off the track? It would not be necessary to remind philosophers of the fact, but it is necessary to remind sophists that the Jews did a good many things that the Mosaic dispensation is not responsible for, and that it is mere idiocy to hold Chris- tianity responsible for everything done by individuals or associations m its name. The man who can not discrim- inate between the legitimate results of a system, and the abuses grafted on to it by its professed adherents, is plainly unfit to debate philosophical questions. If people made half the effort to understand the Bible that they make to discard it, they wouldn't be so funny as they are now, but they would know more. There are over two hundred passages in the Old Testa- ment which prophesied about Christ, and every one of them has come true. — D. L. Moody. In regard to the Great Book, I have only to say it is the best gift which God has given to man. All the good from the Saviour of the World is communicated through this Book. But for this Book we could not know right from wrong. All those things desirable to man are contained in it. I return you my sincere thanks for this very elegant CM>py of the Great Book of God which you present. — Ahra- h When I speak of libraries I think of the remark of Plato : "A house that has a library in it has a soul," I saw at the same time the ofiensive weapons that man has made, from a club, such as was grasped by that same savage when he crawled from his den 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 blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country; the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to* the shirts of mail that w^cre worn in the middle ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel. And I say orthodox not only in the matter of religion, but in everything. Whoever has quit growing he is orthodox, whether in art, politics, religion, philosophy— no matter what. Whoever thinks he has found it all out he is orthodox. Orthodoxy is that which rots, and heresy is that which grows forever. Orthodoxy is the night of the past, full of 'the darkness of superstition, and heresy is the eternal coming day, the light of which strikes the grand foreheads of the intel- lectual pioneers of the world^ I saw their implements of agriculture, from the plow made of a crooked stick, atttached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, with which our ancestors scraped the earth, and from that to the agricul:ural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. In the old time there was but one crop ; and when the rain did not come in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people fell upon their knees. At that time they were full of superstition. They were frightened all the lime for fear that some god would be enraged at tiKULLS AND REPLIES. 109 his poor, hapless, feeble and starving children. But now, instead of depending upon one crop they have several, and if there is not rain enough for one there may be enough for another. And if the frosts kill all, we have railroads and steamships enough to bring what we need from some other part of the world. Since man has found out some- thing about agriculture, the gods have retired from the business of pro- ducing famines. I saw at the same time their musical instruments, from the tom-tom —that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw-hide drawn across it — from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that make the common air blossom with melody, and I said to myself there is a regular advancement. I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull that has been found, the Neanderthal skull — skulls from Central Africa, skulls from the bushmen of Australia — skulls from the farthest isles of the Pacific Sea— up to the best skulls of the last generation— and I noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls, and I said to myself: " After all, it is a simple question of intellectual development." There was the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest-skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the Krupp gun, between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by Verdi. The first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty and love. And I said to myself, it is all a question of intellectual development. Man has advanced just as he has mingled his thought with his labor. As he has grown he has taken advantage of the forces of nature ; first of the moving wind, then of falling water, and finally of steam. From one step to another he has obtained better houses, better clothes, and better books, and he has done it by holding out every incentive to the ingenious to produce them. The world has said, give us better clubs and guns and cannons with which to kill our fellow Christians. And whoever will give us better weapons and better music, and better houses to live in, we will robe him in wealth, crown him in honor, and render his name deathless. Every incentive was held out to every human being to improve these things, and th:it is the reason we have advanced in all mechanical arts. But that gentleman in the dug-out not only had his ideas about politics, mechanics, and agriculture; he had his ideas also about religion. His idea abcmt politics was " right makes might." It will be thousands of yeai*s, may be, before mankind will believe in the saying that " right makes might." He had his religion. That low skull was a devil factory. He believed in Hell, and the belief was aeon- ItO MI8TAKE8 OF INQBRSOLL. eolation to him. He could see the waves of God's wrath dashing against the rocks of dark damnation. He could see tossing in the white-caps the faces of women, and stretching above the crests the dimpled hands of children; and he regarded these things as the justice and mercy of God. And all to-day who believe in this eternal punishment are the barbarians of the nineteenth century. That man believed in a devil, too, that had a long tail terminating with a fiei^^ dart; that had wings like a bat— a devil that had a cheerful habit of breathing brimstone, that had a cloven foot, such as some orthodox clergymen seem to think I have. And there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that devil in all the years since. The moment you drive the devil out of theology, there is nothing left worth speaking of. The moment they drop the devil, away goes atonement. The moment they kill the devil, their whole scheme of salvation has lost all of its interest for mankind. You must keep the devil and you must keep Hell. You must keep the devil, because with no devil no priest is necessary. Now, all I ask is this— the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his dug- out, and that is what I am going to do, the best I can. No matter what church you belong to, or what church belongs to us. Let us be honor bright and fair. I want to ask you : Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest if there was one at that lime, had told these gentlemen in the dug-out: " That dug-out is the best boat that can ever be built by man ; the pattern of that came from on high, from the great God of storm and flood, and any man who says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle of it and a rag on the stick, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the stake;" what, in your judgment — honor bright— would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one — and I presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age — suppose this king and priest had said : " The tom-tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the kind of music they have in Heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of a glorified cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom, became so enrap- tured so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it — that is how we obtained it; and any man who says it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretcli, and shall die the death," — I ask you, what effect would that have had upon music ? If that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your judg- ment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven ? Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said : " That crooked sticks is the best plow that can be invented ; the pattern of that SKULLS AND REPLIES, 111 plow was given to a prous farmer in an exceedingly holy dream, and that twisted straw is the neplus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says ho can make an improvement upon that plow, is an atheist;" what, in 3-our judgment, would have been the effect upon the science of agriculture ? Now, all I ask is the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon his mechanical arts. Why don't we go back to that period to get the telegraph ? Because they were barbarians. And shall we go to bar- barians to get our religion? What is religion? Religion simply embraces the duty of man to man. Religion is simply the science of human duty and the duty of man to man — that is what it is. It is the highest science of all. And all other sciences are as nothing, except as they contribute to the happiness of man. The science of religion is the highest of all, embracing all others. And shall we go to the barbarians to learn the science of sciences ? The nineteenth century knows more about religion than all the centuries dead. There is more real charity in the world to-day than ever before. There is more thought to-day than ever before. Woman is glorified to-day as she never was before in the history of the world. There are more happy families now than ever before— more children treated as though they were tender blossoms than as though they were brutes than in any other time or nation. Religion is simply the duty a man owes to man; and when you fall upon your knees and pray for something you know not of, you neither benefit the one you pray for nor yourself. One ounce of restitution is worth a mil- lion of repentances anywhere, and a man will get along faster by help- ing himself a minute than by praying ten years for somebody to help him. Suppose you were coming along the street, and found a party of men and women on their knees praying to a bank, and you asked them, " Have any of you borrowed any money of this bank ?" " No, but our fathers, they, too, prayed to this bank." " Did they ever get any ?" " No, not that we ever heard of." I would tell them to get up. It is easier to earn it, and it is far more manly. Our fathers in the " good old times," — and the best that I can say of the " good old times " is that they are gone, and the best I can say of the good old people that lived in them is that they are gone, too — believed that you made a man think your way by force. Well, you can't do it. There is a splendid something in man that says: "I won't; I won't be driven." But our fathers thought men could be driven. They tried it ill the " good old times." I used to read about the manner in which the early Christians made converts— how they impressed upon the world the idea that God loved them. I have read it, but it didn't burn into my soul. I didn't think much about it— I heard so much about being fried forever in Hell that it didn't geem so bad to burn a few minutes. I love il2 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. liberty and I hate all persecutions in the name of God. I never appre- ciated the infamies that have been committed in the name of religion until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used. I saw, for instance, the thumb-screw, two little innocent looking pieces of iron, armed with some little protuberances on the inner side to keep it from slipping down, and through each end a screw, and when some man had made some trifling remark, as, for instance, that he never believed that God made a fish swallow a man to keep him from drowning, or something like that, or, for instance, that he didn't believe in baptism. You know that is very wrong. You can see for yourselves the justice of damning a man if his parents had happened to baptize him in the wrong way — God can not afford to break a rule or two to save all the men in the world. I happened to be in the company of some Baptist ministers once— you may wonder how I happened to be in such company as that— and one of them asked me what I thought about baptism. Well, I told them I hadn't thought much about it — that I had never sat up nights on that question. I said : " Baptism — with soap— is a good institution." Now, when some man had said some trifling thing like that, they put this thumb-screw on him, and in the name of universal benevolence and for the love of God — man has never persecuted man for the love of man ; - man has never persecuted another for the love of charity— it is always for the love of something he calls God, and every man's idea of God is his own idea. If there is an infinite God, and there may be— I don't know — there may be a million for all I know — I hope there is more than one — one fieems so lonesome. They kept turning this down, and when this was done, most men would say: " I will recant." I think I would. There is not much of the martyr about me. I would have told them: " Now you write it down, and I will sign it. You may have one God or a million, one Hell or a million. You stop that — I am tried." Do you know, sometimes I have thought that all the hypocrites in the world are not worth one drop of honest blood. I am sorry that any good man ever died for religion. I would rather let them advance a little easier. It is too bad to see a good man sacrificed for a lot of wild beasts and cattle. But there is now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then a sublime heart willing to die for an intellectual conviction, and had it not been for these men we would have been wild beasts and savages to-day. There were some men who would not take it back, and had it not been for a few such brave, heroic souls in every age we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our breasts, dancing around some dried-snake fetish. And so they turned it down to the last thread of agony, and threw the victim into some dungeoa, where, in the tlirob. SKULLS AND REPLIES. 113 bing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name of love, in the name of mercy, in the name of the compassionate Christ And the men that did it are the men that made our Bible for us. I saw, too, at the same time, the collar of torture. Imagine a circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles. This argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he could not walk nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured by tRese points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had committed the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, " I do not believe that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the children of men." And that was done to convince the world that God so loved the world that He died for us. That was in order that people might hear the glad tidings of great joy to all people. I saw another instrument, called the scavenger's daughter. Imagine a pair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the points as well and just above the pivot that unites the blades a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed ; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of the victim would be forced, and in that position the man would be thrown upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony that insanity took pity. And this was done to keep people from going to Hell— to convince that man that he had made a mistake in his logic— and it was done, too, by Protestants — Protestants that persecuted to the extent of their power, and that is as much as Catholicism ever did. They would persecute now if they had the power. There is hot a man in this vast audience who will say that the church should have temporal power. There is not one of you but what believes in the eternal divorce of church and state. Is it possible that the only people who are fit to go to heaven are the only people not fit to rule mankind ? I saw at the same time the rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass at each end, and ratchets to prevent slipping. Over each windlass went chains, and when some man had, for instance, denied the doctrine of the trinity, a doctrine it is necessary to believe in order to get to Heaven — but, thank the Lord, you don't have to under- stand it. This man merely denied that three times one was one, or uiaybe he denied that there was ever any Son in the world exactly as ild as his father, or that there ever was a boy eternally older than his inother— then they put that man on the rack. Nobody had ever been pe."3ccuted for calling God bad— it has always been for calling him g.or When I stax:^. here to say that, if there is a Hell, God is a fieu(^ ..-» B«ir tuat is very b».'^. They say I am trying to tear down th ...iiiu,- 114 MISTAKES OF INOEBSOLL. tions of public virtue. But let me tell you one thing ; there is no refor- mation in fear — you can scare a man so that he won't do it sometimes, but I will swear you can't scare him so bad that he won't want to do it. Then they put this man on the rack and priests began turning thesf» levers, and kept turning until the ankles, the hips, the shouldcrg, the elbows, the wrists, and all the joints of the victim were dislocated, and he was wet with agony, and standing by was a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In mercy? No. But in order that they might have the pleasure of racking him once more. And this was the Christian spirit. This was done in the name of civili- zation, in the name of religion, and all these wretches who did it died in peace. There is not an orthodox preacher in the city that has not a respect for every one of them. As, for instance, for Jolm Calvin, who was a murderer and nothing but a murderer, who would have disgraced an ordinary gallows by being hanged upon it. These men when they came to die were not frightened. God did not send any devils Into their death-rooms to make mouths at them. He reserved them for Voltaire, who brought religious liberty to France. He reserved them for Thomas Paine, who did more for liberty than all the churches. But all the inquisitors died with the white hands of peace folded over the breast of piety. And when they died, the room was filled with the rustle of the wings of angels, waiting to bear the wretches to Heaven. When I read these frightful books it seems to me sometimes as though I had suficred all these things myself. It seems sometimes as though I had stood upon the shore of exile, and gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; it seems to me as though I had been staked out upon the sands of the sea, and drowned by the inexorable, advancing tide; as though my nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots ; as though I had been chained in the cell of the Inquisition, and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and saw the glittering axe fall upon me ; as though I had been upon the rack and had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests ; as though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the four winds by all the coumless hands of hate. And, while I so feel, I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to augment the liberties of man, woman and child. I denounce slavery and superstition every- where. I believe in liberty, and happiness, and love, and joy in this world. I am amazed that any man ever had the impudence to try and SKULLS AND REPLIES. 115 do another man's thinking. I have just as good a right to talk about theology as a minister. If they all agreed I might admit it was a science, hut as they all disagree, and the more they study the wider they get apart, I may be permitted to suggest it is not a science. When no two will tell you the road to Heaven— that is, giving you the same route — pnd if you would inquire of them all, you would just give up trying to go there, and say: " I may as well stay where I am, and let the Lord come to me." Do you know that this world has not been fit for a lady and gentle- man to live in for twenty-five years, just on account of slavery. It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her judges, her priests occupying her pulpits, the mem- bers of the royal family, owned stock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the same year that the United States of America abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it as between the states. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of Jan- uary, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our flag pure as the sky in which it floats. Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest man ever president of the United States. Upon his monument these words should be written : " Here sleeps the only man in the history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it, except npon the side of mercy." For two hundred ):pars the Christians of the United States deliberately turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post. Christians bred hounds to catch other Christians. Let me show you what the Bible has done for mankind : " Servants, be obedient to your masters." The only word coming from that sweet Heaven was, " Servants, obey your masters." Frederick Douglas told me that he had lectured upon the subject of freedom twenty years before he was permitted to set his foot in a church. I tell you the world has not been fit to live in for twenty-five year?. Then all the people used to cringe and crawl to preachers. Mr. Buckle, in his history of civilization, shows that men were even struck dead for speaking impolitely to a priest. God would not stand it. See how they used to crawl before cardinals, bishops and popes. It is not so now. Before wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of titles they became abject. All this is slowly, but surely changing. We no longer bow to men simply because they are rich. Our fathers wor- shipped the golden calf. The worst you can say of an American now is, he worships the gold of the calf. Even the calf is beginning to see this distinction, 11« MISTAKES OF INOEBSOLL. The time will come when no matter how much money a man has, he will not he respected unless he is using it for the benefit of his fellow- men. It will soon be here. It no lonj^er satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king or emperor. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being the emperor of the French. He was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head. He wanted some evidence that he had something of value within his head. So he wrote the life of Julius Caesar, that he might become a member of the French academy. The emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows. Compare, for instance, King William and Helmholtz. The king is one of the anointed by the Most High, as they claim— one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with Helmholtz, who towers an intellectual Colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given her by blind fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory woven in the loom of her own genius. And so it is the world over. The time is coming when a man will be rated at his real worth, and that by his brain and heart We care nothing now about an officer unless he fills his place. No mat- ter if he is president, if he rattles in the place nobody cares anything about him, I might give you an instance in point, but I woti't. The world is getting better and grander and nobler every day. Now, if men have been slaves, if they have crawled in[the dust before one another, what shall I say of women ? They have been the slaves of men. It took thousands of ages to bring women from abject slavery up to the divine height of marriage. I believe in marriage. If there is any Heaven upon earth it is in the family by the fireside, and the famuy is a unit of government. Without the family relation is tender, pure and true, civilization is impossible. Ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's bond- age. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. Nearly every civilization in this world accounts for the devilment in it by the crimes of woman. They say woman brought all the trouble into the world. 1 don't care if she did. I would rather live in a world full of trouble with the women I love, than to live in Heaven with nobody but men. I read in a book an account of the creation of the world. The book I have taken pains to say was not written by any God. And why do I say so ? Because I can write a far better book myself Because it is full of bar- barisms. Several ministers in this cit}^ have undertaken to answer me — notably those who don't believe the Bible themselves. I want to ask these aivi.. jnt uiiu^. ^ mu.^ i«ieiiA ^w be li-ii.. SKULLS AND REPLIES. 117 Every minister in the City of Cliicago that answers me, and those who have answered me had better answer me again — I want them to say, and without any sort of evasion — without resorting to any pious tricks — I want them to say whether they believe that the Eternal God t)f this universe ever upheld the crime of polygamy. Say it square and fair. Don't begin to talk about that being a peculiar time, and that God was easy on the prejudices of those old fellows. I want them to answer that question and to answer it squarely, which tl^ey haven't done. Did this God, which you pretend to worship, ever sanction the institution of human slavery? Now, answer fair? Don't slide around it. Don't begin and answer what a bad man I am, nor what a good man Moses was. Stick to the text. Do you believe in a God that allowed a man to be sold from his children ? Do you worship such an infinite monster? And if you do, tell your congregation whether you are not ashamed to admit it. Let every minister who answers me again tell whether he believes God commanded his general to kill the little dimpled babe in the cradle. Let him answer it. Don't say that those were very bad times. Tell whether He did it or not, and then your people will know whether to hate that God or not. Be honest. Tell them whether that God in war captured young maidens and turned them over to the soldiers ; and then ask the wives and sweet girls of your congregation to get down on their knees and worship the infinite fiend that did that thing. Answer! . It is your God I am talking about, and if that is what God did, please tell your congregation what, under the same circumstances, the devil would have done. Don't tell your people that is a poem. Don't tell your people that is pictorial. That won't do. Tell your people whether it is true or false. That is what I want you to do. In this book I have read about God's making the world and one man. That is all he intended to make. The making of woman was a second thought, though I am willing to admit that as a rule second thoughts are best. This God made a man and put him in a public park. In a little while He noticed that the man got lonesome ; then He found He had made a mistake, and that He would have to make somebody to keep him company. But having used up all the nothing He originally used in making the world and one man, He had to take a part of a man to start a woman with. So He causes sleep to fall on this man— now under- stand me, I do not say this story is true. After the sleep had fallen on this man the Supreme Being took a rib, or, as the French would call it, a cutlett, out of him, and from that He made a woman ; and I am willing to swear, taking into account the amount and qualify of the raw material used, this was the most magnificent job ever accomplished in this world. Well, after He got the woman done she wius brought to the man, not to see how she liked him. but to see how he liked her. He IW MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. liked her and they started housekeeping, and they were told of certain things they might do and of one thing they could not do— and of course they did it I would have done it in fifteen minutes, I know it. There wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would have been full of clubs. And then they were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back. And then trouble commenced and we have been at it ever since. Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the exist snce of evil by such a story as that Well, I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction. It was written about four thousand years before the other. All commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original, and 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 four or five thousand j^ears. It is a great deal better to be mistaken in dates than to go to the devil. In this other account the Supreme Brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man and woman. He made the world, and he made the man and then the woman, and put them on the Island of Ceylon, According to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such songs, such flowers, and such verdure I And the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a thousand ^olian harps. 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 torever precede mar- riage." 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 nightingale singing and the stars shining and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine that courtship ! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and gossiping neighbors ; nobody to say, " Young man, how do you expect to support her?" Nothing of that kind— nothing but the night- ingale singing its song of joy and pain, as though the thorn already touched its heart. 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 Adami, and the woman's name was Heva— said to Heva : "I believe I'll look about a little." He wanted to go West. He went to the western extremity of the island where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the Devil, who is always playing pranks with us, pro- duced a mirage, and when he looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such mountains crowned with snow, SKULLS AND UEPLIBS. lift BHch cataracts clad ia bows of glory 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." bhe, 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 followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a gentleman, and carried 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. The mirage had disappeared, and there was naught but rocks and sand, and then the Supreme Brahma cursed them both to the lowest Hell. Then it was that the man spoke — 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 a man to start a world .with. The Supreme Brahma said : " I will save her but not thee." And then spoke out of her full- ness of love, out of a heart in which there w^as love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said: " If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live vithout him, I love him." Then the Supreme Brahma said — and I have liked him ever since I read it — " I will spare you both, and watch over you and your children forever." Honor bright, is that not the better and grander story ? And in that same book I find this : " Man is strength, woman is t)eauty; 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 j oy ." In the same book this : " Blessed is that man, and beloved of all tho gods, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid." Magnificent char- acter! A missionary certainly ought to talk to that nan. And I find this: " Never will I accept private, individual salvrtion, but rather will I stay and work, strive and suffer, until every soul frori every star has been brought home to God." Compare that with the Christian that expects to go to Heaven while the world is rolling ovci' Niagara to an eternal and unending Hell. So I say that religion lays ?1\ the crime and troubles of this world at the beautiful feet of woman. And then the church has the impudence to say that it has exalted women. I believe that marriage is a perfect partnership ; that woman has every right that man has— and one more — the right to be protected. Above all men in the world I hate a stingy man — a man that will make his wife beg for money. " What did you do with the dollar I gave you last week ? " " And what are you going to do with this ? " It is vile. No gentleman will ever be satisfied with the love of a beggar and a slave — uogentle- mML will ever be satisfied except with the love of an equal. What kind 120 MISTAKES OF INGEESOLL. of children does a man expect to have with a beggar for their mother? A man can not be so poor but that he can be generous, and if you only have one dollar in the world and you have got to spend it, spend it like a lord — spend it as though it were a dry leaf, and you the owner of unbounded forests — spend it as though 3'ou had a wilderness of your own. That's the way to spend it. I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. If it has got to go let it go. And this is my advice to the poor. For you can never be so poor that whatever you do you can't do in a grand and manly way. I hate a cross man. "What right has a man to assassinate the joy of life ? When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light — so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. Some 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 politics, great and mighty ques- tions have been engaging their minds, they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing them and singing to 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 gentleman — the head of the family — the boss! I w^as reading the other day of an apparatus invented for the eject- ment of gentlemen who subsist upon free lunches. It is so arranged that when the fellow gets both hands into the victuals, a large hand descends upon him, jams his hat over his eyes — he is seized, turned toward the door, and just in the nick of time an immense boot, comes from the other side, kicks him in italics, sends him out over the side- walk and lands him rolling in the gutter. I never hear of such a man— a boss — that I don't feel as though that machine ought to be brought into requisition for his benefit. Love is the only thing that will pay ten percent of interest on the out- lay. Love is the only thing in which the height of extravagance is the last degree of economy. It is the only thing, I tell you. Joy is wealth. Love is the legal tender of the soul — and you need not be rich to be happy. We have all been raised on success in this country. Always been talked with about being successful, and have never thought our- selves very rich unless we were the possessors of some magnificent man- sion, and unless our names have been between the putrid lips of rumor we could not be happy. Every little boy is striving to be this and be SJSrULLS AND REPLIES. 121 that, i tell you the happy man is the successful man. Tne man that has won the love of one good woman is a successful man. The man that has been the emperor of one good heart, and that heart embraced all his, has been a success. If another has been the emperor of the round world and has never loved and been loved, his life is a failure. It won't do. Let us teach our children the other way, that the happy man is the successful man, and he who is a happy man is the one who always tries to make some one else happy. The man who marries a woman to make her happy ; that marries her as much for her own sake as for his own ; not the man that thinks his wife is his property, who thinks that the title to her belongs to him — that the woman is the property of the man ; wretches who get mad at their wives and then shoot them down in the street because they think the woman is their property. I tell you it is not necessary to be rich and great and powerful to be happy. A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon— a mag- nificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity— and gazed upon the sarcophagus of black Egyptian marble, where rest at last the ashes of the restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seme, contemplating 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 of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand— I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids— I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo —at Ulm and Asterlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like Winter's withered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster— driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris— clutched like a wild beast— ban- ished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where chance and fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea. I thought of the orphans and widows he had made— of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would rather have been a French peas- ant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather have lived m a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses of the Autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor^peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the skjF — with my children upon my knees and their arms about me. I would 1^ MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence o: the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder known as Napoleon the Great. It is not necessary tc be rich in order to be happy. It is only necessary to be in love. Thou- sands of men go to college and get a certificate that they have an edu- cation, and that certificate is in Latin and they stop studying, and in twc years to save their life tliey couldn't read the certificate they got. It is mostly so in marrying. They stop courting when they get mar- ried. They think, we have won her and that is enough. Ah ! the difler- ence before and after! How well they look! How bright their eyes! How light their steps, and ho w full they were of generosity and laughter f I tell you a man should consider himself in good luck if a woman loves him when he is doing his level best! Good luck! Good luck! And anoher thing that is the cause of much trouble is that people don't count fairly. They do what they call putting their best foot forward. That means lying a little. I say put your worst foot forward. If you have got any faults admit them. If you drink, say so and quit it. If you chew and smoke and swear, say so. If some of your kindred are not very good people, say so. If you have had two or three that died on the gallows, or that ought to have died there, say so. Tell all your faults, and if after she knows your faults she says she will have you, you have got the dead wood on that woman forever. I claim that there should be perfect equality in the home, and I can not thmk of anything nearer Heaven than a home where there is true republicanism and true democ- racy at the fireside. All are equal. And then, do you know, I like to think that love is eternal; that if you really love the woman, for her sake, you will love her no matter what she may do; that if she really loves you, for your sake, the same; that love does not look at alterations, through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years — if you really love her you will always see the face you loved and won. And I like tD think of it. If a man loves a woman she docs not ever grow.old to him, and the woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old. He is not decrepit to her, He is not tremulous. He is not old. He is not bowed. She always sees the same gallant fellow that won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way, and as Shakspeare says: "Let Time reach with his sickle as far as ever he can ; although he can reach ruddy cheeks and ripe lips, and flashing eyes, he can not quite reach love." I like to think of ir. We will go down the hill of life together, and enter the shadow one with the other, and as we go down we may hear the rippie of the laughter of our grandchildren, and the birds, and spring, and youth, and love will sing once more upon the leafless branches of the tree of age. SKULLS AND REPLIEa. 123 I love to think of it in that way— absolute equals, happy, happy, and free, ah our own. But Some people say: " Would you allow a woman to vote?" Yes, if she wants to; that is her business, not mine. If a woman wants to vote, I am too much of a gentleman to say she shall not. • But they say woman has not sense enough to vote. It don't take much. But it seems to me there are some questions^s for instance, the question of peace and war, that a woman should be allowed to vote upon. A woman that has sons to be offered on the altar of that Moloch, it seems to me that such a grand woman should have as much right to vote upon the question of peace and war as some thrice-besotted sot that reels to the ballot box and deposits his vote for war. But if women have been slaves, what shall we say of the little children born in the sub-cellars; children of poverty, children of crime, children of wealth, children that are afraid when they hear their names pronounced by the lips of the mother, children that cower in fear when they hear the footsteps of their brutal father, the flotsam and jetsam upon the rude sea of life, my heart goes out to them one and all. Children have all the rights that we have and one more, and that is to be protected. Treat your children in that way. Suppose your child tells a lie. Don't pretend that the whole world is going into bankruptcy. Don't pretend that that is the first lie ever told. Tell them, like an hon- est man, that you have told hundreds of lies yourself, and tell the dear little darling that it is not the best way ; that it soils the soul. Think of the man that deals in stocks whipping his children for putting false rumors afloat! Think of an orthodox minister whipping his own flesh and blood, for not telling all it thinks! Think of that! Think of a lawyer beating his child for avoiding the truth! when the old man makes about half his living that way. A lie is born of weakness on one side and tyranny on the other. That is what it is. Think of a great big man coming at a little bit of a child with a club in his hand ! What is the little darling to do ? Lie, of course. I think that mother Nature put that ingenuity into the mind of the child, when attacked by a parent, to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie to defend itself. When a great general wins a battle by what they call strategy, we build monuments to him. What is strategy ? Lies. Suppose a man as much larger than we are as we are larger than a child five years of age, should come at us with a liberty pole in his hand, and in tones of thunder want to know *' who broke that plate," there isn't one of us, not excepting myself, that wouldn't swear that we never had seen that plate in our lives, or that it was cracked when we got it. Another good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it yourself Keep your word with your child tlie.§ameas you would with your 124 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL banker. If you tell a child you will do anything, either do it or pivp the child the reason why. Truth is born of confidence. It comes iron; the lips of love and liberty. I was over in Michigan the other day. There was a boy over there at Graud Rapids about five or six years old, a nice, smart boy, as you will sec from the remark he made — what you might call a nineteenth century boy. His father and mother had prom- ised to take him out riding. They had promised to take him out riding for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without him. Well, after a while, that got kind of played out with the little boy, and the day before I was there they played the trick on him again. They went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode away from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with his nurse, and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a moment. He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to his father and mother; " There goes the two d 1 liars in the State of Michigan!" When you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light of it will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even the darkness. It is just as'easy that way as any in the world. I want to tell you to-night that you can not get the robe of hypocrisy on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through every veil, and if you pretend to your children that you are the best man that ever lived — the bravest man that ever lived — they will find you out every time. They will not have the same opinion of father when they grow up that they used to have. They will have to be in mighty bad luck if they ever do meaner things than you have done. When your child confesses to you that it has committed a fault, take that child in your arms, and let it leel your heart beat against it^ heart, and raise your children in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeams to you along the pathway of life. Abolish the club and the whip from the house, because, if the civilized use a whip, the ignorant and the brutal will use a club, and they will use it because you use the whip. Every little while some door is thrown open in some orphan asylum, and there we see the bleeding back of a child wiiipped beneath the- roof that was raised by love. It is infamous, and the man that can't raise a child without the whip ought not to have a child. If there is one of you here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you some- thing. Have your photograph taken at the time and let it show your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, looking like a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. If that little child should die, I can not think of a sweeter way to spend an Autumn afternoon than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, when the maples die clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming from JSKVLLS AND RBPLIES. 12o the sad heart of the earth, and sit down upon that mound, and look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that you beat. Just think of it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they were withered beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that I had struck. Some Christians act as though they really thought that when Christ said, "Suffer little children to come unto me," He had a rawhide under His coat. They act as though they really thought that He made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance. 1 have known Christians to turn their children from their doors, especially a daughter, and then get down on their knees and pray to God to watch over them and help them. I will never ask God to help my children unless I am doing my level best in that same wretched line. 1 will tell you what I say to my girls : " Go where you will ; do what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may ; in all the storms and winds and earthquakes of life, no matter what you do, you never can commit any crime that will shut my door,jjny arms or my heart to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend." Call me an antheist ; call me an infidel because I hate the God of the Jew — which I do. I intend so to live that when 1 die my children can come to my grave and truthfully say : " He who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." When I was a boy there was one day in each week too good for a child to be happy in. In these good old times Sunday commenced when the sun went down on Saturday night, and closed when the sun went down on Sunday night. "We commenced Saturday to get a good ready. And when the sun went down Saturday night there was a gloom deeper than midnight that fell upon the house. You could not crack hickory- nuts then. And if you. were caught chewing gum, it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. Well, after a while we got to bed sadly and sorrowfully after having heard Heaven thanked that we were not all in Hell. And I sometimes used to wonder how the mercy of God lasted as long as it did. because I recollected that on sev- eral occasions I had not been at school, when I was supposed to be there. Why I was not burned to a crisp was a mystery to me. The next morn- ing we got up and we got ready for church — all solemn, and when we got there the minister was up in the pulpit, about twenty feet high, and he commenced at Genesis about "The fall of man," and he went on to about twenty thirdly; then he struck the second application, and when he struck the application I knew he was about half way through. And then he went on to show the scheme how the Lord was satisfied by pun- ishing the wrong man. Nobody but a God would have thought of that ingenious way. Well, when he got through that, then came the catechism 126 MISTAKES OF INQER80LL. — the chief end of man. Then my turn came, and we sat along on a little bench where our feet came within about fifteen inches of the floor, and the dear old minister used to ask us: " Boys, do you know that you ought to be in Hell ?" And we answered up as cheerfully as could be expected under the cir- cumstances: " Yes, sir." " Well, boys, do you know that you would go to Hell if you died in your sins ?" And we said: " Yes, sir." And then came the great test : "Boys"— I can't get the tone, you know. And do you know that is how the preachers get the bronchitis. You never heard of an auctioneer getting the bronchitis, nor the second mate on a steamboat — never. "What gives it to the minister is talking solemnly when they don't feel that way, and it has the same influence upon the organs of speech that it would have upon the cords of the calves of your legs to walk on your tip-toes, and so I call bronchitis " parsonitis." And if the ministers would all tell exactly what they think they would all get well, but keep- ing back a part of the truth is what gives them bronchitis. Well the old man — the dear old minister — used to try and show us how long we would be in Hell if we would only locate there. But to finish the other. The grand test question was : " Boys, if it was God's will that you should go to Hell, would you be willing to go?" And every little liar said : " Yes, sir." Then, in order to tell how long we would stay there, he used to eay : *' Suppose once in a billion ages a bird should come fr®m a far distant clime and carry off" in its bill one little grain of sand, the time would finally come when the last grain of sand would be carried away. Do you understand? " Yes, sir." " Boys, by that time it would not be sun-up in Hell." Where did that doctrine of Hell come from ? I will tell you ; from that fellow in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the wild beasts. Yes, I tell you he got it from the wild beasts, from the glittering eye of the serpent, from the coiling, twisting snakes with their fangs mouths; and it came from the bark, growl and l\owl of wild beasts; it was born of a laugh of the hyena and got it from the depraved chatter of malicious apes. And I despise it with every drop of my blood and defy it. If there is any God in this universe who will damn his children for an expression of an honest thought I wish to go to Hell. I would SKULLS AND REPLIES. 127 rather go there than go to Heaven and keep the company of a God that would thus damn his children. Oh ! it is an infamous doctrine to teach •^hatto little children, to put a shadow in the heart of a child to fill the in- sane asylums with that miserable, infamous lie. I see now and then a little girl— a dear little darling, with a face like the light, and eyes of joy, a human blossom, and I think, " is it possible that little girl will ever grow up to be a Presbyterian ?*' Is it possible, my goodness, that that flower will finally believe in the five points of Calvinism or in the eternal damnation of man?" Is it possible that that little fairy will finally believe that she could be happy in Heaven with her baby in Hell ? Think of it ! Think of it ! And that is the Christian religion ! We cry out against the Indian mother that throws her child into the Ganges to be devoured by the alligator or crocodile, but that is joy in comparison with the Christian mother's hope, that she may be in salva- tion while her brave boy is in Hell. I tell you I want to kick the doctrine about Hell— I want to kick it out every time I go by it. I want to get Americans in this country placed so they will be ashamed to preach it. I want to get the congregations so that they won't listen to it. We can not divide the world off into saints and sinners in that way. There is a little fi;irl, fair as a flower, and she grows up until she is twelve, thirteen, or fourteen years old. Are you going to damn her in the fifteenth, sixteenth or seventeenth year, when the arrow from Cupid's bow touches her heart and she is glorified — are you going to damn her now ? She marries and loves, and holds in her arms a beautiful child. Are you going to damn her now ? When are you going to damn her ? Because she has listened to some Methodist minister and after all that flood of light failed to believe ? Are you going to damn her then ? I tell you God can not afford to damn such a woman. A woman in the State of Indiana forty or fifty years ago who carded the wool and made rolls and spun them, and made the cloth and cut out the clothes for the children, and nursed them, and sat up with them nights and gave them medicine, and held them in her arms and wept over them— cried for joy and wept for fear, and finally raised ten or eleven good men and women with the ruddy glow of health upon their cheeks, and she would have died for any one of them any moment of her life, and finally she, bowed with age and bent with care and labor, dies, and at the moment the magical touch of death is upon her face, she looks as though she never had had a care, and her children burying her cover her face with tears. Do you tell me God can afford to damn that kind of a woman? One such act of injustice would turn Heaven itself into Hell. If there is any God, sitting above him in infinite serenity we have the figure of justice. Even a God must do justice; even a God 128 MISTAKES OF INQBM80LL, must worship justice; and any form of superstition that destroys j ustice is infamous ! Just think of teaching that doctrine to little children ! A little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a little tree laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and there would be a bird on one of the bows, singing and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eyes warmed by the breast of its mate, — singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling out of the tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with perfume, and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little boy would lean up against the tree and think about Hell and the worm that never dies. Oh ! the idea there can be any day too good for a child to be happy in ! Well, after we got over the catechism, then came the sermon in the afternoon, and it was exactly like the one in the fore-noon, except the other end to. Then we started for home — a solemn march — " not a soldier discharged his farewell shot" — and when we got home if we had been real good boys we used to be taken up to the cemetery to cheer us up, and it always did cheer me, those sunken graves, those leaning stones, those gloomy epitaphs covered with the moss of years always cheered me. When I looked at them I said : " Well, this kind of thing can't last always." Then we came back home, and we had books to read which were very eloquent and amusing. We had Josephus, and the " History of the Waldenses," and " Fox's Book of Martyrs," Baxter's "Saint's Rest," and "Jenkyu on the Atonement." I used to read Jenkyn with a good deal of pleasure, and I often thought that the atone- ment would have to be Yery broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man that would write such a book for the boys. Then I would look to see how the sun was getting on, and sometimes I thougt it had stuck from pure cussedness. Then I would go back and try Jenkyn's again. Well, but it had to go down, and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, ofi would go our hats and we would give three cheers for liberty once again. I tell you, don't make slaves of your children on Sunday. The idea that there is any God that hates to hear a child laugh ! Lot your children play games on Sunday. Here is a poor man that hasn't money enough to go to a big church and he has too much independence to go to a little church that the big church built for charity. He don't want to slide into Heaven that way. I tell you don't come to church, but go to the woods and take your family and a lunch with you, and sit down upon the old log and let the children 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 far hills, go home with your ^earts filled with throbs of joy. There is more recreation and joy in that SKULLS AND REPLIES. ^ -'9 than goine to a dry goods box with a steeple ou top of it and heariag a man tell you that your chances are about ninety-nine to one for being eternally damned. Let us make this Sunday a day of splendid pleasure, not to excess, but to everything that makes man purer and grander and nobler. I would like to see now something like this: Instead of so many churches, a vast cathedral that would hold twenty or thirty thou- sand of people, and I would like to see an opera produced in it that would make the souls of men have higher and grander and nobler aims. I would like to see the walls covered with pictures and the niches rich with statuary; I would like to see something put there that you could use in this world now, and I do not believe in sacrificing the present to the future ; I do not believe in drinking skimmed milk here with the promise of butter beyond the clouds. Space or time can not be holy any more than a vacuum can be pious. Not a bit, not a bit ; and no day can be so holy but what the laugh of a child will make it holier still. Strike with hand of fire, on, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo'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 discords all- compared with childhood's happy laugh— the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with j oy ! O, rippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between the 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 dim- ples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief Don't plant your children in long, straight rows, like posts. Let them have light and air and let them grow beautiful as palms. 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, but they say we are too poor, some of us, to do it. Well, all right. It is as easy to wake a child with a kiss as with a blow ; with kindness as with a curse, And, another thing; let the children eat what they want to. Let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they desire. That is ray doc- trine. They know what they want much better than you do. Nature is a great deal smarter than you ever were. All the advance that has been made in the science of medicine, has t)een made by the recklessness of patients. I can recollect when they wouldn't give a man water in a fever— not a drop. Now and then some fellow would get so thirsty he would say: " Well, I'll die any way, so I'll drink it," and thereupon he would drink a gallon of water, and thereupon he would burst into a generous perspiration, and get well— 130 MISTAKES OF INOER80LL. and the next morning when the doctor would come to see him they would tell him about the man drinking the water, and he would say- "How much?" "Well, he swallowed two pitchers fulL" "Is he alive?" "Yes.'» So they would go into the room and the doctor would feel his pulse and ask him: " Did you drink two pitchers of water?" " Yes." •* My God ! what a constitution you have got" I tell you there is something splendid in man that will not always mind. Why, if we had done as the kings told us five hundred years ago, we would all have been slaves. If we had done as the priests told us we would all have been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told us we would all have been dead. We have been saved by disobedience. We have been saved by that splendid thing called independence, and I want to see more of it, day after day, and I want to see children raised so they will have it. That is my doctrine. Give the children a chance. Be perfectly honor bright with them, and they will be your friends when you are old. Don't try to teach them something they can never learn. Don't insist upon their pursuing some calling they have no sort of fac- ulty for. Don't make that poor girl play ten years on a piano when she has no ear for music, and when she has practiced until she can play " Bonaparte crossing the Alps," and you can't tell after she has played it whether Bonaparte ever got across or not. Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers, and if there is any Heaven in this world, it is in the family. It is where the wife loves the husband, and the husband loves the wife, and where the dimpled arms of children are about the necks of both. That is Heaven, if there is any — and I do not want any better Heaven in another world than that, and if in another world I can not live with the ones I loved here, then I would rather not be there. I would rather resign. Well, my friends, I have some excuses to make for the race to which I belong. In the first place, this world is not very well adapted to rais- ing good men and good women. It is three times better adapted to the cultivation of fish than of people. There is one little narrow belt running zigag around the world, in which men and women of genius can be raised, and that is all. It is with man as it is with vegetation. In the valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed—every limb SKULLS AND REPLIES. 