Mistakes Ittgevsoll • Mi I DEC 3 - la- MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL AS SHOWN BY PROF. SWING, J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D W. H. RYDER, D. D., RABBI WISE, BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., AND OTHERS. INCLUDING INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON THE '•MISTAKES OF MOSES." EDITED BY J. B. M C CLURE. CHICAGO: RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 1879. Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1879 by J. B. McClure & R. S. Rhodes, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington D. C. Stereotyped and Printed Ottawat & Company, Donohce & Henxebekry. Binder^ A religious laith at present so generally pervades the eivilized 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. IngersolPs 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 Dutchess of Abercorn. In 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 come! 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 I that you have been pinching!" Messrs. Gibson, Swing, Eyder 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 wi^e and timely, and are put on record in this form to show the weakness of modern infidelity and the stability of Divine Truth. J. B. McCluee. Chicago, April 22nd, 1879. PAGE Prof. Swing's Reply 7 The Lawyer vs. The Philosopher — Ingersoll's Pro- fessional Proclivities in Making a Part Equal to the Whole 8 Seven Mistakes of Moses Left Oat! — Injustice to Hebrew History 10 Swing Puts Himself in Ingersoll's Place and At- tacks the Seventeenth Century — How it Works 13 Ingersoll's Narrowness Shuts Out God, Heaven and Immortality — Infidel Dogmatism . . . 15 In the World's Great Freedom of Choice, Ingersoll is Counted Out 18 Dr. Ryder's Reply Ingersoll's Unfairness — Attributes to Moses State- ments not in the Bible His Temporary Insanity occasioned by Heavy Rains — Intellectually Submerged in the Deluge — Dam- aging Blunders — Ingersoll up the Wrong Moun- tain Top-heavy — Too Broad a Structure reared on a Too Narrow Base Ingersoll's Inconsistency , He Has No Poetry in His Soul ; ergo, etc. Additional Misrepresentations .... Dr. Ryder Propounds a Question .... (5) 21 22 24 27 29 31 32 34 6 CONTENTS. PAGE Ingersoll Admits His Sad Need of Inspiration . 35 Ingersoll's ''Religion of Humanity" All Right Ex- cept the Religion ...... 37 Dr. Ryder Tells a Little Story for the sake of Illus- tration 39 Dr. Herford's Reply 41 The Ingersoll Paradox 42 Ingersoll's 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 53 Dr. Gibson's Reply 61 Ingersoll 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 God 69 Nature 70 Man 72 Woman 73 Mistakes Respecting Labor and Death Corrected . 75 The Deluge and its Difficulties — Not Universal — Ararat originally a District (alas! Ingersoll calls it a High Mountain) — Other Deluges . . 76 Faith in Jesus Christ the Essential Factor . . 80 Candor vs. Injustice — Dr. Gibson's Pointed Sum- mary 81 What Distinguished Men Say of the Bible . 85-96 Ingersoll's Lecture, Entitled "The Mistakes of Moses," . . 97 Cc ^z c£, \ V££f£ 7jc •KIHCETi 'IIBOLOGIC • Mistakes of Ingersoll AS SHOWN BY PROF. SWING, | J. MONRO GIBSON, D. D. W. H. RYDER, D. D., RABBI WISE, BROOKE HERFORD, D. D., And others. PEOF. SWING'S EEPLY. This discourse is not spoken regarding the man, Robert G. 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 the infirmities of his moral sentiments. The intel- (7) 8 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. lect of such an individual as the one before us 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. i 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. AYe 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 lawyers 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 10 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 from these fading forms of human nature. Seven Mistakes of Moses Left out! — Injustice 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- soll 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 tlfat 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 us 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- PROF. SWING'S REPLY. 11 tian and Hebrew antiquity, Mr. Ingersoll 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; the mistakes of one who divested the idea of Grod 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 a higher form of religion, and gave the nation holding these 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 OF 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 full 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 foi our pensi veil ess and wisdom. Juvenal saw old Borne full of dissolute men and women. Virgil 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 all 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. Ingersoll 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. 13 Swing Puts Himself in Ingersoll's Place and Attacks the 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. Russia 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 150,000 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 time. Just look at that century again with a wider survey and a happier heart, and lo ! 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 IXGERSOLL. sits Kepler finding the highest laws of astronomy; near these are the French preachers, Bossnet, 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 Republic 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 setting 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 like 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 PEOF. SWING'S REPLY. 