131 twisted as through pain— getting a scanty substance from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of mos3, and vegetation ends. You might as well try to raise oaks and elms where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their surroundings are unfavorable. You must have the proper climate and soil. There never has been a man or woman of sjenius from the southern hemisphere, because the Lord didn't allow the right climate to fall upon the land. It falls upon the water. There never was much civilization except where there has been snow, and ordinarily decent Winter, You can't have civilization without it. Where man needs no bedclothes but clouds, revolution is the normal condition of such a people. It is the Winter that gives us the home; it is the Winter that gives us the fireside and the family relation and all the beautiful flowers of love that adorn that relation. Civilization, liberty, justice, charity and intellectual advancement are all flowers that bloom in the drifted snow. You can't have them anywhere else, and that is the reason we of the north are civilized, and that is the reason that civilization has always been with Winter. That is the reason that philosophy has been here, and, in spite of all our superstitions, we have advanced beyond some of the other races, because we have had this assistance of nature, that drove us into the family relation, that made us prudent; that made us lay up at one time for another season of the year. So there is one excuse I have for my race. I have got another. I think we came from the lower animals. I am not dead sure of it, but think so. When I first read about it I didn't like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those people leave noth- ing to be proud of except ancestors. I thought how terrible this will be upon the nobility of the old world. Think of their being forced to trace their ancestry back to the Duke Orang-Outang or to the Princess Chim- panzee. After thinking it all over I came to the conclusion that I liked that doctrine. I became convinced in spite of myself. I read about rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that everybody had rudi- mentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek. I asked: " What are they ?" I was told : " They are the remains of muscles ; tha? they became rudimentary from the lack of use." They went into bank- ruptcy. They are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap their ears. Well, at first, I was greatly astonished, and afterward I was more astonished to find they had become rudimentary. How can you account for John Calvin unless we came up from the lower animals? How could you account for a man that would use the extremes of torture unless you admit that there is in man the elements of a snake, oV a vul- ture, a hyena, and a jackal? How can you account for the religious 133 MISTAKES OF INQER80LL, creeds of to-day ? How can you account for that infamous doctrine of Hell, except with an animal origin ? How can you account for your conception of a God that would sell women and babes into slavery ? Well, I thought that thing over and I began to like it after a while, and I said : " It is not so much difference who my father was as who his son is." And I finally said I would rather belong to a race that com- menced with the skulless vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas, that wriggled without knowing why tbey wriggled, swimming without know- ing where they were going, thai come along up by degrees through millions of ages, through all that crawls, and swims, and floats, and runs, and growls, and barks, and howls, until it struck this fellow in the dug- out. And then that fellow in the dug-out getting a- little grander, and each one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist, and finally the heads getting a little higher and donninaj up a little grander and more splendidly, and finally produced Shakspeare, who harvested all the field of dramatic thought and from whose day until now there have been none but gleaners of chaff and straw. Shakspeare was an intellectual ocean whose waves touched all the shores of human thought, within which were all the tides and currents and pulses upon which lay all the lights and shadows, and over which brooded all the calms, and swept all the storms and tempests of which the soul is capable. I would rather belong to that race that commenced with that skulless vertebrate; that produced Shakspeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning* men forward and upward forever. I would rather belong to that race than to have de- scended from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has lost money every moment from that day to this. Now, my crime has been this: I have insisted that the ^ible is not the word of God. I have insisted that we should not whip our children. I have insisted that we should treat our wives as loving equals. I have denied that God — if there is any God— ever upheld polygamy and slav- ery. I have denied that that God ever told his generals to kill innocent babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war. I have denied that, and for that I have been assailed by the clergy of the United States. They tell me I have misquoted ; and I owe it to you, and maybe 1 owe it to myself, to read one or two words to you upon this subject In order to do that I shall have to put on my glasses; and that brings me back to where I started— that man has advanced just in proportion as his thought has mingled with his labor. If man's eyes hadn't failed he would never Ijave made any spectacles, he would never have had the telescope, and he never would have beea able to read the leaves of Heaven, SKULLS AND REPLIES. , 133 Mr. Ingersoll's Reply to Dr. Colly er. Now, they tell me— and there are several gentlemen who have spoken on this subject— the Rev. Mr. Collyer, a gentleman standing as high as anybody, and I have nothing to say against him, because I denounce a God who upheld murder, and slavery and polygamy, he says that what I said was slang. I would like to have it compared with any sermon that ever issued from the lips of that gentleman. And before he gets through he admits that the Old Testament is a rotten tree that will soon fall into the earth and act as a fertilizer for his doctrine. Is it honest in that man to assail my motive? Let him answer my argument! Is it honest and fair in him to say I am doing a certain thing because it is popular? Has it got to this, that, in this Christian country, where they have preached every day hundreds and thousands of sermons — has it got to this that infidelity is so popular in the United States ? If It has, I take courage. And I not only see the dawn of a brighter day, but the day is here. Think of it ! A minister tells me in this year of grace, 1879, that a man is an infidel simply that he may be popular. I am glad of it. Simply that he may make money. Is it possible that we can make more money tearing up churches than in building them up ? Is it possible that we can make more money denouncing the God of slavery than we can praising the God that took liberty from man ? .ff so, I am glad. I call publicly upon Robert Collyer — a man for whom I have great i-espect — I call publicly upon Robert Collyer to state to the people of this city whether he believes the Old Testament was inspired. I call upon him to state whether he believes that God ever upheld these institutions ; whether he believes that God was a polygamist ; whether he believes that God commanded Moses or Joshua or any one else to slay little children in the cradle. Do you believe that Robert Collyer would obey such an order? Do you believe that he would rush to the cradle and drive the knife of theological hatred to the tender heart of a dimpled child ? And yet when I denounce a God that will give such a hellish order, he says it is slang. I want him to answer; and when he answers he will say he does not believe the Bible is inspired. That is what he will say, and he holds these old worthies in the same contempt that I do. Suppose he should act like Abraham. Suppose he should send some woman out into the wilderness with his child in her arms to starve, would he think that mankind ought to hold his name up forever, for reverence ? Robert Collyer says that we should read and scan every word of the Qld Testament with reverence; that we should take this book up with 134 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. reverential hands. I deny it. We should read it as- we do every other book, and everything good in it, keep it; and everything that shocks the brain and shocks the heart, throw it away. Let us be honest. Mr. IngersoU's Reply to Prof. Swing. Prof, Swing has made a few remarks on this subject, and I say t!io spirit he has exhibited has been as gentle and as sweet as the perfume ot a flower. He was too good a man to stay in the Presbyterian church. He was a rose among thistles. He was a dove among vultures— and they hunted him out, and I am glad he came out. I tell all the churches to drive all such men out, and when he comes I want him to state just what he thinks. I want him to tell the people of Chicago whether he believes the Bible is inspired in any sense except that in which Shaks- peare was inspired. Honor bright I tell you that all the sweet and beautiful things in the Bible would not make one play of Shakspeare, all the philosophy in the world would not make one scene in Hamlet, all the beauties of the Bible would not make one scene in the Midsummer Night's Dream; all the beautiful things af)out woman in the Bible would not begin to create such a character as Perdita or Imogene or Miranda. Not one. I want him to tell whether he believes the Bible was inspired in any other way than Shakspeare was inspired. I want him to pick out something as beautiful and tender as Burns' poem to Mary in Heaven. I want him to tell whether he believes the story about the bears eating up children; whether that is inspired. I want him to tell whether he considers that a poem or not. I want to know if the same God made those bears that devoured the children because they laughed at an old man out of hair. I want to know if the same God that did that is the same God who said, " Sufl:er little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of Heaven." I want him to answer it, and answer it fairly. That is all I ask. I want just the fair thing. Now, sometimes Mr. Swing talks as though he believed the Bible, and then he talks to me as though he didn't believe the Bible. The day he made this sermon I think he did, just a little, believe it. He is like the man that passed a ten dollar counterfeit bill. He was arrested, and his father went to see him and said, "John, how could you commit such a crime ? How could you bring my gray hairs in sorrow to the grave ?" "Well," he says, "father, I'll tell you. I got this bill and some days I thought it was bad and some days I thought it was good, and one day when I thought it was good I passed it." I want it distinctly understood that I have the greatest respect for Prof. Swing, but I want him to tell whether the 109th psalm is inspired. SKULLS AND BE PLIES. 135 1 want Him to tell whether the passages I shall afterward read in this book are Inspired. That is what I want. Ingersoll's Reply to Brooke Herford, D.D. Then there is another gentleman here. His name is Herford. He says it is not fair to apply the test of truth to the Bible— I don't think it is myself. He says although Moses upheld slavery, that he improved it. They were not quite as bad as they were before, and Heaven justified slavery at that time. Do you believe that God ever turned the arms of children into chains of slavery ? Do you believe that God ever said to a man : " You can't have your wife unless you will be a slave ! You can not have your children unless you will lose your liberty ; and un- less you are willing to throw them from your heart forever, you cannot be free?" I want Mr. Herford to stat-e whether he loves such a God. Be honor bright about it. Don't begin to talk about civilization, or what the church has done or will do. Just walk right up to the rack and say wliether you love and worship a God that estab- , lished slavery. Honest! And love and worship a God that would allow a little babe to be torn from the breast of its mother and sold into, slavery. Now tell it fair, Mr. Herford, I want you to tell the ladies in your congregation that you believe in a God that allowed women to be given to the soldiers. Tell them that, and then if you say it was not the God of Moses, then don't praise Moses any more. Don't do it. Answer these questions. The Ingersoll Gattling G-un Turned on Dr. Ryder. Then here is another gentleman, Mr. Ryder, the Rev. Mr. Ryder, and he says that Calvinism is rejected by a majority of Christendom. He is mistaken. There is what they call the Evangelical Alliance. They met in this country in 1875 or 1876, and there were present representatives of all the evangelical churches in the world, and they adopted a creed, and that creed is that man is totally depraved. That creed is that there is an eternal, universal Hell, and that every man that does not believe in a cer- tain way is bound to be damned forever, and that there is only one way to be saved, and that is by faith, and by faith alone ; and they would not allow anybody to be represented there that did not believe that, and they would not allow a Unitarian there, and would not have allowed Dr. Ryder there, because he takes away from the Christian world the conso- lation naturally arising from the belief in Hell. Dr. Ryder is mistaken. All the orthodox religion of the day is Cal- vinism. It believes in the fall of man. It believes in the atonement. It believes in the eternity of Hell, and it believes in salvation by faith; that is to say, by credulity. 188 MISTAKES OF 1NQER80LL That is what they believe, and he is mistaken ; and I want to t€ll Dr^ Ryder to-day, if there is a God, and He wrote the Old Testament, there is a Hell. The God that wrote the Old Testament will have a Hell. And I want to tell Dr. Ryder another thing, that the Bible teaches an eternity of punishment. want to tell him that the Bible upholds the doctrine of Hell. I want to tell him that if there is no Hell, somebody ought to have said so, and Jesus Christ himself should not have said : " I will at the last day say: 'Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.' " If there was not such a place, Christ would not have said : " Depart from me, ye cursed, and these shall go hence into everlasting fire." And if you. Dr. Ryder, are depending for salvation on the God that wrote the Old Testament, you will inevitably be eternally damned. There is no hope for you. It is just as bad to deny Hell as it is to deny Heaven. It is just as much blasphemy to deny the devil as to deny God, according to the orthodox creed. He admits that the Jews were polygamists, but, he says, how was it they finally quit it? I can tell you — the soil was so poor they couldn't afford it. 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 maybe it was a pictorial sin. And only a pictorial atonement. Ingeraoll's Reply to Rabbi Bien. Then there is another gentleman, and he a rabbi, a Rabbi Bien, or Bean, or whatever his name is, and he comes to the defense of the Great Law-giver. There was another rabbi who attacked me in Cincinnati, and I couldn't help but think of the old saying, that a man got off when he said the tallest man he ever knew, his name was Short. And the fattest man he ever saw, his name was Lean. And it is only necessary for me to add that this rabbi in Cincinnati was Wise. The rabbi here, I will not answer him, and I will tell you why. Be- cause he has taken himself outside of all the limits of a gentleman; because he has taken it upon himself to traduce American women in language the beastliest I ever read; and any man who says that the American women are not just as good women as any God can make, and pick his mijd lo-day, is an unappreciative barbarian. I will let him alone because he denounced all the men in this country, all the members of Congress, all the members of the Senate, and all the judges upon the Bench; in his lecture he denounced them as thieves and robbers. That won't do. I want to remind him that in this country the Jews were first admitted to the privileges of citizens; that in this country they were first given all their rights, and I am as much in favor SKULLS ANi> HBPLTEB. 13V of their having their rights as 1 am in favor ot having my own. But when a rabbi so far forgets himself as to traduce the women and men of this country, I pronounce him a vulgar falsifier, and let him alone. Strange, that nearly every man that has answered me, has answered me mostly on the same side. Strange, that nearly every man that thought himself called upon to defend the Bible was one who did not believe in it himself Isn't it strange? They are like some suspected people, always anxious to show their marriage certificate. They want at least to convince the world that they are not as bad as I am. Now, I want to read you just one or two things, and then I am going to let you go. I want to see if I have said such awful things, and whether I have got any scripture to stand by me. I will only read two or three verses. Does the Bible teach man to enslave his brother? If it does, it is not the word of God, unless God is a slaveholder. Moreover, all the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy of their families which are with you, which they beget in your land, and they shall be your possession. Ye shall take them as an inheritance lor your children after you to inherit them. They shall be your bondsmen forever. (Old Testament.) Upon the limbs of unborn babes this fiendish God put the chains of slavery. I hate him. Both thy bondmen and bondwomen shall be of the heathen round aboi»t thee, and them shall ye buy, bondmen and bondwomen. Now let us read what the New Testament has. I could read a great deal more, but that is enough. Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters, according to the flesh in fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as untu Christ. This is putting the dirty thief that steals your labor on an equality with God. Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle but also to the froward. For this is thankworthy, if a man for conscience toward God endure grief, sufflerin*' wrongfully. The idea of a man on account of conscience toward God stealing another man, or allowing him nothing but lashes on his back as legal- tender for labor performed. Let as many servants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of aV honor, that the name of God aud llis doctrine be not blasphemed. How can you blaspheme the name of God by asserting your independ- ence? How can you blaspheme the name of a God by striking felieri: from the limbs of men ? I wish some of your answers would tell you that. " And they that have believing masters let them not despise them." That is to say, a good Christian could own another believer in Jesus Ohrist; could own a woman and her children, and could sell the child away from its mother. That is a sweet belief. O, hypocrisy! 133 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. Let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather do them serrice because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit. Oil, v/liat slush! Here is what Ihcj tell the poor skive, so that he will serve the man that stole his wife and children from him : For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. Havin;; food and raiment let us be therewith content. Dou't you think that it would do just as well tc preach that to the thieving man as to the suffering slave? I think s."). Then this same Bible teaches witchcraft, that spirits go into the bodies of the man, and pigs; and that God himself made a trade with the devil, and the devil traded him off — a man for a certain number of swine, and the devil lost money because the hogs ran right down into the sea. He got a corner on that deal. Now let ns see how they believed in the rights of children : If a man have a stubborn and a rebellious son which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not harken unto them, then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place. And they shall say unto the elders of his city. This, our son, is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die, so shalt thou put evil away. That is a very good way to raise children. Here is the story of Jeph- thah. He went oft and he asked the Lord to let him whip some people, and he told the Lord if He would let him whip them, he would sacrifice to the Lord the first thing that met him on his return ; and the first thing that met him was his own beautiful daughter, and he sacrified her. Is there a sadder story in all the history of the world than that ? What, do you think of a man that would sacrifice his own daughter ? What do you think of a God that would receive that sacrifice ? Now, then, they come to women in this blessed gospel, and let us see what the gospel says about women. Then you ought all to go ta church, girls, next Sunday and hear it. " Let the woman learn in silence wilth all subjec- tion ; suffer not woman to think nor usurp authority over man, for Adam was formed first, not Eve.'* Don't you see? "Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgessiou. Notwithstanding all this she shall be saved in child- bearing if she continues in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.'* (That is Mr. Timothy.) " But I would have you know that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God." r suppose that every old maid is acephalous. '• For a man indeed ought not to cover head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God ; but the woman is the glory of man. For the man is not of the woman, but woman of the man. Neither was the man SJtULLJS AND REPLIES. 139 created for the woman, but the woman for the man. Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husband as unto the Lord, for the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the Church." Do you hear that ! You didn't know how much we were above you. When you go back to the Old Testament, to the great law-giver, you find that the woman has to ask forgiveness for having borne a child. If it was a boy, thirty-three days she was unclean ; if it was a girl sixty-six, Nice laws! Good laws! If there is a pure thing in this world, if there is a picture of perfect purity, it is a mother with her child in her arms. Yes, I think more of a good woman and a child than I do of all the gods I have ever heard these people tell about. Just think of this: 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 captive, and seest among the captive a beautiful woman and hast a desire unto her that thou wouldst have her to thy wife, then thou shalt bring her home to thine house, and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails. Wherefore, ye must needs be subject not only for love, but for conscience sake, and for this cause pay ye tribute, for they are God's ministers. I despise this wretched doctrine. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in favor of the right, I am a rebel. I suppose Alexander, czar of Russia, was put there by the order of God, was he ? I am sorry he was not removed by the nihilist that shot at him the other day. I tell you in a country like that, where there are hundreds of girls not 16 vears of age prisoners in Siberia, simply for giving their ideas about .: c-ifT, iii^t- ^vc ;,cxogrc-/::.cr^ ";: '.Lat country congratulating that wretch that he was not killed, my heart goes into the prison, my heart goes with, the poor girl working as a miner in the mines, crawling on her hands and knees getting the precious ore out of the mines, and my sympathies go with her rad my symphathies cluster around the point of the dagger. .^cey one Bible describe a God of mercy ? Let me read you a verse or two. I v?ill make my arrows drunk with blood, and my sword shall devour flesh. Thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies. And the tongue of thy dogs in the same. And the ^ord thy God will put out those nations before thee by little and little; thou ma' c^^ not consume them at once, lest the beasts of the field increase upon thee. Iiat*-.*i>.ord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a inighi'7 cruction, until they be destroyed. ■\ui{ 0 shall deliver their kings unto thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their viame from under Heaven ; then shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou hcve destroyed them. i jan see what he had her nails pared for. Does the Bible teach po! V i?;amy ? liie Rev. Dr. Newman, consul general to all the world — had a discus- sion with Elder Heber or Kimball, or some such wretch in Utah — 140 MISTAKES OF INGER80LL, whether the Bible sustains polygamy, and the Mormons have printed that discussion as a campaign document. Read the order of Moses in the 31st chapter of Numbers. A great many chapters I dare not read to you. They are too filthy. I leave all that to the clergy. Read the 31st chapter of Exodus, the 81st chapter of Deuteronomy, the life of Abra^ ham, and the life of David, and the life of Solomon, and then tell me that the Bible does not uphold polygamy and concubinage ! Let them answer. Then I said that the Bible upheld tyranny. Let me read you a little: "Let every soul be subject to the higher powers — the powers that be are ordained of God." George IIL was king by the grace of God, and when our fathers rose in rebellion, according to this doctrine, they rose against the power of God ; and if they did they were successful. And so it goes on telling of all the cities that were destroyed, and of the great-hearted men, that they dashed their brains out, and all the little babes, and all the sweet women that they killed and plundered — all in the name of a most merciful God. Well, think of it ! The Old Testament is filled with anathemas, and with curses, and with words of revenge, and jealousy, and hatred, and meanness, and brutality. Have I read enough to ahow that what I said is so? I think I have. I wish I had time to read to you further of what the dear old fathers of the church said about wojtian — wait a minute, and I will read you a little. We have got them running. St Augustine in his 22d book says: "A woman ought to serve her husband as unto God, affirming that woman ought to be braced and bridJed betimes, if she aspire to any dominion, alleging that dangerous and perilous it is to suffer her to precede, although it be in temporal and corporeal things. How can woman be in the image of God, seeing she is subject to man, and hath no authority to teach, neither to be a witness, neither to judge, much less to rule or bear the rod of empire." Oh, he is a good one. These are the very words of Augustine. Let me read some more. " Woman shall be subject unto man as unto Christ." That is St. Augustine, and this sentence of Augustine ought to be noted of all women, for in it he plainly affirms that women are all the more subject to man. And now, St. Ambrose, he is a good boy. " Adam was deceived by Eve — called Heva — and not Heva by Adam, and there- fore just it is that woman receive and acknowledge him for governor whom she called sin, lest that again she slip and fall with womanly facility." Don't you see that woman has sinned once^ and man never ? If you give woman an opportunity, she will sin again, whereas if you give it to man, who never, never, never betrayed his trust in the world, nothing bad can happen. " Let women be subject to their own husbands as untfr the Lord, for man is the head of woman, and Christ is the head of the 8KULLS AND liBPLIBS, 141 boBgregation." They are all real good men, all of them. •' It is not permitted to woman to speak; let her be in silence; as the law said: unto thy husband shalt thou ever be, and he shall bear dominion over thee." So St. Chrysostom. He is another good man. " Woman," he says, "was put under the power of man, and man was pronounced lord over her; that she should obey man, that the head should not follow the feet. False priests do commonly deceive women, because they are easily per- suaded to any opinion, especially if it be again given, and because they lack prudence and right reason to judge the things that be spoken; which should not be the nature of those that are appointed to govern others. For they should be constant, stable, prudent, and doing every- thing with discretion and reason : which virtues woman can not have in equality with man." I tell you women are mere prudent than men. I tell you, as a rule, women are more truthful then men. I tell you that women are more faithful than men— ten times as faithful as man. I never saw a man pursue his wife into the very ditch and dust of degradation and take her in his arms. I never saw a man stand at the shore where she had been morally wrecked, waiting for the waves to bring back even her corpse to his arms ; but I have seen woman do it. I have seen woman with her white arms lift man from the mire of degradation, and hold him to her bosom as though he were an angel. And these men thought woman not fit to be held as pure in the sight of God as man. I never saw a man that pretended that he didn't love a woman ; that pretended that he loved God better than he did a woman, that he didn't look hateful to me, hateful and unclean. I could read you twenty others, but I haven't time to do it. They are all to the same eflect exactly. They hate woman, and say man is as much above her as God is above man. I am a believer in absolute equality. I am a be- liever in absolute liberty between man and wife. I believe in liberty, and I say, " Oh, liberty, float not forever in the far horizon— remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet; bu come and make thy home among the children of men." I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be woven by the years to come. I can not dream of the victories to be won upon the field ot thought; but I do know that, coming down the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this " bank and shoal of time " a richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, woman and child. I never addressed a more magnificent audience in my life, and I thank you, I thank you a thousand times over. > Id MISTAKES or INGPBSOLL. Ingersoll's Catechism and Bible Class- Nothing is more gratifying than to see ideas that were receivetl with «corn, flourishing in the sunshine of approval. Only a few weeks ago ^ stated that the Bible was not inspired ; that Moses was mistaken , that the "flood " was a foolish myth; that the Tower of, Bauel existed only incredulity; that God did not create the universe from nothing, that He did not start the first woman with a rib; that He never upheld slavery; that He was not a polygamist; that He did not kill people for making hair-oil : that He did not order His Generals to kill the dimpled babes ; that He did not allow the roses of love and the violets of modesty to be trodden under the brutal feet of lust ; that the Hebrew language was written without vowels; that the Bible was composed of many books written by unknown men ; that all translations difi^ered from each other, and that this book had filled the world with agony and crime. At that time I had not the remotest idea that the most learned clergy- men in Chicago would substantially agree with me— in public. I have read the replies of the Rev. Robert Collyer, Dr. Thomas, Rabbi Kohler, Rev. Brooke Herford, Prof Swing, and Dr. Ryder, and will now ask them a few questions, answering them in their own words : First, Rev. Robert Collyer : Question. What is your opinion of the Bible? Answer. " It is a splendid book. It makes the noblest type of Catholics and the meanest bigots. Through this book men give their hearts for good to God, or for evil to the Devil. The best argument for the intrinsic greatness of the book is that it can touch such wide extremes, and seem to maintain us in the most unparalleled cruelty, as well as the most tender mercy; that it can inspire purity like that of the great saints and afford arguments in favor of polygamy. The Bible is the text book of ironclad Calvinism and sunny Universalism. It makes the Quaker quiet and the Millerite crazy. It inspired the Union soldier to live and grandly die for the right, and Stonewall Jackson to live nobly and die grandly for the wrong." Q. But, Mr. Collyer, do you really think that a book with as many passages in favor of wrong as right, is inspired ? A. " I look upon the Old Testament as a rotting tree. When it falls it will fertilize a bank of violets." Q. Do you believe that God upheld slavery and polygamy? Do you believe that He ordered the killing of babes and the violation of maidens? A. "There is three-fold inspiration in the Bible, the first peerless and perfect, the Word of God to man ; the second simply and purely human, and then below this agiin, there is an inspiration born of an evil heart, ruthless and savage there and then as anything well can be. A three-fold inspiration, of Heaven first, then of the Earth, and SKULLS AND REPLIES. 143 then of Hell, all in the same book, all sometimes in the same chapter, and then, besides, a great many things that need no inspiration." Q. Then, after all, you do not pretend that the Scriptures are really inspired ? A. " The Scriptures make no such claim for themselves as the Church makes for them. They leave me free to say this is false, or this is true.' The truth even within the Bible dies and lives, makes on this side and loses on that." Q. What do you say to the last verse m the Bible, where a curse is threatened to any man who takes from or adds to the book ? A. "I have but one answer to this question, and it is : Let who will have writ- ten this, I can not for an instant believe that it was written by a divine inspiration. Such dogmas and threats as these are not of God, but of man, and not of any man of a free spirit and heart eager for the truth, but a narrow man who would cripple and confine the human soul in its quest after the whole truth of God, and back those who have done the shameful things in the name of the Most High." Q. Do you not regard such talk as "slang?" (Supposed) Answer. If an infidel had said that the writer of Revela- tions was narrow and bigoted, I might have denounced his discourse as " slang," but I think that Unitarian ministers can do so with the greatest propriety. Q. Do you believe in the stories of the Bible, about Jael, and the sun standing still, and the walls falling at the blowing of horns ? A. "They may be legends, myths, poems, or what they will, but they are not the Word of God. So I say again, it was not the God and Father of us all who inspired the woman to drive that nail crashing through the king's temple after she had given him that bowl of milk and bid him sleep in oafety, but a very mean Devil of hatred and revenge that I should hardly expect to find in a squaw on the plains. It was not the ram's horns and the shouting before which the walls fell flat. If they went down at all, it was through good solid pounding. And not for an in- stant did the steady sun stand still or let his planet stand still while bar- barian fought barbarian. He kept j ust the time then he keeps now. They might believe it who made the record. I do not. And since the whole Christian world might believe it, still we do not who gather in this church. A free and reasonable mind stands right in our way. Newton might believe it as a Christian and disbelieve it as a philoso- pher. We stand then with the philosopher against the Christian, for we must believe what is true to us in the last test, and these things are not true." Second, Rev. Dr. Thomas. Question. What is your opinion of the Old Testament ? Answer. " My opinion is that it is not one book, but many — thirty-nine books bound up in one. The date and authorship 144 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. of most of these books are wholly unknown. The Hebrews wrote with- out vowels and without dividing the letters into syllables, words or sen- tences. The books were gathered up by Ezra. At that time only two of the Jewish tribes remained. All progress had ceased. In gathering up the sacred book, copyists exercised great liberty in making changes and additions." Q. Yes, we know all that, but is the Old Testament inspired ? A. " There may be the inspiration of art, of poetry, or oratory ; of patriot- ism— and there are such inspirations. There are moments when great ti'uths and principles come to men. They seek the man and not the man them." Q. Yes, we all admit that, but is the Bible inspired? A. " But still I know of no way to convince any one of spirit and inspiration and God only as His reason may take hold of these things." Q. Do you think the Old Testament true ? A. " The story of Eden may be an allegory ; the history of the children of Israel may have mis- takes." Q. Must inspiration claim infallibility ? A. " It is a mistake to say that if you believe one part of the Bible you must believe all. Some of the thirty-nine books may be inspired, others not; or there may bo degrees of inspiration." Q. Do you believe that God commanded the soldiers to kill the chil dren and the married women and save for themselves the maidens, as recorded in Numbers 31 : 2 ? Do you believe that God upheld slavery? Do you believe that &od upheld polygamy ? A. " The Bible may be wrong in some statements. God and right can not be wrong. We must not exalt the Bible above God. It may be that we have claimed too much for the Bible, and thereby given not a little occasion for such men as Mr, IngersoU to appear at the other extreme, denying too much." Q. What then shall be done ? A. " We must take a middle ground. It is not necessary to believe that the bears devoured the forty-two chil- dren, nor that Jonah- was swallowed by the whale." Third, Rev. Dr. Kohler. Question. What is your opinion about the Old Testament? Answer. " I will not make futile attempts of arti- ficially interpreting the letter of the Bible so as to make it reflect the philosophical, moral and scientific views of our time. The Bible is a sacred record of humanity's childhood." Q. Are you an orthodox Christian ? A. " No. Orthodoxy, with its face turned backward to a ruined temple or a dead Messiah, is fast becoming like Lot's wife, a pillar of salt." Q. Do you really believe the Old Testament was inspired ? A. "I greatly acknowledge our indebtedness to men like Voltaire and Thomas Paine, whose bold denial and cutting wit were so instrumental in bring- SKULLS AND REPLIES. 145 Ing about this glorious era of freedom, so congenial and blissful, par ticularly to the long-abused Jewish race." Q. Do you believe in the inspiration of the Bible ? A. " Of course there is a destructive axe needed to strike down the old building in order to make room for the grander new. The divine origin claimed by the Hebrews for their national literature was claimed by all nations for their old records and laws as preserved by the priesthood. As Moses, the Hebrew law-giver, is represented as having received the law from God on the holy mountain, so is Zoroaster, the Persian, Manu, the Hindoo, Minos, the Cretan, Lycurgus, the Spartan, and Numa, the Roman." Q. Do you believe all the stories in the Bible? A. " All that can and must be said against them is that they have been too long retained around the arms and limbs of grown-up manhood to check the spirituJll progress of religion; that by Jewish ritualism and Christian dogmatism they became fetters unto the soul, turning the light of Heaven into a misty haze to blind the eye, and even into a Hell fire of fanaticism to consume souls." Q. Is the Bible inspired? A. "True, the Bible is not free from errors, nor is any work of man and time. It abounds in childish views and offensive matters. I trust that it will, in a time not far off, be pre- sented for common use in families, schools, synagogues and churches, in a refined shape, cleansed from all dross and chaff, and stumbling- blocks on which the scoffer delights to dwell." FounTH, Rev. Mr. Herford. Question. Is the Bible true ? Answer. " IngersoU is very fond of saying ' The question is not, is the Bible inspired, but is it true ?' That sounds very plausible, but you know as applied to any ancient book it is simply nonsense." Q. Do you think the stories in the Bible exaggerated ? A. "I dare say the numbers are immensely exaggerated." Q. Do you think that God upheld polygamy ? A. "The truth of which simply is, that four thousand years ago polygamy existed among the Jews, as everywhere else on earth then, and even their prophets did not come to the idea of its being wrong. But what is there to be indig- nant about in that?" Q. And so you really wonder why any man should be indignant at the idea that God upheld and sanctioned that beastliness called polyg- amy ? A. " What is there to be indignant about in that ?" FtFTH, Prop. Swing. Question. What is your idea of the Bible? Answer. " I think it a poem." Secth, Rev. Dr. Ryder. Question. And what is your idea of the sacred Scriptures? Answer. "Like other nations, the Hebrews had their patriotic, descriptive, didactic and lyrical poems in the same varieties as other nations ; but with them, unlike other nations, what- 14« TNQERSOLVS FUNERAL ORATION ever may be the form of their poetry, it always possesses the character- istic of religion." Q. I suppose you fully appreciate the religious characteristics of the Song of Solomon '? No answer. Q. Does the Bible uphold polygamy ? A. " The law of Moses did not forbid it, but contained many provisions against its worst abuses, and such as were intended to restrict it within narrow limits." Q. So you think God corrected some of the worst abuses of polyg- amy, but preserved the institution itself? I might question many others, but have concluded not to consider those Q^ members of my Bible class who deal in calumnies and epithets. From the so-called " replies " of such ministers it appears that, while Christianity changes the heart, it does not improve the manners, and that one can get into Heaven in the next world without having been a gentleman in this. It is difficult for me to express the deep and thrilling satisfaction I have experienced in reading the admissions of the clergy of Chicago. Surely the battle of intellectual liberty is almost won when ministers admit that the Bible is filled with ignorant and cruel mistakes; that each man has the right to think for himself, and that it is not necessary to believe the Scriptures in order to be saved. From the bottom of my heart I congratulate my pupils on th© advance they have made, and hope soon to meet them on the serene heights of perfect freedom. rN^aiLILSOI.1. AT HIS BROTHEJl'S GMIATE The funeral 'of Hon. Ebon C. Ingersoll, brother of Col. Robert G. Inger- soil, of Illinois, took place at his residence in Washington, D. C, June 2, 1879. The ceremonies were extremely simple, consisting merely of viewing the remains by relatives and friends, and a funeral oration by Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, brother of the deceased. A large nuaaber of distinguished gentlemen were present, including Secretary Sherman, Assistant Secretary Hawlc}', Senators Blaine, Voorhees, Paddock, Alli- son, Logan, Hon. Thomas Henderson, Gov. Pound, Hon. Wm. M. ]\Ior. rison, Gen. Jeffi-eys, Gen. Williams, Col. James Fishback, and others. The pall-bearers were Senators Blaine, Voorhees, David Davis. Paddock ;vnd Allison, Col. Ward, H. Lamon, Hon. Jeremiah Wilson of Indiana, and Hon. Thomas A. Boyd of lUinoig, AT Hia BROTHER a QRAVB. Ml Soon after Mr. Ingersoll began to read his eloquent characterization of the dead, his eyes filled with tears. He tried to hide them behind his eye-glasses, but he could not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's cofiin in uncontrolable grief. It was after some delay and the greatest efforts at self-mastery, that Col. Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address, which was as follows : Colonel Ingersoll's Funeral Oration. My Friends : I am going to do that which the dead often promised he would do for me. The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the West. He had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point, but being weary for a moment he laid down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the hap- piest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark at last the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights and left all superstitions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander day. He loved the beautiful and was with color, form and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, and with a willing hand gave alms ; with loyal heart and with the purest hand he faith- fully discharged all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty and a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote the words : *'For justice all place a temple and all season summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worshipper, humanity the only religion, and love the priest. He added to the sum of human joy, and were every one for whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowei*s. Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word ; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, " I am better now." Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas and tears and fears that these dear words are true of all the countless dead. And now, to you who have been chosen from among the manv men he loved to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech can not contain our love. There was— there is— no gentler, stronger, maalie-r man.. 148 INOERSOLVS FUNERAL GRaTTON. BEECHEH'S COIVOIEKTS, Henry Ward Beecher's Comments on Mr. Ingersoli's Faith, and Funeral JDiscourse. " The root element of faith is in the imagination. The tendency of our age, or in certain lines of ii, is a rising tendency among the educated to give to the evidence of the physical senses not only greater weight than comes with the imagination, but to deny to tiie imagination all use except that of producing pleasure. To a certain extent we are indebted for this to the perversion of religious views. The ascetic school ban- ished the imagination from religion and made it a mere minion of pleasure and turned the thoughts of men to what are called weightier things. We are told in the serious words of the ascetic teachers that life is too important to trifle away. They have stripped off tlie wings of the imagination to make quills to write their dull treatises withal. There is also danger from the scientific or materialistic tendencies ot the age, the votaries of which hold that all things must be proven by tangible evidence — that the soul is but matter. But taking the mate- rialistic view that the soul is but matter, it is matter so different from or. dinary matter that it is to be judged by entirely different laws. But without taking that ground and adhering as I do to the ground that it is a spiritual matter, the necessity is much stronger for applying the true principle in dealing with its consideration. "There is a growing tendency towards materialism in the German mind, and this has long been the tendency of the French mind. It has made inroads into the sturdy old English mind, and it has with ten thousand other immigrants that we could have spared come across the seas and gained a foothold here. But to apply to the imagination the same rules you apply to things that have no imagination is impolitic, unphilosophical and unwise. There are a great many men who say with Tyndall: * If you present God as a poem I can accept it, but if you present Him as a fact I resist it; I say there is no evidence; it is not proven.' There are realities which can not be proven. No formula can demonstrate the sentiment of honor; yet honor demonstrates itself, and the intellect discerns things by the aid of the imagination that it can not discern without it. Reasonings are no more than spider- webbings. " That which comforts must be accepted as true, although it can not be proven by any direct line of evidence. Take, for instance, the pictures of the Virgin Mary which are the objects of such veneration to devout BEEGHERS COMMENTS. 149 Homan Catholics. They are not really the Virgin Mary; they don't even look like her; but they are a reprcseiilation of the tenderness of the mother towards the child, and that tenderness is a reality. I, too, hang the pictures in my parlor and in my bedroom, and I, too, am a worshipper of the Virgin. 1 worship the tender, loving spirit of God out of which theology has cheated us. Put that in theology and you would not want any pictorial illustration. So as to ministering angels ; I never thought of an angel except with wings, I never saw an angel painted with wings that it did not look like an old hen to me. So with ministering angels. The moment you apply to them all that belongs to them that moment you destroy them. " A French philosopher once said very truly : ' Everybody believes in God until you attempt to prove his existence.' Take the existence of the soul in heaven — that is a mere question of reason without evidence such as belongs to regulated forms of matter — and it is full of obscurities But let it hang in the realm of imagination and it is not only the product of the imagination of one man, but of all the nations through the growth of time. It is the imairmation that has been reaped and threshed and winnowed and grown into the, very bread of life. It is not any poem or notion; it is the work, the final work of the imagination of the human race, speaking all languages, under all governments; it is the result to which men come— that death doesn't stop human life; it goes on unending, " Mr. Ingersoll is a man of great merit and power and he has made himself perhaps as widely known as almost any other man in this gen- eration by his contemning of, I will not say religion, but of those views of religion handed down to us by the teachers of Christianity. He has great power of the imagination — a flaming wit — and has said a great many things, not wise, but by which wise men may profit. He has uttered a great many criticisms on the subject of Christianity which are just criticisms, yet taking his views of religion as a whole, they lack completeness; it is a special plea, a fiiuit-finding plea, which sees only one side. Now, wliile I accord to him the extrcmest liberty of discus- sion and disclaim any right to interfere with this liberty, we have a right to whatever of instruction theie may be, and I think he can instruct us by his latest utterance. He has lost a brother dearly beloved, a good man who lived happily with his family and was respected by the com- munity, and at that brother's funeral, Mr. Ingersoll made one of the most exquisite, yet one of the most sad and mournful, sermons that I aver ?*^ad. ""? tsever anything uttered by the lips of man more pathetic ? But we ^*^ (Dt only a hope, we have the certainty — we know that if our 150 INOERSOLDS FUNERAL ORATION. earthy tabernacle is lost we have a building not made with hands eternal in the heavens. To us the sweet voice comes under burdens, under sor- rows, in pain, in persecution, in the prisf>n dungeon — the voice of the spirit and the bride says come and the voice of the whole Church of God cries out to us 'it is real, it is real — come; ' and when this noble brother of Mr. Ingersoll felt the touch of death, I don't doubt he felt the touch of God the second time, and saw in the eternal world things which he had counted but shadows here. Even skepticism and that which had been provocative of skepticism in others says when it comes to the death of hope : ' In spite of doubts or dogmas, let us hope that there is a better world.' " ar:n^old's comments. Hon. Isaac N. Arnold's Comments on Ingersoll's Funeral Oration. The sad, pathetic, and almost hopeless cry of Robert G. Ingersoll over the grave of his brother has been widely read. It is eloquent with feeling, and shows that his heart is tender and affectionate ; and one can not but sympathize with a grief which is not soothed by any hope of a reunion hereafter. He says, speaking of death : " Whether in mid- sea or among the breakers of the farther shore, a wreclt must mark at last the end of each and all; and every life . . will at its close become a tragedy as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death. And Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the bights. We cry aloud, and the only answ^er is the echo of our wailing ciy." This, then, is the despairing moan of one of the brightest infidels of our country — of one who is doing more to destroy faith in God and immortality than any other! How striking the contrast between such a " wreck," as Ingersoll calls it, and the joyous, hopeful death of a Christian. I have lately been reading an account of the last hours of Sir Walter Scott. As death approached this great and healthy-minded Scotchman, he asked Lockhart to read to him. " What shall I read?" said Lockhart. " Need you ask ?" said Sir Walter. " There is but one Book." And the words that have comforted the dying and soothed the living for eighteen hundred years fell gratefully upon his ear: Let not your heart be troubled. In my Father's house are wany mansions. I sjo ^0 pvtfMt i pUoe for yon. ARNOLD'S COMMENTS. 181 *' Lockhart," were the last words of Scott, " Lockhart, I have bu.. a moment to speak to you ; my dear, be a good man ; be virtuous, be religious ! Nothing else will give you any comfort when you come to lie here." Ingersoll sadly says over the remains of his beloved brother, "We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry;" and, speaking of his dead brother, he says: " He climbed the hights, and left all superstition far below." If such are the results of "climbing the hights;" if to climb is only to look into the black gulf of despair, to hear over the grave only the " echoes of our wailing cry," who would not rather stay in the warm valley of faith and hope ? I would kindly ask Ingersoll, Are not faith and hope better than doubt and despair? And, if so, why make it your life's mission to ridicule, satirize, and destroy the faith and hope of the thousands who find in their religion the only refuge from the sufferings and sorrows of this life? Why labor to make your brother of humanity believe that he is but — The pilgrim of a day? Spouse of the worm and brother of the clay. Frail as the leaf in Autumn's yellow bower, Dust in the wind, or dew upon the flower? A child without a sire. Whose mortal life and transitory fire Light to the grave his chance-created form, As ocean wrecks illuminate the storm. And then- If these — To night and silence sink forevermorc ! The pompous teachings ye proclaim, Lights of the world and demi-gods or fame, The laurel wreath tliat murderer rears. Blood nursed and watered by the widow's tears. Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread. As the daily nightshade round the skeptic's head. Infidelity is indeed the " deadly nightshade," deadly alike to happi- ;iess and to virtue. There are exceptions like Ingersoll, who have inherited from their Christian ancestors natures so generous that their sturdy virtues have resisted the deadly influence. But every blow this modern apostle of infidelity strikes against Christianity is a blow in favor of vice and] immorality. To the young man whose faith Ingersoll by his wit and eloquence has shaken, I would say, listen to his cry of despair over his dead brother, and compare it with the Christian's triumphant death and joyous hope, and choose the truth. PART III. REPLIES TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, "•T7:7T:ia.t Slaa.ll Txre d.o to Be Sabred ^ " -BY- PROF. SWING, PROF. CURTIS, DR. THOMAS, BISFIOP FALLOWS, DR. LORIMER, DR. COURTNEY, AND OTHEKS. x^e:pi-i":2" 0:1^ lE^iE^oi^- s"^7^ia;^o-. Col. In^ersoU's New Lecture Under tlie Professor's Stereoscope-He Finds it Witty. Eloquent, Powerful, and " Wortliy of All Pair Eejomder." It litis not been quite a ysiir since, along with many other pastors of this city, I gave my personal convictions that, in order to he saved, man mnst, to the Lest of his ability, obey the laws of right. I attempted to show that whatever work Christ may have done to help man find the favor of the Supreme Judge, man must himself be a sincere doer of right things. Conduct is the path of safety. As earthly society depends for its quality and happiness upon the character of its members, so all society, in earth or in Heaven, must depend upon the actions and desires ot the 17 2 18 REPLY TO mGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, individual members, come tliey from any clime or age. 1 stated then my own opinions so fully that it would he wearisome to all of us to pass again over the same ground ; hence it will be my purpose this morning to point to some parts of Mr. Ingersoll's theory, rather than to discuss fully his theme of last Sunday, "What Must Man Do to Be Saved?" Much of the long address of the interesting speaker was aimed at the follies of an older time, at fanaticism, and ignorance, and cruelty; and should such wit poured out be- fore large audiences in all parts of the land only bring more -fully to an end all such bad phases of human nature, it would not be labor lost. But, besides rendering unpopular old follies, this wit must tend to make contemptible some principles and persons true and noble; and for this reason it is not our privilege to pass in silence such an entertain- ing and even powerful discourse. I cannot find it in my heart or judgment to say, as many do, that such addresses are not "worth answering." I*^ot only are all the speeches of that gentleman very acute and convincing, and therefore worthy of all fair rejoinder, but they are so original that they invite new lines of argument from the clergy, and en- able the pulpit to see itself and present itself in many new and more rational lights. In this recent address there was much of rhetorical flour- ish that came from the speaker's love of the grotesque rather than from the direct merit of the case. All that was said about tlie interpolations in the writings of Matthew must be attributed to humor or recklessness. It might as well be affirmed that interested parties had inserted ideas freely into the manuscripts of Tacitus, or Seneca, or Virgil, or that Tacitus or Seneca never saw the books which now bear their names. That memoir of Jesus is just as honest and genuine a manuscript as any j^iece of writing that has BY PROF. SWINO. 19 vtome down from any far-oif period. And, furthermore, a lawyer should set the clergy an example of that mental power which can discern at once the irrelevant and the rel- evant. We are all taught to look to the legal profession to learn how grand a thing is pure reason compared with mere feelings and superficial studies. But it now seems that this popular lawyer does not perceive that Christianity no more rests upon the accuracy of a manuscript than the United States rests upon the accuracy of Bancroft, or the glory of England upon the truth or capacity of her histo- rians. It may be that the man Matthew never saw that Gospel which we call Matthew. What is the inference? The book is simply anonymous. Matthew's Gospel. It was very common in that period for writings to be without a name. Many poems are, by a kind of courtesy, ascribed to Anacreon and Homer, and prose essays without number have come along through the classic period with no known authorship. Admitting, for the sake of argu- ment, that Matthew never wTote the Gospel which bears his name, and that to the nameless memoir many additions were made by persons, who had some interest to secure, the conclusion to be drawn is that we must make a closer study of those times to find, if possible, what were the facts amid which that memoir of a Christ came into circulation. A great religious fact will no more depend upon a Matthew than a great political fact will depend upon a Hume, or a Gibbon, or a Macaulay. The younger Pliny, a Eoman pagan and a political enemy of Christianity, lived in that very period out of which the Gospel history sprang, and, with his mind full of bitter prejudices, he wrote the following words to his Emperor, Trajan: " These Christians assemble on an ap- pointed time, and sing alternately the praises of Christ as a 20 REPLY OT INGER&OLVS NEW LECTURE, Divine Being. They hind themselves hy an oath not to commit any crime, to abstain from theft and impure con- duct, to fulfill every promise, and not to deny any trust confided to them. Afterward they separate, and again come together to partake of an inno^cent repast." Thus we have a Gospel according to Pliny, a Gospel not in any w^ay dependent upon Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is this stubborn historic fact that stands as the basis of the modern religion. Those men and women who assembled together to sing responsive hymns to a Divine Being did also bind themselves by an oath to commit no crime, to steal nothing, to live purely, and to keep every promise, and not to refuse any duty confided to them. Tlie same writer, Pliny, said that so many had entered into this holy compact that the temples of the Poman gods were daily becoming deserted, and the sale of animals .for sacrifice had almost ceased. The salient point Ibr such a pretentious reasoner as Mr. Ingersoll to attack was not what poor Matthew may have said about the new religion, but the merits of the new re- ligion itself, as i t canie along with its deep and glowing prin- ciples, and with its amazing Leader, before whom even the infidels all bow with reverence. Along came that moral fact seen by Pliny, an(] Trajan, and Tacitus, audit gradually displaced the morals and belief of Pome, and wrought out for the world a new code of not only law and moi-als, but of a most tender charity. It would seem a better application of eloquence, and almost genius, should the ])ublic speaker under notice take the positive side of Christianity, and tell the younor men that the world has never seen anvthinsr nobler, or more useful, or happier, than those compacts of integrity and purity which those thousands entered into when they met in the name of Christ and sang responsivo hymns in the morning air. An orator who can gain the BY Pli(>7\ .•iV/.y^i'. 21 ear and the heart, too, of tens sf thousauds of youth ought not to teach them how to ridicule a Matthew or a Calvin, but rather teach them how to trace the risings of new phi- losophy full of righteousness and charity, and how to appre- ciate such an exalted being as Jesus Christ. The Colonel is not " Sound in the Fai^h." Not only is all ridicule or criticism of Matthew irrelevant to any one speaking from the philosophic standpoint, but all the time and words spent against the idea of salvation by faith are w^asted so far as Christianity is itself concerned. Such objections as were raised in the address of last Sun- day weigh against only those who hold to a salvation by be- lief. Doubtless there are some individual Christians who are expecting to be saved by faith, and there are some denominations which still make use of that formula of words; but it is safe to say that the doctrine that man is saved by a belief is so far abandoned by the great denomin- ations that tlie Church n© longer merits rebuke, or abuse, or laughter on account of that peculiar idea. A hundred years ago the Church universal needed much plain talk from infidel or from any one able to give it, for it did hold to a method of pleasing God that was false and deeply in- jurious. Luther declared that there was no sin for which faith in Christ would not be taken as an atonement or com- pensation in the day of final judgment. But this tenet has of late years rapidly become obsolete. Not one of the large denominations which now make up the Christian commun- ity would accept of what Martin Luther announces abo^it the office of faith. They would join with the infidel in affirming that faith cannot take in any manner the place of morality. By " faith" in Christ a fidelity to His teachings is generally understood. Salvation by faith is a salvation by a personal faithfulness tu ix ^creat law and a o-reat Master. What Plinv saw when 22 REPLY TO II^GEBSOLrS NEW LECTURE, he wrote to liis Emperor that those new religionists assem- bled each morning and made pledges to each other in the name of Christ to do ne wrong, this taking of a solemn vow was the act of faith, which became a conspicuous ^^art in the plan of safety. Instead of saving a wicked man, the first act of Christianity was to make each heart vow to be I'ighteous, and benevolent, and virtuous. Faith in Christ implied an abandonment of Paganism as a religion, and of all immorality as a practice, and an espousal of that new leadership which appeared in Judea. And if Christ was indeed a person before whom even infidelity and atheism bow in reverence, this vow of faith was not an empty action in that olden time, and will not be in our day. Sent out to arrest and punish the early followers of Jesus, Pliny reported that he could not find them guilty of crimes, but only of a pitiable superstition. To the early Christian it therefore seemed a first requisite that they should live without crimes. Christianity Philosophically Considered— It Must Not be Confounded With the Follies of Man. If subsequent periods perverted that simple religion, and declared that a sinner could be saved by giving assent to certain doctrines, or that a sinner could buy Heaven by paying certain sums ol money into the treasury of a church, all such events in the intellectual world must be classed among the blunders and vices of society. The institution of marriage cannot be held responsible for what the Mor- mons may have made of it on the one hand, or what the Oneida Community may have made of it on the other. That social compact must be looked at in all the lights, and must not be seen only in a Mormon settlement or in a divorce case. So the religion of our day cannot be justly painted by dipping the brush into the ugly, or pale, or dirty colors of ignorant and wicked times, but it can be seen ri^jrhtlv only by minds wide enough and fair enough to separate the BY prof: swijsro. 23 absolute from the incidental, Tliere are many clergymen now engaged in active duty in their profession who, if they were compelled to iind the doctrines of their Christianity in the books of only certain old Eomanists and old Calvin- ists, would at once descend from their pulpits and join with those who live without God and without hope; but they remain, and remain with happy hearts, because there- is a religion — a Christianity — that has not been ruined or even marred by any blundering man or blundering century. Mr. Ingersoll forgets how difficult it has always been for man to keep pure any form of philosophy. Suppose society should conclude to adopt the creed w^hich this gentleman set forth a week ago, in what condition would he find that creed and the public practice of it should its author come back to earth in a hundred years and move about among his so-called apostles? Man is slow in finding the deepest and best meaning of any of his systems of action or thought. Republics have come and gone because men, even the wisest, find slowly the many details which must be com- bined to make the perfect and the enduring State. It is wondered yet whether our continent has found the republic- anism that wdll endure. That we have found many of the elements of power and durability all confess; but there may be some defect in the moral education of the young, or some excess in our love of material things, that will in a half century begin to make our grand liberty-tree scatter in mid- summer its leaves, never to bud again. Thus all systems tremble as they move forward. Plato opened up a spiritiuil philosophy with the cardinal idea that the only valuable thing in the universe was the soul. It had not advanced far before it was joined by the idea that men ought, there- fore, to pay no regard to food or dress, but should develop only their power of thought. Christ found the world quite full of aeceticism when He 24 RE PL Y TO mGERSOLVS NE W LECTURE, came, and long after Christ it moved on, growing more insane as it advanced. Plotinus and others assumed that they had gotten away from their bodies, and were nothing but pure souls. This whole system was arrested at last by the practical ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- turies, and the doctrine of the soul was brought back to that middle ground of our period. After a long journey through darkness, the worth of both the body and the mind emerges into light. All fair enemies of Christianity will remember that ideas, like men, have their trials and sor- rows, and must be estimated, not in some one hour of their history, but in all their long and varied experience. In this manner we must all investigate the claims of religion. Like the politics of liberty, like the spiritualism of Plato, it has had to move through a wild and savage country. As the chariots of elegant queens in the fourteenth century often became stalled in the mud, and the royal personages must descend and wait for the slow help of slow levers and slow men, so the noble truths of some bright or divine mind often become mired when they attempt to cross a country or an age, and he only is able to speak wisely of a religion who has kept in mind the natural misfortunes of philoso- phies. It seems necessary, therefore, to arraign the popular speaker for three errors of judgment or i^form'ation; an error regarding the importance of Matthew to the fact of Christianity; an error regarding the commonly-received doctrine of salvation by faith; an error of information as to the trials which befall all good ideas in their effort to gain foothold in the world. Let us note a fourth shape of weak- ness in the long discourse. All hearers and readers of the address were gratified by the following words : " Let me say, onc« for all, that to that great and serene man 1 gladly ^pay, I gladly pay the homage of my adoration and my tears.'* BY PROF. SWING. 25 The weakness of the address here lies in the assumption that that greatness and serenity which drew admiration and tears came into a world that had no religion, no church, no worship, no hope of another life,— the assumption that no causes had toiled in harmony to produce such a person- age as Jesus. The Weak Point in In^jersoU's Lecture. If a public teacher has found a man who is so worthy of a glad homage, this public teacher should have informed the large audience assembled what ideas and practices met together in Galilee to bring about such a character; Jiiid if Christ did not result from the gospel of good food and good clothes and good humor, our reformer sliiDuld at least have confessed that great men had often come into society by other gates than those of the tailor, and the cook, and the humorist. Great indeed is the value of all those qualities and su'bstances and conditions. Food, clothes, houses, laughter, friendship are all blessings seen too dimly by many; but a glance at such a being as Christ should in- stantly remind us that the heroes who have drawn "admir- ation and tears" have had poured into their souls other in- gredients, while in Christ religion was the ruling element. It ought to be an impressive fact that Avhen a distin- guished enemy of all religion wishes to find one on earth to whom he will yield tearful reverence, he must seek for him and find him at the altar of God, teaching men to say, " Our Father who art in Heaven." In the hour of most need the philosophy of good food and good clothes f^iils our friend, and he must find a model of serene greatness in a man who had only a seamless coat, and who slept often houseless when even the foxes had holes and the birds their happy nests. JNot oniv did it become necessary for Mr. IngersoU to 26 REPLY TO INGEESOLL'S I^EW LECTURE, borrow a religious name upon which to bestow deep re- gard, but it will alwaj^s be necessary for him, after he has announced his philosophy of manhood, to go outside of it to find the manhood itself. The doctrines of good food and good clothes, and plenty of fresh air, and plenty of liberty, are . valuable to society after certain other high doctrines have made the society, but as laws for making a great. man- hood they are infinitely contemptible. The Roman glut tons had plenty of good food; the Arabs iu the mountains had plenty of liberty; the American Indians always have had plenty of fresh air. The wise lawyer's rules and regu- lations of man and home are excellent where some other rules and regulations, as in England and America, may have first made the man and the home. Mr. Ingersoll's system could give a better wardrobe to the man of ]S"azareth, could spread for him a better feast than the one Martha set before him, could put, indeed, a pillow of down under the \yeary head, but it could not first produce the Kazarene himself. Mr, Ingersoll's final phi- losophy can explain a tailor-shop or a dining-room, but it cannot explain the human race. It is ignorant as a child of the causes that have made all that is great in humanity? and that will continue to make. The Colonel's Cruel Advice Whicli He Himself Does Not Follow— A Solid Sliot From the Professor. Let us allude now to the fifth error of the discourse. It unites with all of the gentleman's speeches in advising the public to build no churches, to attend no church, but to put into homes the money which they have been, accus- tomed to waste in so-called houses of God. This advice is hasty, and even cruel, for many reasons. It will be admit- ted that some centuries did rob the home that they might build the temple. And one can yet see something of this form of injustice in our world. But the world is outgrow- BY PROF. SWING. 27 ing this form of folly, and we all live in a broad West, where the country and village church rises up among the trees in great simplicity. Complaints that we have applied to Europe in the far past cannot, by any mind that wishes to be reasonable, be laid against the simple sanctuaries which so adorn this new continent. A lecturer's fee for a night, a clergyman's fee for a month, would make ready for use one of those village meeting-houses, which would assemble the dear children together for a generation, that they might study that Man who elicits from even infidels sympathetic tears. Look into this advice more deeply. All valuable moral truths must be regularly and faithfully taught. The pri- vate home is confessed, both in philosophy and song, to be the most blessed spot on earth, but not out of those private dwellings has the education of the world proceeded. The young and old have been compelled by the laws of instruc- tion to meet together in companies larger than and quite different from the one which assembles by the fireside Hence politics has had its forum or senate, art its school and gallery, philosophy its porch, and morals or piety its temple. To these the throng has repaired. Home has its own peculiar virtue. There is no language eloquent enough to describe home. The song of home is destined to be immortal, but, after all, that mighty thing called society has poured out of quite other gates. Men assemble to- gether, and behold! after they have studied, and taught, and learned, mind to mind and heart to heart, up has risen a fine art, or a science, or a politics, or a religion. Our lecturer refused his o^vn advice; for, in order to teach his own views, he had to seek for a temple, not built for a dwelling-house, but for a school and an arena of art. Eemanding us all to the walls of our private houses, and telling us to put our gold into only our houses, he asked us 28 REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, to postpone obeying the advdce until we had come out to an expensive building to Jiear from him the kws of life and salvation. It would seem that the dwelling-house theory were not designed to applj to the enemies of religion, but only to its friends. Persons who will iaugh at piety may assemble in elegant halls ; those who love the idea of a God and a heaven should cease to meet in churches or halls, and should build up the walls of their homes! The Grand Architecture of " Home "—An Eloquent Peroration. Assuming that the orator is right his eulogy of the place called home, assuming that he cannot plant one flower too many by the door or window or wake up too much joy or laughter and music within, yet we dare not be ignorant of the fact that no such home has come or can come to a nation that has no God and no temple of hymn and incense. Home is not an isolated fact, but it is a result. The arts and the sciences, all the learning and msdom of the world have made their contributions toward the beautiful little result called home. There is not a farmhouse or a palace in England, not a cottage in '^^ay England, not a mansion along the Hudson, or upon the avenue of any city that has not resulted from a blending together of all past learning, and taste, and morals, and piety. Could you dissect the idea of home and find the nerves of its structure, it would be found that thoughts of God and of a future life, which will gather to- gether all those scattered here, form a strange and tender part of this house where the parents and tlie children meet and part. Atheists come upon our homes already built; but they neglect to ask, they dare not ask, what built them? Must we tell them that beneath the homes of France, of Germany, of England, of America, there is lying a civili- ^^ition rnado tender by all thQ broad and deep teachings ot BT PROF, a WING. 29 religion? Food, and furniture, and laughter, and joy did not make these blessed abodes of man. The atheist can decorate these homes, but he did not make them. Beneath them is a belief in God, a deep pathos of lite and death, and deep hope in a life to come after the earthly house of encampment has been dissolved. Into these walls where we all live pass, as component parts, the tears and prayers of saints and martyrs. The songs and hymns of our fathers are more signiticant ele- ments than the brick, and wood, and marble; the frequent trips of the children to the sanctuary across the open field or along the crowded street have, in building up the mod- ern home, surpassed the ai^hitectand the mason. Atheism can live happily in a home which hands more divine have fabricated from the world's rich dust. :e^e:e=i-.-2- a:^ hd^. rrnoiivdi-^s. Points Wherein the Doctor and Colonel Agrree and Differ— A Fair and Candid Rejoinder. [As tlie Tulpit of the Centenary Church was supplied by a visiting candidate, the Rev. Dr. Thomas contributed tlie following letter :] I have 110 desire to differ from Col. Iiigersoll where it is possible for us to agree. The disposition to antagonize — to seek to find points of difference, rather than points of agreement, has, perhaps, often led both parties in religious debates to magnify each other's real or supposed errors. We should rather seek to know as far as we may the exact truth, and give it full credit wherever found. This seems to be the spirit in which the lecturer sought to stand before his great congregation. 1 would reciprocate this as fully as I can, and say, " Let us see wherein w^e can agree ? " Let u-i say that the time for meditation has arrived in the pro- found questions of thought; not of compromise of principle or fa3t, but of harmony where harmony is possible. Such a spirit will do much to soften the severity of discussions, and it will be a mental and moral help to all parties. And first, in reference to Col. IngersolPs plea for the right and the duty of all to think and to reason. He says: '• I belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who depend upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who resort to brute force." Li this we can agree. I belong to die same, and I indorse that statement. 1 agree with him also in not thinking that '' people who disagree with me are ss TmPLt TO imnmoLVH ^bw lecture, bad people," and that mankind are generally " reasonably honest;" and that most "ministers are endeavoring to make this world better." I agree with him when h^ claims the right to think, and for the two reasons that " I like, too, and and I can't help it." I like to think, and I can't help it; and will add, that I wonld not "help it" if I could." Bnt here we should distinguish between proper freedom to think, and what is loosely called " free thought." Freedom to think should be the right of all; but there is not, and there cannot be, any sucli thing as " free thought," unless it is in a bad sense. And for this reason, that all thought is conditioned, hrst, by the laws of thought ; and secondly, by the facts, and the things about which we think. All normal mental freedom must submit to these natural limitations. And in this I think Mr. Ingersoll will fully agree with me. In the second place, I agree with much that the Colonel has to say' about the good that is in the Christian religion. He says: "There are many good things about it. I be- lieve that. He says: " I will never attack anything that I believe to be good, and will never fail to attack anything I honestly believe to be wrong." In this we can agree, also. I will join hands with the Colonel in defending what I believe to be right, and in opposing what I believe to be wrong. Eut I cannot agree with him when, in the next sentence, he says: We have, I say, what they call the Chnstian religion, and, I find just in proportion that nations have been religious, just in the proportion they have gone back to barbarism. I find that Spain, Portucjal, Italy are the three worst nations in Europe. I find that the nation nearest infidel is the most prosperous— France. I think the fairness in debate for which the Colonel claims to stand, should have led him to discriminate be- tween religion and superstition, or the abuse of religion. He is a friend of liberty, but he would not think it fair to charge liberty with all the abuses and the wrongs wrought MDRTBOMAB. dS in the name of liberty. The Colonel indorses the teacliings of Jesus as to purity of heart, and mercy, and justice, and forgiveness. We certainly gather from his lecture that he believes these to be the essence, the very spirit of religion, and he certainly would not claim that the more a nation had of these, the worse it would be; and, if not, it is hardly fair to charge the bad state of Spain, Portugal, and Italy to religion. Why not say that in those countries the spirit of the teachings of true religion has been corrupted and turned to base purposes. In the third place, I can agree with much that the lec- turer says about Christ. I was glad to read his clear, manly words, when he said: And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground ; and let me say, once for all, to that great and serene man I gladly pay the homage of my ad- miration and my tears. He was a reformer in His day. He was an infidel in His time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and His life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom out of the human mind. Had I lived at that time I would have been his friend, and should He come again. He would not find a better friend than I will be. lagersoll's New Departure- What the Doctor says About it. This seems to be a new departure, or at least a step be- yond where the Colonel has taken his stand in previou- lectures; though I do not recall a single instance where ](-. has said anything ajg^ainst the life of Christ — that is, Hir. lite as a man. My heart is with him in those noble senti. ments. I am glad he spoke so freely and so sincerely. Witl him I feel that the " place where man dies for man is hoi;- ground;" and with him I pay to that "serene man thv homage and the admiration of my tears." I think with the Colonel, also, that Jesus was I'egarded by the Cb arch of that day as an " inlidel " and a '• blasphemer," and that He 3 34 REPLY TO INaERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, • was put to death by those who claimed to be the only relig- ious people of the time, and who looked upon everybody who did not accept their teachings and mode ol life as sinners. But then i have to get the facts of that great and good life from the very books of the jSTew Testament that the Colonel labored so hard to cast susj^icion upon as being un- reliable, and not written till '' hundreds of years after," and as coming from confused and conflicting manuscripts. Speaking further of Christ, the lecturer says: For the theological creation I have a different feeling. If He was, in fact, God, He knew there was no such thing as death. He knew that what we call death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy; and that it took no heroism to face a death that was simply eternal life. I will admit that some of the " theological " conceptions of Christ may have served to confuse the mind; but then, in the calmest exercise of that very reason for which my excellent friend makes so strong a plea, I am compelled to think that there was in that life something more than human. Approach it where you will; touch it at any point from the " conception" to the last scenes of the cross, and the resurrection, and the ascension, and it all seems to be of a piece; it is consistent with itself throughout; it moves along on its own unique and majestic plane. AYe have the picture before us; we have the marvelous facts; and for me it is easier — a less strain upon the reason — to accept the account as given; to accept the, to us, supernatural in that life, than to account for it in any other way. How could the r.:ilettered disciples — plain, common men — have cre- ated such a character? How could such marvelous results have flown from the life of one who was only a man? Wiser and better than other men, but yet only a man. I am in worse mental trouble when I attempt to put away the divine, the supernatural in Christ, and the By m. TffOMA^l 35 .scriptures and religion, than when I accept it. With me it is a way out of difficulty, rather than r. way intc difficulty; and "I gladly pay the homage oi my admi- ^^tion and tears^' io Him not only as a " serene man," but to that higher being who is the Son of God, as well as the Son of Man. To me He is that beins: brouorht into exist- ence by a special, or an exceptional, creation, and in whom God is revealed to the world. And this makes it all the more easy for me to understand His deep and tender sym- pathy— His tears, His prayers, His agony in the garden and on the cross. As a man, Jesus had the susceptibilities to pain, and in a measure, to fear, common to men. As "Immanuel," as God with us, there was an upper and higher sweep to his whole life; and it was the dwelling of this divine nature within him that so quickened and exalted all his sensibilities and made pessible a degree of suffering to us perhaps unknown. I think that when we enter into the real life of Christ, His outward sufferings were but the smallest part; the mere symbol; the "flag of distress" thrown out to arrest our coarse sense. The real agony was within. It was the suffering of love — love slighted and rejected; love scorned and crucified by those He came to save. It was the burden of the cold, cruel world ^^ut upon Him in the last hours of a life that had been only tender and merciful to all. He feared not '' the chans-e we call death." To Him there was no " death ;" and yet a horror worse than any mere death gathered about that awful hour. The Teachings of Christ Emphasized— Character rather than Dogma.. A word in tlie fourth place, about Christ's teachings, as to what man must do to be saved. I can agree with CoL Ingersoll that these are reliable — whenever or by whoever written. And I believe with liim that Christ put emphasis 39 nnpLr to imERsoiVB mw lEcwnn, upon character rather than upon dogma; upon what we are rather than what we profess or what, in a technical seiiBe, we believe. Of course, great beliefs must underlie the very principles of purity and mercy afid justice that He taught. I must believe, that the pure and merciful and just will be saved. They are saved already; for to have such qualities is to have salvation. It may not, indeed, be a " theological" or a " regulation" salvation — that is a sal- vation according to a "creed;" but it is what is far better; it is salvation, in fact. And I agree with the Colonel in the absurdity of the old Athanasian creed, over which he had so much fun, when it says that whosoever will be saved "first of all it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith," and then goes on to define that faith in terms, the meaning of which only those who have made of theology a profound study can have the most distant conception; and then closes up by saying that " except one do thus believe he shall perish everlastingly." That was an error of the creed-mak- ing age. The Protestant Episcopal Church does not retain that creed, and the Church of England holds it only be- cause it does not know how to get rid of it. An effort was made some years ago in England to lighten the formal terras of subscription, but it failed. But I should think the Colonel did not get all the teach- ings of Christ in reference to salvation; not all of Matthew, even. Jesus taught not only the inner principles of salva- tion a-s it is found in character, but He taught that men should pray; that they should deny themselves and take up the cross and follow Him. He taught that men should re- pent and be converted. But still, I agree with the lecturer that we should put more stress upon principles and con- duct, and less upon creeds, and I will join him in pressing these things upon the Church and upon the world. It was not the purpose of this paper (begun at 9 o'clock on Saturday evening, and now abont finished before 11) to review in any full sense this long lecture, but rather to look at some things in which we can agree ; and to suggest some points on which my own faith goes beyond. There are some very palpable, even remarkable errors, or mistakes, in statement that I have no doubt some of our clergy will find pleasure in exposing. And yet there are many things in it that cannot fail to make an impression upon many who have heretofore regarded the Colonel's lectures as only blasphemous. And I want to say to m}^ friend that I think there is one point in which he should be more careful. I like all he says about liberty, and not causing pain to others. But when I read his lectures — and I have read them all — I am compelled to feel that he is not suffi- ciently mindful of the feelings of many good people who differ from him on matters of belief He ought to practice in this respect what he preaches. And he will not blame me for another word, and that is? with so many manly utterances for honesty and fairness^ he should be careful not to permit his love of fun, and the laughter and applause of the people who hear, to lead him to indulge in unjust caricatures of things sacred, or to make unfair statements for the sake of gaining a point. I think his denunciation of the old and terrible ideas of endlees punishment, and the gross and shocking views that have been sometimes held concerning a penal atonement, are not wholly uncalled for. I fear the teachers of religion have in some things made an occasion for some of his lectures; but even admitting all this, there is still a law of the congruous, a sense of the fitting, or of what is proper in the discus- sion of themes that have been in all ages and literature accounted sacred. Less extra vasrance, more care in state- ment, and fairness in reason, and with all more reverence, is what our lecturer needs to cultivate. I^S^Xj-^ OI^ X)I^. XjQX^IlivdllEZE^. The Scope of tlie Lecture, and Not tlie Lecturer, Under Consideration— The Issue— Faith and Works. It has, I believe, been intimated by Col. Eobert G. In- gersoll that his clerical critics are usually more inclined to consider him personally than the merits of his ideas, and he justly resents so grave a departure from the amenities of debate. The fault complained of cannot be too severely condemned, for it is certain when controversies degenerate into attacks on individuals who advocate objectionable views, and are not directed against the views themselves, an amount of prejudice is engendered fatal to the discovery or defense of truth. Into so serious an error I shall take care not to fall. Being a member of that unfortunate body, of whom Jeremy Taylor, so approvingly quoted by Col. Ingersoll, wrote '^ were as much to be rooted out as anything that was the greatest pest and nuisance on earth," but who, if Ban. croft and Lecky are to be credited, have been from the be- o'innino- the steadfast friends ot unlimited freedom of thought and of speech, I have it not in my nature to call in question the honesty of any man's opinions, or to deny his right to disseminate them as w^idely as he can. Indeed, I am related to a 2:)eople wdio have for so long a time been in the minority, and who have been compelled to suffer so much for their antagonism to the tyranny of both church and state, that I can hardly refrain from a kind of admir- ing sympathy with iconoclasts, even when their sturdy 39 40 RE PL Y TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE blows are directed against my own most cherished convic- tions. Influenced by such feelings, you will not be sur- prised if, in reviewing some portions of Col, IngersolFs lecture, I confine myself strictly to their representations, and avoid unnecessary reference to the lecturer himself. The avowed design of the lecture alluded to was to answer the all-important question: "What must I do to be saved?" a question that has engaged the thought of many burdened generations, and which only irreverent shallow- ness would treat with laughter and derision ; and in furnish, ing a reply, it was claimed that orthodox Christians teach "the justification of the sinner by faith alone; not any words, just faith — believing something you do not under- stand." Tliis statement is in various ways repeated in the published reports of the discussion. For instance, when the passage is quoted in which the Lord is represented as judging, the following comment appears as a fair account of what is currently taught: "'He shall reward every man' — to the church he belongs to? No. T© the man- ner m which he was baptized? No. According to his creed? No. ' He shall reward every man according to his works,'" the impression conveyed being that we advocate what is here so emphatically negatived. Similar queries are propounded in connection w4th our Savior's inter\'iew with Zaccheus, and with the same end in view; and after a dissertation on the Romish creed, it is asserted, " In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. What a mercy it is that man can get to heaven with- out understanding it." All denominations are classed together as conditioning salvation on the reception of some such doctrinal formula, and on this assumption are made the subjects of infinite merriment. Unquestionably the Tridentine Decrees are fairly open to criticism, and un- doubtedly some old Prot^jstant confessions ai-e not clear of BY DR. LORIMER. 41 the error charged against them ; but though this must be conceded, it does not follow that the pulpit of the present makes the eternal welfare of the soul depend on intellectual belief. If it ever did so, it has long since found out its mistake. Theology Progressive— Creeds, Faith, Etc. Theology, like any other science, is far from being per- fect ; progress has distinguished it, and must continue to do so. In the course of its advancement it has come to be more fully recognized that whatever saving faith may mean, it does not involve subscription to a creed, however ortho- dox. A man may hold to the " five points " and to even as many more " points " as he pleases, and yet be a stranger to God's grace. He may even contend sincerely for the verbal inspiration of scripture, and still have no assurance of Divine acceptance. " Devils believe and tremble ;" and the same is true of men. Creeds have their place. They summarize what is held by a particular body of disciples; they form convenient compendiums for reference, and they impart definiteness to an organization, but they have no more efficiency in the salvation of a soul than a prescrip- tion has in the healing of a body. A prescription may guide an invalid to the means of health, and a confession of faith may accurately point out the way of everlasting life; but if the prescription is swallowjcd instead of the remedy, or the confession is relied on instead of the Savior, the result in the one case will be about as vain as the other. Consequently it is mere waste of time and energy to labor to disprove, what is far from being generally held, if held at all in Protestant circles, that intellectual belief is indis. pensable to the eternal well-being of the soul. In rejecting this answer to the great inquiry, one of two others is suggested: the firs ^ as embodying the alleged opin- 42 REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, ions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; the second as expressing the conviction of the lecturer himself. Several texts are col- lated from the whole writino^s ol these three Evangelists to sustain the view that they predicated salvation exclusively ol works, and every utterance of theirs that seems to point to anything else is repudiated as an interpolation. Of the warrant for discriminating in this manner between the words of the same testimony I sliall speak by and by; at present I am only concerned to remind you of the unmeas- nred approval which the lecture under consideration lavishes on this interpretation. We have, tor instance, this commendation of the Sermon on the Mount: "If you w^ill forgive men that trespass against you, God will forgive your trespasses against him. I accept, and I never will ask any God to treat me better than I treat my fellow-men. There's a square promise. There's a contract — and it must ot necessity be true. ISo God could afibrd to damn a forgiving man." Then, after the text: "He shall reward every man according to his w^orks," the exclamation follows: "Good! I subscribe to that doctrine." Subsequently the rule of judgment, that is mentioned in the twenty -fifth chapter of Matthew, elicits this fervent enlogy; "I tell you to-night that God will not ])unish with eternal thirst the man who has put a cup of cold water to the lips of his neighbor; God will not allow to live in the eternal nakedness ol pain the man who has clothed otliers. For instance: Here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor, who stands aside to let a woman that he never saw before take his place in a boat. He stands there great and serene as the wide sea, and he goes down.. Do you tell me there is any God who will push the boat from the shore of eternal life when that man wishes to step in? Do you tell me that God can be unpi tying to the piti- ful; that He can be unforgiving to the forgiving? I deny it. BY DR. LORIMER. 43 And from the aspersions of the pulpit I seeks to rescue the reputation of the Deity." Ingersoll's Gospel under the Doctor's Microscope Shows a Fatal Contradic- tion— God Forgives, but " Bob " is for " Inexorable Justice "—The Colonel in Fact an Extreme Calvanist. It is my turn to say, "Good!" but how does this firm approval of what is claimed to be the apostolic scheme of salvation comport with the lecturer's personal convictions on the same subject ? His own position is diametrically opposed to what he has so elegantly extolled. Here it is in his own words : " I believe in the gospel of justice, — that we must reap what we sow. I do not believe in forgive- ness. If I rob Mr. Smith, and God forgives me, how does that help Smith? If I by slander cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away like p blighted- llower, and afterward I get forgiveness, how does that help her? If there is another world, we have got to settle. * * * For every crime you commit you must answer to yourself and to the one you injure. And if ^ou have ever clothed another with unhappiness as with a gar- ment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you hadn't done that thing. JS'o forgiveness, eternal, inex- orable, everlasting justice — that is what I believe in." Here is a Draconian evangel with a vengeance! In what essential respect does this differ from the most extreme and rigid Calvinism. If one is an upper mill- stone, the other is the nether; if one is a land-slide, the other is an earthquake: if the one is hopelessness, the other is despair; if the one is blackness, the other is starless night; if the one is a shroud, the other is a coffin, and if the one is a grave, the other is a charnel-liouse. I had thought from what had so earnestly been commended by the lecture, that there must be some healing balm in charity, some purifying efflorescence in \nf;\ some sweetening aroma in 4^ REPLY TO INQERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, patient gentleness, and some heavenly grace and beauty in the spirit of forgiveness ; but no ; if the only real and divine thing in the universe is "eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice," these qualities are emptied of their significance and worth; yea, they must be regarded as positive evils, running counter as they do to the absolute sovereignty of merciless retribution, and society should convert itself into an organized feud, and its people into ravening wolves. If this latest gospel is true, then the sailor would not be saved on account of the heroism so beautifully described unless throughout his life he had been perfectly blameless in the dealings with others; nor could the dying thief have been saved " because he "pitied innocence suffering on the cross," though we are assured that he was by the lecturer, as he certainly had committed wrong against his fellow-beings. And if it is true that tiiere is nothing to be looked for in the future "but inexorable, everlasting justice," then it is not true "that God cannot afford to damn any man capable of pitying anyone." lagersoll Does Not Answer the Question, " What Mast We Do to Be Saved?" Which of these two solutions of the momentous problem are we to regard as entitled to credence? Wliich shall we adopt ? They cannot both be reasonable and worthy of all acceptation, for they are destructive of each other. If the first be true," the second is not; and if the second is, then I here is no place for the just. The encampment of forgive- ness cannot withstand the stern fortress of unfaltering jus- tice: and the breath of all-1oving mercy is fatal to the sign of unapproachable Nemesis Again, I ask, which theory shall we believe? One or the other^ or neithar? Obviously the lecture does not help us to a decision^ for its glaring contradictions only make certain that its clever author is ;. >t dear in his own mind as to what humanity must do to BT DR. LORIMER. 45 be saved, and that we must look elsewhere for a satisfactory answer. And to whom shall we look for the much needed h'ght if not to Christ ? If not to that being for whom the lecturer expresses such high regard that he is ready to pay liim the tribute of his " admiration and his tears." As it is conceded that He should inspire us with " infinite respect," and admitted that He in some sense "died for man," we cannot surely do better than lay to heart, and receive as final His doctrine regarding the salvation of the soul. But how shall we ascertain what He taught? Permit me to reply, by asking another question, how does Col. In- gersoll know that Jesus was a '' great and serene man," one deserving the confidence of his friendship, and " the ad- miration of his tears?" We are reminded that He never directed anything to be written, and never wrote anything Himself, except some words in the sand. From whence then comes the information which enables the lecturer to fonnso high an estimate of His character? Evidently it is derived from the ]^ew Testament, for there are no other documents to which an appeal can be carried. If then it is sufficiently reliable to warrant us in accepting its por- traiture of Christ, it may certainly be trusted when it undertakes to set before us the doctrine that He preached. Authenticity of the New Testament. It may not be amiss at Miis point to suggest a few addi- tional thoughts bearing on the authenticity of this book. The statement that " it was not wi-itten for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust" is utterly devoid of proof. Ty the gospels were in circulation by the close of the first century is the belief of the world's most eminent scholars, a belief abundantly confirmed by Irenceus, Paplas, Tertullian, and Origen. The assertion that they were orig- inally written in Hebrew, and that, as the codes are all in RE PL Y TO INQERSOLL A NEW LECTURE, ( 7 reek, a language which it is assumed the disciples did not understand, no confidence can be placed in their reported authorship, is gratuitous and untrusworthy. Thoughtful rationalists, who have studied this subject carefully, hesitate to venture on such untenable ground. According to the best authorities, in our Lord's day the Greek language was current in Palestine; and it is needless to say that such writers as Lightfoot, Alford, De Wette, and Lueke have assigned good and sufficient reasons for believing that the gospels were the work of the naen to whom they are com- monly ascribed. But even were there serious doubts upon this point, it should not be overlooked that it is simply incredible that centuries alter Christ a company of unknown men should have been able to impose on the churches as apostolic, writings that radically difiered from the doctrine fixed and accepted among them; and if they are in substan- tial agreement, as undoubtedly they are, then, for the pur- poses of this discussion, we may accept with confidence their report ot what Christ taught concerning the salvation of the soul. And if we attach to them enough importance to call them to the witness-stand at all, we are bound to receive their whole testimony, and not to garble it to suit our own views. To reject every statement that mitigates against our opinions as interpolations, or to discriminate between wit- nesses whose claims on our attention are equally valid, sim- ply because one seems to be more pronounced against us than the others, only betrays a determination to make good a position at any hazard. Such a course is illogical and unjustifiable. For it to be pursued in any other investiga- tion than that ol religion, would expose its author to cen- sure and condemnation. If the Evangelists are entirely untrustworthy, do not appeal to them at all; but if you are going to admit their testimony, admit the whole of it; any BY DR. LORIMER. 47 other course is not only inconsistent, it will prove inconclu- sive as well. The Gospel Flan of Salvation. Believing, then, that we have in this volume a faithful transcript of the Savior's teachings, let us draw near to it, earnestly inquiring, "What must we do to be saved?" The text, which I have chosen on which to rest my argu- ment, teaches that salvation is the end or the result of faith. What, it will be asked, is it possible that good works have nothing to do with eternal life? I say not that; I would not seem even to imply that. Throughout the Xew Testa- ment the strongest emphasis is laid on the indispensable- ness of virtue, both in its root and flavor. It is expressly declared that evil-doing bars the gates of the kingdom — "they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God," and it is written: '^Blessed are they that do His commandments, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." We do not teack, nor are others authorized to teach, that the beatitudes pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount are available to any who fail to comply with the conditions. They who receive the benediction must breathe the spirit on which it depends, and they who are looking for forgiveness must not fail to be forgiving in their turn. I know of no salvation that regards these moral and spir- itual excellencies as superfluous. At this point we have no serious controversy with the statements made in the lecture before us, however one may object to the manner in which they are put. We all hold to the great truth that, " without holiness, no man shall see the Lord," and that "the grace of God that bringeth salvation" teaches us " to deny ungodliness and worldly crests, and to live soberly, righteously, and godly in this ])resent world." And, who- ^ HE PLY TO JNGERSOLrs NEW LECTURE, soever represents us to the conti'ary, gives currency to a slander as foul as it is false. But, while this position is to be maintained most earnestly, it is impossible to read the New Testament with- out arriving at the conclusion that, in some very real sense, faith is interwoven with the soul's salvation. To escape from this fact, Col. Ingersoll has been obliged to manipu- late his witnesses, and to reject, altogether, the testimony of one who has as good a right to be heard as the others. Certainly, John teaches " He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life," and shows how dependent we all are upoK Christ for salvation. This is not called in question, and we need not therefore multiply texts in its defense. That the same doctrine runs through the epistles will hardly be seriously denied. ^' Therefore, being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, " " in whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation," are texts which indi- cate the direction of apostolic thought upon this subject. "When we turn back to three Evangelists we find the same doctrine, not only implied, but expressed. In the account given by Mark of our Lord's first preaching we find him saying, '' The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent ye and believe the gospel." And the great commission under which the Apostles were to act, and which last Sunday came in for no small amount of vituperative eloquence, is but an echo of this original proclamation. The same wi^iter represents Christ as saying to Peter, "Have faith in God;" and on another occasion he records the fact that " seeing their faith," he said, " Be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." Indeed, all the benefits conferred by Christ's ministry presuppose the existence of faith ill Rim as the Messiah. He not only directly asks the people whether they possess it, but speaks of His gracious BY DR. LORIMER. 49 purposes as being hindered by their unbelief. "When he says to them, *' Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy Jaden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls," confidence in Himself is necessarily implied. How could they take Him at His word unless they were moved to do so by their faith? I admit that there is growth and development in the New Testament teachings on this subject, as on every other with whieh it is concerned. There were reasons why the people should be gradually led up step by step to the apprehension of the doctrines of grace, and he must be blind who fails to discern this advancement in the writings of the Apostles. But notwithstanding this admission, the germs of all that was afterward more fully elaborated appears in the utterances of the Savior. Do the Apostles dwell on the necessity of our becoming " new creatures f Not «nly does John represent Jesus as saying: " Ye must be born again," but Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe Him as preaching "repentance," which is one aspect of the same thing, and as insisting on the tree being made good if we would have the fruit good as well. Do they magnify His gracious dying for the world ? They were anticipated by Him of whom they wrote, for during His ministiy, as reported by Matthew, He claimed " to give His life a ran- som for many," and in the institution of the last supper said: "Tliis is my blood of the new covenant, which i.s shed for many for the remission of sins." And thus faith, too, proceeded from the earliest intimations of its import- ance to grow in clearness, until in the epistles it appears distinctly defined as to its nature and value, and we might just as well deny to the full head of wheat tlie existence oi' the germ from whence it sprang, as to deny to the com- 50 EEPLJ TO IlSIGBmOLL'^ NEW LECTURM, pieted conception of this grace in the apostolic writings its rootao:e in the earliest works of our Lord Himself. The Vital Relation of Faith to the Soul— Its Elevating and Saving Power When Fixed on Jesus Christ. We are now prepared to advance another step in this investigation. How comes it that faith is made to sustain so vital a relation to the eternal welfare of the soul? My first answer is, because it is the source of godliness in heart and life. Paul when writino^ to the Thessalonians associ- ates them together; and Peter, alluding to the conversion of the Gentiles, declares that God purified their hearts by faith. In the epistles to the Ephesians, Galatians, Colos- sians, and Hebrews, stress is laid on the thouofht that our imion with Christ, which is efiected by faith, should be and must be productive of good works. They flow from it nec- essarily, as ^vreathed forms of beauty rise from the sea, as broad gleams of light stream down from the sun, and as flowers and harvests spring from the fertile earth. To understand the matter more fully we must remember that the Bible assumes the need in humanity of a new principle of moral life. Christ says that He came to seek and to save the lost. That we are in some sense lost has been more than suspected, even by those who have sought guidance from the light of nature only; for they have been sadly con- scious of imperfection in their lives. "Were we to succeed in destroying the Bible, we would still fail to erase from human consciousness the conviction that sin reigns unto death. Sin is here, not because the Bible teaches it, but because we transgress the divine law. But how shall we be deliv- ered from this thralldom? How shall we so influence our heart that henceforward our bent, drift, and tendency shall be toward righteousness? To this no answer is given by last Sabbath's lecture. That has no redemption to preacli BY DR. LORIMER. 51 from a dreary past, no encouragement to extend of a nobler future. That simply assures us that if we are in the wrong we must continue in it, and sink in it deeper and deeper. But this is not the message of the gospel. That teaches the possibility of implanting in the heart a new principle, which will regenerate both character and life. The prin- ciple which it thus highly exalts is faith — not faith in a creed, m a form of words, but in a person, and that person Christ. Have you never observed the elevatino- and puri- fying power of this grace in other relations? WJien a young man who has been reckless unites himself with a pure, devoted woman in marriage, if he has confidence in her, how decisively her character will act on his. His aflS- ance with her creates a purer air around him, and imprints upon his heart both the reality and loveliness of a virtuous life. Or, to change the illustration, let it be the confiding love of a child in a mother, or of a son in a father, or of one friend in another, and in proportion as the object of trust is morally exalted will it have power to transform into its own likeness. Pre-eminently must this be true of Christ. Consider His greatness, His moral splendor and spiritual magnificence. He represents Himself not only as the teacher of the world, but as its sacrifice for sin. As such He magnifies in our eyes the dignity of the moral law and of personal purity. He does not leave the impression that if we wrong any one it can be passed unnoticed by the Su- preme Euler. The wrong must not only be atoned for by his priestly oflTering, but we must right it ourselves as far as possible, and whatever remains of compensation God will not withhold from the sufferer. Saved, Not for Faith's Sake, Nor Work's Sake, But for Clirist's Sake. It is a misrepresentation to imply that if we injure a fellow being, we can obtain forgiveness without being 52 REPLY TO INGERSOLrS NEW LECTURE, deeply sensible of our guilt, and without sincere efforts to counteract the evils we have wrought. Christ taught no such doctrine, neither do we. Christ taught the abomin- ableness of iniquity, the blasphemy of wi'ong doing; and on the other side, the essential and eternal beauty of right- eousness. And if we trust Him, that is, if we receive Him as Qur prophet, priest, and king, we say anten, to all that He is and to all that He proclaims; we accept Him as the pat- tern of our life and as its inspiration. How can there be such trust without moi'ality? and how can thei^e be morality springing from such a source without peace of mind, and liope of everlasting salvation? Faith saves, not because there is in it intrinsic worth greater than resides in right- eousness, but because it is itself the source of righteous- ness, bringing us into fellowship with One whose presence must ever tend to chase away the shadow^ of sin. We ai*e saved, not for faith's sake, nor for our works' sake, but for Christ's sake; by whom we are influenced, through the in- strumentality of faith, to presence ourselves blameless in thought and deed unto the end. This is the gospel that I preach to you. That its ti-nth has been confirmed by its influence on society, such impar- tial writers as Lecky, who, as you know, is not favorably disposed to Christianity, concedes; and there are few who would venture the assertion made last Sabbath, " that na tions in proportion as they have been religious, have gone back to barbarism." The examples adduced to maintain this allegation, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, have been afilicted with a system that can hardly claim very close affinity with primitive Christianity. But nothing was said of England, Germany, and America, and all the philanthro- pic triumphs of Christianity in these countries were con- veniently passed unnoticed. The selection of France to prove the beneficial influence of infidelity was far from BY DE. LORIMBB. 53 iortunate; for to-day, with all of its material prosperit-v there is more of unrest, and, perhaps, more of unhappiness than elsewhere. The republic is, at best, a tyranny, and its moral corruption threatens to engulf it. Others have read history as well as Col. Ingersoll, and others see, what K can not, that, wherever the gospel has been preached, and preached most freely, the intellectual and moral life of the people have advanced. There true freedom has taken root, there education has flourished, and there the home has developed in sanctity and beauty. France has no home life; France has but a dim apprehension of any other evangel than violence ; and if France is ever rescued from the power of her bloody traditions, it will only be through that gospe? which is again being proclaimed in her white fields. Infidelity Unmasked. But, however we may read the past, one thing is clear from the lecture whose leading thoughts we have considered, humanity is left hopeless and helpless by infidelity. If we are in sorrow it has no comfort, if we are in sin it has no deliverance, if we are in perplexity it has no message, if we are in darkness it has no light. The virtue it preaches is without foundation, the heroism it inculcates is without inducement, and the immortality it whispers is without evidence. Its loftiest sentiments are borrowed from ,tlie religion it afiects to despise; the liberty which it claims to champion, it has sacrificed but little to secure; and the sweet charities it commends, it has done nothing to estab- lish. The garland eloquence wherewith it clothes itself, is the adornment of a corpse, every flower sheaths a worm in its bosom, and. every breath of fragrance is mingled with death. Its oratory smells of the tomb, and the symbol of its hope is an eyeless, tongueless skull, grinning in mocking insolence at everything that dignifies and ennobles life. It 54 REPLY TO JNeERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, brings no benefaction, it prommnces no benediction, but casts its baneful shadow on all that is fair and sacred. From its cold lips there comes no grand and rounded full "Yea" to match its piercing, blighting and destroying "Nay." It is simply a huge negation, seeking with one hand to stop the mouth of religion, and with the other to write on hu- man aspirations and beliefs a bitter and derisive "No." It has no gospel of salvation even for this world, but only an evangel of destruction. Let us then turn from it, and proclaim Him in whom is life, and who came " that we might have life, and have it more abundantly." Let us, in realizing the insufficiency of all other answers, repeat to those who ask, " What must we do to be saved?" " Believe on. the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," saved from sin, saved from despair, saved from uselessness and misery, and saved forever more in the kingdom of His. glory. i^B^Xa"sr o^ e=i^o:e^- otje^tis. A Little Story— Ingersoll " Innocent of Greek, " and the Consequences. The story is told of a certain scholar who made a great flourish of a so-called rare discovery, but was brought to confusion by a critic, who said, after exposing him, that he was reminded of a caution often uttered by his grand- mother: '' Children should not play with sharp-edge^ tools or they will cut their fingers." Now, when Col. Ingersoll, who appears to be innocent of Greek, dabbles in :N"ew Tes- tament criticism he is constantly cutting his fingers, al- though he does not seem to be aware of it. One may well be ashamed to attempt any reply to such a lecture as the one entitled: ""WTiat Shall We Do to Be jSaved?"— a lecture which is full of disgraceful blunders; and yet, if Mr. Ingersoll should become the apostle of Com- munism, our best statesmen would probably think it wise to combat principles which, uttered with adroitness, would be very popular, although evidently fallacious to every stu- dent of political economy. The editor of the Tribune, therefore, has done well to summon the clergy to answer Col. Ingersoirs statements concerning Matthew. The assertion that the Kew " Testament was not written for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust" is so wild as to need no refutation, and would be laughed to 55 56 REPLY TO INGER80LVS NEW LECTURE, scorn by the most radical critics in Germany. Intelligent skeptics would never think of making such a claim. The statement that " in the original manuscripts * * the epistles are addressed to nobody," might seem a little more plausible to one unacquainted with the facts. But all of Paul's epistles are addressed to some specific church or person. A man who cares for the truth would be likely to hide his head for shame after making such an entirely false affirmation. Ingersoil's Interpolations, " Wont Do." Col. IngersoU's assertions about interpolations in the original text of the JSTcav Testament are unreliable with one exception. It is true that many scholars are inclined to reject Mark, xvi., 9-20, as not from the same author as that which precedes. Still, critics who are not considered ortho- dox, such as Schleiermacher, De Wette, Schwarz, Strauss, and Hilgenfeld, defend its authenticity. Even those who affirm that these verses were not written by Mark, claim for them a very early origin, since they are found in the Syriac version, and are quoted by IrenaBus (d. 202). It is of course very convenient for the opponents of future pun- ishment to assume that all the passages regarding retribu- tion in another world are interpolations, but the doctrine rests upon a large number of passages which are found in all the oldest manuscripts. I need not say that Col. Inger- soll makes an assertion without the slightest foundation in fact when he claims that Christ's answer to the young man who asked, What lack I yet? ''Go sell that thou hast and give to the poor," is an " interpolation effected through the Church's greed of gain." These are a few specimens of the false statements in which the lecture abounds. Is Mr. Engersoll as ignorant as he seems, or is he dishonest and reckless? Awaiting further developments, I prefer to call him BY PROF. CURTIS. 57 ignorrant. He is like the blind leading the blind of whom ChHst speaks. Turning now to Mr. IngersoU's resume of Matthew's teaching, we find that the orator's half truths are tes misleading as falsehoods. He tells his audience that he has read them every word in Matthew on the subject of salvation, and '' there is not one word about believing any- thing. * ^- * If it was necessary to believe anything to go to Heaven, Matthew should have told us." This is a very superficial statement. We have no evidence that Christ clearly preached salvation through Himself until after His resun-ection, and then He seems to have spoken to His disciples. Such preaching would have been entirely premature, as neither they nor the people would have been prepared to understand it, for even the twelve Apostles were looking for a temporal deliverance of the Jewish nation through Him. Tliere can, however, be no difficulty in finding the doc- trine of salvation through faith in Christ in Matthew. He clearly teaches that there are two grand classes of men. in the Sermon on the Mount Christ says: " No man can serve two nasters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Again Christ strikes a heavy blow at indifierentism when he affirms: *^He that is not with Me is against Me; and he that gathereth not with Me scattereth." He repeatedly asserts that there will be a separation be- tween the righteous and the wicked. This he sets forth most impressively in several parables which He Himself explains. In the parable of the tares He says that '• the good seed are the children of the Kingdom, but the tares are the children of the wicked one. * * * As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of this world, The Son of Man shall send forth His angels. 58 REPLY TO INGERSOLrS NEW LECTURE, and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them into a furnace of fire." We have the same separation be- tween two classes of men in the parables of the net, the foolish virgins, etc., and in that solemn description of the time when all nations shall be gathered before the Son of Man, '^ and He shall separate them one from another as the shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." But Col. Ingersoll affirms that this very passage along with many others shows, according to Matthew, that men will be saved by good works without faith. It is evident, however, when we examine Christ's ideal of a righteousness which saves, that is utterly unattainable. He entirely rules out the righteousness of the largest and most respectable body of the Jewish nation, and says: "Except your right- eousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ve shall in no case enter into the Kino-dom of Heaven." JS^ow, whether this refers to a deg^ree or kind of righteousness, such a test excludes a large proportion of the hunmn race from Heaven who would fall far below these Jewish moralists. Love and Obedience. It is clear from Christ's Sermon on the Mount that no merely untoward obedience to the law is sufficient. He says: "Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery already with her in his heart.'' He condemns the Pharisees because they *' outwardly ap- pear to be righteous," while they are "full of iniquity.'' His conception of obedience to the law is not of an outward conformity to the fen commandments, for when a certain lawyer asked which is the greatest commandment in the law he replied: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This k the first and great commandment; and the second is BY PROF. CURTIS. 59 like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the proph- ets." But what man has ever kept these commandments? And if not, how then can we be saved? Indeed this is a question that the disciples put to Christ, according to Matthew, in view of the impossibility of ful- filling His requirements: ''Who then can be saved?'' Christ answers: "With men this is impossible; but with God all things are possible," i. 6., according to Meyer, Christ refers the disciples from human helplessness in ob- taining salvation to the Almighty power of converting and saving grace. That human righteousness is not sufficient, for salvation is clearly set forth in the parable of the man who had not on a wedding garment. Matthew plainly teaches the necessity of conversion. He represents Christ as saying in so many words: " Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven,'' and as exhorting His hearers: "Enter ye at the straight gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat." It naturally follows that Matthew should teach that Jesus is the Savior of sinners. Hence we read in the communi- cation which the angel made to Joseph, that he was to " call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their Bins." This is remarkable in view of the fact that the J ews were looking for a temporal deliverer in the Messiah, and that the Gospel according to Matthew seems to have been more especially designed for the Jews. Moreover, we find Christ forgiving sins. It is related that one sick of the palsy was brought to Christ, and that He, seeing their faith, said to the sick of the palsy: "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven thee." The scribes of course thought Him guilty of blasphemy, Jesus then, reading their thoughts, 60 REPLY TO I^sGER^OLV^ NEW LECTURE, that the J might know that the Son of Man had power on earth to forgive sins, commanded the sick of the palsy: "Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house." In the institution of the Last Supj^er the ground of for- giveness is clearly stated as being in the blood of Christ. He Himself said as He took the cup, gave it to His dis- ciples, and commanded them to drink of it: " This is My blood o± the ]^ew Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Cremer remarks that this is "the forgivness of sins on the part of God, with reference to the future judgment." The ^ew Testament, or IS'ew Cove- nant, is here mentioned. AVe know what the Old Cove- nant was. It is described in the sixth chapter of Exodus. Peace-offerings were offered. Moses took the book of the Covenant and read it liefore the people. They promised to keep it. Moses sprinkled the blood of the peace-offerings upon them. The author of the Hebrews alludes to those two Covenants when he says: "For if the blood of bulls and sroats, and the ashes of an heifer sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ, who, through the eternal spirit, offered Himself without spot, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." Faith in Christ the Great Basis of Salvation. It is an interesting fact that Matthew, in his account of most of the cures wrought by Christ, represents Him as making faith the condition of His mighty works and of His healing power. We read that in His own country He did not many mighty works because of their unbelief. To the Canaanitish woman He says: " O woman, great is thy faith; be it unto*thee even as thou wilt." To the woman with the issue of blood He said, "Daughter, be of good comfort; thj faith hath made thee whole." [Literally, BY PROF. CURTIS. 