15 field, but its field was narrow, and took no notice of the eternal beauty of things as painted by Rubens or Raphael. After Hogarth had said all he could see and believe about marriage, there stood the holy relation in its historic great- ness, tilling 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. Ingersoll 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 canvas. John Leech found the weak points in 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: " Reason, 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-reaching mind could make, for the broad mind, not knowing but that there maybe a second life, having no positive information on that point, is bound to admit all that uncertainty, and that hope is a most lawful element in that strange mingling which makes up the soul. As Mr. Ingersoll 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 along 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. Ingersoll 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. PROF. SWING'S REPLY. 17 He would pay no attention to tlie 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 < 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 eight hundred feet. How is that for damp- ness ? No wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I had been there I would have said the whole side of the house was out. How long were they in this ark? A year and ten days, floating around with 106 MISTAKES OF 1NGERSOLL. no rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. The window was shut, 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 born 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 experience, 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 born 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 I 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 I do not hold them responsible for what their ancestors did. We find the Jewish people first in Canaan, and there were seventy of them, counting Joseph and his children already in Egypt. They lived two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went down into Egypt and stayed there two hundred and fifteen years; they were four hundred and "MISTAKES OF MOSES." 107 thirty years 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 tour Roubles, until we have forty-eight millions to-day. How many would the Jews number at the same ratio nn two hundred and fifteen years? Call it eight doubles and we have forty thousand. But instead of forty thousand they had three millions. How do I know they 1 ad three millions? Because they had six hundred thousand men of war. For every honest voter in the 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 say 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- born children there were. They found they had twenty-two thousand two hundred and seventy-three first born males. It is reasonable to sup- po e there was about the same number of first born girls, or forty-five thousand first born c". 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 born the mother had to make a sacrifice— a sin-offering for the crime of having boon a mother. Ifthere 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 supplies ot the world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert oi Sinai for forty years. It would cost one hundred thousand millions of dollars, and would bankrupt Christendom. And yet there they were 108 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. with flocks and herds — so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and fifty thousand first-born 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 Illinois — 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 partnership with hornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the Jews: " I will send 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-one millions 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 that! 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 they used to cook it by seething and baking. I would as soon think of "MISTAKES OF MOSES." 109 frying 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 this light bread." Then this God got mad — you know cooks are always touchy — and thereupon He sent snakes to bite the men, women and children. 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 asking 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 s^aid 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 he should be killed. I 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 ypu 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 Moses to 110 MISTAKES OF 1NG1.ESOLL. make curtains of fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the des- ert? How did 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 priests, in order to collect the tithes, dated the laws back. They did not say, " 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 I 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 going through such a perform- ance you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it had to be done in 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 the 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 country 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 threw down sticks, which turned into snakes, but those were not so large as Moses 1 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 account of the crime of its owner. Is it possible that God worked mira- "MISTAKES OF MOSES." Ill cles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong? Why did 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 your 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 man. 