61 hath saved thee.] To the blind men He said, " ' Believe ve that I am able to do this?' They said unto Him, ' Yea, Lord.' Then touched He their eyes, saying, ' According to your faith be it unto you.'" Are we to suppose that Christ would make faith a condition of the salvation of the body and not make it a condition of the salvation of the soul? especially when we find Him regarding the forgiveness o^ sins as of the first importance with the sick of the palsy' and granting him healing because of the faith of those who brought him to Jesus? Any other conclusion is unreason- able. Indeed, we find Christ pronouncing a fearful doom on Charazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaam because they repented not on seeing His mighty works; that is, they did not believe in Him, and so did not repent. But we have a more explicit declaration by Matthew when he says of Jesus: "In His name shall the Gentiles trust" [liter- arly hope]. But they could not do this without faith. If Matthew has in mind the name which he uses hun- dreds of times, and far more than any other^ then the name in which the Gentiles are to hope is Jesus, b}' which He was called because he should save His people from their sins- But the most explicit passage is where Matthew quotes Christ as saying: ""Whoev^er, therefore, shall confess Me before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is in Heaven. But whosoever sliall deny Me before men, him will 1 also deny before My Father in Heaven." Crenier in hi.s Biblico-Theological Lexicon says : " The confessing: of Christ is the outward expression of personal faith in Him. This is contrasted with [the word traiishited deny] arneis- thai, — to withhold, refuse, or withdraw such a coniession. In closing this article I do not deny that Matthew lays special emphasis upon good works. They are not inconsis- tent with salvation I)y faith. Ko faith ca7i b<3 genuine which does not manifest itself bv them. But Matthew nowhere 62 REPLY TO INQERSOLVS NEW LECTURE. claims that men are saved by works alone. The works mentioned in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew are simply the fruits of a saving faith. To be sure, we do not find any approach to a discussion of the doctrine. That is reserved for the Epistle to the Romans, but even in Mat- thew there are abundant indications that " by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified," and that "Christ is at the end of law for righteousness to every one that be- iieveth." I^E3I=»lL"Sr OI^ JDTl, COTJE^m^E-2-. Prefatory Statement. Two weeks ago the boardings of this city were placarded with bills announcing that one who was well known would fr'iYe what he considered to be the true answer to this ques- tion. What he considered the true answer was delivered in one of the large theatres last Sunday afternoon, and ]3ub- lished in the leading newspapers of this city, and sown broadcast over the Northwest. I was told by a great many people that it was desirable to let the whole thing alone, but on talking with several I found that there were not unlikely many people who were taken up with the lecture as it was delivered, and inclined to adopt the sentiments that were expressed. I then thought that the best thing that could be done would be to rent that same theatre and take up the challenge that had been apparently thrown down, and answer the question in an entirely diiFerent way, and show, step by step, where the lecturer was wrong in the estimation of his answerer. I found objections in the way of doing that myself, or of getting others to do it, though I tried; and then I determined that I should speak upon the subject, not by way of answer to that lecture, in my own pulpit this morning. But in the meantime some kind friend, I suppose, put some communication into the public press to the effect that 64 REPLY TO INGERSOLU^ NE}f LECTURE, I was going to answer Col. Ingersoll this morning, which was not my intention. No doubt that announcement has brought a good many people here to-day, and, therefore, I have thought it advisable to preface what I have to say upon this subject, with a reply to some of the statements that were made last Sunday afternoon, and I think that the points that I shall indicate will sufficiently exhaust what was said then, because I think that what I shall say wdll go to the root of the subject. And yet I do not believe it shall be an answer, seriatim, to the statements that were made last Sunday afternoon, because I do not think that that is a necessary thing in this congregation. 1 believe there are many people in the congregation to which I have the privi- lege to minister, who would not, from the reputation of the lecturer of last Sunday afternoon, so much as look at a single word that he said; and I do not wish to put into the minds of such people the things that he said on that occasion. And I think that, yet, on the other hand, there are people^ very possibly in this congregation, who may suppose that those arguments are satisfactory, and I want to show that they were not arguments at all, and therefore, that they were the reverse of satisfactory. I thought it necessary .to preface what I have to say this morning with these few remarks, in order that you may understand distinctly the position that I take to-day. This is not a position I have chosen. It is a position which tlie force of circumstances has, in a measure, forced upon me, for I felt that I should be untrue to myself, untrue .to you, and untrue to the cause of God which I believe has been by that lecture assailed, if I did not take up the matter now, or passed it over in silence. Ingersoll's AUedged Interpolations. Kow, one of the things he said last Sunday afternoon was this: "The epistles are addressed to nobody, and they JiT DIt COURTyEV. (>r> are signed by the saiiie perboii, and all the addresses, and all the pretended ear-marks showing t» whom they are written, and by wdioni they were written, are simply inter- polations, and whoever has studied the subject knows it." Now, this is what I say in reply. All the Pauline epis- tles are addressed to particular chiirches and individuals, the only doubtful one being that addressed to the Ephesians, and many critics conclude that the disputed words are gen- uine. The epistle to the Hebrews has always been recognized as anonymous. The epistle of St. James, the first and sec- ond epistles of St. Peter, and the epistle of St. Jude, claim in the opening to be written by those whose names they bear. So much for the epistles not being addressed to any- body. It is a question of fact. It is a question of interpre- %tion. And now^ about the conclusions of the epistles. The 16th chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians and 21st verse reads : '' The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand.'' The 6th chapter of the epistle to the Galatians and the 11th verse, reads: ''Yet see Low large a letter" — or, liter- ally, as every critic knows, " In what sprawling characters I have written unto you, wdth mine own hand." The 4th chapter of the epistle to the Colossians and the 18th verse, reads thus: "The salutation is by the hand of me, Paul." The 3d chapter of the second epistle to the Thessalonians and the 6Tth verse, reads thus: " The salutation ot Paul, with mine own hand." So much for the assertion that the epistles are signed by nobody. It is a question of fact, not a question of inter}->re- tation. When you come to look at the structure ot the epistles you find this: Tliat it was not the custom of that day — and 5 m REPLY TO lyGERSOLVS yEW LECTURE, you may tind that, not in these epistles only, but in other epistles that are extant at the present day, that were writ- ten at that time — yon will tind it was not the custom of that day to begin and end a letter as we do. They put their name in the fore part, and usually conclude with a greeting and a benediction. And that, you find, is the case ordina- rily with these epistles. clear, Pointed, and Pungent Answers to a Nomber of Ingersoll-s Assertions. Here is another thing the lecturer says: '* It has always seemed to me that a being coming from another world, with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature." Well that is not criticism. That is personal conjecture. No one of those called orthodox claims that Christ wrote or signed any statement of doctrine; and what seemed to be the object or the right course to pursue is nothing to the point. The question is a question of fact — keep to it — not of conjecture. Here is another thing that the lectui*er says: "This Tes- tament was not written for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust.-' My answer is this: This is an un- supported assertion by the lecturer; its value can be esti- mated when it is remembered — and mind what I say — and mind, what I say is only to be taken as a matter of fact that is verifiable, and if it is not verifiable that it is then to be asserted as a falsehood — its value can be estimated wlien it is remembered that the acutest and most careful investi- gation of those who have given a life-time to the study of this subject, and are, therefore, most qualified to speak and decide, that the manuscripts in existence at the present day are tl'.e transcripts of the original gospels, written by them whose names they bear — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John ; and that the most masterly attack upon the genuineness of BY DR. COURTNEY 6t John's gospel, even in the present day, has been success- fullv repelled. It is a question of fact, not a question of interpretation. Here is another statement of the lecturer: "It is among the easiest things in the world to pick out at least one hun- dred interpolations in the Kew Testament, and I will pick out some of them before I get through/' My answer is this: That there have been and are some interpolations, no one has ever hesitated to acknowledge; though that almost all of them ai-e of the smallest possible importance, anyone at all acquainted with the subject must at once confess. The principle upon which the lecturer picks out interpolations is, first, to make up his mind as to what he will receive, and what he is content to acknowl- edge that is true, and then to decide that everything that he does not like, and doesn't think consistent with his pre- viously conceived standard, is an interpolation. You will find that distinctly stated in the lecture. As far as I can remember the words, and I am sure I remember the sense, goes this w^ay: That where he quotes certain of the beati- tudes from the Sermon on the Mount he says: "Good; I accept that because I like it." But that is not criticism. You would not criticise any doctrine in that w^ay. The lecturer himself would not him- self sift evidence in a court in that way, and I admit he is capable of doing it. If he were a judge upon the bench, and anyone should dare to try to sift evidence in that way, he would direct the jury to consider that the counsel was trying to abuse his prerogative. I appeal to the lawyers in this assemblage; I appeal to the common sense of human- ity, in biblical or any other kind of criticism. The lecturer brings forward an account of the rich young man who had kept all the commandments, and he repeated »;s REPLY TO nyGERSOLL'S ]VEW LECTURE. Christ's words to him. He said: - Reciting the comiiiarid- meiits of the second table — '' Honor thy father and thy mother. '^ Thou shalt not commit adultery. "Thou shalt not kill. '• Thou shalt not covet. '•Thou shalt not bear false witness." And then the young man said — and said the lecturer last Sunday afternoon: '• 1 don't believe him; 'all these I have kept from my youth up,' ' Wliat lack I jetV " That is an interpolation. But the thing that he objected to is this, that Christ should have been reported to say in reply to the question ''What lack I yetf "If thou w^ouldst be perfect, go and sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and go and take np the cross and follow Me.'' And he eays it is absurd to suppose anything of the kind; and yet is it not a fact that the principle that is conveyed in that advice of our blessed Lord is identically the same that it is absolutely necessary for anybody to fol- low in any pursuit whatever, if he would attain his object, that pursuit being inconsistent with the love of riches? Isn't that so? And if the young man went away sorrowful, as the gospel says, because he had great posses- sions, does it not show exactly that our Lord looked right to the root of the question, and applied to him just the test which should show him how utterlv wrons^ he w^as in the conclusion to wdiich he had come with. regard to the observance of the commandments of the second table, and which wrongness of conclusion even the lecturer last Sun- day afternoon is willing to admit, and asserts on behalf of that young man. And then there is another thing closely connected with that, because it follows close after it in the gospels, and BY DR. COURTNEY. 00 which the lecturer points out as showing the untrnst- vvorthiness of the gospels. It is the advice the blessed Lord gives to " forsake father, and mother, and house, and lands and all the rest for the sake of Me and of My gospel." Now, then, there are crises, as every student of history knows, that occur in the world's history, and there are crises which occur, as every student of history knows, in a nation's history. It is not so long ago that there was the crisis in this nation's history. Twenty years ago from this very time the nation was just on the very brink of its crisis, and twenty years ago next year it was in the vortex of that crisis. Now, then, what would the lecturer, what would anyone have said, in that day, if a man had loved father, or mother, or brother, or friend, or house, or lands, or money, more than his country's honor, and more than his country's wel- fare? I was told, only yesterday, that he himself eulogized, at the conclusion of the war, those who had forsaken father and mother, and house and lands, and home, and gone to maintain their country against those whom they regarded as rebels ; and that time, when the Lord was here, was the crisis in the world's history, and it was necessary that those who were heralds of the cross should put the cause of God first, above everything, every consideration of father, or mother, or house, or lands, or neighbor, or friend, or any- thing whatsoever, besides what would carry that cause to the consummation to which it is destined, in the time which is to come. It has not reached it yet. We want something of the enthusiasm, we want something of the utter regardlessness of everything else which animated the first preachers of the cross. After quoting from the Sermon on the Mount and the 12th chapter of St. Matthew, also the 18th chapter, 3d and ith verses, and about the rich young man to which I have 70 REPLY TO INGER80LrS NEW LECTURE, just referred, lie says: "This is all there is in Matthew on the subject of salvation; not one word about belief, etc. It is the gospel of deeds, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self-denial." Of course it is; that is exactly what Christianity is; but what is the basis of the deed, the char- ity, and the self-denial? 1 assert that it is faith, belief in Jesus of Nazareth, the historical personage; that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God, the revealer of the Fatlier, the rightful king of mankind, and the Savior of man. And if any of you are disturbed on the subject of what is called biblical criticism, and are floundering about in a sea of doubt, let me here remind you of what is not an original remark by me, but was enunciated by Prebendary Eoe, in 1837, that "the essence of the Christian religion is the historic life of Jesus of Nazareth." Don't forget it. Keep it in your minds as a sentence until you have thought it over and digested it. " The essence of the Christian relig- ion is the historic life of Jesus of Nazareth;" and the sig- nificance of those facts — the facts of His historic life — is such as to lead men to believe that He is their head and He is their Savior. That is the essence of the Christian religion. And now let me detain you while I reaa to you some- thing from the eloquent Father Lacordaire in his " Confer- ence sur Jesus Christ." How Shall We Account for the Eingdom of Christ'' " The principal question, because it contains all, the past, the present, and the future, is this: The world having lived in idolatry in the times before Augustus, how has it become Christian since his time? These are tlfe two sides that divide all history — the side of antiquity, and the side of later ages; the one idolator, plunged into the most licen- tious materialism: the other Christian, purified at the sources of a complete spirituality. In the ancient workl BY DR. COURTNEY. 71 the flesh publicly prevailed over the spirit; in the present, the spirit publicly prevails over the flesh. What has caused this? Who has produced a change so great and so general in extent between the two periods of mankind? Who has so greatly modified the human form and the course of history? Your fathers adored idols; you, their posterity, descended from them by a corrupted blood ; you adore Jesus Christ. Your fathers were materialists even in their worship; you are spiritualists even in your pas- sions. Your fathers deny all that you believe ; you deny all that they believe. Again I ask, what is the reason of this? There are no events without causes in history, any more than there is movement without motive power in mathematics. What is this historical cause which con- verted the idolatrous world into the Christian w^orld, which gave Charlemagne as a successor to Nero? You are com- pelled to know or at least to seek it. "We Catholics say that this prodigious change corres- ponds to the appearance upon earth of a man who called himself the Son of God, sent to take away the sins of the world — who preached humility, purity, penance, gentle- ness, peace; who lived piously among the poor and lowly; who died on a cross, with arms extended over us to bless us; who left His teachings and His example in the gospel; and who, having touched the souls of many, 6u])diied their pride, and corrected their senses, has left in them a tran- quil joy so marvelous that its perfume has spread to the end of the world, and has won even sensuali y. " We say this. Yes, a man, a single man, has founded the empire of Christians upon the ruins of this idolatrous empire; and we do not marvel thereat, because we have re- marked in history that all good as well as evil invariably springs from a single principle, from a man the depository of the hidden force of the demon, or the invisible force of God. 72 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, Christ the Summit of History. "We say this, and we base our declaration upon nninter- rupted monuments which begin with Moses and reach to us; We appeal also to a publicity of thirty-two consecutive centuries; we join together the Jewish people, Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, or, rather, we do not join these, they appear before us closely linked together in a course of things sustained the one by the other; we appeal, in fine, to the whole web of history, and in tlie name of that immense monument which is absolutely necessary to admit and to explain, we say to you, Jesus Christ is the supreme expres- sion of history; He is its key and its revelation." * ^^ ^ {•And if a gleam of good faith remains in the depths of your soul, will you not be compelled to say with us: Yes, it is Christ on Calvary, in that blood which was shed that the renovation of the human soul began? Therefore, gen- tlemen, before our epoch none dared to deny the historical reality of Jesus Christ, not one. Before you, long before you, Jesus Christ had enemies; for before you pride existed, and pride is the chief enemy of Jesus Christ. Before you Jesus Christ had enemies, for before you sensuality existed, and sensuality is the second enemy of Jesus Christ. Before you Jesus Christ had enemies, but before you egotism existed, and egotism is the third enemy of Jesus Christ. And yet when He appeared for the first time, when He came with His cross to sap your pride, to insult your senses, to drag down your egotism to the very dust, what was said of Him? Pride, sensuality, egotism have now, as then, able men in their service — Celsus, Pophyry, all the Alexandrian school, and the lovers of this life, and the throng of courtiers, ever ready to find in truth a secret enemy in ]3ower — wliat said they of Christ? They pursued Him by putting His followers to death; by deriding His life; by disputing His dogmas; by oppreii- BY DR. COURTNEY. 73 sion <5alled to tke help of a cause which betrayed liberty; but their books, subsisting in a thousand remains by the aid of printing — which I just now called the salvation of history — their books confirm Him; not one of them has denied the reality of the life of Jesus Christ. You alone, coming eighteen centuries after, and thinking that time, which confirms history in its destroyer — yon have dared to battle against the very light oi the sun, hoping that every negation is at least a shadow, and that human folly, seeking a refuge against the severity of Jesus Christ, would accept of any arms as a defense, or of any shield as a protection. You have deceived yourselves. History subsists in spite of negation, as the heart of man subsists in spite of the debauching of the senses; and Jesus Christ remains under the shelter of unexampled publicity, and of a necessity to which there is no counterpoise, upon the summit of history. "Nevertheless, as a last hope you say to me: If it were a question of human events only, such as those of which the ordinary annals of nations are composed, it is manifest that the life of Jesus Christ contained in the gospels would be beyond all discussion. But in that life it is a question of events which bear no comparison with those we habitually witness. It is a question of God, who made Himself man, who died and rose again. How is it possible for us to ad- mit such strange things upon a mass of human evidence ? For, in fine, public writings, public events, the public and general web of history, all this assemblage of proofs is purely human ; and it is upon this mortal foundation that you base a history where all is superhuman. The base must evidently sink under such a weight. '* Gentlemen, I do not undervahie the force of that objec- tion. Yes; I understand that when it is a question of the history of God it needs another pen than that which traces 74 REPLY TO INGERSOLUS NEW LECTURE, the history of the greatest man in the world. This is true. But I also believe that God has solved this objection by creating for His only Son, Jesus Christ, a history which is not human; that is to say, which, in its proportions, is so much above the nothingness of man that the ordinary power of history would evidently not have sufficed for i Where will you find such connection as that of the Jewish people, Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church? Where is there anything to be compared to it? And, moreover, without returning to what has already been said, where, among all the histories known to you, do you find any which for three centuries had witnesses who gave it the testimony of their blood? Where are the witnesses who have given their lives in favor of the authenticity of the greatest men or the greatest events? Who died to certify the history ot Alexander? Who died to certify the history of Caesar? Who? Not one. No one in the world has ever shed his blood to add another degree of evidence to the historical certainty of anything whatever. Men leave his- tory to take its course. But to form it with their blood, to cement historical testimony with human blood for three centuries, is what has never been witnessed, save on the part of Christians for Jesus Christ. We were interrogated during three centuries, and asked to declare who we were; we answered: Christians. Then they said to us: Blaspheme the name of Christ, and we replied: We are Christians, They put us to death for this in frightful tortures; and in the hands of our executioners our last sigh exhaled, as a balm for the dying and a testimony for the living to all eternity, the name of Jesus Christ. We did not die for opinions, but for realities — the very name of martyr proves it; and Pascal has well said: '*• I believe in witnesses who give the testimony of their blood.'* And, although there may be presumption in attempting to speak better than BY DM. COURTNEY. 76 Pascal, I shall, however, saj something better: I believe in the human race dying for its faith." There, what do you think of it? Is it not as satisfactory as it is eloquent? Is it not as true as it is persuasive? Let that testimony stand and feel that you are standing upon the rock that, as he says, lias been watered by the blood ot Christian people, and then remembering that the essence of the Christian religion is the historic life of Jesus Christ, and that that historic life produced, by the signifi- cance of its facts, faith in the minds of the people who had to do with Jesus Christ, whether then, and so on down to the present day, it is better than the book of St. Matthew to say what the lecturer says— that this is all there is in Matthew on the subject of salvation — not one word about believing anything. The Facts of Faith— A Few Words about "Believing" Early in St. Matthew's gospel you have the visit of the magi. They came saying, '' Where is He that was born King of the Jews?" What was the reason of their coming 'i They believed Him to be the King. They would not have come else. Is it not true? It is only a question of fact. It is not a question of opinion. Peter, James, John, and Andrew are successively called by Him with the words, '*• Follow me." Wh^ do they do it? Why do they leave their nets ? Why <;]o they leave their boats? Why do they leave their father }«id hired servants and follow Him ? Why? A fact. Was it because they did not believe He was the master? Why? No. That would have left them where they were before. It was because they did believe that He was the master that they followed Him. The Sermon on the Mount, to which the lecture refers, and from which he quotes, '* Pa- whom is it receive'! V By those who believe that the speaker of that sermon was the 76 REPLY TO INGERSOLUS NEW LECTURE, true teacher. If He were the true teacher, are we to treat Him as no scholars treated a teacher before ; that is, to pick and choose, and sjay, '' I take this because I like it, and I refuse to take that because I do not like it and do not understand it?" That is not the way people treat teachers. It is not the way in which you encourage your children to treat a teacher in the schools. It is not the way in which you treat any teacher when you read his book or when you listen to his lectures. At the end of that sermon, in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter, he says: ''Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine" — a distinct evidence of the truth of that thing — "and doeth them, I will tell you to whom he is like." Doeth what? What he likes? No. Doeth those say- ings of mine; doeth them all. And it is the true principle that is enunciated in another part of the Scripture, where it is said: "Faith cometh by hearing." Here comes a leper. " Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make me clean." What lies back of that declaration except faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and His power to cure even leprosy which was such a dire disease that when JS"aaman, afflicted with that disease, came to the King of Israel with a mes- sage from the King of Syria, the King of Israel said : '* Am I a God to kill and make alive, that this man dost send unto me to cure a man of his leprosy? " And yet here was this leper. What was the principle that he had in his heart except faith in this name, this historic man, Jesus of Nazareth, that He could heal? Here is a centurion, and he says: "Lord, my servant iieth at home sick of the palsy grievously tormented." In che tenth verse of the eleventh cluipterof Matthew what does the Lord say? The Lord says: "I tell you I have BY DR. COURTNEY. 77 not found so great faith, no not in Israel." And yet there is not a word about believing in anything or anybody! More Faith. Is faith not belief; and in whom did the centurion believe if he did not believe in Jesus Christ? He comes to reprove His disciples, those who had been trusting Him, and what does he say to them: ''Oh,- ye of little faith! " If they had great faith then they had great commendation. Then came * a number of friends and they bring a man sick of the palsy and the first word the Lord says to him is : " Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." And they begin to quarrel and say: *•' Who is this that forgiveth sins?" and thereupon He says: ''Which is the easier to say, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee,' or to say, ' Rise, take up thy bed and walk;' but that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth." He sayeth to the man sick of the palsy, " Arise and take up thy bed and go to thine house," etc. And they say, " We never saw it done in that fashion." What then? Didn't that lead to their having faith in the assertions that He had made that He had power on earth to forgive sins, and the forgiveness of sins is the first step to- ward salvation? And yet there is not a word about faith or believing in anybody, or believing in anything in Mat- thew except what the lecturer gave last Sunday. He called Matthew from being a receiver of customs to be an an evan- gelist by the words: "Follow me," and when He went and sat down among His friends they quarreled, and they said to Him: "Why sitteth thy master with publicans and sin- ners?" and He said: "I have come, not to call the right- eous but to call sinners to repentance." Can they repent if they do not believe in Him who brings the message? Thai is the ground of Matthew's repentance and he followed the Lord Jesus Christ. 78 REPLY TO INQERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, Here is a ruler who comes and says: *' My little daughter is even now dead. Come and lay Thy hand upon her and she shall live." What is the meaning of it? Had he not faith? And if he had an implicit faith, in whom, I pray you, had he faith and what was the character of that faith ? Why did he trust Him? Why, because he had faith in His power to call back even from the dead. He gives a com- mission to His apostles to go and preach. He sends them out, these twelve, two and two. What is the ground of that commission except that they had faith in Him who gave it — believed — and that he had authority to give that com- mission. Read it over and see if there is not faith running right through it from beginning to end. And here comes John the Baptist with a message. He says: "Art thou He that is to come or look we for another?" And the Lord answered him back: "Yes;" and He says: " Go, and tell each one of the things that ye have seen, and say, ' Blessed is he who hath not stumbled in me.' " Well, if a man is not stumbled in the Lord Jesus Christ as that poor lecturer was last Sunday afternoon — if a man is not stumbled in the Lord Jesus Christ what is the neces- sary consequence? Why, that he believes in Him, is it not? It is only a question of fact; not a question of interpretation. Here again he upbraids the city in which most of His mighty works are done. Why? Because they repented not. But what was the ground of their not repenting? W hy, because they did not believe it. Isn't that so? He gives that invitation of the eleventh chapter, " Come unto me all ye that are weary and hea\'y-laden and I will give ,you rest." Who is going to accept it? Those that believe in Him who gave it, and nobody else. Isn't it so? I ask it, does He not claim belief in Himself as the possessor and enunciator of princij)les of abstract truth, applying them to individual cases? For instance, in His treatment BY DB, COURTNET. '-^ of the Sabbath day. For instance, again, in the question of whether He cast out devils by Beelzebub or by the finger of God. Doesn't He put the matter right clearly before them, so that they must believe it or refuse to believe it in spite of themselves, when He says: "The good tree brings forth good fruit and the evil tree brings forth evil. Iruit? " And you can't have one kind of fruit on the other kind of tree. That is an impossibility. What is the meaning of all the parables in the 13th chapter of St. Matthew if they are not a declaration of the principles of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the reception of which principles as being true it is absolutely essential you shall have faith and believe in Him who thus enun- ciates that faith. Is it not so « Only a question of fact, not a question of intei-pretation. "He did not many mighty works there." Why? Because of their unbeliet. 1 am only in St. Matthew, and yet there is not a word about belief ! There is not a word about faith or belief in anything or anybody, except the things that the lecturer quoted, and he never referred to one of these things. The young woman of Cana comes to Him, and what does He say? " O, woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee even as thou wilt." It is a fact. Here is about the center of the gospel, and here comes son^ething of a crisis. We would be content to stake it all upon this one thing : "The Lord said to His disciples. His Apostles, when they came into the town of Cassarea, 'Who do men say that I, the Son 01 Man, am? 'and they answering said, "Some say that Thou art Elias, some Jeremias, and some, one of the prophets,^^ and He said unto them : "But who say ye that I am?" and Peter, answering said, " Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God." Now just take it, and look at it, and think of it,\nd meditate upon it, and come to a conclusion, and tell me honestly, does that imply or does it nut, whole- !su REPLY TO INGER80LV8 NEW LECTURE, souled, unreserved, and aLsolute allegjiance of Peter, in liis whole being, body, soul, and spirit, as a human creature, to the Lord Jesus Christ, to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah and Son of the living God. Answer it is a fact. And yet there is not a word about believing anything or anybody in Matthew. He goes up to what is called the Mount of Transiiguration, and there comes a voice, and the voice says : "This is My beloved Son in whom I am wxll pleased. Hear ye Him." And not believe? And not trust what He says? That voice is to come and to command the ascent of those who hear to propositions which they are perfectly familiar with; to declarations that they learned when they were in a rabbi's school. God Almighty is to speak from heaven, and to give his authorit}^ to the words that His dearly beloved Son, manifest in the flesh, shall utter when those words are nothing but what anybody else has uttered. Is that reasonable? I trow not. The lecturer is very fond of little children. Thank God for that ! And he refers to Christ's action toward little children, and the words that He speaks, repeating them. One of the things he says is this, '' Whosoever shall oiFend one of these little ones which believe in Me" — it is in Matthew; it is not in Mark, or Luke, or John. It is Matthew, which has nothing about belief in it. It is a fact The Lord says, in speaking to them, and in encouraging them to pray : " Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst ot them." How are you going to apprehend that except by faith? He says again: "The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom lor many ; but," says the lecturer, " I don't believe in for- giveness except on the principle that, if you forgive other people, God will forgive you." " If ye have faith, ye should be able to do" so and so, says the Lord. His great con- denmation of those who refused Him was: "The publicans YB DR. COURTNEY. 81 and tiie harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you, for thev repented; but ye, when ye had seen Him, afterward did not repent, that ye did not believe Him." And yet there is not a word about faith in Matthew. You come down to the evidence of the institution of the supper, and the Lord says: "This is My blood of the New Testa- ment, which was shed for mauy for the redemption of sins." And I am to wait until the last quarter of the nineteenth century, in one of the greatest but the youngest cities of the world, to be told that I am to accept the unsupported statement of an individual against the assertion in the most solemn moment of the life of Him whom I believe to be God manifest in the flesh. You come to the last verses of the last chapter of St. Matthew, and what do they say? "All power is given imto Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things thatsoever I have commanded you, and, so, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." I believe it. The Athanasian Greed. The lecturer, in his address, refers to the hymn, "j-ui.-- cumque Yult," commonly called '^The Creed of St. Athan- asius." It is fortunate for him that he did not quote the Apostles' or Nicene Creeds, as they are almost wholly a recitation of facts. You remember that: "I believe m God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Yirgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucilied, dead, and buried, descended into hell, and on the third day rose again, and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father, and from thence shall come again to judge 82 REPLY TO rNGERSOLL'^S NEW LECTURE, both the quick and the dead." It is all facts. It is simply a recitation of facts; and facts are stubborn things. The difference between the so-called Athanasian creed and those two others is that, while they are simply a compilation of facts, it is a compilation of deductions from those facts, expressing the Christian doctrine in the language of scien- tific definition. Xow you remember that, and then think of the way in which the lecturer treats it. To understand any science — this is not what he says, but what I am saying, — to under- stand any science it is necessary to have studied it. The definition respecting jt will appear important to those who are learned, unimportant to those who are shallow, and gibberish to the ignorant, and yet this is the way in which the lecturer treats this creed. I will only give you one sample. I dare not give you more. I should consider it blasphemy to go through it from beginning to end. He quotes tiie early part of it, " We worship one God in trin- ity, and trinity in unity, dividing the substance," and then he says: '' Of course you understand how that's done, and you see what a predicament that would leave the Deity in if you divided the substance." Now take physical science, and of it the one department of gravitation, and suppose that I, before a popular audi- ence like that gathered last Sunday afteraoon, which had received no technical instruction, in order to show that the law of gravitation is an absurdity, should quote the propo- sition, '" Any two masses in the universe attract each other with a force which varies according to thee squarnvere si of the distance," and say: "Ot course you understand how that's done." You see how awkward it would be for the law of gravitation if you were to treat it by no other method than that. Would I be dealing fairly w^ith it^ Should I not betray one of two things — either my own BY DR. COURTNEY. animus or my ignorance? It is only a question, not a question of interpretation. Keep it down to that and remember in all that I say I say exactly what the lecturer said last Sunday afternoon. He said that he haxi no quarrel with Methodists or Presbyterians or Baptists. I suppose he would also have said Episcopalians; but he quarreled with Methodism and the principle of the Baptists, and Presbyterianism, and Episcopalianism, and all those things. I have no quarrel with the lecturer himself whatever, but I do quarrel with his principles, and I believe in my soul that they are talse from beginning to end, and, if he will pardon me for saying so, sliallow. I think they are tricky. I think the way in which the subject of the Athanasian Creed last Sunday afternoon was treated is worthy of the severest and calmest reprobation. And I will give you the reason why 1 thiak so: And this is the man to whom we are all to listen, whom we are to believe, rather than the wise and good of all the ages, and rather than He of whom the Church has ever, all along, been bearing us testimony. Jolin Staart MiU at Variance With IngersoU on the Human WiU. There is one thing that he said last Sunday afternoon that has often been said before, but it is very specious, and I want to point out where it is wrong. This is what he said: "You cannot believe as you wish. You must believe as you must. You hear evidence, for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side^'rises and which falls." I say this were all well enough if the soul stood in perfect integrity, but many things come in to prevent the soul being impartial. If I were to quote a sentiment against Col. IngersoU which was expressed by one who was considered orthodox, I suppose he would put it on one side on account of the orthodoxy of the person who said it; and the more orthodox the individual the more resolutely he would refuse to accept it. But I pre- »4 REPLY TO INQERSOLV^ NEW LECTURE, sume he will not quarrel with the authority that I shall bring forward. Certainly no clearer-headed and no colder man has existed in this century than John Stuart Mill. In his autobiography, page 169, this is what he says— he is speaking of the time when the Benthamite doctrine of necessity broke down. He says: "I say that, though our character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances, and that what is really inspiring and ennobling i.a the doctrine of free will is the conviction that we have real power over the forma- tion of our own character; that our will, by influencing some of our circumstances, can modify some of our futm-e habits or capabilities of willing." Now see what he says — ana remember that he was about the most exact user of language that this century has pro- duced. He says that " Our own desires can do much to shape those circumstances, and, therefore, if our desires liappen to yield to the bias toward evil, which we must con- fess, whatever kind of the ology we have adopted, as exist- ing in our nature, then that warps all our future judgment, and leads us to choose the evil instead of the good. And when when we stand at the scales and see one side rise and another side fall, we get an obliquity of vision w^hich causes us to assert sometimes that evil is good and good is evil; put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." That is the answer I give to the assertion that "you cannot believe as you wish, and you must believe as you must." The Gospel of Good Cookingr-Does " Bob " Understand It! In conclusion of the lecture the lecturer said he would preach the " gospel of good fellowship — friends all around, the observance of the laws of health," into which he inter- jected the remark that " it is a thousand times better to know how to cook food than it is to understand any theology in the world. I believe the lecturer makes his living bv an BY PR. COURTNEY. 86 intellectual profession. Does he think that it is a thousand times more important that he should know how to cook food than it is to understand any system of law in the world ? And if he does not think that, then you must take this remark about theology for what it is worth, according to his standpoint. He wo aid have no forgiveness for any one, out absolute justice. He would have a gospel of intelligence. He would say: "Be honest, be forgiving, be merciful and stand upon those as rocks." Now I ask you where do you get an example and ground of good fellowship that is equal to that which we have in Jesus Christ? I ask you with regard to the gospel of intelligence where you have such teaching of principles of intelligence as in tile teachings of Jesus Christ? "Who is the teacher commanding honesty^ pardon, and mercy, except Jesus Christ? And then, are we to refuse Him our allegiance who comes and proclaims Himself a ransom for us from the condemnation and power of some one through whom Ave can be forgiven and so redeemed that we go forth to sin no more, and turn around v,nd contemptuously decline pardon, and discard the redemp- tion which we so urgently need? Go and preach that gos- pel through tlue wide world — I mean the gospel he enun- ciated last Sunday afternoon — and see where you will have any hearts that will rise up and hate the evil that is in themselves, and not only that has brought trouble upon them by the evil that they have done toward other people, but hate the evil that is in themselves, and learn to believe in that God and Father who is the source of all piety, as He is the source of all holiness, and whose life shall testify to the reality of the change that has taken place in transforming them from all that is evil into all tliat is good, and all that is lovely, and all that is honest, and all that is of good report. Preach it, and see if you . fi RMPLY TO INQERSOZrs NEW LECTURE. will get any such result as that which we do get, and have got all the ages along from the preaching of the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ My dear brethren and sisters, I have detained you all this long time, merely with taking up some points of that long lecture last Sunday afternoon and endeavoring to show you how utterly untrustworthy the principles are upon which that lecture goes, and how little you have to fear, and I believe it in my soul you have but little to fear from any such attacks made upon the gospel of our Lord and Savior Jesus^ Christ, or the trustworthiness of the record of this holy book. I must not so far trespass upon your patience as to keep you longer. I have been speaking for nearly an hour now, but I had hoped to have answered the question, " AVTiat must I do to be saved?" this morning. It has taken me longer than I expected. I will answer that question to- night. I vnll say what I have to -say on the question, " Wliat must I do to be saved?" and endeavor to show you that the answer which the Apostle gave to that question, asked by the trembling jailer of Philippi, in the midnight, is a true and a reasonable and a trustworthy answer, and I trust to show that it is so. TtTZTTC^^ OI^ BlSHOie IF-A-XjlLiOTTvrS. The Bishop Believes the Colonel is Haking '' True Frognress." We have been treated quite recently to an exegesis of the ]S"ew Testament by the well-known author of the lecture on ''The Gods." This congregation will acknowledge with me that there is almost an infinity of distance between that atheistic pro- duction and the last lecture of Col. Ingersoll. He is cer- tainly moving forward with gigantic strides, and although the last lecture was full of the most objectionable sentences it was such an improvement over all his previous efforts in the recognition of certain Christian truths, and in his efforts to draw a distinction between Christ and His pro- fessed followers, that he ought to be taken by the hand and encouraged to go still further in the way of light and true progress. I am glad Mr. Ingersoll is not lost in the treacherous quicksands of Straussian unbelief. He evidently does not believe that the Church created Christ. He does homage in his way to this central character of all history. He has too much common sense to believe that such men as the Apostles, or any other men, could invent this glorious^per- %onage. He knows that such a miracle would infinitely transcend all other miracles put together. I should greatly 88 . RE PL Y TO INQERSOLVS NE W LECTURE, enjoj hearing him turn his brilliant powers of banter and sarcasm upon Strauss and all his school, who endeavored to evolve all the stupendous facts of Christianity out of the subjective consciousness of Christians in succeeding cen- turies. I hope to have that pleasure yet. Mr. Ingersoll is in error when he says: " This Testament was not written for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust. * * * They depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries these doctrines were blown about by the inconstant winds." The Facts in the Case. j^ow what are the facts in the case? When the Church entered the second century, the year 101, or very near that period, she had the New Testament in her hands. A friend has called my attention to a communication from an agnostic champion of Col. Ingersoll in the Chicago Tfihime, which was intended to forestall any answers the Chicago clergymen might make. He says : " The orthodox ministers will say, no doubt, that there is an unbroken line of evidence i-unning back to the Apostolic age as to the au- thenticity of the Gospels. This is not true." He then states that the Rev. Brooke Foss Wescott, D. D., in his '' History of the Canon of the JSTew Testament," page 11, says "that it is an error to suppose that there is such an unbroken chain of evidence; that a few letters of consolation and warning, two or three apologies addressed to heathen, a controversy with a Jew, a Wsion, and a scanty gleaming of fragments of lost works, comprise all Christian literature to the middle of the second century " (that is, to 150 A. D.). This is simply another specimen of the special pleading so marked in the treatment of these important questions. Dr. Wescott in this quotation refers to the whole canon of the New Testament, and not to the four gospels. " The evidence of the earliest Christian writers is not only un- BY BISHOP FALLOWS. 89 critical and casual, but aUo Iragmentary," he says, in rela- tion to the entire canon. The point he makes is, that it needed a more critical and literary period to gather together the records which had been made in the earliest times — the xVpostolical times — and determine their canonicity. The whole aim of his book is to show just the opposite of what this agnostic defamer by a garbled extract makes him as- sert— viz.: that there is an unbroken line ol evidence from the present time to the Apostolic age as to the authenticity of the gospels, and also of the other canonically receiv^ed portions of the New Testament. This uncritical, casual, and fragmentary evidence of these early writers, along with the critical, close, and full treat- ment of the subject in succeeding years, from a historic highway on which we may triumphantly march over all the centuries, first to the upper chamber where the Pentecostal spirit inaugurated the visible Church for the nations, to the Cross of Calvary, and to the Mount of Beatitudes. Our Divine Lord wrote no recorded word, but He wrote Him- self upon the imperishable tablets of His disciples' hearts. They were His loving epistles. It was their sole supreme businees to make known to the world what He had said, done, and suffered. Eye-witnesses and heart- witnesses, they went about preaching the facts and teaching the truths of Christianity. Their mode of communication was at first, perhaps, purely oral. Undoubtedly their words in some instances were taken down in writing by the hearers, as veil as treasured up in their remembrance. These records, brief and fragmentary, multiplied. Churches began to multiply. In the year 64 A. D., Tacitus says the Chris- tians at Konie were a vast multitude. Pliny, in 112 A. D., in a letter to Trajan, refers to their great number in the remote province of Bithynia. Irenseus and Tertullian, 150- 180 A, D., state that the Christian brethren were thickly 90 REPLY TO INQERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, scattered over the known world. Out of this original oral Gospel, and these written records of the Apostles' teach- ing, the tirst three Gospels were constructed. The uii. broken tradition of the Church is that they were written by the persons whose names they bear. There is not the slightest ground lor the presumption of a doubt in the case of Matthew. The uniform testimony is that he wrote his gospel in the Hebrew or the Syrio- Chaldaic language. IN'o testimony could be more complete. Tlie gospel vve have is in Greek. We do not know who translated it; wliether it was Matthew himself or some other person. There was an urgent need of such transla tion, for Greek was the language of the world's literature and the medium of communication between different nations. (Mr. IngersoU made a woful lapse when he attempted a witticism upon the alleged ignorance of Greek by tlie Evangelists.") The unbroken line of evidence is that the gospel of Matthew that we he have is either the gospel written in Greek by that Evangelist or a translation by some other person made while the Evangelist was living. Not the slightest shade of suspicion, so far as we know, was thrown upon the genuineness of this gospel as we have it So far as known, there are not fifteen manuscripts of Plato extant. There are not as ma^ny of Herodotus. Not one of them is older than the ninth century. Nearly a thousand manuscripts of the New Testament have been consulted by critics, and at least fifty of them are more than a thousand years old, and some are over 1,500 years old. The most competent scholars fix the date of the Syriac version within the tirst half of the second century, that is within 150 A. D. BY BISHOP FALLOWS. 91 The Codex Yaticanus was written about the year 300 A. D., and the Codex Alexandrinus about 325 A. D. The Codex Sinaiticus about 300 A, D., or a little earlier. Of a portion of the three last manuscripts I give as near as possible, in the illustrations before you, a fac-simile on an enlarged scale. Irenseus in his youth had ])een a companion of Folycarp, the disciple of St. John. lie makes 400 quotations from the Four Gospels. Tertullian (A. D. 160) gives about 200 quotations. Fabian (A. D. 190) gives a '' Harmony of the Foui Gospels." How Celsus, the Ingersoll of the Second Century, Did a Great Work for the Church. Celsus was the Robert Ingersoll of the second century. He was an acute man, a witty and eloquent conversational- ist, rather fond of stretching facts and principles when it served his purpose, and not caring always to know the facts. He lived a little more than 130 years after the ascension of the Divine Founder of Christianity. He at- tacked the Christians of his age with banter, ridicule and sophisms. He hunted up every difficulty in the Christians' pathway, and magnified all seeming discrepancies into irreconcilable contradictions. His attacks upon the Chris- tian system live only in the famous reply to them made by Origen. This unbeliever, although he caused great an- noyance to the believers in Christ living in his day, and seemed to many to be disturbing the foundations of the Christian faith, rendered more real service to Christianity than any father of undisputed orthodoxy in the Cliurch. He admits all the grand facts and doctrines of the gospel, as they were preached by the Apostles, and contained in their acknowledged writings, for the sake of opposing them. Ho inakes in l\h attacks eighty quotatious ihnu. tho New Tt^^- 92 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, tament, and appeals to it as containing the sacred writings of Christians, universally received by them as -credible and Divine. He is, therefore, the very best witness we can summon to prove that the New Testament '' was not written hun- dreds of years after the Apostles were dust;" but in less than a century and a half had been received by the Chris- tian Church all over the world. He expressly quotes both the synoptical gospels, as they are termed (the first three gospels), and the Gospel )f St. John. It was stated in the Pan-Presbyterian Coun-cil at Phila- delphia, last Friday, by the Eev. Dr. Humphrey, a gentle- man whom I know to be profound and scholarly, ''that while the Bible contains the names of about four thousand persons and places, in not a single instance had modern discovery, through explorations in ancient places, shown one of the four thousand names to have been a myth or one of the ruins to have been misplaced." I can imagine 1 hear Mr. lugersoll, in his emphatic way, saying, " I like tliat; good. A Bible that is so true to historic fact demands my attention. It is a proof presumptive tha^ *^he gospel records are true." INGERSOLL'S NEW DEPARTURE HIS LECTURE ENTITLED "WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED ? " Delivered in McVicker's Theatre, Chicago, Sept. 19, 1880. [From the Chicago Times, Verbatim Report,] Ladies and Gentlemen: Fear is the dungeon of the mind, and superstition is a daggor with which hypocrisy assassinates the soul. Courage is liberty. I am in favor of absolute freedom of thought. In the realm of the mind every one is a monarch. Every one is robed, sceptered, and crowned, and every one wears the purple of authority. I belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who de- pend upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who resort to brute force. JSTow, I beg of you all to forget just for a few moments that you are Methodists or Baptists or Catholics or Presbyterians, and let us for an hour or two remember only that we are men and women. And allow me to say "man" and ''woman" are the highest titles that can be bestowed upon humanity. "Man" and " woman." And let us if possible banish all fear from the mind. Do not imagine that there is some being in the infinite expanse who is not willing that every man and woman should think for himself and herself. Do no not imagine that there is any being who would give to his children the holy torch of reason and then damn them for following where the holy light led. Let us have courage. Priests have invented a crime called " blasphemy," and behind [11 2 INGERSOLrS NEW LECTURE, ' that crime hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. There is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice. There is but one worship, and that is justice! You need not fear the anger of a God whom you cannot injure. Kather fear to injure your fellow-men. Do not be afraid of a crime you cannot commit. Rather be afraid of the one that you may commit. There was a Jewish gentleman went into a restaurant to get his dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered in his ear: "Eat some bacon." He knew if there was anything in the universe calculated to excite the wrath of the Infinite Being, who made every shining star, it was to see a gentleman eating bacon. He knew it, and he knew the Infinite Being was looking, and that he was the Infinite Eavesdropper of the universe. But his appetite got the better of his conscience, as it often has with us all, and he ate that bacon. He knew it was wrong. When he went into that restaurant the weather was delightful, the sky was as blue as June, and when he came out the sky was covered with angry clouds, the lightning leaping from one to the other, and the earth shaking beneath the voice of the thunder. He went back into that restaurant with a face as white as milk, and he said to one of the keepers : " My God, did you ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of bacon?" As long as we harbor such opinions of Infinity ; as long as we imagine the heavens to be filled with such tyranny, so long the sons of men will be cringing, intellectual cowards. Let us think, and let us honestly express our thought. Do not imagine for a moment that I think people who disagree with me are bad people. I admit, and I cheerfully admit, that a very large proportion of mankind and a very large majority, a -^^ast number are reasonably honest. I believe that most Christians believe what they teach; that most ministers are endeavoring to make this world better. I do not pretend to be better than they are. It is an intellectual question. It is a question, first, of in- tellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be settled at the bar of human reason. I do not pretend to be better than they are. Probably I am a good deal worse than many of them, but that is not the question. The question is: " Bad as I am, have I a right to think ?" And I think I have, for two reasons. Pirst, I can't help it. And seconelly, I like it. The whole ques *^WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDr' 3 tion is riglit at a point. If I have not a right to express my thoughts, who has ? "Oh" they say, 'Sve will allow you, we will not burn you. "All right ; why won't you burn me ?" "Because we think a decent man will allow others to think and to express his thought." "Then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is that you believe it would be infamous in you!" "Yes." "And yet you worship a God who will, as you declare, punish me forever." The next question then is : Can I commit a sin against God by thinking ? If God did not intend I should think, why did He give me a "thinker." Xow, then, we have got what they call the Chris- tian system of religion, and thousands of people wonder how I can be wicked enough to attack that system. There are many good things about it, and I shall never attack anything that I believe to be good! I shall never fear to attack anything I honestly believe to be wrong! We have, I say, what they call the Christian religion, and, I find, just in proportion that nations have been religious, just in the proportion they have gone back to barbarism. I find that Spain, Portugal, Italy are the three worst nations in Europe ; I find that the nation nearest infidel is the most prosperous— France. And so I say there can be no danger in the exercise of absolute intellectual freedom. I find among ourselves the men who think at least as good as those who do not. We have, I say, a Christian system, and that system is founded upon what they are pleased to call the *'New Testament." Who wrote the New Testament? I don't know. Who does know? Xobody! We have found som€>fifty-two manuscripts containing portions of the N'ew Testament. Some of those manuscripts leave out five or six books-many of them. Others more ; others less. No two of these manuscripts agree. Nobody knows who wrote these manuscripts. They are all written in Greek; the disciples of Christ knew only Hebrew. Nobody ever saw, so far as we know, one of the original Hebrew manuscripts. N obody ever saw any- body who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original Hebrew man- uscripts. No doubt the clergy of your city have told you these facts thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me for having 4 INGERSOLrS JS'EW LECTURE, repeated them once more. These manuscripts are written in what lire called capital Greek letters. They are called Uncial charac- ters; and theXew Testament was not divided into chapters and verses, even, until the year of grace 1551. Recollect it. In the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by no- body. The epistles are addressed to nobody ; and they are signed by the same person. All the addresses, all the pretended ear- marks showing to whom they are written and by whom they are written are simply interpolations, and everybody who has studied the subject knows it. It is further admitted that even these manuscripts have not been properly translated, and they have a syndicate now making a new translation ; and I suppose that I cannot tell whether ]' really believe the Testament or not until I see that new trans- lation. YoM must remember, also, one other thing. Christ never wrote a solitary word of the Kew Testament— not one word. There is an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the sand» but that has not been preserved. He never told anybody to write a word. He never said : " Matthew, remember this. Mark, don't forget to put that down. Lake, be sure that in your gospel you liave this. John, don't forget it." Kot one word. And it has always seemed to me that a Being coming from another world, with a message of inlinite importance to mankind, should at least have verified that message by his own signature. ^Yliy was nothing written? I will tell you. In my judgment they expected the end of the world in a very few days. That gen- eration was not to pass away until the heavens should be rolled up as a scroll, and until the earth should melt with fervent heat. That was their belief. They believed that the world was to be destroyed, and that there was to be another coming, and that the saints were then to govern the world. And they even went so far among the Apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to divide out the offices in advance. This Testament was not written for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust These facts lived in the open mouth of credulity. They were in the waste- baskets of forgetfulness. They depended upon the inaccuracy of legend, and for centuries these doctrines and stories were blown about by the inconstant winds. And, finally, when reduced to writing, some gentleman would write by the side of the passage his ide^ of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a part of "WHAT JSHALL WL' DO TO BE SAVED?" ^ the text. And, liiKilly, wlien it was made, and the Church got in trouble, and wanted a passage to lielp it out, one was interpolated to order. So that now it is among the easiest things in the world to pick out at least one hundred interpolations in the Testament. And I will pick some of them out before 1 get through. And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the place where man has died for man is holy ground : and let me say, once for all, to that great and serene man I gladly pay the homage of my admiration and my tears. He was a reformer in Ilis day. He was an infidel in His time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and His life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what they could to trample freedom out of the human mind. Had I lived at that time I would have been His friend, and should He come again He would not find a batter friend than I will be. That is for the man. For the theological creation I have a dif- ferent feeling. If He was, in fact, God, He knew that there was no such thing as death. He knew that what we call death was but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy ; and it took no heroism to face a death that was simply eternal life. But when a man, when a poor boy sixteen ye.irs of age, goes upon the field of battle to keep his flag in heaven, not knowing but that death ends all— not knowing but that, when the shadows creep over him, the darkness will be eternal— there is heroism. And so for the man who, in the darkness, said: "My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" — for that man I have nothing but respect, admiration, and love. A while ago I made up my mind to find out what. was necessary for me to do in order to be saved. If I have got a soul, I want it saved. I do not wish to lose anything that is of value. For thou sands of years the world has been asking that question : " What shall we do to be saved? " Saved from I overty? Hso. Saved from crime? Xo. Tyranny? K"o. But " What shall we do to be saved from the eternal wrath of the God who made us all ?" If God made us. He will not destroy us. Infinite wisdom never made a poor investment. And upon all the works of an infinite God, a dividend must finally be declared. The pulpit has cast a shadow over even the cradle. The doctrine of endless punish- ment has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. I despise it, and I defy it. e, IN'OERSOLL\S NEW LECrVRE, I made up my mind, I say, to see what I had to do in order to save my soul according to the Testament, and thereupon I read it. I read the gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But I found that the Church had been deceiving me. I found that the clergy did not understand their own book. I found that they had been building upon passages that had been interpolated. I found that they had been building upon passages that were entirely untrue. And I will tell you why I think so. The first of the these gospels was written by St. Matthew, according to the claim. Of course he never wrote a word of it. Never saw it. Never heard of it. But, for the purposes of this lecture, I will admit that he wrote it. I will admit that he was with Christ for three years ; that he heard much of His conversa- tion during that time, and that he became impregnated with the doctrines, or dogmas, and the ideas of Jesus Christ. Xow let us see what Matthew says we must do in order to be saved. And I take it that, if this be true, Matthew is as good an authority as any minister in the world. The first thing I find upon the subject of salvation is in the fifth chapter of Matthew, and is embraced in what is commonly known as the Sermon on the Mount. It is as follows : " Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Good ! " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good ! Whether they belonged to any church or not; whether they believed the Bible or not. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good! " Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall b.i called the children of God. Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake," (that's me, little) " for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." In the same sermon he says: "Think not that I am come to destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to fulfill." And then he makes use of this remarkable language, al- most as applicable to-day as it was then : " For I say unto you that except your righteousness shall exceed th-e righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the King- dom of Heaven." Good! In the sixth chapter I find the following, and it comes directly after the prayer known as the Lord's prayer: "For if you forgive men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you ; "^WHAT SHALL Wi: 7)(> T(J BB SAVEDV 7 Dut if ye torgive not men their trespasses neither will vourFathei fors:ive your trespasses." I accept the conditions. There is an otter; 1 accept it. If you will forgive men that trespass against you, God will torgive your trespasses against Ilim. 1 accept, and 1 never will ask any God to treat me any better than I treat my fellow-men. There is a square promise. There is a contract. If you will forgive others God will forgive you. And it does not say you must believe in the Old Testament, nor be baptized, nor join the Church, nor keep Sunday. It simply says, if you forgive others God will forgive you; and it must of necessity be true. Xo God could afford to damn a forgiving man. [A voice: " Will He for- ^ve Democrats V"] Oh, certainly. Let me say right here that I know lots of Democrats, great, broad, whole-souled, clever men ; and I love them. And the only bad thing about them is that they vote the Democratic ticket. And I know lots of Republicans so mean and narrow tliat the only decent thing about them is that they vote the liepublican ticket. Now let me make myself plain upon that sul)ject, perfectly plain. For instance, I hate Presbyterianism, but I know hundreds of splendid Presbyterians. Understand me. I hate Methodism, and yet I know hundreds of splendid Methodists. I dislike a cer- tain set of principles called Democracy, and yet I know thousands of Democrats that I respect and like. I like a certain set of prin- ciples—that Is, most of them,— called Republicanism, and yet I know lots of Republicans that are a disgrace to those principles. I do not war against men. I do not war against persons. I war against certain doctrines that I believe to be w^rong. And I give to every other human being every right that I claim for myself. Of course I did not intend, to-day, to tell what we must do in the election for the purpose of being saved. The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter and the second verse: "For with wiiat judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be^measured to you again," Good! That suits me! And in the twelfth chapter of Matthew : "For whosoever shall do the will of my Father that is in heaven, the same is my brother and sister and mother. For the Son of Man shall come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall reward every man according " To the church he belongs to? Xo. To the manner in which he was baptised? Xo. According to his creed ? Xo. "Then he shall reward every man according to his works." Good ! I subscribe to that doctrine. 8 INQER80LUS NEW LECTURE, And in tho sixteenth chapter: "And Jesus called a little child to Him and stood him in the midst; and said, 'Verily, I say unto you, except ye become converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.'" I do not wonder that a reformer in His day that met the Scribes and Pharisees and hypocrites, I not wonder that at last He turned to children and said: "Except ye become as little children," I do not wondei-. And yet, see what children the children of God have been. What an interesting dimpled darling John Calvin was. Think of that prattling babe known as Jonathan Edwards ! Think of the infants that founded the Inquisition, that invented instruments of torture to tear human flesh. They were the ones who had become as little children. Sol find in the nineteenth chapter: "And behold, one came and said unto Him: 'Good master, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life ?' and he said unto him, 'why call'st thou Me good? There is none good but one, and that is God, but if thou will enter into eternal life, keep the commandments,' and he said unto Him, * Which ?'" Xow, there is a pretty fair issue. Here is a child of God asking God what is necessary for him to do in order to inherit eternal life. And God says to him: Keep the commandments. And the child said to the Almighty : " Which ?" Now if there ever had been an opportunity given to the Almighty to furnish a gentle- man with an inquiring mind with the necessary information upon that subject, here was the opportunity. "He said unto Him, which?" And Jesus said : "Thou shalt do no murder; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear false witness; honor thy father and mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." He did not say to him: "You must believe in Me— that I am the only begotten Son of the living God." He did not say: "You must be born again." He did not say: " You m.ust believe the Bible." He did not say: " You must remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." He simph' said: "Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit adultery. .Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Honor thy father and thy mother; and, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." And thereupon the young man, who I think was a little " fresh," and probably mistaken, said unto Him : " All these things have I kept from my youth up." 1 don't believe that. "WHAT SMALL WMJJUTuBEiSAVEDr' w Now comes in an kiterpolation. In the old times wiien the Clinrch got a little scarce for money, they always put in a passage praising poverty. So they had tliis young man ask: " What lack I yet ?" And Jesus said unto him : " If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have treasures hi heaven." The Church has always been willmg to swap of treasures in heaven for cash down. And when the next verse was written the Church must have been nearly dead-broke. "And again I say unto you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." Did you ever know a wealthy disciple to unload on account of that verse ? And then comes another verse, which I believe is an interpola- tion: " And every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren or sisters, or father or mother, or Avif e or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit ever- lasting life." Christ never said it. Never. "Whosoever shall forsake father and mother." Why He said to this man that asked him: "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" among other things, He said : " Honor thy father and" thy mother." And we turn os>er the page and He says : " If you will desert your father and your mother you shall have everlasting life." It won't do. If you will desert your wife and your little children, or your lands— the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wafe and children. Think of that! I do not accept the terms, I will never desert the one I love for the promise of any God. It is far more important that we shall love our wives than that we shall love God. And I will tell you why. You cannot help Him. You can help her. You can fill her life wath the perfume of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your children than that you love Jesus Christ. And wiiy ? If He is God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of hap- piness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more im- portant to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather father and mother and children. There was a time when people believed that infamy. There was a time wiien they did desert fathers and mothers, and wives and children. St. Augustine says to the devotee: "Fly to the 10 INQEmOLVS NEW LECTURE, desert, and though your wife put her arms around your neck, tear her hands away; she is a temptation of the devil. Though your father and mother throw their bodies athwart your threshold, step over them ; and though your children pursue and with weeping eyes beseech you to return, listen not. It is the temptation of the evil one. Fly to the desert and save your soul." Think of such a soul being worth saving. While I live I propose to stand by the folks. Here there is anotlier condition of salvation. I find it in the 2'>th chapter: " Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand. Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungred and ye gave Me meat ; 1 was thirsty and ye gave Me drink ; I was a stranger and ye took Me in ; naked and ye clothed Me ; and I was sick and ye visited Me ; and I was in prison, and ye came unto Me." Good I And I tell you to-night that God will not punish with eternal thirst the man who has put the cup of cold water to the lips of his neighbor. God will not allow to live in eternal nakedness of pain the man who has clothed others. For instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor stands aside and allows a woman whom he never saw before to take his place in the boat, and he stands there, grand and serene as the wide sea, and he goes down. Do you tell me there is any God who will push the life-boat from the shore of eternal life, when that man wishes to step in ? Do you tell me that God can be unpitying to the pitiful, that He can be unforgiving to the for- giving? I deny it; and from the aspersions of the pulpit I seek to rescue the reputation of the Deity. Kow, I have read you everything in Matthew on the subiect of salvation. That is all there is. Xot one word about believing anything. It is the gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel of self-denial ; and if only that gospel had been preached, persecu- tion never would have shed one drop of blood. Not one. Now, according to the testimony, Matthew was well acquainted with Christ. According to the testimony, he had been with Him, and His companion for years, and if it was necessary to believe anything in order to get to heaven, Matthew should have told us. But he forgot it. Or he didn't believe it. Or he never heard of it. You can take your choice. The next is Mark. Now let us see what lie says. And for the purpose of this lecture it is sufficient for me to say that Mark "WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDf" 11 agrees, substantially, with Matthew, that God will be merciful to the merciful ; that He will be kind to the kind ; that He will pity the pitying. And it is precisely, or substantially, the same as Matthew until I come to the 16th verse of the 16th chapter, and then I strike an interpolation, put in by hypocrisy, put in by priests, who longed to grasp with bloody hands the sceptre of uni- versal authority. Let me read it to you. And it is the most infamous passage in the Bible. Christ never said it. Xo sensible man ever said it. "And He said unto them" — that is, unto His disciples — "Go ye into all tlie world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Xow, I propose to prove to you that that is an interpolation. 'Sow how will I do it? In the first place, not one word is said about belief in Matthew. In the next place, not one word about belief in ISIark, until I come to that verse. And when is that said to have been spoken ? According to Mark, it is a part of the last conversation of Jesus Christ— just before, according to the account. He ascended bodily before their eyes. If there ever was any important thing happened in this world, that is one of them. If there was any conversation that people would be apt to recollect, it would be the last conversation with God before He rose through the air and seated Himself upon the throne of the Infinite. We have in this Testament five accounts of the last conversation hap- pening between Jesus Christ and His apostles. Matthew gives it. And yet Matthew does not state that in that conversation He said : " Whoso believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believ- eth not shall be damned." And if He did say those words, they were the most important that ever fell from His lips. Matthew did not hear it, or did not believe it, or forgot it. Then I turn to Luke, and he gives an account of this same last conversation, and not one word does he say upon that subject. Kow it is the most important thing, if Christ said it, that He ever said. Then I turn to John, and he gives an account of the last conver- sation, but not one solitary word on the subject of belief or unbe- lief. Net one solitary word on the subject of damnation. Not one. Then I turn to the first chapter of Ihe Acts, and there I find an account of the last conversation : and in tbat conversation there ia 12 INGER80LV& NEW LECTURE, not one word upon this subject. ]N^ow I say that that demonstrates that the passage in Mark is an interpolation. What other reason have I got ? That there is not one particle of sense in it. Why? Mo man can control his belief. You hear evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which side rises and which side falls. You cannot believe as you wish. You must believe as you must. And He might as well have said: "Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved, and whosoever hath not shall be damned." 1 have another reason. I am much obliged to the gentleman who interpolated these passages. I. am much obliged to him that he put in some more — two more, ^ow hear : "And these signs shall follow them that believe." Good ! "In My name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with new tongues, and they shall take up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover." Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a devil. I do not claim a large one. Just a "little one for a cent." Let him take up serpents. "And if he drink any deadly thing it shall not hurl him." Let me mix up a dose for the theological believer, and i^ it does not hurt him I'll join a church. "Oh! but," they saA " those things only lasted through that Apostolic age." Let us see. Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever be- lieves and is baptised shall be saved, and these signs shall follow them that believe." How long? I think at least until they had gone into all the world. Certainly these signs should follow until all the world had been visited. And yet if that declaration was in the mouth of Christ, he then knew that one-half of the world tvas unknown and that He would be dead 1,4U2 years before His disciples would know that there was another world. And yet he said, "Go into all the world and preach the gospel," and He knew then that it would be 1,492 years before anybody went. Well, if it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the old world, surely it was worth while to have signs follow believers in the new world. And the very reason that sighs sliould follow would be to con- vince the unbeliever, and there are as many unbelievers now as ever, and the signs are as necessary to-day as they ever were. I would like a few myself. "WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDT 13 This frightful declaration, " He that belie veth and is baptised shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned," has tilled the world with agony and crime. Every letter of this pas- sage has been sword and fagot ; every Mord lias been dungeon and chain. That passage made the sword of persecution drip with innocent blood for ten centuries. Tliat passage made the horizon of a thousand years lurid with the llames of fagots. That passage contradicts the Sermon on the Mount. That passage travesties the Lord's Prayer. That passage turns the splendid religion of deed and duty into the superstition of creed and cruelty. I deny it. li is infamous! Christ never said it! Xow I cofne to Luke, and it is sufficient to say that Luke substantially agrees with Matthew and with jSlark. Substantially agrees, as the evidence is read. I like it. "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also merciful." Good! " Judge not and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not and ye shall not be condemned ; forgive and ye shall be forgiven." Good ! "Give and it shall be given unto you good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over." Good ! I like it. " For the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again." He agrees substantially with Mark ; he agrees substantially witli Matthew ; and I come at last to the nineteenth chapter, "And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, ' Behold, Lord, the one-half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken any- tliing from any man by false accusation, 1 restore him four-fold.' And Jesus said unto him, 'This day is salvation come to this house.' " That is good doctrine. He didn't ask Zaccheus what he be- lieved. He didn't ask him, " Do you believe in the Bible ? Do you believe in the five points ? Have you ever been baptised— sprink- led? Oh! immersecL *' Half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I restore him four- fold." -'And Christ said, 'This day is salvation come to this house.'" Good! I read also in Luke that Christ when upon the cross forgave His murderers, and that is considered the shining gem in the crown of His mercy—that He forgave His murderers. That He forgave the men who drove the nails in His hands, in His feet, that plunged a spear in His side ; the soldier tliat in the hour of death 14 INGERSOZrS NEW LECTURE, offered Him in mockery the bitterness to drink ; that He forgave them all freely, and that yet, although He would forgive them, He will in the nineteenth century damn to eternal fire an honest man for the expression of his honest thoughts. That won't do. I find too, in Luke, an account of two thieves that were crucified at the same time. The other gospels speak of them. One says they both railed upon Him. Another says nothing about it. In Luke we are told that one did, but one of the thieyes looked and pitied Christ, and Christ said to that thief: ** This day shalt thou meet me in Paradise." Why did He say that? Because the thief pitied Him. And God cannot afford to trample beneath the feet of His infinite wrath the smallest bios som of pity that ever shed its perfume in he human heart! Who was this thief? To what church did he belong? T don't know. The fact that he was u thief throws no light on that question. Who was he? What did he believe? i dont know. Did he believe in the Old Testament? In the mira- cles? I don't know. Did he believe that Christ was God? I don't know. Why, then, was the promise made to him that he should meet Christ in Paradise. Simply because he pitied inno- cence suffering on the cross. God cannot afford to damn any man that is capable of pitying anybody. And now we come to John, and that is wliere the trouble com- mences. The other gospels teach that God will be merciful to the merciful, forgiving to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving to the loving, just to the just, merciful to the good. ]S"ow we come to John, and here is another doctrine. And allow me to say that John was not written until centuries after the others. This, the Church got up: "And Jesus answered and said unto him: 'Furthermore I say unto thee that except a man be born again he cannot see the. Kingdom of God." " Why didn't He tell Matthew that? Why didn't He tell Luke that? Why didn't He tell Mark that? They never heard of it or forgot it, or they didn't believe it. •• Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot ente r into tlie Kingdom of God." Why ? "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee. ' ye must '^WRAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDf" 15 be born again.' That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit,"— and He might have ad ded that which is born of water is water. "Marvel not that I say unto thee, 'ye must be bom again.'" And then tlie reason is given, ani I admit I did not understand it myself until I read the reason, and when you read the reason, you will understand it as well as I do; and here it is: "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, «nd canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." So. I find in the book of John the idea of the real i)resence. So r find in the book of John, that in order to be saved we must eat of the flesh and we must drink of the blood of Jesus Christ, and if that gospel is true, the Catholic Church is right. But it is not true. I cannot believe it, and yet for all that it may be true. But I don't believe it. Neither do I believe there is any God in the universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his belief. "Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should ti^rn out to be true, and you should come to the day of judgment ana find all these things to be true. What would you do then ?" I would walk up like a man, and say, " I was mistaken." "And su]»pose God was about to pass judgment on you, what would you say ?" I would say to him, "Do unto others as you would that others should do unto you." Why not ? I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I must overcome evil with good. lam told that I must love my enemies; and will it do for this God who tells me, "Love my enemies," to say, " I will damn mine ? " No, it will not do. It will not do. In the book of John all this doctrine of rege neration ; all [this doctrine that it is necessary to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ; all the doctrine that salvation depends upon belief— in this book of John all these doctrines find their warrant ; nowhere else. Read these three gospels and then read John, and you will agree with me that the gospels that teach "We must be kind, we must be merciful, we must be forgiving, and thereupon that God will forgive us," is true, and then say Avhether or no that doctrine is not better than the doctrine that somebody else can be good for you. that somebody else can be bad for you, and that the only way to get to heaven is to believe siQiiiething thut you do wm mitler- *itund* 16 rnGBRSOLVS NE W LECTURE, Now upon these gospel-s that I have read the churches rest ; and out of those things that 1 have read they have made their creeds. And the first Church to make a creed, so far as I know, was the Catholic. I take it that is the first Church that had any power, That is the Church that has preserved all these miracles for us. That is the Church that preserved the manuscripts for us. That is the Church whose word we have to take. That Church is the first witness that Protestantism brought to the bar of history to prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred years ago; and while the witness is there Protestantism takes pains to say: "You can't believe one word that witness says, now." That Church is the only one that keeps up a constant communi- cation with heaven through the instrumentality of a large number of decayed saints. That Church is an agent of God on earth. That Church has a person who stands in the place of Deity; and that Church, according to their doctrine, is infallible. That Church has persecuted to the exact extent of her power— and always will. In Spain that Church stands erect, and that Church is arrogant. In the United States that Church crawls. But the object in both countries is the same, and that is the destruction of intellectual liberty. That Church teaches us that we can make God happy by being miserable ourselves. That Church teaches you that a nun is holier in the sight of God than a loving mother wdth a child in her thrilled and thrilling arms. That Church teaches you that a priest is better than a father. That Church teaches you that celi- bacy is better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in this world. That Church teaches you that celibacy is better than that passion of love that has made everything of beauty in this world. That Church tells the girl of 16 or IS years of age, with eyes like dew and light— that girl with the red of health in the white of her beautiful cheeks — tells that girl, " Put on the veil woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you will please God." 1 tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil, and renounce the beauties of the world, until she was at least 25 years of age. Wait until she knows what she wants. I am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests weaving webs to catch the flies of youth ; and there ought to be a law appointing commissioners to visit such places twice a year, and release every person who expresses a desire to be released. I don't believe in keeping penitentiaries for God. Ko doubt they are honest about it. That i^ not the question. -WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDf* 17 Now this Church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, and that creed is the foundation of orthodox religion. Let me read it to you : . ±.x^ i. "Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholic faith; which faith, except every one do keep entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish Now the faith is this: "That we worship one God m trinity, and trinity in unity." , x, , a Of course you understand how that^s done, and there s no need of my explaining it " Neither confounding the persons nor divid- ing the substance." , -.^ .^ • -,: You see what a predicament that would leave the Deity m if you divided the substance. . ., o ' For one is the person of the Father, another of the Son, and another of the Holy Ghost ; but the Godhead of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one"-you know what I mean by Godhead. '' In glory equal, and in majesty co-eternal. Such as the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost. The Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost uncreated, The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy Ghost incomprehensible." And that is the reason we know so much about the thing. "The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, the Holy Ghost eternal," and yet there are not three eternals, only one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor three iii- comprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible. '* In like manner, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the Holy Ghost almighty." Yet there are not three almighties, only one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy Ghost God, and yet not three Gods; and so likewise, the Father is Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord, yet tliere are not three Lords, for as we are* compelled by the Christian truth to acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, so we are all forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are three Gods, or three Lords. " The Father is made of no one ; not created or begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, nor created, or begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the Son, not made nor begotten, but proceeded—" You know what proceeding is. " So there is one Father, not three Fathers." Why should there be three Fathers, and only one Son? ♦'One Son, and not three Sons ; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy 18 INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, Ghosts; and in this Trinity there is nothing before or after- ward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are co-eternal with one another, and co-equal, so that in all things the unity is to be worshiped in Trinity, and the Trinity is to be worshiped in unity, and therefore we will believe. Those who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Further- more, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesiis Christ. Xow the right of this thing is this: That we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. He is God of the substance of His Father begotten before the world was. That was a good while before His mother lived. "And he is man of the substance of His mother, born in this world, perfect God and perfect man, and the rational soul in human flesh subsisting equal to the Father, according to His God- head, but less than the Father, according to his manhood, who being both God and man is not two but one— one not by conversion of God into flesh but by the taking of the manhood into God." You see that it is a great deal easier than the other. "One altogether, not by a confusion of substance, but by unity of person, for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God the man, is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into heaven, and He sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father Almighty, and He shall come to judge the living and the dead." In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. What a blessing that we do not have to understand it. And in order to compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies ; thousands and millions have perished in dungeons and in fire; and if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the pyramids would rise in our presence, and the eyes even of priests would be suffused with tears. That Church covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons. That Church robbed men of the jewel of the soul. That Church had ignorance upon its knees. That Church went into part- nership with the tyrants of the throne, and between these two vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was devoured- Of course I have met, and cheerfully admit that there thousands of ,goo4 Catholics; but Catholicism is contrary to human liberty, **WffAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED f' 19 Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason, it is wrong. Kow, the next Church that comes along in the way that I wish to speak is the Episcopalian. That was founded by Henry YIII., now in heaven. He cast oif Queen Catherine and Catho]icism together. And he accepted Episcopalianisni and Annie Boleyn at the same time. That Church, if it had a few more ceremonies, would be Catholic. If it had a few less, nothing. We have an Episcopalian Churcn in this country, and it has all the imperfec- tion of a poor relation. It is always boasting of a rich relative. In England the creed is made by law, the same as we pass statutes here. And when a gentleman dies in England, in order to determine whether he shall be saved or not, it is necessary for the power of heaven to read the acts of Parliament. It becomes a question of law, and sometimes a man is damned on a very nice point. Lost on demurrer. A few years ago, a gentleman by the name of Seabury, Samuel Seabury, was sent over to England to get some apostolic succession. "We hadn't a drop in the house. It was necessary for the bishops of the English Church to put their hands upon his head. They refused. There was no act of Parliament justifying it. He had then to go to the Scotch bishops; and, had the Scotch bishops refused, we never would have had any apostolic succession in the new world. And God would have been driven out of half the world ; and the true church never could have been founded. But the Scotch bishops put their hands on his head, and now we have an unbroken succession of heads and hands from St. Paul to the last bishop. In tliis country the Episcopal Church has done some good, and I want to thank that Church. Having, on an average, less religion than the others, on an average, you have done more good to man- kind. You preserved some of the humanities. You did not hate music; you did not absolutely despise painting, and you did not altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it was no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands. And some went so far as to say that people could play cards, and that God would overlook it, or would look the other way. For all tliese things accept my thanks. When I was a boy, the other Churches looked upon dancing as probably the mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost ; and they 20 IKQEmOLVS NEW LECTURE, used to teach that when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing seven-up, that the Eternal God stood whetting the sword of His eternal wrath waiting to strike them down to the lowest helL And so that Church has done some good. After a while, in England, a couple of gentlemen, or a couple of men by the name of AVesley and '^Vhitfleld, said: "If everybody is going to hell, nearly, somebody ought to mention it. The Episcopal clergy said: "Keep still; don't tear your gown." AVesIcy and "Whitfield said: "This frightful truth ought to be proclaimed from the housetops at every opportunity, from the highway of every occasion." They were good, honest men. They believed their doctrine. And they said : *Tf there is a hell, and a ISTiagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice of ignorance, somebody ought to say something." They were right; somebody ought, if such thing was true. Wesley was a believer in the Bible, He believed in the actual presence of the Almighty. God used to do miracles for liim ; used to put off a rain several days to give his meeting a chance ; used to cure liis horse of lameness ; used to cure !Mr. "Wesley's headaches. And Mr. Wesley also believed in the actual existence of the devil. He believed that devils had possession of people. He talked to the devil when he was in folks, and the devil told him that he was going to leave; and that he was going into another person; that he would be there at a certain time; and Wesley went to that other person, and there the devil was, prompt to the minute. He regarded every conversion as an absolute warfare be- tween God and this devil for the possession of that human soul. Honest, no doubt. Mr. Wesley did not believe in human liberty. Honest, no doubt. Was opposed to the liberty of the colonies. Honestly so. Mr. Wesley preached a sermon entitled, •' The Cause and Cure of Earthquakes," in which he took the ground that earthquakes were caused by sin ; and the only way to stop them was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ko doubt an honest man. Wesley and Whitfield fell out on the question of predestination. Wesley insisted that God invited everybody to the feast. Whit- field said He did not invite those He knew would not come. Wesley said He did. Whitfield said : " Well, He didn't put iilates for them, anyway." Wesley said He did. So that, when they were in hell, he could show them that there was * seat left for them. And that Church that they founded is stjU active. And "WBAT iSHALL WB DO TO BB SAVBDt" 21 probably no Church in the world has done so much preaching for as little money as the Methodists. Whitfield believed in slavery and advocated tlie slave trade. And it was of Whitfield that Whittier made the two lines: He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast, Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost. We have lately had a meeting of the Methodists, and I find, by their statistics, that they believe they have converted 130,000 folks in a year. That, in order to do this, they have 26,000 preacli- ers, 226,000 Sunday-school scholars, and about $100,000,000 invested in church property. I find, in looking over the history of the world, that there are 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 of people born a year, and if they are saved at the rate of 130,000 a year, about howlong will it take that doctrine to save this world ? Good, honest people ; they are mistaken. In old times they were very simple. Churches used to be like barns. They used to have them divided— men on that side, and women on this. A little barbarous. We have advanced since then, and we now find as a fact, demonstrated by experience, that a man sitting by the woman he loves can thank God as heartily as though sitting between two men that he has never been intro- duced to. There is another thing th-e Methodists should remember, and that is, that the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever had. And they should remember that the Free-Thinkers have always treated them kindly and well. There is one thing about the Methodist Church in the North that I like. But I find that it is not Methodism taat does that. I find that the Methodist Church in the South is as much opposed to liberty as the Methodist Church Korth is in favor of liberty. So it is not Methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery. They differ a little in their creed from the rest. They do not believe that God does everything. They believe that He does His part, and that you must do the rest, and that getting to heaven is a partnership business. The next church is the Presbyterians— in my judgment the worst of all, as far as creed is concerned. This Church was founded by John Calvin, a murderer! John Calvin, having power in Geneva, inaugurated human torture. Voltaire abolished torture in France. The man who abolished torture, if the Christian religion be true, God is now torturing in hell ; and the man who inaugu- rated torture, is now a glorified angel in heaven. It won't do. 22 TNGERSOLVS NEW LECTUBE, John Knox started this doctrine in Scotland, and there is this peculiarity about Presbyterianism, it grows btst wliere the soil is poorest. I read the other day an account of a meeting between John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pesti- lence and a famine! Imagine a conversation between a block and an ax! As I read their conversation it seemed to me as thougli John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other; that they fitted each other like the upper and lower javrs of a wild beast. They believed happiness was a crime ; they looked upon laughter as blasphemy, and they did all they could to destroy every human feeling, and to fill the mind with the infinite gloom of predestination and eternal damnation. They taught the doc- trine that God had a right to damn U3 because He made us. That is just the reason that He has not a right to damn us. There is some dust. Unconscious dust! What right has God to change that unconscious dust into a human being, when lie knows that human being will sin ; and He knows that human being will sufCer eternal agony? TThy not leave him in the unconscious dust? "What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human agony ? Suppose I knew that 1 could change that piece of furni- ture into a living, sentient human being, and I knew that that being would suffer untold agony forever. If I did it, I would be a fiend. I would leave that being in the unconscious dust. And yet we are told that w^e must believe such a doctrine, or we are to bf eternally damned! It won't do. In 1SG9 there was a division in this Church, and they had a law- suit to see which Avas the Church of God. And they tried it by a judge and jury, and the jury decided that the new school was the Church of God, and then they got a new trial, and the next jury decided that the old school w\^s the Church of God, and that settled it. That Church teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for me! I don't Avant it! I don't wish to go to heaven unless I can settle by the books, and go there because I ought to go there. I have said, and I say again, I don't wish to be a charity angel. 1 have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies. The other day a young gentlemen, a Presbyterian who had just been converted, came to me and he gave me a tract, and he told me he was perfectly happy. Ugh! Says I: "Do you think a great many people are going to hell ?" "Oh, yes." "And you were perfectly happy?" "Well, he didn't know as he was quite." "Wouldn't you be happier if they were all going to heaven?" ''-WHAT SHALL WE BO TO ^M SAVEBf* 23 "Oh, yes." "Well, then, you are not perfectly happy ?" "No, he didn't think he was." Says I: "When you get to heaven, then you would be perfectly happy ?" "Oh, yes." "Now, when we are only going to hell, you are not quite happy ; but when we are in hell, and you in heaven, then you will be perfectly happy ? You won't be as decent when you get to be an argel as you are now, will you?" "Well," he said, "that was not exactly it." Said 1. "Suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy in heaven then ? "Well," he says, "I suppose God would know the best place for mother." And I thought to myself, then, if I was a woman, I would like to have five or six boys like that. It will not do. Heaven is where are those we love, and those who love us. And I wish to go to no world unless I can be accompanied by those who love me here. Talk about the con- solations of this infamous doctrine. The consolations of a doc- trine that makes a father say, "I can be happy with my daughter in hell ;" that makes a mother say, "I can be happy with my gen- erous, brave boy in hell ;" that makes a boy say, "I can enjoy the glory of heaven with the woman who bore me, the woman who would have died for me, in eternal agony." And they call that tidings of great joy. I have not time to speak of the Baptists,— that Jeremy Taylor said were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest pest and nuisance on the earth. Nor of the Quakers, the best of ail, and abused by all. I can not forget that John Fox, in the year of grace 1640, was put in the pillory and whipped from town to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten, trampled upon, and what for? Simple because he preached the doctrine: "Thou Shalt not resist evil with evil." " Thou shalt love thy enemies.'' Think of what the Church must have been that day to scar the flesh of that loving man! Just think of it? I say I have not time to speak of all these sects. And of the varieties of Presby- terians and Campbellites. The people who think they must dive in order to go up. There are hundreds and hundreds of these sects, all founded upon this creed that I read, differing simply in degree. Ah! but they say to me: "You are fighting something that is dead. Nobody believes this, now." The preachers do not believe what they preach in the pulpit. The people in the pews do not believe what Ihey hear preached. And they say to me: "You are fighting something that is dead. This is all a form, we do not believe a solitary creed in it. We sign it and swear that We 24 INGERSOLrs NEW LECTURE, believe it, but we don't. And none of us do. And all the minis- ters, they say in private, admit that they do not believe it, not quite." I don't know whether this is so or not. I take it that they believe what they preach. I take it that when they meet and solemnly agree to a creed, I take it they are honest and solemnly believe in that creed. The Evangelical Alliance, made up of all orthodox denominations of the world, met only a few years ago, and here is their creed : They believe in the divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures ; the right and duty of private judgment in the interpretation of Holy Scriptures, but if you interpret wrong you are damned. They believe in the unity of the Godhead and the trinity of the persons therein. They believe in the utter depravity of human nature. There can be no more infamous doctrine than that. They look upon a little child as a lump of depravity. I look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, under proper circumstances, blossom into rich and glorious life. Total depravity of human nature I Here is a woman whose husband has been lost at sea ; the news comes that he has been drowned by the ever-hungry waves, and she waits. There is something in her heart that tells her he is alive. And she waits. And years afterward, as she looks down toward the little gate, she sees him ; he has been given back by the sea, and she rushes to his arms, and covers his face with kisses and with tears. And if that infamous doctrine is true every tear is a crime, and ever kiss a blasphemy. It won't do. According to that doctrine, if a man steals and repents, and takes back the property, the repentance and the taking back of the property are two other crimes if he is totally depraved. It is an infamy. What else do they believe? "The justification of a sinner by faith alone," without works, just faith. Believing something that you don't understand. Of course God cannot afford to reward a man for believing anything that is reasonable. God rewards only for believing something that is unreasonable, if you believe some- thing that you know is not so. What else? They believe in the eternal blessedness of the righteous, and in the eternal punishment of the wicked. Tidings of great joy! They are so good that they will pot associate with Universalists. They will not associate with Unitarians. They will not associate with scientists. They will only associate with those who believed that God so loVed the world that He made up His mind to damn the most of us. ''WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED f" 26 Then they say to me: "What do yoM propose? You have torn this down ; what do you propose to give in the place of it ? " I have not torn the good down. I have only endeavored to trample out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. I do not tear away the pas- sage, " God will be merciful to the merciful." I do not destroy the promise, " If you will forgive others, God will forgive you." I would not for anything blot out the faintest stars that shine in the horizon of human despair, nor in the horizon of human hope; but I wll do what I can to get that infinite shadow out of the heart of man. " "Wliat do you propose in place of this ? " Well, in the first place, I propose good fellowship— good friends all around. No matter what we believe, shake hands and let it go. That is your opinion. Tlwsismine: "Let us be friends." Science makes friends ; religion— superstition— makes enemies. They say, "Belief is important." I say, no, good actions are importan.' Judge by deed, not by creed, good fellowship. We have had too many of these solemn people. Whenever I see an exceedingly solemn man, I know he is an exceedingly stu- pid man. 'No man of any humor ever founded any religion— never. Humor sees both sides, while reason is the holy light; humor car- ries the lantern, and the man with a keen sense of humor is pre- served from the solemn stupidities of superstition. I like a man who has got good feeling for everybody— good fellowship. One man said to another : " Will you take a glass of wine ? " " I don't drink." " Will you smoke a cigar ? " " I don't smoke." " Maybe you will chew something ? " " I don't chew." "Let us eat some hay." " I tell you I don't eat hay." "Well, then, good-bye; for you are no company for man or beast." I believe in the gospel of cheerfullness, the gospel of good nature, the gospel of good health. Let us pay some attention to our bodies. Take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care of themselves. Good health! Audi believe that the time will come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease. I believe 26 mGERSorrs new lecturb, the time will come when man will not fill the future with con- sumption and insanity. I believe the time will come, when we study ourselves, and imderstand the laws of health, that we will say, "We are under obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children." Even if I got to heaven, and had a harp, I would hate to look back upon my children and grandchildren, and see them diseased, deformed, crazed, all suffering the penalties of crimes I had committed. I, then, believe in the gospel of good health, and I believe in a gospel of good living. You can not make any God happy by fast- ing. Let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked— and it is a thousand times better to know how to cook it than it is to understand any theology in the world. I believe in the gospel of good clothes ; I believe in the gospel of good houses ; in the gospel of water and soap. I believe in the gospel of intelligence, in the gospel of education. The school-house is my cathedral. The universe is my Bible. I believe in that gospel of justice that we must reap what we sow. I do not believe in forgiveness. If I rob Mr. Smith and God for- gives me, how does that help Smith. If I, by slander, cover some poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she with^ps away like a blighted flower, and afterward I get forgiveness, how does that help her? If there is another world we have got to set- tle. No bankrupt coui-t there. Pay down. The Christians say, that among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill a sheep, now they say, " Charge it." "Put it upon the slate." It won't do, for every crime you commit you must answer to your- self and to the one you injure. And if you have ever clothed another with unhappiness, as with a garment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though you hadn't done that thing. No forgiveness. Eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice. That is what I believe in. And if it goes hard with me, I will stand it, and I will stick to my logic and I will bear it liko a man. And I believe, too, in the gospel of liberty, in giving to others what we claim for ourselves. I believe there is room everywhere for thought, and the more liberty you give away the more you will have. In liberty extravagance is economy. Let us be just. Let us be generous to each other. I believe in the gospel of intelligence. That is the only lever capable of raising mankind. Intelligence must be the savior of this world. Humanity is the grand religion, and no God can put ^'WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDf'' 21 another in hell in another world who has made a little heaven in this. God cannot make a man miserable if that man has made somebody else happy. God cannot hate anybody who is capable of loving anybody. So I believe in this great gospel of generosity. "Ah! but," they say, "it won't do. You must believe." I say no. My gospel of health will bring life. My gospel of intelligence, my gospel of good living, my gospel of good-fellowship will cover the world with happy homes. My doctrine will put carpets upon your floors, pictures upon your walls. My doctrine will put bocks upon your shelves, ideas in your minds. My doctrine will rid the world of the abnormal monsters born of the ignorance of super- stition. My doctrine will give us health, wealth, and happiness. That is what I want. That is what I believe in. Give us intelli- gence. In a little while a man may find that he cannot steal without robbing himself. He will find that he cannot murder without assassinating his own joy. He will find that every crime is a mistake. He will find that only that man carries the cross who does wrong, and that the man who does right the cross turns to wings upon his shoulders that will bear him upward forever. He will find that intelligent self-love embraces within its mighty arms all the human race. " Oh," but they say to me, " you take away immortality." I do not. If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not indebted to priests for it, nor to Bibles for it, and it cannot be destroyed by unbelief. As long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies that we love we will say, " Oh, that we could meet again !" And whether we do or not, it will not be the work of theology. It will be a fact in nature. I would not for my life destroy one star of human hope; but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the cradle, and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, that she will not be compelled to believe that, ninety-nine chances in a hundred, she is raising kindling-wood for hell. One world at a time— that is my doctrine. It is said in the Testament, " Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof;" and I say, sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof. And suppose, after all, that death does end all, next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace, 28 INOERSOLrS NEW LECTURE, Kext to eternal life is eternal death. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark will never know again the touch of tears. Lips that have been touched by eternal silence will never utter another word of grief. Hearts of dus'./ do not break ; the dead do not weep. And I had rather think of those I have loved, and those I have lost, as having returned, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the world— I would rather think of them as unconscious dust — I would rather think of them as gurgling in the stream, floating in the clouds, bursting in the foam of light upon the shores of worlds— I would rather think of them as the inanimate and eternally unconscious, than to have even a suspicion that their naked souls had been clutched by an orthodox God. But for me, I will leave the dead where nature leaves them* And whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish ; but I can not believe that there is any being in this universe who has created a human soul for eternal pain. And I would rather that every God would destroy himself ; I would rather that we all should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that just one soul should suffer eternal agony. I have made up my mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. Upon that rock I stand. That he will forgive the forgiving. Upon that rock I stand. That every man should be true to him- self, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a crime. And upon that rock I stand. The honest man, the good, kind, sweet woman, the happy child, has nothing to fear, neither in this world nor the world to come. And upon that rock I stand. IngersolPs Answer to Prof. Swing^ Dr. Thomas and Others* After looking over the replies made to his new lecture, Col. IngersoU was asked by a Trihuiie reporter what he thought of them ? He replied as follows : **I think they dodge the point. The real point is this: If salvation by faith is the real doctrine of Christianity , I asked on Sunday before last, and I still ask, why didn't Matthew tell it? I still insist that Mark should have remembered it, and I shall always believe that Luke ought, at least, to have noticed it. I was endeavoring to show that modern Christianity has for its basis an interpolation. I think I showed it. The only gospel on the orthodox side is that of John, and that was certainly not written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after the others were written. I know very well that the Catholic Church claimed during the Dark Ages, and still claims, that references had been made to the Gospels by persons living in the first, second, and third centuries; but I believe such manuscripts were manu- factured by the Catholic Church. For many years in Europe there was not one person in 20,000 who could read and write. During that time the Church had in its keeping the literature of our world. They interpolated as they pleased. They created. They destroyed. In other w^ords, they did whatever in their opinion was necessary to substantiate the faith. The gentlemen wlio saw fit to reply did not answer the question, and I again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation depended upon belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew didn't mention it. Some one has said that Christ didn't make known this doctri-ne of salvation by belief or faith until after His resurrection. Cer- tainly none of the gospels were written until after His resurrec- tion ; and if He made that doctrine known after His resurrection, 30 TNQERSOLL'S ANSWER and before His ascension, it should have been in Matthew, iMark, and Luke, as well as John. The replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the subject; that they are not well acquainted with the Kew Testament. In other words, they have not read it except with the regulation theological bias. There is one thing I wish to correct here. In an editoral in the Tribune it was stated that I had admitted that Christ was beyond and above Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, and others. I didn't say so. Another point was made against me, and those who made it seemed to think it was a good one. In my lecture I asked why it was that the Disciples of Christ wrote in Greek, whereas, in fact, they understood only Hebrew. It is now claimed that Greek was the language of Jerusalem at that time; that Hebrew had fallen into disuse; that no one under- stood it except the literati and the highly educated. If I fell into an error upon this point it was because I relied upon the New Testament. I find in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts an ac- count of Paul having been mobbed in the city of Jerusalem ; that he was protected by a Chief Captain and some soldiers; that, when upon the stairs of the castle to which he was being taken for protection, he obtained leave from the Captain to speak unto the people. In the fortieth verse of that chapter I find the fol- lowing; "And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and beckoned with the hand unto the people; and when there M'as made a great silence he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying—" And then follows the speech of Paul, wherein he gives an account of his conversion. It seems a little curious to me that Paul, for the purpose of quieting a mob, would speak to that mob in an unknown language. If I were mobbed in the city of Chicago, and wished to defend myself with an explanation, I cer- tainly would not make that explanation in Choctaw, even if I un- derstood that tongue. My present opinion is that I would speak in English ; and the reason I would speak in English is because that language is generally understood in this city. And so I conclude from the account in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts that *'Hebrew was the language of Jerusalem at that time, or that Paul would not have addressed the mob in that tongue." " Did you read Mr. Courtney's answer ? " "T road what ]\Tr. Conrtney read from others, and think some of his quotaiious v^^ry .ij^ood; and hnvt* no doubt that the authors will (rivl (ji»ii;itjiuie;)ii«d bv bdn:,' quoted." ''m% whut aboMt lim^ l^eiwg Ujdief in MuUhewf " TO PROF, SWING, LR, THOMAS AND OTHERS. 