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 ; and 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 been 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-born in Egypt, after he had killed all the cattle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to flight six hun- dred thousand men. And because this God overwhelmed the Egypti.m army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly calling the attention of the Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharaoh and his hosts. Did he help much with their six hundred thousand men ? We find by the records of the day that the Egyptian standing army 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 man's character by the number of stories he believes? Are we to get to Heaven by creed or by deed? That is the question. Shall we reason, or shall we simply believe? Ah, but they say the Bible is not inspired about those little things. The Bible says the rabbit and the hare chew the cud. But they do not. They have a tremulous motion of the Up. But the Being 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 if it had not been for the ten commandments we would not have known any better than to rob and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, 112 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. hoed them all summer, and dug: them in the fall ; and suppose a man had sat upon the fence all the time and watched him; do you believe 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 ? All 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 all. 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 without a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with? Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go- down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally in- 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 in that in- famy? You say: "No, we do not." Then you are better than your God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed 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 to 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 to 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 anf 1 the one man loves the one woman. I guess it is not inspired on the polygamy question. Maybe it is inspired about religious liberty. God says that if anybody differs 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 he 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 your children— had woke up at night and said: "Iain tired of Jehovah. He is always turning up that board-bill. He is always telling 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 first 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 what 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 filled 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 and comes 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 circumstances? 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 that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind \ That monster — that fiend! I guess the Bible is not inspired about relig- ious liberty, nor about war. 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 round about 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 another and to receive pay in rations ? Do you believe God said that a whip on the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? Is it possible that the real God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? Vyhat 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 believe that God ever turned the dimpled checks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in slave- ry ? Do you know that a God like that would not make a respectable devil? 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 hell, asking for water, than in 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 religion. 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 wife and children and tries to make them happy; but he is not a Chris- "MISTAKES OF MOSES." 115 tian, 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- inal. The atonement saves the wrong 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, the murderess of Mary, Queen of Scotts, got up another edition, which also did not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot, King James, prepared the edition which we now have. There are at least one hundred thousand errors in the Old Testament, but everybody sees that it is not enough to invalidate its claim to infallibility. But these errors are gradually being fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs instead of "ravens," and Samson's three hundred foxes will be three hundred "sheaves" already bound, which were fired and thrown into the standing wheat. 1 want you all to know that there was no contemporaneous literature at the time the Bible was composed, and that the Jews were infinitely ignorant in 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 talk and work of the societies, only one hundred and twenty millions have 116 MISTAKES OF INGEBSOLL. got Bibles. 1 want you 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. I 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 this religion ! Now, I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christian's heaven. Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. "If I can only get my little soul in! " I have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved. Here is what we are taught by the church to-day. We are taught by it that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life in hell. But they say, "We don't believe in fire. What we believe in now is 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? I 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 part 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 instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a "MISTAKES OF MOSES." 