31 ** Mr. Courtney says that certain people were cured of diseases on account of faith. Admitting that mumps, measles, and whoop- ing-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a sugges- tion that salvation depended upon a like faith. I think he can hardly afford to rely upon the miracles of the Kew Testament to prove his doctrine. There is one instance in which a miracle was performed by Christ without His knowledge. And I hardly think that even ISIr. Courtney would insist that any faith could have been great enough for that. The fact is, I believe that all these miracles were ascribed to Christ long after His death, and that Christ never, at any time or place, pretended to have any super- natural power whatever. Neither do I believe that He claimed any supernatural origin. He claimed simply to be a man— no less, no more. I don't believe Mr. Courtney is satisfied with his own reply." " And now as to Prof. Swing? " "Mr. Swing has been out of the orthodox church so long that he seems to have forgotten the reasons for which he left it. I don't believe there is an orthodox minister in the city of Chicago who will agree with Mr. Swing that salvation by faith is no longer preached. Prof. Swing seems to think it of no importance who wrote the Gospel of St. Matthew. In this I agree with him. Judging from what he said, there is hardly difference enough of opinion between us to justify a reply on his part. He, however, makes one mistake. I did not in the lecture say one word about tearing churches down. I have no objection to people building all the churches they wish. While I admit that it is a pretty sight to see children on a morning in June going through the fields to the country church, I still insist that the beauty of that sight doesn't answer the question how it is that Matthew forgot to say anything about salvation through Christ. Prof. Swing is a man of poetic temperament; but this is not a poetic question." " How did the card of Dr. Thomas strike you ? " " I think the reply of Dr. Thomas in the best possible spirit. I regard him to-day as the best intellect in the Methodist denomina- tion. He seems to have what is generally understood as a Christ- ian spirit. He has always treated me with perfect fairness, and I should have said long ago many grateful things, had I not feared I might hurt him with his own people. He seems to be by nature a perfectly fair man ; and I know of no man in the United States for whom 1 have a profounder respect. Of course, I don't agree lyith Mr. Thomas. I think ic many things he is mistaken. But I 32 INGERSOLL'S ANSWER, believe him to be perfectly sincere. There is one trouble about him,— he is growing ; and this fact will no doubt give great trouble to many of his brethren. Certain Methodist hazelbrush feel a little uneasy in the shadow of this oak. "Are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons?" "Not unless something better is done than has been. Of course I don't know what another Sabbath may bring forth. I am wait- ing. But of one thing I feel perfectly assured ; that no man in the United States, or in the world, can account for the fact, if we are to be saved only by faith in Christ, that Matthew forgot it, that Luke said nothing about it, and that Mark never mentioned it ex- cept in two passages written by another person. Until that is answered, as one grave-digger says to the other in "Hamlet," I shall say: *Ay, tell me that and unyoke." In the meantime, I wish to keep on the best terms with all parties concerned. I can- not see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise." e\ 1 The Covenant Symbol 9 of the wretchedness of earth, but law is not universal! v a scourge and an evil. I have never been a member of the attacked kirk of Scotland, nor was 1 brought up a Pres- byterian— those bodies can take care of themselves. Yet I must deny that any Protestant body could be justly called the " twin sister of the inquisition." One can count on his lingers, almost, the number of persons who were put to death by Protestants for religious belief or non-belief Such rare occurrences were due to some branch of the tree momentarily lacking its nutriment, whereas the steady practice of Pome showed a tree poisoned from topmost twig to deepest root. The fatal charge must be confessed, that Ingersoll has not discriminated between the branches of the church, or between the Church of Christ and Christianity. This failure is so great as to disarm the whole philippic of its weight, and it might be denied that Christianity was the relii2:ion of which he had been the assailant. The Protest- ant church is not a sister of the inquisition. Christ and His apostles can not be arraigned for the corruptions which Ingersoll has noted. The Bishop's Closing Words — Peace. Prosperity and True Christianity Inseparable. Let the individual man present the highest type of per- sonal preparation, with every appetite, desire, and natural perfection, subordinated to the moral reason, to his highest spiritual being. Let our homes be a sacred retreat where the wife and mother shall not play the part of a scold nor the husband and father the part of a tyrant — homes in which there shall be no scorching blasts of passion nor polar storms of coldness and hate; homes in which happy children shall ever see the beauty of love and the beauty 30 MJSTAICES OF INGEBSOLL. of holiness; homes dkeered by music, refined by books, and gladdened with songs; homes of sympathy, homes of self-sacrifice, homes of devotion, homes of undying affection; homes which would lure the angels from the felicities and fellowships of the upper paradise to dwell in these bowers of earthly bliss. Let every form of social evil be banished from the world, from the , maddening bowl '* which biteth like a serpent and stingeth like an adder," to the " steps of her that take hold on death." Let every personal right be given to man — the right of property in the earth ; the right to his share of the multitudinous forms of material blessings; the right to property in ideas, to property in character and reputa- tion— and the venomous slanderer no more walk the earth. Let every duty growing out of these rights be faithfully performed. Let the rights of woman be maintained, she being placed, not beneath man's feet, but by his side, with eveivv faculty of her nature called out, and not repressed. Let the rights of children be respected and the most tender, judicious and elevating educational influences be thrown around them. Let all the antagonisms between capital and labor forever cease — the laborer no longer be an eye- servant, but receive his honest due for his honest work and yet have time to develop, by books, society and liome, his immortal mind. Let not the buyer say, "It is naught; it is naught," and then go straightway and boast what he hath done; nor the seller expose only the best side of his wares. Let there be entire truthfulness in all the intercourse be- tween man and man, in looks, and words, and acts; and all white lies with all black lies be no more known. Let science push her discoveries to the utmost into all the realms of nature, for "the relief of man's estate" — no more disdaining the useful as beneath its notice; and Watts BTSffOP PAlLOrrS' nEPlY. 81 with the steam-engine, and Dav^y with the safety-lamp, and Stephenson spanning the Menai straits, and Hoe with the printing-press, and Morse with the telegraph, and Tyndall with the smoke-respirator, be followed by other and greater benefactors of mankind. Let art no more be prostituted to the basest of purposes, and the artist be no more disobe- dient to the heavenly visions of purity and grace; let genius consecrate its highest gifts to the weal and not to the woe of mankind, and the works That hold with sweet but cursed art Their inc^antitions o'er the heart, Till every pulse of pure desire Throbs with the glow of passion's fire, no more proceed from the pen. Let the hand of government be lighter than eider-down upon the head of the obedient subject, and yet stronger than a tliunderbolt to avenge his wrongs. Then you have only the flower and the blessed golden fruit of those two immortal principles of Christianity: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thy- self." " We think of the Bible as a structure solid and eternal." — Dr. Burtol. " I KNOW not how the printers have pointed this passage, for I keep no Bible." — Thomas Paine Criticising the Scriptures. '' To SEE God's own law universally acknowledged as it stands in the holy written book; to see this — or the true unwearied aim and struggle toward this — is a thing worth living and dying for." — Thorrvas Carlyle. 32 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. '' I HAVE but one book (the Bible,) but that is the best.^' — Wm. Collins' Reply to Dr. Johnson. " The Bible containes a complete series of facts, and of historical men to explain time and eternity, such as no other religion has to oifer. Everything in it is grand and worthy of God. The Gospel is more than a book; it is a living thing, active, powerful, overcoming every obstacle in its way." — Napoleon Bonaparte. '* To the Bible men will return because they can not do without it. Because happiness is our being's end and aim, and happiness belongs to righteousness, and righteousness is revealed in the Bible. For this simple reason men will return to the Bible, just as a man who tried to give up food, thinking that it was a vain thing and that he could do without it, would return to food, or a man who tried to give up sleep, thinking it was a vain thing and he could do without it, would return to sleep." — Matthew Arnold. i'BOF, WILCOX'S BE PLY. 33 PROF. WILCOX'S REPLY. The Professor's Interview with Paine's Physician, Dr. Manly- Remorseful Death of the Great Infidel. Undoubtedly, Mr. Paine was misrepresented by his opponents. Unquestionably, he has been maligned. That he was enthusiastic, unselfish and immensely service- able in the defense of the American colonies, it would be ungenerous and unfair to deny. That his pen was a power in the struggle for independence is matter of record. And his admirers will have it that only an " orthodox ■' Chris- tian has any grievance against him as a counter-balance to to these services. Paine the patriot, they would have us acknowledge, was blameless, whatever may be said of Paine the religionist. There is no greater mistake. There are men by the million in these states who are not " orthodox " or devout or Christian in profession or in life, who see clearly and say freely that Christianity is a power that the nation never could have spared. As patriotic citizens they defend it. And suppose that Paine had succeeded in his fierce crusade against American Christianit}^? Suppose he had banished the Bible from every fireside, silenced evei-y church bell, soured every Christian in the land into a sneering unbeliever like himself? Suppose he had wiped out with a stroke of his pen, as he deliberately aimed to do, all that Christianity has ever been worth to the intelli- gence, the refinement, the morality, the beneficence, of this country — all the institutions it has founded — every college, seminary, hospital, asylum, mission-school — what would U MIBTAEWS OF 1N0ER60LL, have been the effect on the republic? What would have been the outcome of Paine's life and influence, as a whole^ for his country? What relief would his patriotic pamph- lets have offered to a calamity like this? They would have been the light of a glow-worm in a night of despair. Better, a thousand-fold, to have left us under the shelter of Christian England, with all the tyranny of her govern- ment. Better leave the Ship oi State on the stocks than to launch her, without helm or compass, to a sure wreck and ruin. Whether Mr. Paine ever came to recognize the work he had attempted to do, is an open question. That he ever forsook his anti-Christian attitude there is no sufficient proof. But that he grew uneasy as he approached his end, that he suffered from such alarms as are commonly ex- plained by remorse, is as certain as any fact that rests on evidence. On the 11th of June, 1849, the writer enjoyed an inter- view with Dr. Manly, of New York, the physician of Mr. Paine during his last illness, in 1810. Dr. M., who must have passed his threescore years and ten, was highly re- spected in his profession and a gentleman of evident candor and simplicity of character. He defended his former patient from several discreditable rumors, as, for instance, that he inveigled away the wife of his friend Bonneville. There had been published, over Dr. Manly's name, the followins: account of Paine's last hours: "During the latier part of his life, tliough his conversation was equivocal, his conduct wns singular. He would not be loft alone, night or day. He not only required lo have some person with him, but he must see that he or she was there, and would not allow his curtain to bo closed at any time. And if, as it would sometimes unavoidedly happen, he was left alone, he would scream and halloo until some person came PROF. WILCOX'S REPLY. 35 lo him When relief from pain would admit, he seemed thoughtful and coutemPlative, his eyes being generally closed, and his hands folded upon his breast, although he never slept without the assistance of an •uiodyi.e There was something remarkable in his conduct about this period (which comprises about two weeks immediately preceding his death) particularly when we reflect that Thomas Paine was author of the ^ \-e of Reason.' He would call out during his paroxysms of dis- tiess\rilliout intermission, 'O Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ help me, Lord help me,' etc., repeating the same expression with- out any variation, in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. It was this conduct which led me to think that he had abandoned his former opinions and I was more inclined to that belief, when I understood fmm his nurse, who is a very serious, and, I believe, pious woman that he would occasionally inquire when he saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading; and being answered, and asked, at the same time, whether she would read aloud, he assented and would appear to give particular attention. The book she usually read was Hobart's ' Com- panion for the Altar.' ^ * <. " I took occasion, during the night of the 5th and 6th of June, to test the stren-th of his opinions respecting Revelation. I purposely made him a vciT late visit. It was afa time that seemed to sort exactly with rav errand It was midni-ht. He was in great distress, constantly ex. cliimin- in the words above mentioned; when, after a considerable preface "l addressed him in the following manner, the nurse hemg present' " Mr. Paine, your opinions, by a large portion of the commu. nitv have been treated with deference; you have never been in the hab-it of mixinir in your conversation words of course; you have never indulged in the practice of profane swearing. \ou must be sensible that we are acquainted with your religious opinions as they are given o the world. What must we think of your present conduct? ^\ hy do you call upon Jesus Christ to help you? Do y(m believe that He can he'pvou? Do you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ? Come, novVanswer me honestly. I want an answer from the lips of a dying man, for I verily believe that you will not live twenty-four hours I waited some time at the end of every question; he did not answer but ceased to exclaim in the above manner. Again I addressed him Mr. Paine, you have not answered my questions; will you answer them . Allow me to ask again, Do you believe, or let me qualify the question^ do you wish to believe, that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? After a pause of some minutes, he answered, ' I have no wish to believe on that subject ' I then left him, and know not whether he afterward spoke to 36 MISTAKES OF INQEMSOLL. any person on any subject, though he lived, as I before observed, to the morning of the 8th. Such conduct, under usual circumstances, I con- sider absolutely unaccountable ; though with diffidence I would remark, not so much so in the present instance. For though the first necessary and general result of conviction be a sincere wish to atone for evil committed, yet it may be a question worthy of able consideration, whether excessive pride of opinion, consummate vanity and inordinate self-love might not prevent or retard that otherwise natural conse- quence?" The object of the present writer in seeking an interview with Dr. Manly was to obtain from his own lips a con- firraation or denial of these statements. Dr. M. acknowledged and re-affirmed them in every particular. He added that the outcries were so violent as to be dis- tinctly heard by the neighbors in a house standing diagonally opposite, and at a considerable distance from Mr. Paine's residence. And they were evidently cries from no mere physical pain. If Col. Ingersoll were in pain to-day, would he call upon Jesus Christ for relief ? Thomas Paine was not a man of so barren thought jor meager speech that he could find no other ejaculation. He may not have clearly seen the wickedness and folly of the ''Age of Reason." Bat a candid reader will hardly doubt that he inwiirdly trembled with some vague fear of coming retribution as he looked out into the shadows. "There is but one book: bring me the Bible." — Sir- Walter Scott. •' ThxVt book " (pointing to the Bible,) '' is the rock upon which our republic rests." — Andrew Jackson. " YouxG man, attend to the voice of one who has pos- sessed a certain degree of fame, and who will shortly appear before his Maker. Read the Bible every day of your life," — Dr. Samuel Johnson, MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. 37 " The farther the ages advance in cultivation, the more can the Bible be used, partly as the foundation, partly as the means of education, not, of course, by superficial, but by really wise men:'— Goethe. " " Perose the books ot philosophers with all their pomp of diction: how meagre, how contemptible, are they when compared with the Scriptures. The majesty of the Scrip- ture strikes me with '^dmii-dtion r—Bousseau. " But it is a much more serious ground of offense against Voltaire that he intermeddled in religion without being himself in any measure religious; that, in a word, he ar- dently, and with long-continued effort, warred against Christianity, without understanding, beyond themeresuper- ficies, what Christianity wasr—Carlyle's Criticism of Voltaire. - The Bible is a fountain whose waters feed intellect, heart, life, promoting the highest worship as well as the largest humanity. ^ -^ * Kingdoms fall, institutions perish, civilizations change, human doctrines disappear; but the imperishable truths which pervade and sanctity the Bible shall bear it up above the flood of change and the deluge of years. It will forever remain."— e/«m6« Free- man Clarice. - For a wonder, gentlemen, for a wonder, I know nobody, either in France or anywhere else, who could write and speak with more art and talent. I defy you all— as many as are here— to prepare a tale so simple, and at the same time so sublime and so touching as the tale of the passion and death of Jesus Christ; which produces the same effect, which makes a sensation so strong and as generally felt, and whose influence will be the same, after so many centuries." — Diderot 38 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. '' I HAVE carefully and regularly perused the holy Scrip- tures, aud am of opinion that the volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more sublimity, purer mor- ality, more important history, and hner strains, both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected withm the same compass from all other books that were ever composed in any age or in any idiom." — Sir William Jones. "This book is the mirror of the Divinity, the rightful regent of the world. Other books, after shining their season, may perish in flames fiercer than those which consumed the Alexandrian library; this, in essence, must remain pure as gold and unconsumable as asbestos, amid the flames of gen- eral conflagration. Other books may be forgotten in the universe where suns go down and disappear like bubbles in the stream; this book, transferred to a higher clime, shall shine as the brighcness of that eternal firmament, and as those higher stars which are forever and forever.^' — George Gilfillan. JAMES MACLAUQELIN'S REPLY. JAMES MACLATJGHLEsT'S BEPLY. The Scotchman Looks the Lawyer Square in the Face— How They Manage Witnesses— Ingersoll and His Last OUent, Thomas Paine. The aim of a lawyer is to do the best he can for his client. Some lawyers are not very scrupulous as to the means and methods by which they can rescue a client from the due deserts of his crime. A dangerous witness they will put out of the way if they can. If they can't, then -they will blacken his character in order to impare his testimony. They will puzzle him with an array of questions to elicit discrepant' statements and to break down his evidence. They will suborn liars to prove an alibi. They will use every device and trick and scheme which legal chicane can invent to invest their client, though the most guilty of the guilty, with a robe of innocence as nnsullied as that of an angel. If guilt is too apparent to be denied, then emotional insanity is adroitly coined, or some uncontrolable mania is put in, as a plea, to either free the criminal from responsi- bility or to mitigate his crime. Their oblique contrivances •to dishonor truth and defeat justice are not the inventions of to-day. They were current in the days of Ilobert Burns. The plowman poet, in his own satirical way, describes the iaw7ers in the other world as suffering in that little mem- ber, the tongue, by which they have sinned so much in this. Colonel Bob Ingersoll is a lawyer. His last client is Tom Paine, and, if we believe the advocate, his client deserves the glory of being the founder of this great repub- lic, and the alo?ie apostle of modern liberty! 40 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. The Colonel states at the outset as follows: " About this man, I intend to tell just as near the tnith as I can." Xow, when speaking about his client, \\o\y near the truth a law- yer will go is an intricate question. It would not be good policy for him to go too near the truth in every case; it might materially change the cause and character of the client. Getting at the Facts— Interesting Incidents in Paine's Life. That Paine was of humble parentage is true, but in this I can not see anything peculiarly meritorious. Many wlio were born in poverty and cradled in hardships became the benefactors of humanity, tlie patrons of industry, and the champions of liberty. That the young Quaker, Paine, had a keen, vigorous intellect, and that he received a good ele- mentary education, is also true. That he was a staymaker with his father, then a grocer, and then an exciseman, is as near the truth as we can come. That he lostliis place on the excise because lie started in the tobacco business is about true. Being out of work, an acquaintance gave him a letter of introduction to Franklin, then in London, who advised him to emigrate to America. All this is as near the truth as wq can get. Paine came to America, as many before him did, and many since have done, simply to tind a wider field for his ambition. This was in 1774, when he was in his thirty-eighth year. Paine became editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine. In January, 1776, at the suggestion of Franklin, Paine wrote the pamphlet of " Common Sense.-' All true. And if his "Common Sense" was, as the Colonel says, "the iirst argument for separation, the first assault on the British form of government, the first blow for a republic, and aroused our fathers like a trumpet blast," then be it JAMBS MACLAUGHLIN'S REPLY. 41 remembered that Paine drew his introductory arguments and illustrations, not from the arsenal of infidelity, but from the arsenal of this old book, the Bible, which Colonel Ingersoil vituperously slanders. Paine was not an avowed infidel at this time, but a Quaker. It was the Quaker Pairie^ not the infidel Paine, that worked for American independence, and we challenge the Colonel to show us anything done by Paine in the interests of national liberty after he avowed his religious or irrelig- ious views in his "Age of Peason." But was Paine's '* Common Sense " the first peal of the .tocsin of separation and independence? ^o. Ten years before this, when both Franklin and Paine were in Eng- land, and strangers to each other, and immediately after the news of tlie passage of the stamp act had reached America, a young man, by name, Patrick Henry, amid his assembled colonists in Yirginia, arose and said: "Caesar had his Brutus, Charles I. his Cromwell, and George III." — Here he was interrupted by the cry, " Treason.-' Paus- ing, he added — "may profit by their example." Tliis was the key-note of resistance and independence. And in spite of the timid, who quaked at the utterance, the words of Patrick Henry flowed outward and onward, swelling many a brave heart with the dawning hope of liberty. Bancroft vs. Ingersoil— Additional Facts! And there is another fact that sadly conflicts with the Colonel's fulsome rhetoric. We give it from the page and in the words of Bancroft, where the illustrious historian describes the early settlers who formed the Young Ameri- can colonies, and mentions Presbyterians who had come from Ireland and planted themselves in the upland region of North Carolina. And in connection with this he adds: 42 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, ^' We shall find that the first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection with Great Britian came, not from the Puritans of New England, the Dutch of New York, or the planters of Virginia, but from Scotch- Irish Presbyterians.^^ Tell it not in Gath. The Colonel will call all history a lie and all men liars, rather than have his own pet client outstripped in the manlj race by detestable Christians. He would gladly pay, I fancy, $10 more a volume for Bancroft if that passage had not been written. Now, we have no wish to dwarf the services rendered by Paine to the cause of American independence. His ''Common Sense" was a heavy gun in the field, and the writer was rewarded for it by a vote of £500 by the Legis- lature of Pennsylvania. I need not say that his patriotism was so intensely strong that he actually accepted the sum. Nor was this all his reward. He was appointed clerk to the Committee for Foreign Afiairs, an office which he was afterward obliged to resign in 1779, on account of some breach of trust. It was while in this office that he wrote his stirring appeals entitled ''The Crisis,'' from which we would not detract an iota. In 1780 he obtained the office of Clerk to the Assembly of Pennsylvania. His friends moved to have him appointed historiographer to the United States, but they failed. Congress, in 17S5, however, voted him $3,000, which the distinguished patriot had the generosity to accept from the young republic just starting in business. The State of New York also gave him 500 acres of land. Tom Paine was well rewarded for all his valuable services in the cause of liberty; and none but a lawyer's eye can discover the sacrifices, the self-denials which made the poor Quaker emigrant rich at a time while thousands of Irish JAMES MACLAUOHLIN\S REPLY. 43 colonists had become poor by laying their possessions at the feet of independence. If Paine's object was to benefit mankind, as his learned counsel says, then it would appear that, while engaged in this really patriotic career, he was benefiting himself. After a thirteen years' residence in this country Paine sailed to France (1787). From France he crossed to Eng- land. " His rights of Man," in reply to Burke was written in England. It was 2)ronounced seditious, and the author was threatened with prosecution. Paine's well- known republican sentiments had made him popular in France. He was elected to represent the Department of Calias in the E^ational Convention, and, escaping from England, he took his seat in that radical assembly in 1792. The Reign of Terror— The Great Ingersoll Epoch— Voting for the King's Execution. France was now a political volcano. The church to which Colonel Ingersoll is proud to belong, and not the infamous Kirk of Scotland, was in the ascendency, and, oh, how Immane and merciful the scepter! There was no John Adams to invoke the blessing of heaven on the new Eepublic of France. Neither a God to love nor a devil to fear, was the prevailing creed. Reason ruled — a rod of iron? Worse still. Reason's reign was a reign of terror. The soldiers of this sweet goddess of Colonel Ingersoll had the power. They were sovereigns, and their acts declared that their mistress was the " twin sister of the Spanish Inquisition." They became the regicide of a monarch more virtuous than his executioners, and like ferocious tigei's, they struck their claws into thousands of victims and devoured them without mercy. It is but the trick of 44 MISTAKES OF lyOERSOLL. a lawyer to offset this butclierj by a reference to the mas- sacre of St. Bartholomew in 1572. We want neither the terror of 1793 nor the massacre of 1572; and neither was inspired by the lessons of our Saviour. They were both monsters of the same family, each begotten by the enemy, not the friend of the Bible. We do not implicate Paine in these atrocities which made even stout hearts shudder in France. We give him credit for voting against the execution of Louis. But the learned counsel has made out that his client stood almost alone in his resistance to the king's death. History must be a lie> that Tom Paine may enjoy the solitary grandeur of the humane in the midst of the cruel in that convention. In that assembly there were 721 suffrages; of these, 366 — only a bare majority — voted for the king's execution; so that Tom Paine was one of 355 to share in the courage or humanity of that occasion. It was not, after all, a work of devotion such as has no parallel in the life of any theologian. The Colonel's eloquence on this point reminds us of the old story of the mountain being in labor and bringing forth a mouse. And tliis is about the briefest and best critique on the entire lecture about Tom Paine. That Tom Paine became popular with the leaders of the French revolution because he was not wicked enough, is true, and he was thrown into prison; but this happened not at once, but fully a year after the execution of the king. He remained in prison nearly two years. After his release he published the second part of his " Age of Reason." In 1802 he left France and reached Baltimore. We can not find any trace after this in his life of any public or political activities deserving commendation. His influence and reputation certainly declined after he avowed his religious sentiment in the " Age of Reason." JAMES MAC LAUGH LIN'S REPLY. 4.^ How Ingersoll Wastes His Powder — Some of BUs Blunders— Paine's Moral Decline. The Colonel very adroitly tries to rebut the allegation that Paine was a drunkard. 11^ refers to his services ren- dered to American independence, and the rewards he re- ceived, and asks could all this have happened had Paine been a drunkard. But the Colonel has only wasted powder in blazing away so furiously as he has done on this point. The allegation that Paine fell into habits of dissipation extends only to the last few years of his life, and the learned counsel's efiort to disprove this is exceedingly lame. Wt are not disposed either to exaggerate Paine's faults or to detract from his nierits, but, coming as near as we can, we must gently hint that his last years were not the most purely spent nor most happy of his life. Paine was married twice. His first wife died about a year after their marriage. After living about three and a half years with his second wife they separated, not by di- vorce, but by mutual consent. He brought the wife of a French bookseller and her two sons to America and what- ever were his relations to that woman, pure or impure, deponent saith not, but she, her husband, and children, not the United States nor her war-worn veterans, became his chief legatees. If Colonel Ingersoll fancies that the services of Tom Paine in the cause of human rights is the natural outflow of infidelity, he blunders egregiously. In the first place, Tom Paine's infidelity was of a milder type than that of his advocate. Tom Paine was a respect- able deist, and he would have scorned to drop from his pen the ribald words which his admirers would have employed to caricature the amiable founder of our Christianity. 48 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. In the second place. Colonel Ingersoll can not deny that Tom Faine was not the avowed infidel, but tlie Quaker, when he championed the cause of American independence against tyranny and oppression, and let some one show us what sacrifices Tom Paine laid upon the altar of humanity or liberty after he avowed his sentiments in the *^' Age of Reason." That infidels have rendered valuable services to their country and to the world, may be true, but to con- clude from this that Christianity is tyranny outstrips Aristotle. Oharity vs. Slander. But our objection to the Colonel's lecture and logic arises not so much from what he has said about Paine as from what he has said about others. The Colonel would have every American to cover all the faults of his client with *'the divine mantle of charity," and not "breathe one word against his name." But, alas, his mantle of charity is so beautifully small that it can cover but the faults of his own client. The Colonel mentions slander as the last weapon left in the arsenal of Jehovah. I am surprised that he went to this arsenal to borrow his w^eapon from Jehovah, as there seems to be no neighborly feeling be- tween them. Perhaps he scorned to be under any compli- ment in that quarter, and may have found the weapon somewhere else. Having found it, ground it, and polished it with a keen Damascus edge, armed he comes to Chicago and slashes away like a valiant knight of ancient times. Slander! IN'one so expert in the use of this weapon as the courageous Colonel, l^o quarter for the living or the dead, the innocent or the guilty. Like Herod's sword in Bethlehem, he cuts, carves, and spares none, but slays all that he may slay the child Jesus. JAMES SIACLAUGHLIN'S REPLY. 47 The Scotchman Draws His Bible on the Colonel ! — A Heavy Shot, Which Hits Between the Eyes. The Scriptares, too, are assailed by the gallant Coionel, in these words: ''He (Paine) knew that every abuse had been embalmed in Scripture, that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text." The Scriptures, then, must he, a wonderful license and guide to crime. Each criminal in the land should love the Bible, and carry a copy of the old book under his arm. But do they? Let us see, Colonel IngersoU has a church with a large membership. To wdiat church, religion, or superstition do oui* notorious criminals belong? I am willing to visit, in company with him, the penitentiary, the jail. I shall take the Bible, he can take his lecture on Tom Paine; and at the iron door inside of which sit accused crime and guilt I shall present the Bible, and he can present his lecture. \Yhich will be accepted and read with ''infinite gusto'' — my Bible, "which embalms every crime," "in which outrage finds partnership in some holy text," or his lecture, in which God, Bible, and religion have no quarter? A fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind. By their fruits ye shall know them. The Bible, this patron of crime, has found its way into the Sandwich Islands. The Colonel miirht visit that little duskv kiui^dom in safetv to- day. Had he done so with Captain Cook, when there was no Bible there, the rotund and rosy champion of infidelity would have been a splendid banquet for the natives. What is Madagascar to-day under the influence of the Bible? Some years ago the Colonel might have made his last will and testament before he touched its shores; to-day he could find there a safe retreat in which to rest his travel -worn frame. In the far West, where Indians roam in freedom, I fancy that the advocate of Tom Paine would spend the 48 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. night with less anxiety in the wigwam where the Bible was read and loved by the chief than in the tent of the brave who gloried in hnman scalps rather than in the cross of Christ. We have no more respect for snperstition than Colonel IngersoU has; we condemn as much as he can all tyranny, civil and clerical. AYe confess that in the name of reliirion cruelties have been committed. Blood has been shed, wliich may well shock every chord of the human heart, and aronse a shudderincr storm of indio-nation. But the coun- terfeit and"the false implies the genuine and the true;- and in destroying the one it would be only foolish and ruinous to destroy the other. AYlien Christianity started at iirst on her benevolent march, she was the kind, innocent maiden going from house to house to dispense her boons with the hand of charity. Her enemies could prefer no charges against her but that she worshiped one God, loved Jesus Christ, and lived a good, benevolent and praiseworthy life. So far as Christians have departed from this, they have departed from the lessons and examples of the primitive preachers of the Christian faith, and Christianity is no more respon- sible for the corruption and cruelties subsequently intro- duced and practiced under her name than the legislators of the State of Illinois are for the laio breakers and crimes that disgrace her history. IngersoU's Sophistries. The Colonel has employed all the arts of sophistry, as well as slander, to undermine Christianity, and upon God and the Bible he has poiwed the fire of wit, sarcasm, ridi- cule, and everything of that kind; but let sober judgment sit down, examine, analyze, and weigh the production, and J. LUES MAC LAUGH hi N'S RRPLV. 40 there is not there the earnestness and heart of a sincere reformei-, but rather i\\Q foolery and flings and fancies of the circus clown^ whose chief object is to start a hxugh. The lecturer at times becomes a iwetaphysician, and per- haps his disciples, like those of Pythagoras of old, consider his ipse dixit a sufficient proof. But assertion is not enough now. He tells us that ''intellectual liberty, as a matter of necessity, forever destroys the idea that belief is either praise or blameworthy, and is wholly inconsistent with every creed in Christendom.'' Again. " Xo man can control his belief." So the Colonel teaches that all who hold a Christian creed are intellectual slaves. Now a creed is a belief, and if no man can control his belief, then no man is intellectually free, not even himself. If, in tlie exercise of reason, I honestly come to the conclusion that the universe is the marvelous product of a master mind and an almighty arm, and if I w^rite down my creed — I believe in one God, the Creator — am I the intellectual slave, and Colonel Ingersoll, who denies this, the intellectual free- man? So his logic leads. How wonderfully liberal are our modern advocates of free thought. They cry charity^ when tliey themselves are mo^t uncharitable^ and brand all outside their own circle as servile fools. We acknowledge, with modesty, the compliment. But, while Colonel Ingersoll may say that a man is not responsible for his belief, can he deny that error in belief may result in disaster and death? A boy, for instance, finds a pistol, and in playful sport points the weapon at his little sister. There is an explosion, and the red mark on the brow of the prostrate child shows that death's message has been delivered. Such a thing has happened. It was only an error in belief. The boy believed that the pistol was not loaded, but it was; the belief waa 50 MISTAKES OF INOEHSOLL. wrong. Engineers believed that the Taj bridge was all right. So did those in the train on tliat stormy Sunday night. But the sad disaster dissipated the belief, and ended in wreck. The belief was wrong. Pardon us, then. Colonel, for believdng in God, the gospel, and a future state, li we are wrong, our belief and religion are no bur- den to us here, and can not hurt us hereafter. If you are wrong, your error will prove hereafter your greatest pain. Is It True?— Paine as a Philanthropist. The Colonel declares that his client was "the first to lift his voice against human slavery." He is admiraljle at assertion. In the very year that Tom Paine came to America, October, 1774, the first American Congress passed this resolution: " We will neither import, nor purchase any slaves imported, after the first day of December next; after which time we will wholly discon- tinue the slave trade, and neither be concerned in it ourselves, nor will we hire our vessels nor sell our couimodities or manufactures to those who are concerned in it." Is it likely that the emigrant of a few months' resident in this land was the father of that resolution? That slavery still remained as a stain on the escutcheon of this republic js true; and that Christians were arrayed against Christians on this subject, is no less true. But, let Colonel Ingersoll drop that laugh of disdain. We will not only assert, but prove, that Christians were the first abolitionists. When Christianity lifted her banner, one-half the popu- lation of the old Eoman Empire were slaves. But as that banner advanced in age, respect, influence, and power, it dropped the blessing of manumission on the heart of the bondsman. Primitive Christianity, not Tom Paine, was the first great abolitionist. And is it true, or not true, that Great JAMES MAGLAUOHLIN^S REPLY. 51 Britain, professedly Christian, abolished slavery in her AYest In-dian Islands? Is it true, or not true, that in doing this she laid on the altar of humanity an ofiering of £20,000,000? Is it true, or not true, that all this was the result, not of infidel, but of Christian voices, such as those of a c'larkson, a Thomson, a Wilberforce, a Cowper, whose pleadings secured this grandest act in the drama of modern events?"^ IIow many dollars did Tom Paine give or lend to the cause of manumission? Surely, this philanthropist, before whose loving kindnesses those of a Howard must pale, devoted his fortune of $13,000, if he had it, to the grand cause of oppressed humanity, especially as he had no heirs to inherit it. Alas, we find no such disposition of his property; it falls into the lap of Mme. de Bonneville! John Calvin. The Colonel, in the course of his lecture, makes a fling at Calvin; but it was a happy liit in the Music Hall. We had thought that the story of Calvin and Servetus had become too hackneyed to start an additional laugh. It is well that in Calvin'^s life his enemies find but this one string to play upon. Were it otherwise, the music would never cease. But let me tell Mr. Ingersoll that if he loves republicanism, he should love John Calvin more than he loves Tom Paine. John Calvin was the master spirit in a republic more than 200 yenrs older than that of the United States— the first little republic of modern times. John Calvin might have arisen to the chair of the Roman Pontiff and sat in the highest seat in Christendom.. But turning his back on honors, emoluments, place, and power, almost alone, he goes out to battle with the hosts of superstition and tyranny for mental emancipation and human rights. His whole life was one great ofiering to human freedo 52 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, His self-denials, his hair-breadth escapes, proclaim him the honest hero, and, after spending a life of toil and danger in molding and guiding and strengthening the little Re- public of Geneva, he dies, not even with $13,000 to leave to .the children of another man's wife. And in the matter of Serve tus, be it known that, while Calvin took part in the trial of Servetus for blasphemy, he was neither judge nor jury. It was the Senate or Council of Geneva that condemned Servetus, and, although their sentence was uni- versally approved in those days, and Servetus had been burned in effigy by the Roman Catholic Church after he made his escape from prison, still there was one voice raised in favor of mitigating his sentence, and that voice was the voice of John Calvin. But, as every one who has read the history of those times knows, Calvin had his opponents in Geneva. The reins of fiis moral discipline were too tight for some; they resisted, and formed the party of the libertines. This party, with which Colonel Ingersoll would have naturally stood, was in the ascendancy when Servetus was tried and condemned, and hence Cal- vin's efforts with the council to save Servetus from the flames were futile. But Calvin's admirers deplore that act, and pronounce it the relic of a dark, barbarous age. In the last century one of the Genevese said: '^' Would to God that we could extinguish this burning pile with our tears." That is the sentiment of the Calvinists now, and when an error is deprecated and deplored surely a common charity should allow its ashes to sleep. Colonel Ingersoll's attack on the Kirk of Scotland is the most marvelous piece of his lecture. For vituperation, misrepresentation, and exaggeration it is unparalleled. He caricatures the Kirk as "the full sister of the Spanish In- (juisition. It waged war upon human nature, it was tht/ JAMES MACLAUGULIN'S REPLY. 53 ememy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of religious liberty; it taught parents to murder their children rather than allow them to propagate error; if the mother held opinions which the infamous 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 one word." That is a sample of the valiant Colonel's on- slaught on the Kirk. Poor Scotland! She must have suffered a reign of terror. Where were her Bruces and Wallaces? Was there not some stalwart Scot to seize the battle-ax and hew down, root and branch, this pestilential upas and free the land from a monster tyranny worse tlutn an English Edward, or a George? Centre Shots by a Scotch Rifleman. But how comes it that the old Kirk became the patron of learning and established her parish sch< »< )ls '( How comes it that Scotchmen, brought up under tlie sh idow of this old Kirk, have become statesmen, soldiers, schohirs, scientists, authors, inventors, manufacturers, merchants, and even lawyers, of whom any nation might be proud 1 How is it that, brought up under the shadow of that infamous Kirk, there is no man loves his native hearth or has more patriotic pride than a Scotchman? How is it that on the calendar of crime in Great Britain and Ireland the names of Scotch- men are fewest in number? And in the United States let us visit penitentiaries and jails. If you find a Scotchman behind the bars at all he is one who has turned away from that old infamous Kirk to enter the communion of Colonel Ingersoll. I can prove this in Chicago to-day. How is it that for independence of mind and manly self-reliance and business talent and principle and push, there is no nation who can furnish the world with better men than Auld 54 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. Scotia, with its infamous Kirk? K the Kirk is the twin sister of the Spanish Inquisition, how is it that she can defy a pang of torture or a drop of blood to lift against her the accusing voice of persecution? That a boy named Thomas Arkenhead was hanged in Edinburgh about the beginning of the nineteenth century for doubting the inspiration of the Bible, if not invented for the occasion by the lecturer, is but a pious fraud, fabri- cated in some Jesuitical factory. If the Kirk had been given to such cruelty she would have had a more worthy victim in Hume, the historian. If the Kirk was so intol- erant, why did she allow secession from her ranks and other religious bodies to be formed and exist in peace at her side? That her manner was somewhat stern, her dis- cipline rigid at times, we honestly admit, but we tell Col. Ingersoll that the old Kjrk has helped to make Scotchman a name of respect the world over, and some of Tom Paine's admirers would not suffer in character by a rigid conform- ity to her lessons. Impotence of Infidelity. But I must come to a close. I do so by saying that neither the tirades of Col. Ingersoll against Christianity nor the discoveries of science can overthrow our religion. The fool may say in his heart there is no God, but it is only in the fool's heart that that sentiment is written. The geologist may bore to the centre of earth; he can't find it written on the rocks of bygone generations; the astronomer may sweep the spacious firmament with his telescope, and after he has examined all from the morning star to the most distant sentinel of the sky, on the vast star-spangled banner of night, he can't find it written there. The chemist JAMES MAGLAUGHLIN'S REPLY. 55 may analyze matter and reduce it to its primal elements, but on any of its atoms he can't find it written there. To science, in her numerous walks and works in the fields of nature, mind, and morals, we say Godspeed. Every achievement she performs, every discovery she makes, and all the results of her explorations can not overthrow^ the Bible, but only serve to fill in that wide outline which meets the eye on the first page. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Science can never wipe out that grand piece of information, but science can show us how many, great, and marvelous are the works of Him who created the heavens and the earth and all things therein. " The whole hope of human progress is suspended on the ever-growing influence of the Bible." — Wm. H.Seward. " The Bible is the only cement of nations, and the only cement that can bind religious hearts together." — Chevalier Btmsen. " Bible Christianity ^*.s the companion of liberty in all its conflicts, the cradle of its infancy, and the divine source of its claims." — De Toequeille. "' We are persuaded that there is no book by the penisal of which the mind is so much strengthened and so much enlarged as it is by the perusal of the Bible."— Z>r. Mel- ville. ''' If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us, and bury all our glory in profound obscurity." — Daniel Wehster. 56 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. '•We account the Scriptures of God to be the most sublime philosophy. I find more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history whatever." — Sir Isomc Newton. '' There never vras found in any age of the world either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible." — Lord Bacon. " I BELIEVE in God and adore Him. I have a firm be- lief in the history contained in the Old and New Testa- ments and in the regeneration of the human race by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ." — Guizot. " The Bible gives strength in conscious weakness, joy in the hour of deepest sorrow, and hope triumphant when the earth and all it contains is slipping from beneath, and eternity waits for our coming." — President Fisher. •' By the study df what other book could children be so inuch humanized? If Bible reading is not accompanied by constraint and solemnity, I do not believe there is any thing in which children take more pleasure." — Professor Huxley. ''Let us cling with a holy zeal to the Bible, and the Bible only, as the religion of Protestants. Let us pro- claim, with Milton, that neither traditions, nor councils, nor canons of visible Church, much less edicts of any civil magistrate or civil session, but the Scriptures only, can be the final judge or rule." — Judge Josej)h Story. '' In a word, destroy this volume, and you take from us at once everything which prevents existence becoming of all curses the greatest: you blot out the sun, dry up the ocean, and take away the atmosphere of the moral world, .tiia degrade man to a situation from which he may look np with envy to that of the brutes that perish." — Dr, Pay^n, WATSOJSf'S BEPLY. 57 WATSON'S REPLY. Paine's .Popularity and Habits— A Curious Side-Light Thrown upon Him in " Men and Times of the Revolution." '' About this period, the notorious Tom Paine arrived at Nantes, in the Alliance frigate, as Secretary of Colonel Laurens, Minister Extraordinary from Congress, and he took up his quarters at my boarding place. '' He was (Tom Paine) coarse and uncouth in his man- ners, loathsome in his appearance, and a disgusting egotist, rejoicing most in talking of himself, and reading the effusions of his own mind. Yet, I could not repress the deepest emotions of gratitude toward him, as the instru- ment of Providence in accelerating the declaration of our Independence. He certainly was a prominent agent in preparing the public sentiment of ximerica for that glori- ous event. The idea of Independence had not occupied the popular mind, and when guardedly approached on the topic, it shrank from the conception, as fraught with doubt, with peril, and with suffering. *' In 1775 or 1776, I was present at Providence, Rhode Island, in a social assembly of most of the prominent leaders of the state. I recollect that the subject of ijide- pendence was cautiously introduced by an ardent Whig, and the thought seemed to excite the abhorrence of the whole circle. " A few weeks after, Paine's ''Common Sense" appeared and passed through the Continent iike an electric spark. It everywhere Hashed conviction, and aroused a determined 58 . MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. spirit, wliich resulted in the Declaration of Independence, upon the 4:th of July, eusuing. The name of Paine was precious to every Whig heart, and had resounded through- out Europe. " On his arrival, being announced, the Mayor, and some of tlie most distinguished citizens of IN'antes, called upon liim, to render their homage of respect. I often officiated as interpreter, although humbled and mortified at his filthy appearance, and awkward address. Besides, as he had been roasted alive at L'Orient, and well basted with brimstone, he was absolutely oflensive, and perfumed the whole apartment. He was soon rid of his respectable visitors, who left the room with marks of astonishment and disgust. I took the liberty, on his asking for the loan of a clean shirt, of speaking to him frankly of his dirty appear- ance and brimstone odor, and I prevailed upon him to stew, for an hour, in a hot bath. '' This, however, was not done without much entreaty, and I did not succeed, until, receiving a file of English newspapers, I promised, after he was in the bath he should have the reading of them, and not before. He at once consented, and accompanied me to the bath, where I in- structed the keef»er, in French (which Paine did nr»t understand), gradually to increase the heat of the water; until le Monsieur serait Men houillL He became s<» much absorbed in the reading, that he was nearly par- boiled before leaving the bath, much to his improvement and my satisfaction." DR. BLACKBURN'S REPLY. 59 DR. BLACKBURN'S REPLY, The Paine Factor in American Liberty Not as Potent as Ingersoll Imagines — Important and Interesting Facts. Correct dates are in evidence concerning the priority of Thomas Paine in the cause of American liberty. Years before lie'carae from his native England to this country, in 1774, voices of freedom were in the air. In 1748 a record was made of " the tendencies of American legislatures to independence," an"d of their presumption in " declaring their own rights and privileges." From 1758 onward, the independence of the colonies was predicted near at hand. In 1765, when James Otis was hailing the dawn of a "new empire," there were men in nearly all the cities, from Boston to Charleston, S. C, giving utterance to such phrases as struck hardest in the Dechiration of July, 1776. Samuel Adams had been for years praying that "Boston might become ^ Christian Sparta," before lie insisted, in 1773, that the colonies should have a Congress to frame a bill of rights, or to " form an independent State, an American common-wealth." In a private letter of Hutch- inson to Lord Dartmouth, October 9, 1773, Samuel Adams was described as " the first person that openly and in any public assembly declared for a total independence. . . . Within these seven years his influence has been gradually increasing, until he has obtained such an ascendency as to direct the town of Boston and the House of Representatives? and consequently the Council, just as he pleases." - Will anv one ascribe to Thomas Paine the oriirin of the 60 MISTAKES OP TNOERSOLL Mecklenburg Declaration, put forth in May, 1775, by North Carolinians who renounced their allegiance to the King of England? The authors of it seem to have been educated at Princeton College, where Dr. Witherspoon was still training young men for the speedy crisis. We might point to the movements of ^ other Christian men, and of patriotic and religious bodies, in behalf of liberty. In January, 1776, Paine sent forth the little book on which his best reputation rests, and that eminent Christian, Dr. Benjamin Rush, appears to have suggested it, and given it the title of '' Common Sense.'' If the ideas of the book had not been alread}^ popular and widely spread, it would have needed almost a miracle to give it a powerful influence; but we are told by Paine's loude»«t eulogist that " miracles became scarce " in those days, ^ts effect may have been partly due, however, to the fact tha. Paine cited Gideon and Samuel as authorities against monarchy. It would be easy to show what George Washington thought in those days, but what did Paine and his admirers come to think of " the Father of his country?" In 1795 the Aurora put forth these words: If ever a nation was debauched by a man, the American nation was debauched by "Washington. If ever a nation was deceived by a man, the American nation has been deceived by Washington. . . Let the history of the federal government instruct mankind, that the mask of patriotism may be worn to conceal the foulest designs against the liberties of the people. Mr. Hildreth says that " this, indeed, was but a somewhat exaggerated specimen of the abusive articles to be found almost daily in the columns of the Aurora^ from the office of which had just issued a most virulent pamphlet, under the form of a letter to Washington from the notorious ThoVnas Paine, whose natural insolence and dogmatism had now become aggravated by habitual drunkenness." DR. BLACKBURN'S REPLY. 61 The following seems to be quoted from the said pamphlet concerning Washington : Treacherous in prirate, and hypocritical in public life, th'^ world will be puzzled to decide whether he was an apostate or an imposter, whether he had abandoned good principles, or ever had any. The world has not been at all pnzzled on that question, nor on the question of Paine's moral character, and his later influence. Hildreth, writing of the year 1802, says that " Paine, instead of being esteemed as formerly, as a lover of liberty, whose vigorous yjen had contributed to hasten the Declaration of Independence, was now detested by large numbers as the libeler of Washington." Hence the damage of Paine's influence to the party of Thomas Jeflferson. " The Lord, by His divine Spirit, has been pleased to give me an understanding of what I read therein.'' — Emperor Alexander I. ''We are astonished to find in a lyrical poem of such a limited compass the whole universe — the heavens and the earth — sketched with a few bold touches.'- — Baron Humboldt on lOUh Psalm. '' For more than a thousand years the Bible, collectively taken, has gone hand in hand with civilization, science, law; in short, with moral and intellectual cultivation; always supporting, and often leading, the way. Good and holy men, and the best and wisest of mankind, the kingly spirits of history, have borne witness to its influences and have declared it to be beyond compare the most perfect in- strument of humanity." — Samuel Taylor Coleridge. " The Bible of the Christian is, without exception, the most remarkable work now in existence. In the libraries &i MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. of the learned are frequently seen books of an extraordi- nary antiquity, and curious and interesting from the nature of their contents; but none approach the Bible, taken in its complete sense, in point of age, while certainly no production whatever has any pretensions to rival it in dig- nity of composition or the important nature of the subject treated of in its pages.'- — Kitto. " The Bible is the book of life, written for the instruc- tion and edification of all ages and natioiis. l^o man who has felt its divine beauty and power would exchange this one volume for all the literature of the world.'' — Dr. Lange. *' So great is my veneration for the Bible, that the earlier my children begin to read it the more confident will be my hopes that they will prove useful citizens to their country, and respectable members of society." — John Quincy Adams. '' I HAVE now disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give them, and that is, tlie Christian religion. If they had that, and I had not given them one shilling, they would have been rich; and if they had not that, atid I had given them all the world they would he jpoor,^^ — Patrick Henry ^ in his Last WiU, P^. MAT FIELD' 8 HE PLY. DR. HATFIELD'S REPLY. Wm. Carver's Letter to Thomas Paine, and Dr. Hatfield's Comments. Colonel IngersoU says that ministers and editors of religious papers have not ceased their falsehoods about Thomas Paine, and if they do not stop he shall convict them at the bar of public conscience of being liars. Not long since one of Paine's admirers wrote in a daily paper that " the stories of his drunkenness and licentious- ness are the wicked invention of the clergy, whose path he has dared to cross, and who only refrain from practising the abominable cruelties of past ages upon those who differ from them, not because of want of will, but because their strength is shorn." This assertion has been shown to be talse by the testimony of one who knew him long and intimately, and who had no sinister motives whatever for giving to the world this picture of Paine's manner of life. "^ut there is another witness whose testimony ought to be taken, inasmuch as he was not only an intimate friend of Paine, but a firm believer in the doctrines that have made his name noted among men. His testimony must be received by his friends as well as his enemies, for in a private letter to the author* of the Age of Reason, dated December 2, 1806, and published in the New York Observer Novemlier 1, 1877, he (William Carver) makes the following disclosures: " A respectable gentleman from New Rochelle called to see me a few days back, and said that everybody was tired of you there, and that no one would undertake to board and lodge you. I thought this was the 64 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. case, as I found you at a tavern in a most miserable situation. You appeared as if you had not been shaved for a fortnight, and as to a shin, ii could not be said that you had one on — it was only the remains of one— and this likewise appeared not to have been off your back for a fortnight, and was nearly the color of tanned leather; and you had the most disagreeable smell possible— j ust like that of our poor beggars in England. Do you remember the pains I took to clean you '? that 1 got a tub of warm water and soap, and washed you from head to foot, and this I had to do three times before I could get you clean? You say also that you found your own liquors during the time you boarded with me ; but you should have said. ' I found only a small part of the liquor I drank during my stay with you; this part I purchased of John Fellows, which was a demijohn of brandy, containing four gallons, and this did not serve me three weeks.' This can be proved; and I mean not to say anything 1 can not prove, for I hold truth as a precious jewel. It is a well-known fact that you drank one quart of brandy per day, at my expense, during the different times that you have boarded with me, the demijohn ;alone mentioned 'excepted, and the last four- teen weeks you were sick. Is not this a supply of liquor for dinner and supper? " This very remarkable letter, which confirms the state- ments made b}^ others in regard to Paine's dissolute habits, closes with the following words, which I wish might be read and pondered over by every one who believes in the doctrines Paine labored so zealously to disseminate among men: " Now, sir, I think I have drawn a complete portrait of your character; yet, to enter upon every minutia, would be to give a history ot your life, and to develop the falla- cious mask of hypocrisy and deception under which you have acted in your political, as well as moral, capacity of life." Additional Facts Concerning the Qreat Infidel. Mr. Jay dismissed him from public service, under the charge that '' he had violated his official oath, and Avas destitute ot general integrity, and marked for general falsehood." DR. HATFIELD'S ME PLY. 65 When he -wrote the Age of Reason^ he says: ''1 had neither Bible nor Testament to refer to, though I was writ- ing against both." Only think of his audacious wicked- ness! " That he bitterly regretted the writing and the publishing of the Age of Reason, we have incontestable proof. During his last illness he asked a pious young woman, Mary Roscoe, a Quakeress, who frequently visited him, if she had ever read any ot his writings, and being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding, 'From such a one as you I expect a true answer.' She told him, when very young she had read his Age of Reason, but the more she read ot it the more dark and distressed she felt, and she threw it into the fire. • I wish all had done as you,' he replied, 'for if the devil ever had an agency in any work, he has had it in writing that book.' " {Journal of Stephen Orellet, 1809.) In addition to the above, I quote the following from the great American philosopher, Benjamin Franklin, to whom Paine submitted his manuscript of the Age of Reason , who said: " I would advise you, therefore, not to attempt unchaining the tiger^ but to burn this piece before it is seen by any other person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of mortification from the enemies it may raise you, and perhaps a good deal of regret and repentance. If men are so wicked with religion, what would they be without it?" [Allihone's Dictionary of Authors, p. 1484.) Of liis personal character and degradation, mark the following: Says his biographer, James Cheetham, page 314: "In his private dealings he was unjust, never thinking of paying for what he had con- traded. To those who had been kind to him he was more than ungrate- ful, for to ingratitude he added mean and detestable fraud. He was guilty of the worst species of seduction — the alienating of a wife and children from a husband and a father. Filthy and drunken, he was a compound of all the vices." Ingersoll says he died in the "full exercise of his facul- ties, calmly, fearlessly, and unshaken in the belief he al- ways held." How false this is let the following bear witness : • s 66 MISTAKBE OF ING^ERSOLL. " Dr. Manley, who was with him during his last hours, in a letter to Cheelham, in 1809, writes: 'He could not be lelt alone night or day. He not only required to have some person with him, but he must see that he or she was there, and if, as it would sometimes happen, he was left alone, he would scream and halloo until some person came to him. There was something remarkable |_in his conduct about this period (which comprises aboyt two weeks immediately preceding his death): he would call out during his paroxysms of distress, without inter- mission, "O Lord, help me! God, help me! Jesus Christ, help me! O Lord, help me! " etc., repeating the same expressions without the least variation, in atone of voice that would alarm the house. It was this conduct which induced me to think that he had abandoned his former opinions, and I was more inclined to that belief when I under stood from his nurse (who is a very serious, and, I believe, pious woman), that he would occasionally inquire, when he saw her engaged with a book, what she was reading, and being answered, and at the same time asked whether she should read aloud, he assented, and would appear to give particular attention.' The doctor asked him if he believed that Jesus Christ is the son of God? After a pause of some minutes, he replied, 'I have no wish to believe on that subject.' ' I'^or my own part,' sa3's the doctor, ' I believe that h«id not Thomas Paine been such a distinguished infidel, he would have left less equivocal evidences of a change of opinion.'" What a Catholic Bishop Says of Paine's Closing Hours. The Roman Catholic Bishop Fenwick says: "A short time before Paine died I was sent for by him." He wat prompted to do this by a poor Catholic woman who went to see him \xx his sickness, and who told him if anybody could do him any good, ic was a Catholic priest. " I was accompanied by F. Kohlmann, an inti- mate friend. We found him at a house in Greenwich (now Greenwich Street, New York), where he lodged. A decent-looking elderly woman came to the door, and inquired whether we \Yere the Catholic priests; 'for,' said she, ' Mr. Paine has been so much annoyed of late"l)y other denominations calling upon him, that he has left expre^^s orders to admit no one but the clergymen of tlie Catholic Chun h.' Upon in- forming her who we were, she opened the door and showed us into tlie parlor. * * * * Gentlemen,' said the lady, ' I really wish you may succeed with Mr. Paine, for he is laboring under great distress of mind ever since he was told by his physicians that he can not possibly live, and must die shortly. He is truly to be pitied. His cries DR. HATFIELD'S REPLY. 67 when left alone are heart-rending. "O Lord, help me!" he will exclaim during his paroxysms of distress; " God, help me! " '•Jesus Christ, help me! " — repeating these expressions in a tone of voice that would alarm the house. Sometimes he will say, "O God! what have I done to suflfer so much ? " Then shortly after, " But there is no God ; " and then again, " Yet if there should be, what would become of me hen after?" Thus he will continue for some time, when, on a sud. den, he will scream as if iu terror and a^ony, and call for me by my name. On one occasion I inquired what he wanted. " Stay with me," he replied, *' for God's sake ! for I can not bear to be left alone.'' I told him I could not always be iu the room. "Then," said he, '• send even a child to stay with me, for it is a. hell to be alone.^' I never saw,' she con- tinued, ' a more unhappy, a more forsaken man. It seems Ice can not reconcile himself to die.' " Such was the conversation of the woman, who was a Protestant, and who seemed very desirous that we should afford him some relief in a state borderinj^ on complete despair. Having remained some time iu the parlor, we at length heard a noise in the adjoining room. We proposed to enter, which was assented to by the woman, who opened the do(ir for us. A more wretched being in appearance I nevan' beheld. He was lying iu a bed sufficiently decent in itself, but at present besmeared with filth; his look was that of a man greatly tortured in mind, his eyes haggard, his countenance forbidding, and his whole appearance that of one whose better days had been but one continued scene of debauch. His only nouiishment was milk punch, in which he indulged to the full extent of his weak state. He had partaken very recently of it, as the sides and corners of his mouth exhibited very unequivocal traces of it, as well as of blood which had also followed in the track and left its mark on the pillow. Upon their making known the object of their visit, Paine in- terrupted the speaker by saying, 'That's enough, sir, that's enough. I see what you would be about. I wish to hear no more from you, sir ; my mind is made up on that subject. I look upon the whole of the Christian scheme to be a tissue of lies, and Jesus Christ to be nothing more than a cunning knave and impostor. Away with you, and your God, too ! leave the room instantly! All that you have uttered are lies, filthy lies, and if I had a little more time I would prove it, as I did about your impostor, Jesus Christ.' Among the last utterances that fell upon the ears of the attendants of this dying infidel, and which have been recorded in history, were the words, ' My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? ' " 68 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. '' All human discoveries seem to be made only for the purpose of couiirming more and more strongly the truths contained in the holy Scriptures." — Sir John Herscheh '* Young man, my advice to you is, that you cultivate an acquaintance with and a firm belief in the holy Scriptures — this is your certain interest." — Benjamin Franklin. '' And, finally, I may state, as the conclusion of the whole matter, that the Bible contains within itself all that, under God, is required to account for and dispose of all forms of infidelity, and to curn to the best and highest uses all that man can learn of nature." — Chancellor Dawson, " The Bible as a book has a self- perpetuating and multiplying power. Infidels have written books; where are they? Where is Porphyry, Julian? Fragments of them there are; but we are indebted even for this to Chris- tian criticism. Where is Hume, Yoltaire, Bolingbroke? It requires the world's reprieve to bring a copy out of the prison of their darkness. Where is the Bible? Wherever there is light." — Bishop Thomson. "• The first thought that strikes the scientific reader is the evidence of divinity, not merely in the first verse of the record and the successive fiats, but in the whole order of creation. There is so much that the most recent read- ings of science have for the first time explained, that the idea of man as the author becomes utterly incomprehensi- ble. By proving the record true, science pronounces it divine; for who could have correctly narrated the secrets of eternity but God Himself" — Professor Dana. '' With thoughts thus expanded and touching the infinite — with the the soul aglow with sublimity — with as- pirations exalted — let us turn to the language of the Bible, and learn whether it esKilts the sensations and sentiments MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL 69 we feel, orcrusiies theui by its weakness and irapoteiicy. Let tlie answer come from the Hebrew Psalmist, from the prophets, from the language of those grand apocalyptic visions of St. John. I care not where it be selected, it furnishes the only fitting vehicle to express the thouglits that overwhelm us, and we break out involuntarily in the language of God's own inspiration."- — O. M. Mitchell. '* Some thousand famous writers come up in this century to be forgotten in the next. But the silver cord of the Bible is not loosened, nor its golden bowl broken, though time chronicles his tens of centuries passed by. -5^ ^- * You can trace the path of the Bible across the world from the day of Pentecost to this day. As a river springs up in the heart of a sandy continent, having its father in the skies; as the stream rolls on, making, in that arid waste, a belt of verdure wherever it turns its way; creating palm groves and fertile plains, where the smoke of the cottage curls up at eventide, and marble cities send the gleam of their splendor far into the sky; such lias been the course of the Bible on earth." — Theodore Parker. " To a sincere and unsophisticated mind it must be evi- dent that the grand outlines sketched by Moses are the vSame as those which modern science enables us to trace, however imperfect and unsettled the details furnished by scientific inquiries may appear on many points. "What- ever changes we may expect to be introduced by new discoveries, in our present view of the universe and the globe the prominent traits of this vast picture w^ill remain. And these only are traced out in this admirable account of Genesis. These outlines were sufficient for the moral purposes of the book; the scientific details are for us patiently to investigate, — Professor Quyot, 70 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. " Thomas Paine, in his extreme fear lest lie should be made the victim of some childish fancy, or that somebody else would be victimized, attacked Masonry on the ground that it was a superstition that had come down from the Persian world, and was as full of nonsense as anything could be. He said that in the Masonic hall the presiding officer must sit in the east end of the room, the Masons must thus salute the east, a-nd the lamps must be most abundant on the south wall of the room to mark the path of the sun; and that the 2'ith of June, a day so sg-cred in Masonry, was the day on which the old sun- worshipers built fires upon all the mountain tops and hill tops near their homes to celebrate the fact that the sun had reached his hottest place in the temperate zone. But, like much of Paine's reasoning, it was not important, if true. There is no harm in paying great respect to his dignity, the sun. One would better take off his hat before the sun in a grand summer mornino^than to render such ahomasreto a wicked duke or a painted girl. — Prof. Swing. DR. aooowiN'a reply. i\ DK. GOODWIN'S BEPLY. The Renowned Pastor oi over a Thoxisand Church Members Rises in Defense of the Truth— The Ax Laid at the Root of the Ingersoll Tree— The Solemn Issue. Teachers of men are like trees. We can no more trust the words and theorizings of the one than the leaves and blossoms of the other. But when fruiting time has come we shall have tests that never faiL Grapes do not come of thorns, nor figs of thistles. Every good tree will have in- fallible witness in good fruit, and every evil tree in evil fruit. Just 60 of men who set up for propliets. When their doctrines have come to fruitage, there will be in the quality of that fruit, according as it is good or evil, the in- fallible test of the quality of what has been taught. This is our Lord's canon of proving things. And He bids us stand in the ways and challenge whatever claims authority over our hearts and lives. We are not to accept a teacher, because he has the look of an apostle. We are not to accept his doctrine, because it charms the ear and gives great promise of blessing. We are to demand as prime conditions of our acceptance a showing of fruits; results wrought, whereby the doctrine which appeals to us is unequivocally demonstrated to be that which exalts God and blesses men. Of course Christ and His teachings must take the same test that is applied to other teachers and other doctrines. Xo question is a fairer one with which to meet the claims of Christianity than, What fruits has it to show? Have its 72 MISTAKES CF 1NGER80LL. teachings made men better or worse? Have they tended to emphasize and exalt truth, purity, justice, benevolence; to secure the well-being of individuals, communities, nations; or have they tended to beget untruth, impurity, injustice, selfishness, cruelty, tyranny, and thus heap upon men increasing mischiefs and woes? And this is tlie question between Mr. Ingersoll and the Ministers and Churches he assails so bitterly in his glorification of Thomas Paine. We, of the Ministry and the Churches, stand uj)on the Bible as the divinely-inspired and hence divinely-authoritative Word of God. We afi^irm that this book sets forth the true character of God, the aims and methods of His moral government, the scheme of His de- vising, whereby shall be secured His own highest honor and the highest well-being of His creatures. We afiirm that upon men's believing upon the crucified Son of God therein set forth as the Saviour of men depends their sal- vation. We afiirm that only as men accept the doctrines of this book, and order their lives thereby, can they attain individually to the largest measures of intellectual and moral development; or, as associated together, enjoy the highest social security, prosperity, and happiness; or as a nation make sure of i*eal o:reatness and lastinof p^lorv. Mr. Ingersoll denies all this. He declares that Christian- ity is a " superstition," a bundle of " ancient lies;'' that the doctrine of Salvation by Faith is "Mnfamous;" that the church is " ignorant, bloody, relentless;" that it ''confis- cates property," '' tortures, burns, dooms to perdition," all who are outside of its pale, and does it with supreme delight; that religion "puts fetters" on man's intellect; that it is "destructive of happiness;" a "hydra-headed monster, thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men;" that it " fills the earth with mourning, DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 73 heaven with hatred, the present with fear, the future w^ith fire and despair." And over against this, Mr. Ingersoll sets, as the true religion, the grand panacea of all human ills, the scheme of infidelity. "Infidelity," he says, "is liberty." It is this which "frees men from prison; this which civilizes; this that lights the fires on the altars of reason; that fills the world with light; this that opens dull eyes; brings music into the soul; wipes tears from fur- rowed cheeks; puts out the fires of civil war; destroys from the earth the dogmas of ignorance, prejudice, powder, and drives from this beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear." Ingersoll's Sad Need of Spectacles at a Much Earlier Period in Life — What He Sees in the Historic Spectrum — A Remarkable Phenomenon. This is a clear, sharp issue. Mr. Ingersoll stands before our text and says, " Christianity can not take its own test- It claims to yield grapes, but when the truth is told, it has only tearing, torturing thorns to show. It claims to be a gentle, innocent sheep, but it is nothing other than a ravenous, blood-thirsty wolf in disguise. The only genuine grape-vine, the only true sheep, is the doctrine which I teach, which I learned of my master, the one great, nn- equaled teacher of the ages, the apostle of liberty, the light and hope of the world — Thomas Paine." What I propose is to ap])ly this test of the text to both these schemes; to set Christianity and its fruits side by side with infidelity and its fruits, and see whether Mr. Inorersoll has told us the truth. It does not concei-n mv purpose to speak particularly of Thomas Paine, and I t^hall not stop, therefore, to consider at length Mr. Ingersoll's apotheosis of him. He is entitled to his opinion, and so are we to ours, But I must confess to have read his oration 74 MlST.iKES OF INGEMSOLL. with amazement. I had always supposed hitherto that there were some other unselfish, pure-minded, liberty-lov- ing men in those old times who had something to do with originating and carrying to success the scheme of American independence. But it seems. we have all been mistaken, and history has been mistaken, and so for a hundred years the country has gone on heaping eulogies upon men that never deserved them. Somehow, this terrible despot and fiend of Christianity has contrived to falsify the records, blind the people, and keep hid away in its awful dungeons of disgrace and infamy the one purest hero, the one pre- eminent magnate of that glorious epoch. It does not exactly appear how this was done. It does not appear that any other patriot-infidel was doomed to like dishonor. Never- theless, it has come to pass, that as to this man, the " first to perceive the destiny of the new world," the man that '' did more than any other to cause the declaration of In- dependence," the very Achilles of the revolution, without whose voice and sword, apparently, everything would have come to naught — the whole nation has for a century been reading and re-reading its history, and hardly made men- lion of his name! What strange, what base ingratitude is this! For statesmen, historians, orators, poets, to keep sounding for decade after decade the praises -of Washington, and Jeflerson, and Franklin, and the Adamses, and ever so many more, and yet never to have lifted one acclaim for the hero that overtopped them all! Evidently, Mr. Inger- soll's spectacles should have come into use long years ago. Listening to this arraignment of history, one can not feel e that any of its so-called verdicts are to be trusted. How do we know that, as a nation, we have not been guilty of like injustice and tyranny in the judgments that have been passed on Jeflerson Davis and Benedict Arnold? DR. GOODWIN\S REPLY. 75 And who shall be quite sure that not only they may yet be rescued from the infamy that now envelops them, but even Judas Iscariot may not prove to have been calumniated by this relentless tyranny of a misnamed gospel, and take his place alongside of Arnold and Paine among the stars. Here, at least, is a new field in which Mr. Ingersoll may acquire laurels. Further Optical Delusions of the Eloquent Colonel— Why Paine Came to America. As to the claims put forward in behalf of Mr. Paine's leadership in securing our national independence, I c?a not refrain from a passing word. There is no proof what- ever that any injustice has ever been done Mr. Paine in the estimate of his services by our historians. Mr. Inger- soll has not added a single fact to those well known before. No doubt Mr. Paine rendered valuable service, especially with his pen, in the interests of freedom; no doubt he deserved all the encomiums and substantial records he receiv^ed at the hands of State Legislatures and of Congress. Zo far as I know, no one has ever disputed this. But when Mr. Ingersoll attempts to go beyond this, and hold up Mr. Paine as the " great apostle of liberty," the " first to perceive the destiny of the new world," as " doing more to cause the declaration of Independence than any other man," and declares his pamphlet, entitled '' Common Sense," the "first argument for separation" of the colonies for the Mother country — he goes vastly beyond the facts. He may believe Mr. Paine entitled to all the credit he claims, but he certainly can not prove it. The truth of history is not to be overborne by a lawyer's specious plea, nor is its voice to be drowned beyond the passing moment, by the applause evoked by the wit and eloquence of a gifted orator. 76 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL Tiie first sigiiific^-iit fact is, that there is no proof what, ever that Paine came to this country with any political purpose. He lost his place as exciseman, obtained an in- troduction to Benjamin Franklin, then U. S. Minister in England, who had received so many applications, that he had written a tract giving information about America —and from him secured a note of introduction to Franklin's son-in-law, Bache, commending him as needing employ- ment, and so far as he could judge, worthy of confidence. He reached this country in December, 1774, and through Mr. Bache's influence, obtained employment as the editor of a magazine. And this is all there is of his coming. So far as appears, it was purely a matter of getting daily bread. Paine and American Independence — The Cause of Liberty at White Heat before Mr. Paine gels Around — Interesting Facts. In January, 1776, when he had been in the country barely a year, he published his jDamphlet. Mr. Bancroft says he did it at the suggestion of Mr. Franklin, who had then returned from England, hopeless of securing any possible adjustment of the difficulties between the colonies and the home government. The pamphlet was timely. It was written in a clear, vigorous, and telling style; took ground boldly in favor of independence, and was, without doubt, greatly eff*ective in urging forward the cause which it championed. But this is all that can be claimed for it. Franklin had cherished and uttered the same views for years, and so had Patrick Henry, James, Otis, both the Adamses, and many others. Indeed, ever since the passage of the Stamp Act there had been a growing conviction among nearly all the patriotic men] of that day, that the separation of the colonies and the establishment of an 1)H. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 77 independent oovernnienL was inevitable — a mere <|ue^iiuii of time. And at the date when this pamphlet appeared, this conviction was the dominant one among a vast majority of the people, and w^ith reason. Boston port-bill was a fact, and had stirred the blood of all the colonists. Franklin had been insulted before the king's privy council, and that made the red heat white. More than all, Lexington, and Concord, and Bunker-Hill had been fought^ and the smell of powder was everywhere in the air. The king, had refused to listen to the second remonstrance of the colonies against taxation without representation, had issued his proclamation for the suppression of rebellion. John Adams' wife, Abigail, hearing that proclamation, stopped her spinning wheel, and wrote to her husband: **This intelligence will make a plain path for you, though a danger- ous one. I could not join to-day in the petitions of our worthy pastor for a reconciliation between our no longer parent but tyrant state, and these colonies. Let us separate! let us renounce them! and let us be- seech the Almighty to blast their counsels, and bring to naught all their devices." This was in August, 1775, six months before Paine's pamphlet saw the light. And Mr. Bancroft says of Mrs. Adams' appeal, " Her voice was the voice of New England." Samuel Adams had said, also, in the Massachusetts Assembly, '' The declaration of independence and treaties with foreign powers are to be expected." Jetferson had said — speaking of the Stamp Act and kindred legislation — *' I will cease to exist before I will sul)mit to a connection with England on such terms as the British Parliament propose; and in this I speak the senti- ment of America." And still beyond this, Franklin had introduced into the assembly of Pennsylvania his plan for a, confederation of the colonieat 1^ MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. This was the state of things when Mr. Paine's utterances were put forth. They were opportune and helpfuL But chiefly as inciting to an earlier inauguration of the conflict that was sure to come. Washington was at the head of the arrny — Boston invested with 20,000 men — Norfolk had been burned — the whole country was ready to burst into a flame. Doubtless to Mr. Paine belongs in part the honor shared by many of helping to strike the match which kindled the fires of the Pevolution. But he no more merits all that honor than James Warren or Orispus Attucks. The Continent was heaving and the eruption was sure to come. Mr. Paine simply helped to break the thin crust, and precipitate the outbreak of the long-pent fires of the volcano. Paine's Fractional Glory in the French Republic?. Mr. Ingersoll's statement respecting Mr. Paine's part in the assembly of the French Republic, deserves a passing word. His statement is that " Thomas Paine had the courage, the goodness, the justice, to vote against the death of Louis XYI," when ** all were demanding the death of the king," and hence, when " so to vote was to vote against his own life." This would make it appear that Mr. Paine stood almost, if not quite, alone in that assembly; took upon himself the peril of martyrdom for his clemency. But read Laraartine's history of the Girondists, and see how difierently a Frenchman loving democracy, and hating kingship as ardently as Thomas Paine, puts the matter. Mr. Lamartine says, Mr. Paine having received from the king 6,000,000 francs for his country, had '' neither the memory nor the dignity befitting his station," but by his paper, read before the convention, '' heaped a long series of insults upon DR. GOOD WIN VS RE PL 7. 79 a man whose generous assistance he had formerly solicited, and to whom he owed the preservation of his own country." And when the question of the death of the king was at last, after a full. month of debate, brought to a vote — there were 721 voices uttered from the tribune. Of these 387 were for death, and 334 for exile. So that, whatever the ''courage, the goodness, the justice, the sublimity of devotion to principle, the peril of life," involved in Mr. Paine'* vote, he had 333 sharers of his heroism and his glory. A Pair Test, with Some Plain Philosophy. But to come now to the purpose in hand and consider his arraignment of Christianity. Is it possible to apply this test-principle of the text, so that we may know to a certainty what the relative claims of the two systems asking our acceptance are? For they have both been long enough before the world to produce ample results, and results whose quality is ascertainable beyond doubt. Let us take first, then, the character of the founder of Christianity, and test that, and then the character of the teachers of infidelity, and test them. We shall be sure to be on the right track in such inquiry. For while it does not greatly matter what the character of a man may be who gives us a new theory of electricity, or light, or any- thing— his discovery being of equal value whether he be honest or dishonest, temperate or intemperate, moral or immoral — it does matter what the personal character of a teacher of a new scheme of morals is. He comes claiming our acceptance of certain doctrines which, lie says, are vital to our welfare. He declares that only as we accept His dogmas can we lead lives of highest happi- ness and usefulness. That everything, in short, that can be called good, is bound up in His teachings. Naturally, 80 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. therefore, and of right, we look to Him for an illustration of what lie teaches. If He wants ns to be truthful, honest, mural, He must be. The moment we fail to find in the teaclier the exemplification of the thing taught, that munient the power of his teaching is broken. I am speaking, of course, of one who has a system which he claims to be superior to others, and which he insists that men must receive or suffer great loss. It is onlj folly for a known deceiver to try to enforce truthfulness, for a kno^vm thief to teach honesty, or a libertine virtue. "We say, instinctivel}' and scornfully to such — " Physician, heal thyself.'' We have hence the best of rights to test this great teacher of Christianity, and to test Him rigidly. We have the right to put His life to proof everywhere, anil see whether it shows a quality accordant with His speech. For He claims for His teaching not only supreme authority, but the authority of truth that does not rest content till it has taken ])ossession of a man in the very roots of his being, penetrated him through and through, and made him so en- tirely a lover of truth that he will tolerate no fellowship with anything else. More than this. His standards of morals deal not so much with words and deeds, as with their un- derlying motives. With Him covetousness is not so much looking upon the things of others with the eyes of the body as with the eyes of the soul. To lust after a woman is as truly adultery, as the open violation of the seventh com- mandment. It is murder as truly to have the thought daubed in blood as the hands. Furthermore, they who accept this teacher's doctrine must stand ready to surrender everything on the call of their master; to leave home and its treasures; to take oppositions, persecutions, sufferings, death even, and to do this without DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. »! And only they who stand ready to do this, who covet to have their wills merged in their teachers, who carry in their souls the ideal of a perfection as high as God, and who consciously and absorbingly desire and seek the good of men; only these can be counted true dis- ciples. Jesus Christ and the Testimony — Paine's Confession. Here now is opportunity indeed for tests. And this founder of the new scheme, which He insists on having men receive, must demonstrate in Himself the spirit of His own doctrines, must illustrate unequivocally their fruits, or be rejected. What now are the facts? Why, clearly this, that He stands there on the track of history the exact embodi- ment of every truth He uttered. The keenest and most relentless criticism has had Plis life as in the focus of its blazing examination for centuries, has searched that life back and forth through every phase of it, from His child- hood to the last agony on the cross, and yet is compelled to confess that nowhere is there a day or an hour, a deed or a word, or a thouglit, that does not exactly mirror the teachiugs of His lips. More than that, He stands there the one only character of all the ages absolutely without a svot or blemish, and this, as I have said, not as the verdict of partial admirers, but of those who would, many of them, be only too glad to prove Him a hypocrite or a cheat. Theodore Parker, and he is no* enthusiastic devotee of Christianity, is compelled to say of Him that, ''He unites in Himself the suolimest precepts and divinest practices; that He r'ses free from all the prejudices of His age, nation or sect, pours out a doctrine beautiful as the light, sublime as heaven, true as God 6 S2 MISTAKES OF INOEBSOLL. Mr. Clmbb, a noted English infidel, admits in his " True Gospel," *' that we have in Christ an example of one who was just, honest, upright, sincere, who did no wrong, no injury to any man, and in whose mouth was no guile." Rousseau says: ''What sweetness, what purity in His manner !_what sublimity in His maxims! what profound- ness in His discourses! Where is the man, where the philosopher, who could so live and so die without weakness and without ostentation! If the life and death of Socrates were those of a Sage, the life and death of Jesus Christ were those of a God." And Thomas Paine himself is at pains to testify in his Age of Eeason, that '^nothing that is here said" — in his holding up of Christianity to ridicule, ^' can apply, even with the most distant disrespect, to the real character of Jesus Christ. He was a virtuous and an amiable man. The morality that He preached and practiced was of the most benevolent kind." What the Testimony Demonstrates and its Significance. Such confessions as these from the lips of infidels are most amazing. They demonstrate that Jesus Christ made good His astounding pretensions, that He was literally without sin, and had the best of rights to call Himself the licrht of the world. But the sio-nificance of these confes- sions goes further than this. For this stainless, perfect character is an absolute impossibility, if the claims of in- fidelity are true. Where shall we look for the exemplifi- cation of a system of morals but to its founder? We look to Brigham Young as the prophet and head of Mormonism, and we find exactly what we should expect from the teachings of that faith; a polygamist and a despiser of all doctrines outside of the book of Mormon. DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 83 We look to Mohammed, and find him exactly what we should expect from the Koran, a man who believes in sensuality and in bloodshed to secure his ends. So in the gods of the Eomans and Greeks, and Hindoos and Egyptians, we find exactly such gods as we should look for from the religions to which they belong— gods stamped with deceit, cruelty, blood-thirstiness, lust. So it should be here, if Christianity is what Mr. Inger- soU declares it to be, unloving, tyrannous, bloody, delighting in nothing so much as deceits and woes, then Jesus Christ should be^of a piece with it. Nay, in Him all these foul things should be headed up. The stream can not rise higher nor be purer than its source. If lying, and rapine, and lust, and violence are the law or the practice, then in- falliblv sure are we that some Henry YIII, or Philip II, or Cgesar, or Borgia, or Nero, either makes the laws or wields the scepter. If Christianity is a bundle of lies, a code of cruelty, then he that originated it stands proved either the prince of impostors or the worst of fiends. Whereas, upon the testimony of infidels themselves. He is the one in whose speech and life there is more of purity, goodness, heaven, than in any other character the world has ever seen. He is, in short, the one combined God-man of all history! Mr.*^ John Stuart Mill, who is an avowed atheist, and of course denies the divine' character and authority of Christianity, declares that it is of no use to say that Christ as exhibited in the Gospels, is " not historical." And he asks, " Who among His disciples, or among their proselytes, was capable of inventing the sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imairining the life and character revealed in the Gospels? Certainly not the fishermen of Galilee; still less the early Christian writers." And Mr. Lecky, who agrees with Mr, 84 M181AKES OP INGERSOLL. Mill m rejecting the Jivineness of Christianity, agpe«s also with him in cor ading the historical claims of b(jnii Christ and His reputed doctrines. His language is, •' It was reserved for Chrietianity to present to the world an ideal character, which tJirough all the changes of eigliteen centuries has filled the hearts of men with an impassioned love, and has shown itself capable of acting on «,d ages, nations, temperaments and conditions; has not only been the highest pattern of \ rtue, but the highest incentive to practice. -' " '^ - -Imid all the -,iiis and failings, amid all the priestcraft, the pex^secution and fanaticism wliicli have defaced the church, it has preserved in the character and example of its founder an enduring principle of regeneration." Such language from such men is de- cisive. It demonstrates that Christ and Christianity stand i)v fall together. That they are as inseparable as a stream and its fountain, as essentially one in character as the light and the sun. The Other Side— Gibbon, Hume, Voltaire & Co.— How the Apostles of Infidelity Look Under the Doctor's Electric Light. But what now has infidelity to set forth over against all this? If it is, as is claimed by Mr. Ingersoll, the sublime and blessed truth which is to banish all evil and fill the world with purity and heaven, it will have, of course, some grand examples of its superiority to show. There must needs be some among the apostles of this highest and divinest form of truth before whom the founder of this Christian scheme of lies, cruelty, and blood, will pale, as the stars before the sun. Who, then, are Xhza'^. grand h?ij:l'. aries who are to light our way to tills millenn, ^m of freedom, purity and peace? There Is no lack ^r apostles; \^oitaire, Kousseau, Diderot, Hume, Hobbes, Lord DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 85 Her' 'crt, Bolingbroke, Gibbon, Paine — these are repre- sentative names, the highest and best that infidelity has to otfer. Gibbon is one of the fairest, as he is one of the ablest of them aii, ;rL:5 he has given us a biographical account of iiimself, and therein, amid all the polish and splendor <;f the rhetoric of which he is such a master, '' there is not a line or a word that suggests reverence for God; not a vord of regard for the welfare of the human race; nothing >ut the most heartless and sordid selfishness, vain glorv, and desire for admiration, adulation of the great and wealthy, contempt for the poor, and supreme devotedness to his own ffratification.*' Adam Smith calls Hume a •' iixouei .xian," a man '•as nearlv perfect as the nature of human fVaixty will permit/' But David Hume maintained that our own pleasure or advantage is the test of what is moral; that *' the i 'k of honesty is of a piece with the lack of strength of bod\ ,'' that '' suicide is lawful and commendable,*' that " female infidelity when known is a small thing, when un- known, nothing;-' " that adultery must be practiced, if men would obtain all the advantages of this life; and that if generally practiced it would, in time, cease to be scan- dalous, and if practiced frequently and secretly would come to be thought no crime at all." Lord Herbert taught that the " indulgence of lust and anger is no more to be blamed than thirst or drowsiness.'' Mr. Hobbes declared, that " civil law is the only founda- tion of right and wrong; thatwdiere there is no law, every man's judgment is the only standard of morals; that every man has a right to all things, and may lawfully get tliem, if he can." J^ord Bolingbroke held that self-love is the only standard 86 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. of morality, that " the lust of power, avarice, sensuality, may be lawfully gratified, if they can be safely gratified; that modesty is inspired by mere prejudice, polygamy a law of nature, adultery no violation of morals, and tJie chief end of man is to gratify the appetite of the flesh." And he kept faitli with his teachings, and led the life of a shame- less libertine. Yoltaire advocated the unlimited gratification of the sensual appetites, and was a sensualist of the lowest type. He was likewise a blasphemer, a calumniator, a liar, and a hypocrite; a man who all his life taught and wrought " all uncleanness with greediness," and nevertlie- less had the amazing good sense to wish thathe had never been born. Housseau was, by his own confessions, a habitual liar, and thief, and debauchee; a man so utterly vile that he took advantage of the hospitality of friends to plot their domestic ruin, a man so destitute of natural aifection that he committed his base-born children to the charity of the public that he might be spared the trouble and cost of caring for them. To use his own language, '^guilty with- out remorse, he soon became so without measure." As to Thomas Paine, the verdict of history is too well set- tled to be reversed by Mr. Ingersoll's wit, or ridicule, or de- nials. xVfter all allowance that can be made for misrepresent- ation, this remains unquestionably true, on the authority of those who claimed to be his friends and knew him best, that in his last years he was addicted to intemperance, given to violence and abusiveness, had disreputable associates, lived with a woman who was not his wife and left to her what- ever remnant of fortune he had. These now are the representative names of infidelity, the most saintly apostles it has to offer: Men, the very BR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 87 best of whom are characterized either by vanity or selfish- ness, or pride or envy, while some are given to deceit, blasphemy, drunkenness, sensuality. Yet these are lield up as the examples and illustrators of this new and better gospel, that is to banish from the world the "dogmas of ignorance, prejudice and power," " the poisoned fables of superstition," and in their stead guarantee to i;s "free- dom, truth, goodness, heaven." What say you, friends? Here they are — the representatives of Christianity, the advocates of the ignorance, bigotry, despotism, which is declared to so blight this world — Wesley, Whitefield, Luther, Calvin, Anselm, Augustine, John, Paul, Jesus Christ. And here, ov^er against them, are the representa- tives of infidelity, the advocates of the doctrines that are to bring back to the world its lost paradise — Bolingbroke, Hobbes, Ilume, Yoltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine. With which class shall we make surest of truth, virtue, happiness? With which will our wives and little ones be in the safest keeping? With which the purity of the community, the security of the state, the glory of the nation, be most surely guaranteed? Such questions answer themselves. No amount of sophistry, with even Mr. Ingersoll's brilliant rhetoric to help it, could make us mistake the night for the day. But as well attempt that, as try to make us put infidelity in the place of Christianity as the light and hope of the world. The Divine Philosophy —The Way. But let us advance the thought, and ask what are the fi'uits of the teachings of Christ as contrasted with those of the apostles of infidelity. In looking for these fruits, this remarkable fact appears, that Christ stands everywhere as the ideal character which those who accept His doctrine arc 88 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. pledged to realize so far as lies within their power. This is a peculiarity of Christianity. To study Aristotle, or Pluto, or Bacon, and accept what they teach, implies nothing of this. I may receive all they have to offer, and yet come into no sort of personal relations to either of them. I may even accept such teachings as truth, and yet know nothing about their personal character. But not so as to Christ. I can not take up what He says about God, or sin, or obedience, or prayer, and set about carrying out such truths, realizing the ends for which they were set forth, and yet sustain no personal relations to Him, have no de- sire to become like Him. That is an impossibility. He and His word are indissolubly wedded, are inseparably one. To hear that word, from whosesoever lips, is the same as hearing Him ; to receive it, is to receive Him, and to reject it, is to reject Him. The only possible way of accepting His truth, fully and truly believing it, is to accept Him, fully believe on and trust in Him. And the whole object of His teachings may be summed up in the simple idea of bringing men to be like Him. Not to have the spirit of Christ, is to be none of His. Not to covet to be conformed to His image, not to set that clearly before [the mind as a constant aim of life, is to be proved not a true disciple. This is a fundamental principle, a law of Christianity. The Truth. Hence, the power of Christianity as it relates to men's lives. In the nature of the case, in just so far as it gets control of men's hearts, it must produce disciples stamped l)y the spirit of its founder. They who receive Jthe truth of Christ, will inevitably reveal the likeness of Christ. Paul's eager counting, whereby he " counted all things but loss, that he mie^ht win Christ and be found in Him," DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 89 and Ills constant exhortations to believers to ^' put on Christ," to be " conformed to him," are the spirit which all true believers feel. In other words, Jesus Christ is the one, universal model held steadily before the hearts of all who receive His truth. And there results just what we shoidd expect — a spiritual transformation is wrought in every heart, whereb}^ it takes on more and more of the likeness of Christ. Take Peter, for example, a rough, hard, very likely profame, fisherman, vehement and im- petuous to the point of raslmess, and yet cowardly even to falsehood and blasphemy, to escape being reckoned a friend of his manacled Master. But when this gospel of Christ has gotten thorough possession of him, and the power of it comes to be felt, this same man is all inflamed with zeal, reveals a courage that does not flinch before thousands of his spiteful country- men, and takes up a life full of ridicule, insults, scourges, prisons, and goes steadily on to the sure death that waits, only eager to be more and more like Him, the unseen, yet inspiring Lord, in whom his faith is anchored. So Paul, a scholar, but full of the scholar's scorn of the friend of publicans; a Pharisee of the straitest sect, and hence stirred with intensest hate toward all who forsook the faith of their fathers ; so aflame with wrath that he stooped to fill the place of an executioner, and breathing forth threat- en ings and slaughter went out, even as some fierce inquisitor of Torquemada, glad to redden his hands in the blood of men, women, children, holding the despised gospel. And the Life. But this gospel by and by gets hold of him, and what a change! The lion becomes the lamb. The hate, the fe- rocity, the blood-thirstiness is not .only all gone, but a 90 MISTAKEIS OF INQKRSOLL. baptism of heavenly gentleness and love has come instead. He casts aside all his high opportunities, turns his back on the sure prospects of affluence and renown, and taking to his heart the very doctrines he despised, puts himself on the level of the publicans and harlots who have received the new truth, and goes forth to face an experience that for thirty-five years was one perpetual succession of indig- uities and sufferings which it is next to impossible to con- ceive. And does it with a sublime patience, nay, rejoices in his tribulations, and glories in his infirmities, because he thereby realizes more fellowship with the Christ of his hope, more power to commend Him unto men. So always, this spirit which animated Peter and Paul animates all His disciples. It is the Spirit of Christ, His pity for men, His love. His desire to do men good, His longing to clear their hearts and lives of everything false, corrupt, mischievous, and thus ennoble and bless them — reproducing itself in all w^ho receive His trnth. August- ine, John iS^ew^ton, John Bunyan, thousands of others, rise up all through the centuries to witness what fruits of character transformation this Gospel everywhere ensures. No matter of what race, or clime, of what condition in life, of what temperament, or idiosyncrasies, or habits, the one fact that inevitably marks the reception of this scheme of Christianity, is, that its disciples take on the visage of their Lord and Master. And if it could only have its way, and men would ever receive it into good and honest hearts, make it the law of their choosino^, loving, doino^, it would fill the w^orld with the likeness of Jesus the Christ. And that, I take it, w^ould end all debate. For our city, filled with men, women, children, all bear- ing His visage, all filled and led of His spirit, all using His speech, repeating His life, would be what a city of love, i)R GOODWIN'S RBPLT. 01 and purity, andheavenliness! And the world so filled would be, how plainly, that old prophetic word come true — the wolf dwelling with the lamb, the leopard with the kid, the swords beaten into plowshares, the spears into pruning hooks, the tears wiped from off all faces, sorrow and sighing forever fled away, the light of everlasting peace on all the faces, joy of everlasting blessedness in all hearts. And when to this there is added all the mighty influence over men that comes ^from such conceptions of God as Christianity unfolds and requires men to accept; concep- tions ol God as infinitely good, and holy, and just, and suffering men to set up and whine by no standard but His own; conceptions hence which send men out to daily duty as under the conscious flash of omniscience, and in the conscious fellowship of perfect purity, unselfishness and tone; conceptions further of God as administers a moral government pledged, with omnipotence behind it, to secure the triumph of holiness, and the retribution of sin, sin of act, speech or thought; when, 1 repeat, all these considei'a- tions are brought to bear upon men's hearts and lives as constant forces, as by the scheme of Christianity they are, who can doubt what the quality of their fruitage in human conduct will be? As well might we doubt whether flie sun will scatter darkness where he shines, or evoke life and beauty from the seeds embosomed by his warmth. The Potency ot Infidelity. But what has infidelity to set over against these forces? What are the potent influences by which it is to surpass in efficiency for good, the example and teachings of Christ, and His apostles, the law of God and its standards, and thus renovate society and clear the earth of evil, and fill it with blessings? Why, that there is no absolute standard 92 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. of morals, and that every man is to be his own judge o* what is right, and seek what will minister to his happiness or profit. That we may gratify onr appetites at j^leasure. That modesty is a mere prei ^idice. That to secure the highest good, we must lie, and steai, all seeking to know God, all accepting His standards of character, all seeking to possess the spirit and wear the likeness of His son. Consider the countless mul- titudes of children in Sunday Schools, all filling the air with the praises of Jesus Christ, and all taught, if nothing else, that He is the one model they are to imitate, and His teachings to be the law of their deeds, their words, their thoughts. Consider these innumerable Christian news- papers, filling the land with the same doctrines, and using their prodigious influence to make them the supreme faith of the nations. Consider the hundreds of Christian Colleges and Seminaries, training young men and young women for lives of beneficence and usefulness. Consider the scores . .1(1 hundreds of publishing societies, all animated with m MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. one purpose, and sending forth their mighty streams of tracts, books, Bibles, to fill the earth with the story of Christ and with the spirit of His life. Consider the count- less institutions established by Christianity, to relieve dis- tress, to provide for the unfortunate, to administer the gospel of practical beneficence. Consider the manifold or- ganizations aimed at spreading the gospel among all the debased races of the earth and making the victims of super- stition with its nameless terrors know the glad tidings of a salvation that puts an end to bloodshed, and cruelties, and woes, tills all hearts with love, all homes with peace, all lives with blessing. Consider how this spirit of Christianity illustrated in all these diverse lines of effort, everywhere car)*ies on its banner :he doctrine of the universal brother- hoocf of man, recognizes no distinction between the Negro the indian, the Chinaman, the Hottentot, the Cannibal, but seeks to make them all one in the fellowship and liberty of Jesus Christ. And consider yet again, that it requires, as one of its fundamental principles, a condition in fact of all true discipleship, all wdio receive its truths, shall pledge themselves to give, and pray, and toil without ceasing, till this gospel has penetrated every jn7>-'- climbed every mountain fortress, hunted . ; t every cavern, e7e?y kraal, every wigwam, every snow-li^t, and sounded its in- vitations and prondses in the ears of all mankind. Whether all this signifies anything as a powe: for good in the world, judge ye. Mr, Irgersol: seems to think it goes for nothi.ig. Bui against his opinion I put that of Mr. Lecky, who in his history of European morals, says this — he is speaking of the contrast between the influence of Christianity and paganism — " It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which through all the changes of eighteen centuries has DB. GOODWIN'S BE PLY. 97 been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strong- est incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an influence that it may be truly said to have done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of'^philosophers and all the exhortations of mortals.'- The Fruits of InfideUty-The Blackest Pag« in Human History —The French Revolution. But when was ever infidelity so engaged? Where are the organizations it has instituted, the missionaries it has sent forth, to fill the world with the blessings of faith, freedom, virtue? But I forget. Infidelity has such a record of organized endeavor to regenerate mankind. Turn to the history of the Trench Eevolution and read it there. The leaders of that revolution, as you know, were the very class whom Mr. IngersoU glorifies: the disciples of Diderot, Yoltaire, Eousseau. They were avowed atheists or infidels, and Thomas Paine was one of the number, sat in their midst, participated in their discussions, aided in drawing up the constitution they enacted. What that convention said and did the world knows and will never for2;et. They did what Mr. IngersoU would be glad to have the Congress of the United States do. They abolished Christianity by vote. They declared there was no God, forbade the public instructors to utter His name to their children. They struck the Sabbath oui ol the calendar and made the week consist often days instead of seven. They wrote over the gates of the cemeteries, '^ Death is an eternal sleep." They tore down the bells from the church spires and cast them into cannons. They stripped the churches of everything used in worship, and made bonfires in the streets, and then instituted the rights o/ the old pagan religions, where the altars had stood. ^8 MISTAKES OF TNGERSOLL. Ingersollism Unveiled. Not content with this, Chaumette, one of the leaders of the convention, appeared one day before that body, leading a noted courtesan with a troop of her associates. Ad- vancing to the president, he raised her veil, and ex- claimed : ^' Mortals! recognize no other divinity than Eeason, of which I present to you the loveliest and purest Personinca- tion." Whereupon the president of the convention bowed and professed to render devout adoration. And a few days later the same scene was re-enacted in the cathedral of Notre Dame, with increased profanations and more outrageous orgies, and was declared to be the public inauguration of the new religion of the commune. And like desecrations and blasphemies throughout all France took the place of the old worship. Worse than this, all distinctions of right and wi'ong were confounded. The grossest debauchery was inaugurated, the wildest excesses prevailed and were gloried in. Con- tempt for religion and for decency became the test of attachment to the government. The grosser the infractions of morals, the greater the so-called victory over prejudice, the higher the proof of loyalty to the state. To accuse one's father was the best proof of citizenship; to neglect it was denounced as a crime, and was punishable with death. Wives were bayoneted for the faith of their husbands, and husbands for that of their wives. One of the chief tools of the commune. Carrier, ruling at Nantes, declared that the " intention of the Convention was to depopulate and burn the country,^' and he was as good as his word. He gathered those suspected of disloyalty in flocks. DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. M He shut up 1,600 women and children in one prison with- out beds, without straw, without fire or covering, and kept them for two days without food. The only escape was for men to surrender their fortunes, and women their virtue. The Penumbra of Hell. He contrived ships with slides in their hulls below the water line, loaded these with his prisoners under pretext of transporting them elsewhere, and when the vessels were in the middle of the Loire, ordered the valves opened and the victims plunged into the water, while he, sur- rounded by a troop of prostitutes, looked on and gloated over the scene. And this is only a type of what occurred elsewhere. Proscription followed proscription, tragedy followed trag- edy, till the whole country was one hugh field of rapine and of blood. , ^., . Mr. Ingersoll admits that 17,000 perished m the City oi Paris during this combined reign of infidelity and terror; but he forgets to add that throughout France not less than 3,000,000 Tives were the costly price of establishing the new religion. There is no disputing these facts, nor the reasons that underlay them. This whole terrific record— and history knows none that is darker or more damning— was the di- rect and legitimate fruit of the doctrines which Mr. Inger- soll lauds as the sublime truth " that is to fill the world with peace!" , The men who originated and carried out this combined scheme of government and religion, were the men with whom Thomas Paine sat, and voted, and was in every way identified. His faith was their faith. And at his door equally with iheirs does this series of the most iieadish 100 MISTAKES OF INOER80LL. outrages that ever disgraced a people pretending 1?o be civ- ilized cry for vengeance. The Final Picture— Ingersollism, An Endless Night of Tears. And what infidelity was then, it is now. And what it did then, so far as its assaults upon religion were concerned, and its overturning of civil order, it would do to-day, if it had the power. If Mr. Ingersoli could have his way, he would abolish God, and the church, and the Christian Sabbath, and the Bible, and everything pertaining thereto. He would ban- ish Christian newspapers and colleges, and benevolent societies; proscribe all oaths in courts of justice; expunge the name of God from all statute books, the name of Christ from all calendars and text-books; annihilate all moral standards; would, in a word, not only quench all prayer and praise and honoring of God, but sweep the world clear of everything that bears the name or shows the spirit of Christianity. And what would he give us for all this ? For our Bible, the Age of Eeason. For the Sabbath, the beer-garden and the theatre. For worship, the rites of paganism or the adoration of an apotheosized courtesan. For the standards of God's law, that which should seem right in every man's eyes. For the law-making power, the blasphemous horde of the French commune. For security, the guillotine drip- ]iing with blood at every street-corner. For truth, candor, love, temperance, purity — deceit, treacher3% hate, drunken- ness, sensuality, with all their crimes and shames. In a word, for this is the outcome of all such purpose, if the infidelity that Mr. Ingersoli glorifies could have its way, it would strike the sun from the sky of our Christian civ- ilization, and give us instead the lurid night of the reign DR. GOODWIN'S REPLY. 101 of terror, only it would make it a night with no jS^apoleon or Chateaubriand to break the gloom — a night of tears, and blood and woe without an end! Shall we open our arms to welcome this new gospel';? Tallyrand's Advice to IngersoU and His Ftiends. During this period of the history of F'rance, one of the live Directors in whose hands the government was lodged, asked Tallyrand what he thought of Theophilanthropism, the name given the new religion. " I have but a single observation to make," was his reply. "Jesus Christ, to found His religion, suffered Himself to be crucified, and He rose again. You should try and do as much.'' Friends, when this new gospel of infidelity shall furnish us such proofs of its right to claim our acceptance, it will be entitled to a hearing. Until then let us cling to the teachings of Him whose words and deeds alike attest Him the light and life of the world. 102 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. PERE HYACIISTTHE'S REPLY. [Nineteenth Century.] Ingersollism in Paris — The Metaphysics of Paganism — Eloquent Conclusion of the Great Philosopher. The religious question, whatever may be said or done, is the reigning question of our epoch. As regards France and the Republic it is more and more evident to any one who has the slighest perspicacity that the question they have to solve under penalty of death — and of a death not far distant — is precisely the religious question. As we approach and touch the actualities of our own time, I feel the lines of justice stronger and straighter. But within these lines and with the actualities of to-day we breathe, thank heaven, the beneficent atmosphere of liberty. I shall therefore speak my mind freely, recounting what I see in the region of free-thought, as it is called. But the word is badly chosen. We Christians also, we desire and we are bound to think freely. We are between two parties — I should say armies — that of Rationalism and that of Ultramontanism. I respect them both. I respect the Roman Catholics, be- cause they are especially my brethren; I shared for a long time their delusions, and I still share their faith, as expressed in the Nicene Creed. I am and intend to remain a Catho- lic. I also respect the free-thinkers. I know how sincere a great number of them are, and moreover I feel myself moved by a painful and respectful sympathy for the sufier- ings which it has been my lot to discover in manj of their PERE HTACINTHE'S REPLY. 103 consciences. And far be it from me to willingly wound — I will not say any conscience — but any person, and, if I un- wittingly do so, I retract beforehand. I will not say that in the interval of these sixteen hundred years Christianity has perished: on the contrary, I think that in more than one sense it has more life than ever in the world, and that, too, in Paris. Twice in the history cf these centuries the see of St. Denis has abdi- cated, and twice it has abdicated before two rival paganisms, mortal enemies each of the other, and yet leagued together against the Gospel — against the pure and entire Gospel. Let us begin by speaking of the first of these two paganisms — of that which I will call the intellectual paganism, or rather the irreligious, I should almost say the impious, paganism — for it is that which suppresses religion. The other paganism is the superstitious pagan- ism, which distorts religion. In speaking of the first of these paganisms — first chronologically, but not in power — I can repeat what we have learned from Leibnitz, and what experience has confirmed, that each new afiirmation of superstition or fanaticism is met by a negation of in- credulity and irreligion, and that each new manifestation of incredulity encounters a new affirmation of super- stition. Extremes meet — nay, they do more — they unite and progagate; and this is precisely the tragic, the for- midable aspect of the situation. To deal with the paganism of incredulity, of irreligion, we must go back to the troubled dawn of our French Revolution. It was before an assembly which had its days of glory, but which, at the time I am speaking of, was not worthy of France — the National Convention. At its bar appeared the successor of St. Denis, he who, invested with the 1C4 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL^ episcopal tiara, occupied the see of Paris — the constitu- tional bishop, Gobel. On his brow, which had borne the mitre (mysterious symbol of the august and pacific power which comes from Jesus Christ), he liad placed the red Phrygian cap — emblem of the bloody demagogy. He ap- peared before the assembly without having been called, and, in base, despicable language said: ''The will of the peo])le has always been my first thought, and my first duty is to obey it." But the cowardly apostate confounded the respect of the people with the fear of the scaffold, as he confounded the respect of God with the terror of hell. Tormented by day by the vision of the guillotine, tortured at night by infernal visions, actuated by the basest cowardice, and possessing no religion, neither that of the Stoics nor that of Christians, he had come there, sur- rounded by the meanest of his priests, to abjure at one and the same time his Christian faith and his episcopacy. '* Citizens," said the president of the Convention to them, "in laying on the altar of the Republic these Gothic baubles, you have deserved well of the nation." Frantic applause burst forth from most of the benches, while Pobespierre, isolated in his disgust, meditated the sentence which a few days later was to send Gobel to wash out, if he could, his shame by the guillotine. This was the first abdication of the pulpit of the see of St. Denis. This abdication was not made, however, into the hands of paganism: the Convention was not pagan, it was deist. Robespierre proclaimed it in language which was per- haps strange and ridiculous, but which has also its sub- lime aspect — he proclaimed the official belief of the French people in the Supreme Being and in the immortality of the soul. Would that all the Republicans of to-day \\s.d preserved the orthodoxy of the National Convention! PERE HYAGINTHE'S REPLY. lO.'J The Convention was deist, but it was already outstripped by atheism. Robespierre was classed among the cham- pions of the old regwie. The Supreme Being was a mytli to be banished with Jehovah and Jesus. The Commune of Paris was in the van of progress, and the procurator — ringleader — of tliat Commune, Chaumette, stood in front of the altar of Xotre Dame to inaugurate the most disgrace- ful of all paganisms — the religion of atheism. On the altar of Jesus stood a courtesan; she personified in her own barren and corrupting flesh the profaned reason oi' mail. A shameless woman, a reason profaned — this was the goddess of Heason ; and to her were offered adorations which we are willing to forget on the condition that we are not forced to remember them. It was, therefore, a new paganism which arose; but, to the glory of the French people, I can say that the goddess of Reason threw off lier vile trappings and cleansed herself of the mire into which she had fallen. And, yet, alas! to be faithful to truth, I am forced to say that the goddess of Reason is still standing erect, and that her throne is neither in Berlin nor London — at Berlin, in the German universities, where there are no doubt powerful lucubra- tions of rationalism and irreligion; in England, where flourishes to-day the most radically skeptical school in the world — but the irradiating and powerful focus is Paris. Xot only is the goddess Reason still living in our midst, and not only are^we living witnesses, but we are living actors in a veritable j^aganism. Paganism is vast — it stretches from the African fetish- ism to tlie pantheism of the Brahmins and the atheism of the Buddhists, for atheism itself has its religion. There are those to be fouiul in ourdav who ima2:ine that relii^ion can be uprooted from the human soil and a ^^Teat people 106 MISTAKES OF INGKHSOLL. made to live without adoring. But religion is a thing so great, so subtle, so deep-rooted in man, that even when the very idea of God has disappeared, as in Buddhism (which contemporaneous savants affirm, although I myself doubt it), there still remains a religion, the most powerful and sometimes the most fanatic. Thus, from the fetishism of the Africans to the atheism of the Buddhists and the pantheism of the Brahmins, there are all the degrees and shades of polytheism. But these numerous forms, opposed to one another, all enter into the great sphere of paganism. We must not, however, con- found paganism with any of these forms, and if we wish to obtain an exact definition, we must go to the essence of it. "What, then, is the essence of paganism or idolatry ? Bossuet has told us in a single word : everything is God excejpt God Himself. Paganism consists essentially in the substitu- tion of the relative for the absolute, of the finite for the infinite, of man for God. I say " man " rather than nature, for in modern times we do not adore nature, especially ex- terior nature, for we know it better than our ancestors; we have analyzed it by our science, we have conquered it by our industry; w^e simply make it our slave. But when God has disappeared — when the Living-Infinite and the Per- sonal Absolute have gone — when, as Hamilton says, we have succeeded in exorcising the spectre of the absolute, we find ourselves before another spectre — man: man be- holding only himself, man adoring himself, sometimes with the calculating designs of a cold egotism, sometimes with the sudden passions of voluptuousness, ambition, or pride; but it is always man that adores himself. If he adores himself in his individual person, it is egotism ; if he adores himself in the person of some or all of his kind, it is what is called to-day, in rather barbarous French, V altruisms PERE HYACINTIIE'S REPLY. 