117 splendid 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. But 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 darlings 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 be 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 solitary 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 last has brought me next to God?" * Or, let us put another ease. You were once alone in 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 " God 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 children, even- body eating, happy and delighted, and Famine comes and pushes out its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust. How that would increase the appetite! And 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 lies. I want every one of you to say that you never will, direct- 118 MISTAKES OF INGERSOLL. ly or indirectly, give a dollar to any man to preach that falsehood. Tt has done harm enough. It has covered the world with blood. It has filled the asylums for the insane. It has 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 write 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. Rather than have this Christianity true, I would rather all the gods would destroy themselves this morning. I would rather the whole universe would go to nothing, if such a thing were possible, this instant. Rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the eternal abyss of pain, I would see the utter and eternal destruction of this universe. I 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 s.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. I 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 lines from Robert Burns: " To make a happy fireside clime To weans and wife— That's the true pathos and sublime Of human life." POPULAR BOOKS PUBLISHED BY RHODES & McCLURE, CIIICAGrO. TWENTIETH THOUSAND. MISTAKES of INGERSOLL (No. 1,) AS SHOWN BY Prof. Swing; "W. H. Ryder, D.D. ; Brooke Herford, D.D. ; J. Monro Gibson, D.D. ; Rabbi Wise, and Others, Including also Mr. IngersoWs Lecture, entitled "THE MISTAKES OF MOSES." 8vo., 123 Pages. Edited by J. B. McCLURE. Price in Paper Cover, 35 Cents. Sent by Mail, post paid, on receipt of price, by the oublishers. " The collection is timely and creditable, and its fairness in presenting both the text and comments is commendable." — Chicago Evening Journal. "An interesting book ; it is not often th it a public character like this famous lecturer is subjected to criticism, which is at once so fair and so acute, so civil in manner, and yet so iust, as in these instances." — Advance. MISTAKES of INGERSOLL (UNTo. 2.) AS SHOWN BY Rev. W. F. Crafts ; Chaplain C. C. McCabe, D.D. ; Arthur Swazey, D.D. ; Robert Collyer, D.D. ; Fred. Perry Poweks, and Others, Including also Mr. IngersoWs Lecture, entitled "SKULLS," And his Replies to Prof. Swing, Dr. Ryder, Dr. Herford, Dr. Thdmas, Dr. Collyer, and other Critics. 8vo., 128 Pages. Edited by J B. McCLURE. Price in Paper Cover, 35 Cents. Sent by mail, post paid, on receipt of price, by the publishers. MISTAKES of INGERSOLL (:N"o. 3 and. ^N"o. US.) %vo., 256 Pages. Including the full contents of both paper bound volumes, bound in cloth, fine. Price, $1.00. Sent by mail, post paid, on receipt ot price, by the publishers: RHODES & McCLURE, 105 and 107 Clark Street, Chicago. P. O. Box 194. POPULAR BOOKS PUBLISHED BY RHODES & M C CLURE OHIOAGO. TENTH THOUSAND. " Edison and his Inventions." 8 vo,, 178 pages. Illustrated, Edited by J. B. McCLUKE. Price in Cloth, fine, $1.00, Paper Covers, 50 cts. This book contains the many interesting incidents, and all the essen- tial facts, connected with the life of the great inventor, together with a full explanation of his principal inventions, including the phonograph, tele- phone, and electric light, which are explained by the aid of diagrams. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. " Edison and His Inventions" is one of t.ie latest and most entertaining books that has been laid ■ n our table. A glance at the title-page assures us that the book cannot fail to be interesting when we ^ee that it has been compiled by Mr. J. B. McClure, of the well known firm of Rhodes & McClure. Mr. McClure "has spent months in correspondence with parties who were acquainted with Edison in his bovhood days, and also wiih the parents of the great inventor, who have fur- nished numerous amusing anecdotes which have not as yet been ma ;e public. The tasimeter. phonograph, telephone, and all his inventions, are illustrated, and the details explained in such a manner that they can be understood by every one. — The Interior. "If Mr. Edison's head is not turned by his numerous successes in wonderful discovery and invention, he must have a level head. Just as the announcement arrives, that the electric light is to be tested in the Capitol at Washington, a book is laid on our table, entitled "Edison and his Inventions,'' which, as the title implies, relates to the man as well as his work. It gives many interesting anec- dotes of this odd genius, with full explanations of the telephone, phonograph, tasimiter, and last, and per aps most important of all, the results of his electric light iriumph. Numerous cuts make it < ompar tively easy for e^en the unscien- tific to understand the descriptive parts."— Editorial in the Advance. " This volume of Mr. McClure's is one that will interest every reader. It is a graphic sketch of the incidents, anecdotes, and-intc-esting particulars of his life. He trives a clear and concise explanation of the telephone, phonograph, and many others of the leading discoveries. The volume has many illustrations. Not onlv those older will read it with interest, but it is a book full of valuable instruction to the young, for its facts and for its suggestive thoughts."— The Imter- Ocean. " There can be no doubt that Edison is a remarkable man. He has already accomplished more in the way of invention than any man unon record, at so early an age— thirty-two. His career has been full bf adventure, of a certain kind, and the story of it is exceedingly interesting. Mr. McClure has gathered his material with great industry, and so used it as to make a very readable book. An excellent idea is given both of the man and of his work."