107 (other-selfisin); or when, finally, withdrawing himself from individuals or from his own person, he adores himself under the ideal of humanity, and when man adores himself in humanity, as Auguste Comte, a man of great talent, almost of genius, said, "in the continuity of convergent beings," it is still man adoring himself. And, I would ask, did not Auguste Comte himself, while summing up and crowning a scientific life by mystic conceptions, pass from pui'e phi- losophy to religion, and inaugurate in Paris, at ]N"o. 10 Rue Monsieur le Prince — it still exists — what he called •* the sanctuary of the religion of humanity," of which *he was the first high-priest, and for which he created a calendar and sacraments? These are living facts of .to-day. The two schools which nowadays hold sway over the scientific realm, and would fain attract within their grasp all methods of teaching, and encroach on private and social life, are the sciences of Materialism and Positivism. But I will not hesitate to tell these schools that they, in fact, are the embodiment of paganism in the sense of the substitution of man for God. It is true that it is a very pure paganism, for indeed there could be no other within a Christian society. Jesus Christ has spoken of worship in spirit and in truth. I say that it is idolatry in spirit and in truth. It is the creature usurping the place of the Creator; the constant substitution of the finite for the infinite, of man for the personal and living God. That ia paganism; and we find it in the three orders of human life — knowledge, ethics, and society. In the order of knowledge, it is reason serving itself not only from Christian revelation — that would be already too much, for human reason has need of the Gospel of Jesus Christ — but extinguishing on the very heights it occupies the effulgent rays of dawn, the breath of the 108 ynSTAKES OF 1NOER80LL. early day about to break. It is reason forgetting all meta- physics, as well as all religion; restraining, crippling it- self in the order of outer and material observation, and in the order of inner and psychological observation. '^ There is but nothingness beyond observation and facts,'' says the Materialist; nothing but hypothesis, says the Pos- itivist. But this is the mutilated reason of man, the science of observation set in the place of natural sense, of the rational intuition of things spiritual and eternal. Such is the first characteristic of paganism. If we enter into conscience, we find an absence of the absolute elements, because God is no longer there: God is nothing, or at least an hypothesis. The human conscience, bereft of its absolute elements, is necessarily bereft of all divine elements. What then remains? Three laws, fron which a man may chose according to his taste or fancy according as his mind is of an austere or depraved charac tei' — the law of conscience, but of a conscience wholly relative and contingent, a conscience based on self, which is but self communing with self in its own dignity; the law of duty, a beautiful law, inasmuch as it sometimes gives rise to real virtues, admirable self-sacrifice in incon- sistent men, who are better tlian their systems. And yet this is but a relative, contingent conscience, devoid of all value but that of human self. By the side of the law of conscience there is the law of the heart, with its fervid enthusiasm, its beautiful ideal of the iraagi nation as well as of sentiment. Keed I add that under- neath conscience and heart lies what has been called " the law of physical members," as expounded by that great Saint-Simonian school which taught the rehabilitation of the flesh. If conscience be not an element superior to man, and PERE EYAGINTIIE'S REPLY. 109 law not a light existing within him, but coming to him from above, it is left to man to choose, to calculate in his wisdom the measure of his conscience which bids him sacrifice himself, the measure of his heart which bids him love, and the measure of his flesh which counsels his enjoyment. That is logic. Man may be better than logic, but nevertheless this is logic. It is man, principle and end of morality, as it is man, the principle and end of conscience. In the social order we have democracy, a most noble form, and perhaps the definitive form of human societies. Let us use no ambiguities here. The democracy which I admit is that of Jean- Jacques Kousseau, the initiator of contemporary democracy ; and though often a false prophet, he was true and sublime when he qualified democracy as " God's people governing itself," ^.6. the sovereignty of the people acting only as agent of the superior sovereignty of reason and justice. But the democracy of human afi'airs which ignores God and His divine law in all things is a democracy which renders nugatory all laws it can make itself, and powerless all human action. If the value of laws, of political constitutions, of the constitution of society itself— if the value of property and of the family tie are not founded on absolute reason, but are merely the arbitrary result of the popular will;— if man, the "majority of the people— for it is a majority, never a whole people, that speaks— declares that such and such a law is a true or just one because it has so willed it, and such and such a constitution wrong or bad because it will have no more of it— I maintain that such a democracy is but tyranny under a new form. It matters little to me that I am governed by one man or millions of men. As a man I owe obedience direct only to reason and 110 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. divine justice, indirectly to the social agent established in the name of this reason and of this justice. In a tradi- tionally monarchial society this agent is the prince, and I acknowledge the monarch. But, I repeat, behind and , above the monarch I bow only to divine order and supreme law, whose agent he, the king or the emperor, is held to be. In a democratic society it is the people — I should say the majority of the people, since we must be arraigned before that law of numbers which is becoming the consti. tuted agent of justice and law. I accept willingly tha majority of the people; but that majority can claim m^ allegiance only so long as it shall represent the principle of a higher ord^r, the principle of absolute justice — God. Thus, in the social as well as in the moral and intellectual order, it is every man arraigned before his fellow-irxan. In other words, it is paganism. What we must do, and I continue to append lO my dear fellow-citizens, my dear co-religionists- — fo>% after all, we are all Christians, and when we go to the bottom of our souls we all feel Christianity there — wo must, amid all these errors, raise aloft the banner of the Gospel. Instead of isolating ourselves, instead of firing on one another in this civil war, in this criminal and mad war, we must unite together. "We must labor in that work of which Mr. Gladstone, one of thoso statesmen who do not blush to be real Christians, remarked to me one day that the greatest idea of this century was Catholic reform and the unity of the Church. Abov^e Protestanism and its divi- sions, above Roman Catholicism and its oppression, above Greek Catholicism and its somnolence or isolation, let us endeavor to arouse a great organic and living Christianity, a vast superior and integral Catholicism, a free and strong federation of churches and consciences. DYING WORDS. HI DYTCsTG WOEDS. " Bless you, there is no river here." — Bishop Haven. " The best of all is, God is with us. Farewell ''—John Wesley. '' O, why not now? But Thy will be done; come, Lord Jesus." — St. Augustine. " Now I go into Paradise."— -J'<^c(?5 Bcehmer. " Welcome joy." — John Elliot. "What shall I say? Christ is altogether lovely; His glorious angels are come for me." — John Bailey. "' See in what peace a Christian can die." — Joseph Addison. "Glory! glory! glory! Hallelujah, [Jesus reigns!"— Jesse Lee. " I am not disappointed." — Bishop Janes. " Talk to me of Jesus." — Adam Nightingale. " Such singing! Do you not hear it? " — John Carey. " Rest, perfect rest." — Thomas Burrows. " All is \\g\\t:'—Theophilus Pugh. " Tell my brethren I am on the rock. There is no other foundation." — Joseph Hollis. " O God of angels and powers, and of all creatures, and of all the just that live in Thy sight; blessed be Thou wlio hast made me worthy to see this day arid hour; Thou hast made me a partaker among the holy martyrs. O Lord, I adore Thee for all thy mercies. I bless Thee that 1 glorify Thee through Thy only-begotten Son, %e eternal High Priest, Jesus Christ." — Polycarp^ at the' Stake. 11?, MISTAKES OF TNGERSOLL. ''I am not afraid to look deatli in the face. I can say, 'Death, where is thy stingT'' — John Dodd. ••If I had strength to hokl a pen, I would write how easy and delightful it is to die.'" — Wm. Hunter. •'If this be dvincr, it is the easiest thino^ imao^inable.'- — Lady Glenorchy. '• I welcome death, and calmly pass away.'- — Arthur Murj)hy. '• I am now in a state in which nothing in this world can disturb me more. I am comfortably coming to my end." — Collingioood. " I did not suppose it was so sweet to die." — Saurez. the Spanish theologian. "Let me die in the sounds of delicate music." — Mira- beau. •'Kiss me, Hardy. I thank God I have done my duty." — Lord Nelson. •' I feel well; I never felt more so in my life; I am in- expressibly happy." — David Daily. "Glory to God in the highest, the whole earth shall \)v filled with His glory." — Jesse Appleton^ •' After glories that God has manifested to my soul, all is light, light, light — the brightness of His own glory. O come, Lord Jesus, come; come quickly." — Toplady^ author of *'Iiocl{ of Ages.'''' " See how calm a Christian can die! " — Addison. " Blessed be God, all is well." — Darracott. •'Never better; soon home: only two steps more, and I shall reach my Father's home.'' — Dr, Rowland Taylor. " Glory to God, I see heaven open before me." — Benja- min Abbott. DYING WORDS. 113 "I have done with darkness forever." — Thomas Scott. '' Children, as soon as I am released, sing a psalm of praise to God." — Mrs. Susaiifia Wesley. " Brethren, sing and praj; eternity dawns.*' — Dr. Eddy. " I am going up, np, up." — B. V.Lawrence. " I have got the victory, and Christ is holding out both hands to embrace me." — Rutherford. '" Glory! glory! glory! Hallelujah! Jesus reigns." — Jesse Lee. " Let him fear death who must pass from this death to the second death." — Cyprian '*Now I go into paradise." — Rev. Jacoh Bmhmer. " I believe, I believe. I am almost well. Lord teach us how to die." — Richard Baxter " We shall meet ere long to sing the new song, and re- main happy forever in a world without end." — John Bun- yan. '' Live in Christ, live in Christ, and the flesh need not fear death." — John Knox. , *' Jesus, Jesus, I die, but Thou livest." — Otterhein. " The greatest conflict is over; all is done. To live is Christ; but to die is gain." — J. Harvey. '^ My son, you have taken away my religion; now tell me something to comfort me." — The Message of Hume^s Mother^ on her death-hed., to her son. '' Welcome this chain for Christ's sake." — John Huss, at the Stake. " Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Glio^V'—Bede. '^ Into Thy hands I commend my spirit. Thou hast re- deemetl me, O Lord God of truth." — Martin Luther. 114 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. '' I want nothing; I am looking for nothing but heaven." —Melanethon. '' Now let Thy servant depart in peace. Suffer me to come to thee. Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." — Bishop Jewell, " I am found in Him who loved me and gave Himself for me. I am swallowed up in God." — Dr. Goodwin^ {^Puritan Divine). " Glory to Thee, O Q^o^r— Gordon Hall " The Celestial City is now full in my view." — Payson. " I am taking a fearful leap into the dark." — Hohhs. " I long to die, that I may be in the place of perdition, that I may know the worst of it. My damnation is sealed." — William Pope. " Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell." — Sir Francis Newport. " I must die — abandoned of God and of men." — Vol- taire. In a recent rehash of an old lecture on Thomas Paine" we find the following paragraph: " You have burned us at the stake; roasted us upon slow fires; torn our flesh with iron; you have covered us with chains; treated us as outcasts; you have filled the world with fear; you have taken our wives and our children from our arms," etc. We ask in the name of simplest truth and common justice who it is that have suffered these things? The answer comes from every page of histoiy, that it is follow- ers of Christ, who have clung to Him through the fires of persecution and the floods of misfortune. MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. 115 They were believers in the Bible who went to the stake; else, why were Bibles burned with them in the flames? Men do not go to the rack, the stake, or the guillotine, rather than renounce their faith when they have no faith to renounce. Men and women do not choose to be placed in red-hot iron chains rather than to deny a Lord on whom they have never believed. Men do not submit to have their tungs cut out, to be thrown to wild beasts, or to perish in slow fires, in prefer- ence to recanting from a position they have never assumed. Cellsus was not crucified; Parphry was not banished; Julian did not suffer, save at the hands of his own con- science; Voltaire was not thrown into a caldron "of boiling oil; Paine was not burned at the stake, and modern skep- tics are not placed in the stocks or whipped in the streets. It was men, women, yes, and children, who clung to the written word when fire and flame and irons and lash were the rewards of their fidelity. They have been driven to mountains and caverns, to wander in sheepskins and goat- skins—they of whom the world was not worthy. The same hands burned Christians that burned Bibles. They thought to crush the book and its believers by the same means. But the old book lives on, unmindful of the waves that beat against its unfailing foundations. It is still the " pillar of cloud " by day, and the " pillar of fire " in the night time of persecution, and thus it will ever be until the weary feet of God's little ones find rest upon the ever green shores of eternal Wi'e.-Mrs. H.Y.Beed. IL COL. MOBEMI &. INGIEMSOLL. m ON THOMAS PAINE. 117 COL. INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON THOMAS PAINE. Delivered in Central Music Hall, Chicago, January 29, 1880. (From the Chicago Times, Verbatim Report^ Ladies and Gentlemen : It so happened that the tirst 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 religion maybe 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 hap- pened— most biography is usually the lie coming from the mouth of flattery, or the slander coming from the lips of malice, and whoever attacks the religion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked. Who- ever attacks a superstition will find that superstition defended 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, on 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 fam- ishing beast, and, throwing from himself the yellow robe of his order, and stepping naked before this tigress, said : " Here is meat for you and for your cubs." In one moment the crooked daggers of her clawg 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 118 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 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 bet- ter 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 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 petro- leum 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 his fellow-men, and he thought; and a man is worth just what natures im- presses upon him. A man standing by the sea, or in a forest, or look- ing at a flower, or hearing a poem, or looking into 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-mak3r, a very lowly profession, and yet that man became one 6f 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 ganger — and yet he wrote poems that will wet the cheek of humanity with tears as long as this world travels in its orb around the sun. Poverty was his brother, necessity his master. He had more brains than books; more courage than politeness; more strength than polish. He had no veneration for old mistakes, no admiration for ancient lies. He loved the truth for truth's sake and for man's sake. He saw op- pression on every hand, injustice everywhere, hypocrisy at the altar, venality on the bench, tyranny on the throne, and with a splendid cour- age he espoused the cause of the weak against the strong, of the en- slaved many against the titled few. In England he was nothing. He belonged to the lower classes — that is, the useful people. England depended for her prosperity upon her ON THOMAS PAINE. 119 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 tlie nobility and the priests, and they are the only gentlemen. This, anil his native genius, constituted his entire capital, and he needed no more. He found the colonies clamoring for justice ; whining about their grievances; upon their knees at the foot of the throne, im- ploring that mixture of idiocy and insanit}', 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 Pharoah 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 argu- ment f<;r separation ; the first assault upon the British form of govern- ment; 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 pami)hlet ever accomplished such 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 inde- pendent 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 iL be forgo ten 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 instituted among men. In my judgment Thomas Paine was the best political writer that ever lived. " What he wrote was pure nature, and his soul and his pen ever went together." Ceremony, pageantry, and all the piraphcrnalia of power, had no cflfect upon him. He examined into the why and where- fore of things. He was perfectly radical in his mode of thonght. Nothing short of tlie bed-rock satisfied him. His enthusiasm for what he believed to be right knew no bounds. During all the d irk scenes of the revolution never for a moment did he despair. Year aftr-r year his brave words were ringing through the land, and by the bivouac fires the weary soldiers read the inspiring words of " Common Sense," filled with ideas sharper than their swords, and consecrated themselves anew to the cause of freedom. 120 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. Paine was not content with having aroused the spirit of independence, but he gave every energy of his soul to keep that spirit alive. He was witli 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 deserves 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 independent, we need ask only this simple, easy ques- tion : ' Is it the interest of a man to be a boy all his life ?' " He found many who would listen to nothing, and to them he said: "That to argue with a man who has renounced his reason is like giving medi- cine to the dead." This sentiment ought to adorn the walls of every orthodox church. There is a world of political wisdom in this : " England lost her liberty in a long chain of right reasoning from wrong principles;" and there is real discrimination in saying: "The Greeks and Romans were fetrongly possessed of the spirit of liberty, but not the principles, for at the time they were determined not to be slaves themselves,4hey employed their power to enslave the rest of mankind." In his letter to the British people, in which he tried to convince them tiiat 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 tiian quarreling can be profitable to a man in business. But \o make war with those who tiade with us is like setting a bull-dog upon a customer at the shop door." The writings of Paine fairly glitter with simple, compact, logical statements that carry conviction to the dullest and most prejudicial. He had the happiest possible way of putting the case, in asking ques. lions in such a way that they answer themselves, and in stating his prft mises so clearly that the deduction could not be avoided. 0iV THOMAS PAIWE. 191 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 happiness 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 have rested from his toils and spent the remainder of his life in com- fort and in ease. He could 'have been what the world is pleased to call "respectable." He could have died surrounded by clergymen, war- riors, and statesmen, and at his death there would have been an impos- ing funeral, miles of carriages, civic societies, salvos of artillery, a Na- tion in mourning, and, above all, a splendid monument covered withlies. He chose rather to benefit mankind. A^ 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 principles contained in his " System of Nature." The encyclopaedists had attacked superstition with information 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. Amer- ica 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 supersti- tious knees. The dawn of a new day had appeared. Thomas Paine went to France. Into the new movement he threw all his energies. His fame had gone before him, and he was welcomed aa a friend of the human race and as a champion of free government. He had never relinqui.shed his intention of pointing out to his country- men the defects, absurdities, and abuse of the English government. For this purpose lie composed and published his greatest political work ''The Rights of Man." This work should be read by every man and woman. It is concise, accurate, rational, convincing, aud unanswerable. It shows great thought, an intimate knowledge of the various forms of government, deep insight into the very springs of human action, and a courage that compels respect aud admiration. The most difficult politi. cal problems are solved in a few sentences. The venerat)le arguments in favor of wrong are refuted with a question— answered with a word. For forcible illustration, apt comparison, accuracy and clearness of state- ment, and absolute thoroughness, it has never been excelled, 132 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. The fears of the administration were aroused, and Paine was prose- cuted 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 human nature itself. It could have been written only by the man who had the generosity, the exalted patriotism, the goodness to say : " The world is my couutry, 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 1793, Paine was elected by the department of Calais as their repre- sentative in the National Assembly. So great was his popularity in France, that he was selected about the same time by the people of no less than four departments. Upon taking his place in the assembly, he was appointed 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 filled with blood in that reign of terror. There were killed in the City of Paris not less, I think, than seventeen thousand people— and on one night, in the massa. ere of St. Bartholomew, there were killed, by assassination, 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 govern, ment, 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 philanthropy was boundless. He wished to destroy monarchy — 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, ^^here all were demanding the execution of the king, ON THOMAS PAINE. 128 — where to differ with the majority was to be suspected, ana 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 ex- ecution of the king was a vote against his own life. This was the sub- limity of devot;on 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 convention, 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 h;ive voted to put Louis Capet upon trial, because it was necessary to prove to the world the perfidy, the corruption, and the horror oi 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 licld in esteem by his neighbors, aud his wickedness results 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 coniinual contemplation 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 human- ity are united. As Fiance 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 objects 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 lillp— the sublime conclusion 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, con- 124 mSTAKBS OF INOERSOLL. fining his efforts to no country, looking upon the world as his field ol action. Filled with a genuine love for the right, he found hiroself im- prisoned 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; 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 otf 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 wall, and the inner door was shut, and when the man came along whose busi- ness 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 inside, 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 countiy, at least, he would have ranked with the proudest names. On the anniversary of the Declaration, his name would have been upon 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 infinitely rotten. He had dug under the throne, and it occurred to him that he would take a look behind the altar. The result of this investigation was given to the world in the '' Age of Reason." From the moment of its publication he became infamous. He was calumniated 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 pesti lence. Most of his old friends forsook him. He was regarded as ti 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 despicable of men. ON TBOMAS PAINE. 1*5 • Not content with following him to his grave, they pursued him after death with redoubled fury, and recounted with infln.te g^^'o -<» -^- faction the supposed horrors of hia death-bed; gloned m the fact that he was forlorn and friendless, and gloated like fiends over what they aunoosed to be the agonizing remorse of his lonely death. uTwonderful tha't all his'services are Ihus forgotten. It xs aujaz-ng tha one kind word did not fall from some pulpit; that some one d.d no, accord to him. at least-honesty. Strange that in the genera denunc.a^ Uonsomeone'did not remember his labor for "I'-ty- ^'^ 7°"^ : principle, his zeal for the rights of his fellow-men. He had by brave and splendid effort, associated his name with the cause of progres . He hS made it imp;ssible to write the history of PoUtcal freedom wm. his name left out. He was one of the creators of light one of the hlraJds of the dawn. He hated tyranny in the name of kmgs and .„ le name c^ God, with every drop of his noble blood. He bel.eved m UberW and justice, and in the sacred doctrine of human equaUty^ Under these divine banners he fought the battle of h.s l.fe In both worldste offered his blood for the good of man. In tl^e waderness of Zerica in the French assembly, in the sombre cell wa.Ung for death, ^was the same unflinching, unwavering friend of his race; the same Undaunted champion of universal freedom. And for this he has been haled • for this the church has violated even his grave. This s enough to make one believe that nothing is more natural than for men to devour their benefactors. The people in all ages have cruc.^ fied and glorified. Whoever lilts his voice against abuses, whoever LraiKU the past at the bar of the present, whoever asks the king to Tow hs commission, or question the authority of the priest wil be denounced aTL ene^y of man and God.. In all ages reason has heen denouncea ds me „, „,;,ri<>n Nothin" has been considered so regarded as the enemy o -^-- ^^fj'^ °» ^ authority of your own '^T'^^^^^l:^^^^^o.,^^ deadly sin ; and the idea of living ruddying without the aid and consolation of superstition l';^^ ^Iwa^ ho rmed the church. By some unaccountable -fatuation belief ha been ami still is considered of immense importance. All religion, have bee^ based upon the idea that God will f^-^.-^^'^^'^r^'^f .ttrdld and eternally damn the man wao doubts or denies. Belief is regarded ::the one essential thing. To practice justice, to 'ove mercy is no enou-h- you must believe in some incomprehensible creed You mus ;- Once one is three, and three times one is one." The man who macticcd every virtue, but failed to believe, was execrated. Nothing .o omrages trefeelings ;f the church as a moral unbeliever, nothing so horrible as a charitable atheist. 126 MISTAKES OF INQERSOLL. >■ When Paine was born the work! [was religious, the pulpit was the real throne, autl the churches were making every effort to crush out of the braiu the idea that it had t'.ie rig'.it to thiuk. He again made up his mind to sacrilice himself. lie c )mineaced with the assertion, " That any system of religi ;n that has anything in it that shocks the mind of a child can nut be a true system." What a bciuliful, what a tender sen- timent ! No wonder the church began to hate him. lie believed in one God, and no more. After this life he hoped for happiness. He believed that true religion consisted in doing jas:ice, loving mercy; in endeavor- ing to make our feilow-creatures happy, and in offering to God the fruit of the heart. He denied the inspiration of the scripiures. This was Lis crime. He contended that it is a contradiction in terms to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, cither verbally or in writing. He asserted that revelation is necessarily limited lo the first communi- cation, and that after that it is only an account of something which an- other 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 prob- ably 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 amiable 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 he entertained the same senti- ments now held by the Unitai'ians, 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, and so far as the Old Testament is concerned, fu'.se in almost everything.' There are but few, if any, scientific men, who apprehend that the Bible is literally true. Who on earth at Ihis day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from ihe 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. The best minds of the orthodox world, to-day, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal deity. All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the Bible wh<.]e, Whale, Jonah and all; you aie simply required lo believe in God and pay your pew-rent. There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seri. ously contend that Sampson's strength was in his hair, or that the ON THOMAS PAINE. 12? 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 thoui^ht the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with what he deemed th6 real character of God. He believed the murder, massacre, and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the Deity. He regarded much of the Bible as childish, unimportant and foolish. The scientific world entertains the same opinion. Paine at- tacked the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions 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 in- fancy. 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 else, unless thoroughly imbued with the spirit of self-sacrifice, thought for a moment of disput- ing 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 strengtK He left few argu- ments to be used by those who should come after him, and he used none that have been refuted. The combined Avisdom and genius of all mankind can not possibly conceive of an argument against liberty of thought. Neither can they show Miiy anyone should be punished, either in this world or another, for acting lioncstly in accordance with reason; and yet a doctrine with every possible arijument against it has been, and still is, believed and dcfcmlcd 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 conclusions? Ought the sailor to throw away his compass and depend entirely upon the fog? If reason is not to be depended upon in matters of religion, that \» to say, in re- 128 MISTAKES OF XNOBRSOLL. 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 somf of our own ? How dare we drown the thunders of Sinai by calling th*' ayes and noes 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 lime 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 soul, strips from her form the imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought, and makes her the bond-woman of a 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 Jiavtog your eyes shut, you would likely suspect either that he had no painting or that it was some pitiful daub. Should he tell you that 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 going lo do what I can against them. We believe that the frightful text, " He that believes shall be "saved, and he that bcleiveth not shall be dammed" has covered the earth with blood. You might as well say all that have red hair shall be damned. It has filled the heart with arro- gance, cruelty, and murder. It has caused the religious wars ; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake ; founded inquisitions ; filled dun- geons; invented instruments of tortuie; taught the mother to hate her child ; imprisoned the mind ; filled the world with ignorance ; persecuted the lovers of wisdom ; built the monasteries and convents ; made happi. ness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. It has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the energies of the world; filled all countriei with want; houwd the people in hovels; fed ON THOMAS PATNE 129 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 the genuineness of a pretended revelation from God v Common sense belongs exclusively tojno tongue. Logic is not confirmed to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. Paine attacked the Bible as it is translated. If the translation is wrong, let its defenders correct 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 fore- most 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 /ihis man, and the perfume of his burning flesh would have filled heaven with joy. A Universalist would have 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 ofl', their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. Less than one hun- dred and fifty years ago the Mlowing law was in force in Maryland : Be it enacted by the right honorable, the lord proprietor, 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 province, 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-liead of any of the three persons, or the unity of the God-head, or shall utter any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or the persons thereof, and shall therefor be convicted by verdict, shall, for the firsi ofiense, be bored through the tongue, and fined £20, to be levied on his body. As for the second oflfense, the off"ender shall be stigmatized by burning in the forehead the letter B, and fined £40. And that for the third offense, the offendershall suffer death without the benefit of clergy. 130 MISTAKES OP INOEBSOLL. The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been respected, and was in force in the District of Columbia 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 to hundreds of offenses. It has been the same in all Christian countries. To-duy, in civilized governments, the death penalty is attaclied only to murder and treason ; and in some it has been entirely abolished. What a commen- tary upon the divine systems of the world ! In the day of Thomas Paine the church was ignorant, bloody, and re. lentless. In Scotland the "kirk" was at the summit of its power. It was a ^iiU sister of the Spanish inquisition. It waged war upon human nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the de- spiser of liberty. It taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother held opinions of which the infamous " 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 any- body 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 an. nihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling 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 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 v/ailingof d imned 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 Aikenhcad was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for having de- nied the inspiration of the scriptures, and for having, on several occa- sions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. Not- withstanding 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 ON THOMAS PAINE. 131 face covered with tears, begging for the corpse, she was denied and driven away in the name of charity. That is religion, and in tlie velvet of their politeness there lurks the claws of a tiger. Just give them tlie 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 eatisfy them. They want to give me a little foretaste here. Prosecutions and executions like these were common in every Chris- tian country, and all of them based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime. No wonder the church hated and traduced the author of the "Age of Reason." England was filled 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 finery of the gods — had added to the story of Christ the fables of mythology. He gave to the Protestant church the most out- rageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned all the angels into soldiers — made heaven a battle-field, put Christ in uniform, and de- scribed God as a militia general. His works were considered by the Protestants nearly as sacred as the Bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sub- lime absurdity of the blind Milton. Heaven and hell were realities— the judgment-day was expected — books of accounts would be opened. Every man would bear the charges against him read. God was supposed to sit upon a golden throne, surrounded 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 profundly ignorant, and consequently extremely re- ligious, so far as belief was concerned. In Europe liberty was lying chained up in the inquisition, 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 for- ward movement. Religion always 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^ttack the monster 132 MISTAKES OF INGER80LL. that was eating out the heart of the world. Some one had to sacrifice him- self 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 sceptres, honors and gold, the keys of heaven and hell, tramping be- neath 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, although 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 Prot- estant church than all other books then known. It furnished an immense amount of food for thought. It was written for the average mind, and 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 hia candid thought, and candid thoughts are always valuable. The " Age of Reason " lias 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 iu proportion that the human race has advanced, the church has lost its power. There is no exception to this rule. No nation ever malerially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders. No. nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the church wit.ho\it 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 uniterae, " Halt!" A creed is the ignorant past l)ullying tho enlightenod present. ON THOMAS PATNE. 133 The ignorant are not satisfied with what can be demonstrated. Science is too slow for them, and so they invent creeds. They demand complete- ness. A sublime segment, a grand fragment, are of no value to them. Tliey demand the complete circle — the entire structure. In music they want a melody with a recurring accent at measured periods. lu religion they insist upon immediate answers to the ques- tions of creation and destiny. The alpha and omega of all things must be in the alphabet of their superstition. A religion that can not answer every question, and guess every conundrum, is, in their estimation, worse than worthless. They desire a kind of theological dictionary — a religious ready reckoner, together with guide-boards at all crossings and turns. They mistake impudence for authority, solemnity for wisdom, and pathos for inspiration. The beginning 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 know, ing. The present is considered 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 sal- vation 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 windows. 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 believed to be for the highest and best interest of mankind; 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 has 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 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 134 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. the Pantheon, the temple of the gods, and toojt the animal upon his thumbnail, and, pressing it with the other, "ho sacrificed Diogenes to all the gods.'' Jubt 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, temples frescoed and groined and carved, and gilded with gold, altars and tapers, and paint- ings of virgin and babe, censer and chalice, chasuble, paten and alb, organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest, maniple, amice and stole, crosses and crosiers, tiaras, and crowns, mitres and missals and masses, rosaries, relics and robes, mariyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of Christ, never, never for one moment awed the brave, i^-oud 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 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 othei^ 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 te be realized, and the truly intel- lectual are honoring the brave tliinkers of the p:ist. But the church is as unforgiving as ever, and still wonders 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 human 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 rights to testify in courts of justice; you have br.iuded us with infamy; you have torn out our tongues; you have re- fused 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. 135 and that the whole world is gradually rising into the blessed light ? Can you wonder that we point with pride to the fact that infidelity has ever been found battling for the rights of man, for the liberty of conscience, and for the happiness of all ? Can you wonder that 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 decy 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, reachmg 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 m*ourning heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with fire 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 aye the slaves of all. We do not want creeds ; we want some knowledge. We want happiness. And yet we are told by the church that we have accomplished no hing; that we are oimply 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 see again the happy field;?, 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? Js it a small thmg to reave the heavens of an insatiate monster and write 136 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 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 Christiana 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 Christiark nations patterns of charity and forbearance? On the 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 every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow Christian brains into eternal froth. Millions upon millions are annually expended in the efi'ort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. In- dustry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of Christian murder. There must be some other way 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 grind 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 Caesars, 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. 137 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 wliat 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 de ith 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 mnd 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 stufl\ Get away with you. Good THOMAS JBAIWM. im ON THOMAS PAINE. 139 morniD^."' On another occasion a Methodist minister obtruded himself. Mr. Willet Hicks was present. The minister declared to Mr. Paine that "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 h'im. 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 Cobbet 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 triend of man and without superstition, and if you will stay here I will do it. Xew 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 furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions, or rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his de.th, all 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 of Thomas Paine since the year 1776, went to his house. He T^'a3 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, "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, nmoug 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. Jarvig, the artist, saw Mr. Paine 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 UO MISTAKES OF INGEHSOLL. coward. He expressed his firm and unshaken belief in the reljgiotib ideas he had given to the world. Dr. Manly was with him when he spoke his 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. One 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 k iidness, Mr. Woodsworth visited Mr. Paine every day for six weeks be tore tiis death. He 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 oa 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 tliaHetter, boldly declaring before Dr. Manly, who is still living, 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. Woodswortli. Gilbert Vale. A few weeks ago 1 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 navy 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 : " 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, " that was nothmg, for he believed in a God." I told him that I had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that Mr. Paine had OjV THOMAS FAINE. Ul recanted in his last momenU Tlie 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, and 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 1830 to 1823. 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 Rensselaer, 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 Cit}' 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 thins; during the life- time of Mr. Paine, and did not believe anyone else did. I asked him 142 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. 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 truly, 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 ihat 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 Paine, hy 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 of your popish stuff. Good morning." — Sherwin's Life of Pame, 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. — Paine^s 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 tell 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 RickmaiVs 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 hi3 last sickness, and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. ON THOMAS PAINE. 143 According to their testimony Mr. Paine died as he lived — a believer in God and a friend to man. Willet Hicks was oflfered 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 Woodsworth, 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 pursue 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 -44 MltiTAKEb OF I^GElitiOLL. what she thought of them, adding that from such an one as she he expected a correct answer. Let us examine this falsehood, Whj' 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 iDronounced 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 Yale, 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 Thornas Paine. In this w^}- he became acquainted with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed to The Noncich 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 OiV THOMAS PAIN A'. 14G year, called upon the said Mary Hinsdale, at No. 10 Anthony Street, New York, and showed her the statement. Upon being questioned by Mr. Cobbett she said that it was so long ago that she could not speak positively lo 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. getfulness, 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 Neic 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 who 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 y^t 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 money. This charge is just as false as the 10 146 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. rest. Upon his return to this country, in 1802, he was worthi $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, who is appointed minister extraordinary to France, takes charge of this, to be delivered lo 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 in 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- ers— most 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 churches 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 of ON THOMAS PAINE. ' U7 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 js 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 i 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 with tenderness and respect, and frequently sent 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 v^ras 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, ^e drank liq^uor in his da^, as did the preachers. Jt was i^o unuau^J 148 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. 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. He 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 Jeflferson 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 used to sit nights at Carver's, in New York, with Thomas OK THOMAS PAINE. 149 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 lie 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 22d of August, 1830, at half-past 6 in the morning, take four bottles of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock. 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 37, 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 ig 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 print," we are left entirely in the dark as to what he really did. 150 MISTAKES OF IKOERSOLL. While at New Kochelle, Mr. Paine lived with Mr. Purdy, Mr. Dean, with Capt. Pelton, and with Mr. Staple. It is worthy of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the 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 that 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 Jamefl Cheetham, the convicted libel er 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. 37, 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, who 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. flaskins, 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 Rickman, who Jiad known him for many years; of ON THOMM PAINE. 151 Willet and Elias Hicks, Quakers, who knew lilin intimately and well; of Jadge H rtell, il. Margary, Eliliu Palmer, and 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- ccptiou, but he did not drink to excess. Mr. Lovetf, who kept the City Hotel, where Paine stopped, in a note to Caleb Bingham declared that 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, corrobor.ited by the Rev. Charles Hawley, and an extract from Lossing's history to the same efTect. The evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Will you have the fdrness to admit it? Their witnesses -^.rc 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 belter than a calumniator of the dead. "A remnant of old moitaliiy drunk, bloated, and half-asleep," is better than a perfectly sober de- fender of human slavery. To become drunk is a virtue compared with stcaliuLi a babe fiom the breast of its mother. Drunlvcnness is one of the beatitudes, compared with editing a religious paper d voted to the defense of slavery upon the ground that il is a divine institution. Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast wlien he wrote "Common Sense," a pamphlet that aroused three millions "of people, as pe()i)le were never arouscl by words bef tre? Was lie a drunken lieast when he wrote the "Crisis?" Was it to a drunken beast that tuc 'following let'er was a dressed: Rocky lliLii, September 10. 1783.— T have learned, since I have been at this i)1ace. that you are at Boidentown. Whether for the sake of retirement or economy I know not. Beit for either, or l)olh. or what- ever it may, if vou will come to liiis place and paiiake with me. I shall be excceiliiiglv happy to see you at it. Your pre-euce may remind Con- iiressof \ our V^-t services to tills country; and if it is in my power to impress them, comman'l my best exertions with freedom, as they will be rendered clieerfully by one wiio entertains a lively sense of the \\\\- portance of your works, and who, with much pleasure, subscribes him- self your sincere friend, Geokge Wasiii.ngton. Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the ft)llowing letters were received by him: You express a wish in your letter to return to America in a national ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will pr< S( nt you wiih this letter, is charged with orders to the Captain of the Mary- land to receive and accommodate you back, 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 th«*se it will be your glory to have steadily labored, and with as much effect as any man living. That 152 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. you may live long to continue your useful labors, and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations, is ray sincere prayer. Accept the assur- ances of my high esteem and affectionate attachment Thomas Jefferson. It has been very generally propagated through tlie continent that I wrote tlie pamphlet '* Common Srnse." 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 tlio souud doctrine and unausweraiile reasoning coniained in the pamphlet "Common yense," will not leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a sepai'ation. 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 forgDiten the history of their own revolution, and the difficult scenes through which they passed; nor do they review its several staiies 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, oui* 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 prote3t 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. 153 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 beliold. 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 eack 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 m 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 man." 154 MISTAKES OF INQEBSOLL. 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 rot a sin- cerer friend than I. It is the harbor of human life, and is, with respect to the things of this world, what ihe 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 tde 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; it passed by while every throb of my heart was on the wing for tlie salvation of America, and I have now, as contentedly as 1 can, made myself a little tower of walls on that shore that has the solitaiy le^cmblauce 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 tocongiess 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 slate a claim I ftel 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 TBOMAS PAINia. 155 sidy or a loan, supply the Uaited States with a million pounds sterling, aud continue that supply, annually, during the war. I showed this letter to Mr. Morbois, secretary of the Freucli minister. His remark upon It was that a million sent out of the nation exhausted it nioi e 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 do something about it in congr<^ss." Ac- cordingly, congress then appointed John A. Laurens to go to France and make representation for tlie 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 lie, "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, anwever, proper for me to add that the mere independence of America, were it to have been followe I l>y a system of government modeled after the corrupt system of the Engish government, would not liav; intere-^ted me with theuabated ardor it did. It was to bring f 'fward and estib'ish a repre-entative system of irovern- ment. As the work itself wdl show, that was the leading principle with me in writing that work, and all my other works during the ])rogress of the revolution, and I followed the same principle in writing in English the "Rights of Man.'' After the fMikire 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 afl'airs, 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 i3e empowered to make laws for the whole union instead of '.ecommending them. So the method proposed met with their full ap- probation. I held myself in reserve to take a step up whenever a direct occasion occurred. m MIBTAKSS OP INGMIISOIL In a conversation afterward with Gov. Clinton, of New York, bow vi^e-president, it was judged that for tlie purpose of my going fully into the suljject, aud to prevent any niisconstruction 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 returu to America, I have found it necessary to sell, and the State of Pennsylvania voted me £500 of their currency, but none of ihc states to the east of New York, or the south of Pennsylvania, have made me the least acknowledgment They had received benetits from me which they accepted, and tliere 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 liave 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 wlio 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 orce 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 j^ou ever see Thomas Paine ?" " No." " 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, ana 1 want to tell you Mr. Preacher, that Thomas Paine did more for liberty than any priest that ever lived in this worki. Aud 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 w^ould 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 V 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 of his blue-eyed babe ? Did he ever do that? 0^ TMOMAS PAmS. 15"? Did he ever light a fagot? Did he ever tear human ^sh? Why, wha had he to b. afraid of? He had helped to make the war d tree. He had l-lped create the only republic then oa the earth. What was he afraid of? WasGodatory? It won't do. ote would think from the persistence with which the orthodox have charged for the last seventy years that Thomas Paine recanted, tl.at there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges. Even with my Ideas of the average honor of the believers in supa-sntion the Tv rag/truthfulness of the disciplesof fear, I did not beheve that all those infamies rested solely upon poorly- attested lalsehoods. I had charity enough to suppose that something had been said or d<)ne by Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a foundation of all these calumnies. What crime had Thomas Pa.ne committed that he should have feared to die? The only answer you can give isth .the deniec 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 ah un. believersin the ignorant donna 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 motlier 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 human 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 (^f hell,lifted his voice against human slavery and said: "It is robbery, and a slaveholder is a theif; the whipperOf women is a barbarian ; the seller of a child is a savage. No wonder that the theiving hypocrite of his day haled him ! I have no love for any man whoever pretended to own a human being. 1 have no love for a man th.t would sell a l.abe from the moiher's throb- bing, heaving, agonized breast. I have no respect for a man who considered a lash on the naked bick as a legal tender for labor performed^ So write it down, Thomas Paine was the first great abolitioi^ist of 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 conventmn. What more did he do? He was the first to suggest a federal constitu- tion for the United States. He saw that the old a-rticles of confederaUoa 158 MISTAKES OF INOERSOLL. were nothing; that they were ropes of water and chains of mist, and hf said, " We want a federal constituticn so that when you pass a law rais- ing ■) per cent, you can malte the states pay it.*' Let us give him his due. What were all these preachefs doing at that time ? He hated superstition; he loved the truth. He hated tyranny ; he loved liberty. He was the friend of the human race. He lived a brave and thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man. and he died as he lived. Like a great and peaceful river with L^reen 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 fl ig in heaven. I love every man who has lifted his voice in any age for Iiberty,f.)ra chainless 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 hasof position. I love the men who have trampled crowus beneath their feei that they might do something for mankind, and for that reason I love Thomas Paine. I thank you a!!, ladies and gentlemen, every one — every one, for the attention you have given me this evening. THE AUDIPHONIl. GOOD NEWS FOR THE DEAF. An Instrument that Enables Deaf Persons to Hear Ordinary Ck>n- versation Readily Through the Medium of the Teeth, and those Born Deaf and Dumb to Hear and Ijearn to Speak. How it is Done, Stc. 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Purity, pith and point, instrnctiv? and entertaining is the character of this work, and it should be in ihe handn i/" everv child in America. 8 vo., 150 p?yjes, handsomely illustrated. Edited by J. B. McCluee. Price $1.00. ..V'y of '^jxe above books will be sent by mail, post-paid, on ro- e«ij*t ':i pr.'.e. Khodes & MeClure, Publishers, - - . OHIOAGO.ILLb (jveat Speeches I WIT, WISDOM AND ELOQUENCE! OF COL. R. G. INGERSOLL, Illustrated; 8vo, 156 pages, cloth and gold, PRICE, $1. REPLIES TO INGERSOLL ON THOMAS PAINE BY l>r. Qoorlwiu, Bi^liop Fallows, Jaitic-is Maclaiiglilin. Prof. Wilcox. Dr. HatHclfl. Dr. I$laelc1>itrii. i!»iineon Qilbert, Pere Hyacintli^, aiiti otliersii. INCLUDING, ALSO, INGERSOIiL'S LECTURE ON THOMAS PAINE. 8vo, 15 S pages, cloth and gold. PRICE, $1. MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL, AND UIS ANSWERS COMPLETE. This volume contains Ingersoll's Lectures, "Mistakes of Moses." "What Shall We Do to be Saved?" II Skulls." "Thomas Paine." 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