— The Standard. " Mr. McClure has done a good th ; ng in bringing together so much authentic information that relates to the man and his work. It is the story of the patient evolution of genuine talent, its discouragements and triumphs, with enough of personality to give additional zest to the narrative." — Chicago Evening Journal. "Presents :'n an interesting manner the account of the life of the greatest inventor of the present time."— Northwestern Christian Advocate. Sent by mail, post vaid, on receipt of prion by the Publishers. Liberal discount to the Trade. AND HIS INVENTIONS. 171 Edison's Electric Light. Entertaining ^/\necdotes. INCLUDING Anecdotes of Noted Persons, Amusing Stories, Animal Stories, Love Stories, Falling Leaves. FROM EVERY AVAILABLE SOURCE. " THAT REMINDS ME OF A STORY." Edited by J. B. McCLURE. 8 vo. 256 pages — Handsomely Illustrated. Price, in cloth, fine, $1.00 Paper cover, 50 cents. Sent by mail post-paid on receipt of price RHODES & McCLURE, Publishers, METHODIST CHURCH BLOCK, CHICAGO. Daniel Webster and the Farmer. {From "Entertaining Anecdotes .") Webster was out one day on the Marshes near Marshfield, busily shooting birds. It was a hot afternoon in August. The farmers were getting their salt hay on the marshes: He came, in the course of his rambles, to the Green Harbor River, which he wished to cross. He beckoned to one of the men on the opposite bank to take him over in his boat, which lay moored in sight. The man at once left his work came over, and paddled Mr. Webster across the stream. He de- clined the payment offered him, but lingered a moment, with Yankee curios- ity, to question the stranger, He surmised who Mr. Webster was, and with some hesitation remarked: "This is Daniel Webster, I believe," v "That is my name," replied the sportsman. "Well, now," said the farmer, "I am told you can make from three to €ve dollars a day, pleading cases up in Boston." Mr. Webster replied that he was sometimes so fortunate as to receive that amount for his services. "Well, now," returned the rustic, "it seems to me, I declare, if I could get as much in the city pleadin' law-cases, I would not be a-wadin' over these marshes this hot weather, shootin' little birds." '?^£g££a l 65n5 wmsr* The Huntsman. PTFTIETIX THOUSAND. MOODY'S ANECDOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. Compiled by REV. J. B. McCLURE, Chicago. Comprising all of Mr. Moody's Anecdotes and Illustrations used by him inhi» revival work in Europe and America, including his recent work in Boston. Also, Engravings of Messrs. Moody, Sankey, Whittle and Bliss, • Moody's Church, Chicago Tabernacle, Farwell Hall, etc. OPINIONS OF THE PRESS AND EMINENT DIVINES : " The wonderful sale of ' Moody's Anecdotes,' compiled by the Rev. J. B. McOlure, of Chicago, is the best evidence of the great value of this popular book. Thirty-four thousand copies have already been issued, reaching the seventh edition in three months. This is, perhaps, unparalleled in the history of Western literature ; at least we know of no library book that has met with so large a sale in so short a time. II bids fair to sell right along, until everybody is supplied with a copy."— St. Louis Evangelist '"Moody's Anecdotes' is a handsome and handy volume, which many will prize as highly characteristic of the great Evangelist. Throughout its two hundred pages the truth is keenly applied by the aids of wit and a peculiarly vivid and pictorial pathos."* — New York Evangelist. " The book is handsomely printed and well compiled as to matter. It contains the pith of Moody's theology, methods and eloquence, and consists of a selection of the great preaeher's best stories, drawn from his personal experience. It is a good insight into the workings and teachings of the great Evangelist and Christian Preacher."— New Orleans Daily Democrat. "The incidents are related in character— it is Mr. Moody that speaks. They are short, pointed, peculiarly apt, as are all the illustrations of the Evangelist They form the arrows of the great marksman, and have done much of the execution of his ser- mons. "—Zion's Herald (Boston). "A book of anecdotes which have thrilled hundreds of thousands. During the last three months thirty-four thousand copies have been issued. Mr. McClure has done a good work in preparing this volume, which we commend to ministers, Sabbath- school workers and parents."— Presbyterian Banner (Pittsburg). "It comprises the most striking stories, told in Mr. Moody's well-known concise and graphic style, and arranged in alphabetical order, according to the theme illustrated or set forth in the anecdote. The book has been compiled by Rev. J. B. McClure, whose scholarship and journalistic experience perfectly fit him to do the work discrim- inatingly and well."— N. W. Christian Advocate (Methodist). "The book is handsomely printed, the matter is well classified, and will form an uncommonly interesting book. A capital book for the Sundav-school."— Advance (Con- gregational). " Contains the pith of Moody's theology, methods and eloquence, all in one, and will be found agreeable for home reading and useful to the Sunday-school teacher and minister."— Interior (Presbyterian) "Excellent reading, and by their brevity and point will be found especially good for that occasional and, perhaps, hastv reading, which is all that many persons can hope to find opportunity for."— Standard (Baptist). " It is an attractive volume, including all the really interesting matter of Mr. Moody's discourses. A very valuable publication ; is selling rapidly."— Chicago Evening Journal Price in Cloth, Fine, $1.00. Paper Cover, 50 cts. RHODES & McCLURE, Publishers, Chicago. DATE DUE SM»' ^rX'X^igbggg* GAYLORD PRINTED IN U.S.A. 1